Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Documentary

Following up on last year's HL1 documentary, Valve go around the table once more to tell the making of its sequel.

In many ways, HL2 is the perfect sequel, by taking Gordon Freeman and placing him in a universe that's more grand, more complex and more (dystopian-y) relatable. But as this documentary points out, nothing was a given, the creation of the game world was unpredictable and took a while to shape up to what we know it as now.

I think this is generally a better documentary than last year's, as it frames the technical discussions and constraints in the wider context of game development. It is helped by some of the behind-the-scenes drama that took place, like the lawsuit with Valve's distributor Vivendi, or the hack and leak of the unfinished game.

The story also bears the heavy cross of the unreleased Episode 3, which fans have yearned for all these years. While the documentary does cover it and makes fair points, I sure feel it could've dug deeper and also elaborated more on the way HL: Alyx came in to complete the adventure.

What I would really like to see next is a proper documentary on the rise of Steam, ideally done by a third party. Even the hints present here tell of what a crucial moment the advent of the platform was for PC gaming and it has come to be unavoidable in ways that are, surprisingly, not completely dystopian.