Multiplayer Wrap-Up
These are the 5 endorsed mods and you should at least have an idea of what they are about. I could suggest a few other cool concept games, but there’s a problem plaguing most multiplayer games. If they haven’t been endorsed by STEAM, then they tend to have a really small following. Unless you are really into clan matches and organizing matches ahead of time, then you are probably going to be out of luck.
Single Player Mods
These are the single player mods that I can suggest. There are tons of mods available and you can check out a full list of Half-Life 2 mods here if you want to dig through them.
Gmod 10
I feel like I have to give a nod to this even though it’s technically not a single player game or even a mod anymore. It’s now endorsed by STEAM and on sale for $10. It’s basically just a sandbox built on the STEAM engine. You can spawn objects, built things, play with the physics engine, or stage fights with the NPCs. If you are really into making videos and cool pictures, then this cost shouldn’t be a problem. If you are an amateur who wants to play with the Source engine, then you might just want to do some changes in the console before you commit to the purchase. Their should be a guide or two on Brighthub concerning all the ways you can play around with the unmodded game through the console. You can also look for a copy of Gmod 9, but it’s no longer supported officially.
SMod
This is a fairly cool mod for anyone who has already beaten the game once. It does a bunch of things to make the game much more “hardcore.' There are tons of new and interesting weapons and the enemies are a lot more plentiful and powerful. It lets you play the original campaign with a ridiculous amount of stylistic changes, which should put some new life into it. It doesn’t offer anything too substantial, but it’s pretty cool. Substance might be better for you though.
Substance
This Half-Life 2 mod is in the same vain as SMod. It basically just amps up the gameplay. I personally prefer Substance since it works a little harder to be original and a little serious. The biggest addition comes in the form of five suits with four based off of the different Snakes from the Metal Gear series. You have options to switch between a hunter, a spy, a super soldier, a ninja, and a stronger Gordon.
It’s hard to cover everything that they changed. You can look up the Substance mod and see for yourself. Here is a glimpse though. Allies are more plentiful. During the airboat chase through the canal, you will see resistance soldiers and vortigaunts battling combine reinforcements in the water. There are far more enemies spread throughout the levels. You’ll see striders very early. There are tons of new weapons and features. You can set enemies on fire with the flare gun, release a manhack from your stun baton, build a turret, or even use a special grenade to trick the soldiers into killing each other. Enemies like the stealth assassins and the bullsquids are given unique models and added to the game.
It’s just cool, but it does get old after a while, since some of the new enemies just seem forced. You develop combat fatigue easily and it may get boring for you. It’s a cool mod though and it’s really fun to just play around with all the little features they added.
Combine Destiny
I’ve heard mixed reactions on this one, but I personally like this Half-Life 2 mod. You take the role of a combine soldier who’s part of team sent to retake a base in the mountains. It’s pretty cool since you’ll be fighting rebels occupying the facility and even run into a few vortigaunts. The battle then stretches into the nearby town where it’s a three-way fight between rebels, zombies, and your raiding party. Not the best, but it’s fairly entertaining for a few hours.
Rock 24
This is a fairly cool mission cataloging your escape from a secure combine prison. It’s a little short with the average game taking about an hour and half, but it’s a fairly professional Half-Life 2 mod with a lot of effort in scripting and plot. The environments are also fairly nice and make it a new Half-Life 2 experience. It’s another one that’s worth a look as a nice expansion for the game.
MINERVA
This is pretty cool for a single player pack. It’s a set of mission that have an atmosphere similar to the Half-Life series. You are stuck on an island having to fight through the combine guarding the base to please an unknown controller. The mod stalled for a bit in development and you will need to have Episode 1 to actually play the full mod, but it’s a cool experience that’s one of the more professional mods on the market.
Riot Act
This is a fairly new Half-Life 2 mod, but it looks good. You are a resistance fighter taking part in a major escape. The levels are basically just Nova Prospekt, but you get some nice additions. There are allies and new enemies to fight and it should be something fun to try. It’s another mod that doesn’t necessarily bring a lot to the table, but it’s admirable as a professional addition to the game.
Single Player Wrap-Up
There are a lot of single player maps and games. I’ve tried to pick the cream of the crop for you. If you want to look at some of the more interesting concept mods, then feel free, but if you don’t have a lot of browsing time you should stick with these.
Half-Life 2 turns 12 this year, and thanks to its powerful, if a bit creaky Source engine it remains as popular with the modding community as ever. Over the years we've seen all manner of excellent mods emerge, adding co-op or competitive multiplayer, shiny graphical updates, new story content, and even full conversions that bear little or no resemblance to the original game.
It's the latter two we're going to focus on today, as we round up the best single-player Half-Life 2 mods. We've chosen mods that stand up as separate adventures, sometimes set in worlds far removed from Combine Earth.
The Stanley Parable
This is the story of a man named Stanley. Or rather, it's the story of the story: a deviously clever, reactive adventure that second-guesses your every move. As Stanley—or, perhaps more accurately, as the player controlling Stanley—you're free to follow or ignore the various instructions the wonderful narrator bellows over you, resulting in a tangled, branching story that rewards your curiosity, imagination, and defiance. The original Source mod was later expanded into a full game, one our Phil thought extremely highly of in our review.
Download:ModDB, Steam.
Minerva: Metastasis
Adam Foster's Minerva comes close to the quality of Valve's own Half-Life 2 Episodes—in fact, Valve was so impressed Foster joined the company. It's a sizeable story, about the length of an official chapter, with considered level design and a high level of polish. You begin the game strapped to the underside of a helicopter, before being dropped on a mysterious island with a sinister secret.
Download: Steam.
The Citizen
Gordon Freeman ends the Half-Life series as a crowbar-wielding superhero, a figure of legend in the Half-Life universe. Two-part mod The Citizen provides a new angle on the world, casting you as an ordinary oppressed citizen of City 17. Obviously, said ordinary man soon acquires a gun and starts killing people, but you might snap too if you called that dystopia home.
Download: ModDB.
Get a Life
This lengthy, ambitious mod swings from horror to all-out action. Occasional cutscenes tell the story of a subway technician suffering from leukaemia, but Get a Life's unlucky hero Alex also has to contend with the mod's new limb damage system, which causes effects like dizziness and limping, depending on where he's hit by enemies.
Download:ModDB.
Mission Improbable
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to step into the sneakers of Gordon Freeman and set off to repair a Resistance listening post. This impressive Episode Two mod begins with Gordon rowing to a distant coastline: a coastline that reminds you just how pretty the venerable Source engine can look in the right hands. The right hands in this instance are a couple of established game devs, and their experience shines through pretty much every crevice of this slick, well-paced adventure.
Download:ModDB.
Research and Development
Thanks to its then-revolutionary ragdoll physics, a lot of time in Half-Life 2 was spent throwing chairs at NPCs, or flinging teacups with the gravity gun. In that spirit, Research and Development does away with offensive weapons altogether, leaving just a couple of secondary tools to let you manipulate gravity or order Antlions about. Puzzles are the order of the day here, and it's surprising just how easily Half-Life 2's toolset translates to this new focus.
Download:ModDB.
Nightmare House 2
Where there are modding tools, horror mods are sure to follow. You don't need to have played the original—in fact, it's included as a prologue, giving you the chance to explore both a haunted house and a spooky hospital. The horror on offer here is mainly of the jump scare variety, so if you were hoping for the psychological horror of Silent Hill, move on to the next item in the list. Nightmare House 2 is basically FEAR—it even features its own creepy ghost girl—but more FEAR is hardly a bad thing.
Download:ModDB.
Silent Hill: Alchemilla
The impressive Alchemilla drops you in the world of Silent Hill, endless fog, Dark World and all. Not only have the developers nailed the grimy aesthetic of Team Silent's classic series, they've matched its colour palette, borrowed its sound effects, and recreated its lonely atmosphere. It's such an uncanny representation that it may take you a while to notice there are no enemies traipsing around, but then those games were hardly known for their satisfying combat.
Download: Alchemilla mod.
Water
Until now everything we've featured has been strictly first-person, but Water bucks that trend. In fact, it bucks a lot of trends, given that it's a third-person puzzley adventure starring a mermaid. Yes, a mermaid. While you're (initially at least) limited to a fantasy city's waterways, this smart mod soon finds ways to get you exploring land too, using a number of innovative systems. The developers of Water went on to make From Earth, another, similarly inventive Source mod.
Download:ModDB.
Black Mesa
Well, we couldn't ignore Black Mesa, could we? For the unaware, this recreates the original Half-Life in its sequel's shinier engine, and it's been in development since dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Much more than a simple port, Black Mesa updates Valve's game with fancier assets, new voice acting, a reworked campaign and more. The team have also excised Half-Life's much-maligned Xen section, albeit only temporarily until it's been remade to be, somehow, good. While the older mod is free, you'll find the newer version on Early Access, accompanied by a price tag.
Download:Official site.
Every other Monday, Dominic gives you a reason to dust off one of your old games and dive into its mods with Modder Superior.Half-Life 2 is nearly fifteen years old now, and despite Valve’s sequel plans seemingly fizzling out, it doesn’t look a day over ten thanks to the efforts of modders. Chances are that Half-Life 2 and its expansions have been gathering dust on your Steam account for years now, so here’s a quick refresher — mostly focused on the past five years — on what’s available, single player-wise. Want to turbo-charge the original game, or send Gordon Freeman on a whole new adventure? We’ve got you covered both ways, plus a trio of Silent Hill-inspired spookfests. Below, a hand-picked basket of goodies, and a crowbar to open it.
Gordon Forgets How To Mod Half-Life 2
While Half-Life 2 modding has been a constant almost since the day the game launched, the game’s code base has not been. Valve have updated, tweaked, tuned and repacked it a half-dozen times, breaking some older releases. Most of the mods below from the past five years require the Source SDK Base 2013 Singleplayer package, which you can find under the ‘Tools’ header in your Steam library.
Once downloaded, right click on it, select Properties, and pick ‘upcoming’ from the drop-down in the betas tab. This’ll opt you in to the latest build. I believe everyone gets access to this for free, but some mods do require owning the game and (ideally) both expansions.
While some Half-Life 2 mods are hosted on Steam and are just a click away, installing mods from elsewhere is a doddle. Just locate where you’ve installed Steam on your PC (C:Program Files (x86)Steam by default), and in there, navigate to SteamSteamAppsSourceMods. That’s where mods live. Unzip them there, making sure each has their own directory. If you did everything right, your freshly unpacked mod will be listed in your Steam library, same as any freshly bought game. Easy.
Gordon Gets A Tune-Up
If you’ve been away from Half-Life 2 for a while, chances are you’ll want to play a bit of the original game just to warm up. Here are a few ways back to Ravenholm that go a more scenic route, or a little bit off the beaten track.
Half-Life 2: Update by Filip Victor
Released: March 2015
Download: Direct via SteamIf all you want is to potter around the old original game as you remember, you can’t go far wrong with this unofficial (but Valve-endorsed) patch. It’s a gentle remastering – slightly better lighting, some environmental effects back-ported from the expansions, and some old bugs and mapping errors smoothed over. It’s Half-Life 2 after a run through the car wash, and with a few dents hammered out and painted over.
Half-Life 2: MMOD by Gunship Mark II
Released: December 2018
Download: Mod DBA recent and popular release, if Update is just a cleaned-up version, MMod is Half-Life 2 taken down to the garage for a full oil change, engine tune, and maybe a decal kit. It’s a mostly-cosmetic suite of enhancements, but they add up to a more modern feeling game. Notoriously weedy-feeling weapons like the SMG have some oomph to them, weapon spread is rebalanced, and bullet weapons are now fast projectiles instead of instant-hit, making long-range gunfights feel fairer.
Most of the combat tweaks are subtle, but if you don’t like any of the changes, almost every feature in MMod is fully optional. Best of all, it’s compatible with all official Half-Life 2 releases, several semi-official ones, and even some major mods — including Half Life 2 Update.
You can find MMod compatibility patches for other level packs and mods here on Mod DB too. Once a compatibility patch is installed, you’ll find it in your Steam library as a separate entry, normally with MMod in the name.
Released: 2004
Download: Mod DB
Video Credit: “GameSnippetsUK” for the footageIf MMod is Half-Life 2 after a professional tune-up, then SMOD is the game after replacing the engine with an oversized dragster rig that doesn’t fit under the hood and burns pure ethanol. It’s also prone to catching on fire, but you’ll have a great time until then. SMOD was developed by an anonymous individual (or collective) from Japan, with a request that people just do whatever they like with it. They did.
The most stable and coherent build I’ve found is a polished-up Version 10 hosted on Mod DB, and if there’s a better version, I’d love to see it. It offers an unpredictable ride through Half-Life 2, with extra (and sometimes new) enemies added to the world, lots of new weapons, over-the-top effects and bullet time. It’s unbalanced, it’s unstable, and it’s all very silly. It is also an important part of Half-Life 2 modding history, and one that I’m glad to see people keeping alive.
Gordon’s Big Adventures
There are an enormous number of single player mods for Half-Life 2, but for now, here’s a handful of fresher releases — proof that there’s life in the old HEV suit yet.
Entropy: Zero by “Breadman”
Released: October 2017
Download: Direct via SteamAll cops are bastards, and Combine Metrocops are double bastards. And now you are one, you git. Entropy: Zero puts you in the shoes of a Metrocop who enjoys his job just a little too much, especially the civilian-brutalising part. Being the bad guy, you get to casually waltz through Combine energy shields, use a (prototype and inaccurate) pulse rifle, and even carry around Manhacks to deploy for combat and puzzle-solving purposes. Oh, and you’ve got cool blue hazy night vision mode.
It does have weirdly uneven difficulty. On Normal mode basic rebel troops don’t do much damage, unless they shotgun you, which really, really hurts. Still, some nice setpieces, and a surprising amount of dialogue. Make sure you have subtitles turned on, ‘cos for some reason the mod crashes if you don’t.
There is an MMod compatibility patch available here for Entropy: Zero but at present it disables some of the mod’s neat effects, like the blue visor-vision replacing your flashlight, and bypasses the Manhack stuff.
Cosmonaut by “Dolmo”
Released: May 2019
Download: Mod DBA cosmonaut escapes from his station, right into the middle of the Combine occupation. What plays out from there feels almost like an abridged version of Half-Life 2 and its expansions. There’s an opening scene where you’re being walked through a Combine processing centre, an escape sequence, canals and a sewer level, followed by it opening up a little once you have the SMG. It’s well paced, well scripted stuff, even if it’s hard to shake the feeling that it’s been done before, and it’s an astonishing piece of work for just one mapper.
As Cosmonaut uses vanilla Half-Life 2 weapons and balance, I can’t see any reason not to use the MMod patch for it, too. Adds some nice punch to those gunfights.
Downfall by “marnamal”
Released: April 2017
Download: Direct via SteamShort but sweet, this is the first chapter in a planned series of Episode 2 style levels. If it had voice acting, this could easily pass for an official Valve production, and delivers a good 45 minutes or so of Ep2 style action: a little bit of driving, and lot of exploring pockets of buildings, dense with traps, secrets and optional routes.
The only real complaint I can level against Downfall is its bizarrely huge download, part of its self-contained Steam distribution. There’s also an MMod compatibility patch for it, improving it further. I’d recommend turning off Crepuscular Rays though – they get a bit glitchy.
Half-Life 2: Episode 3 – The Closure by Leon “Spymaps” Brinkmann
Released: Version 2 on May 2016
Download: Mod DBAgain, the work of a single mapper, The Closure is on the far opposite end of the scale, i.e. you’d never mistake this for a Valve production. Its adherence to accepted Half-Life lore is questionable, it frequently breaks away from first-person perspective for cutscenes, and its borrowed Hollywood soundtrack is an order of magnitude too bombastic and loud. But…
… This is easily five or six hours of Half-Life 2, with some impressive set piece fights. There are plenty of opportunities to cut loose with bigger, more explosive guns, and it goes above and beyond on features, offering optional increased enemy density (independent of normal difficulty settings). There’s even an integrated hint system, offering a shortcut on puzzles if you get stuck.
While there is an MMod compatibility patch for The Closure, it’s largely a matter of preference whether you use it, as it overwrites The Closure’s own reskinned weapons and enemies.
The Gate 2 by Craig J. Beattie
Released: August 2014
Download: Mod DB
“President Bush, the grey aliens, they watch while we kill each other!” – Real actual voiced dialogue from The Gate 2.
It’s the sequel to Half-Life 1 mod The Gate, where you played as an American special forces soldier sent back in time to defeat the Nazis. Somehow, it makes the original seem mundane. There’s even dinosaurs.
Half Life 2 Best Mods
The Gate 2 only gets weirder over its 4+ hour run-time. The combat is Half-Life 2 standard for the most part, although there’s perhaps too little health, and some areas hit you with an instant Game Over if your suicidal squadmates die. Still, the most memorable thing here is the story, which feels like a direct feed from the brain of one of those guys who believes that the pyramids were UFO hangars.
Gordon’s Big Jam Session
One of the best places to be for fresh Half-Life 2 these days is fan-site RunThinkShootLive, maintained by Phillip Marlowe. As well as hosting a review database of maps and mods for several games, he organises annual Half-Life 2 map-jam competitions, complete with prizes. Each year features five challenges, with a limited time to produce a single level to that theme. Philip then packs all the maps up into a single themed mod, easy to install and play. Here are the big releases of the past three years.
The Hammer Cup 2016 by Various Mappers
Released: 2016
Download: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5Featuring ChasmVille, LiberationVille, BacktrackVille, TrapVille and AnyVilleVille. While had been a few map jams on RTSL besfore, the Hammer Cup 2016 was where it hit the big leagues. Some interesting themes here, starting with chasms (and dropping things into them), liberation, and creative backtracking. This jam wrapped up with AnyVilleVille, which let the contributors pick any theme from any prior contest on the site. Of the last set, Castle Siege may be playing it a little safe, but is an excellent, scenic Episode 2-style uphill battle.
As Hammer Cup maps play it straight, there’s little reason not to use MMod with them, and would you believe that there’s a big compatibility patch bundle right here?
The Hammer Cup 2017 by Various Mappers
Top Half Life 2 Mods
Released: 2017
Download: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5DefendVilleTwo, ToxicVille, BridgeVille, TeleportVille and FusionVille this time round – mostly self-explanatory names, except the last. FusionVille asked mappers to combine three of eight past themes into a single coherent level. It resulted in some great setpieces from experienced mappers, with rooftop chases, perilous bridge crossings and even a battle between moving trains.
Once again, there’s a handy MMod compatibility patch bundle available here.
The Lambda Cup 2018 by Various Mappers
Released: 2018 to early 2019
Download: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5Consisting of Coastville, GravityGunVilleTwo, BossVille, PhaseVille and ReplayVille, mappers were allowed to use a pair of extra gimmicks on top of Half-Life 2’s usual goodies. There’s the Mechacrab, a tougher, cyborged up headcrab that works alongside Combine troops, and an upgrade for the gravity gun that allows it to freeze objects in mid-air, letting you build floating platforms or hold physics objects in place.
Of this cup, my favourite is probably Chapter 4: PhaseVille, based around the concept of a single map with three segments using a different style of play and conclusion. One of the maps, Off-World Relocation by “XBLAH”, got a standalone and expanded release here.
As with the Hammer cups, there are MMod compatibility patches for all Lambda Cup entries. Grab them here. As the only custom weapon in this series is the gravity gun mod, I don’t think there’ll be any compatibility issues, but mileage may vary.
Gordon Goes To Silent Hill(s)
Apparently there’s a big crossover between Half-Life 2 and Silent Hill fans. I even saw a bit of this in the secret story arc unlockable in the anarchic Garry’s Mod adventure Jazztronauts. If you’ve had enough of being Gordon Freeman: Hero Of The Rebellion for a while and are up for some scares, check our this trio of horror adventures.
Grey by Deppresick Team
Released: August 2012
Download: Mod DB
Grey has some astonishingly detailed environments wrapped in bespoke textures. If I had to level a criticism at this, it’d be that it spends a map or two too long in building up to the start of combat, but what gorgeous maps they are to explore. It’s a relatively short and sweet mod — 2-3 hours, maybe — on your first time round, with puzzles taking up a large chunk of that. Combat is more HL2 than Silent Hill, but that’s just me nitpicking.
Impressively, there’s reason to play this through twice. Completing it unlocks Hard Mode, with some secrets of its own and an extended ending.
Hellsound Dreams by Damian Duda
Released: November 2012
Download: Mod DB
What Hellsound Dreams this one lacks in polish it makes up for in pacing. I’m not even sure there’s a story here beyond spooky houses, police stations and, of course, an asylum to explore, but they sure are haunted. Unpredictable traps and ghosts nip at your health pool, and the player is never well armed until the final act. Perhaps more of a funfair haunted house than a ghost story, but it’s consistently paced and dense with puzzles.
Alchemilla by White Noise Team
Released: April 2015
Download: Mod DB
If Grey and Hellsound Dreams are inspired by Silent Hill, then Alchemilla IS Silent Hill, right down to borrowing locations in the town itself. It also pulls of some great tricks, with classic fade out/fade in room transitions allowing them do to sudden jumps to the fleshy, barbed-wire-wrapped nightmare otherworld. It’s a short but sweet piece of ultra-polished horror. Not even survival horror, just spooky. It’s purely narrative and puzzle-focused — walking sim with puzzles, perhaps — but proof that Silent Hill can still be scary without monsters.
And on that traumatising note, we’ve barely dipped a toe into the deep reservoir of Half-Life 2 adventures, but it should be enough to keep you ravenous lot busy for a week or two. While some mods still maintain active multiplayer scenes, I opted to focus solely on the solo here. If there’s anything you regularly play online and want to invite me to, or a favourite map-set you want to share, please do in the comments below.
Half-Life 2 turns 12 this year, and thanks to its powerful, if a bit creaky Source engine it remains as popular with the modding community as ever. Over the years we've seen all manner of excellent mods emerge, adding co-op or competitive multiplayer, shiny graphical updates, new story content, and even full conversions that bear little or no resemblance to the original game.
It's the latter two we're going to focus on today, as we round up the best single-player Half-Life 2 mods. We've chosen mods that stand up as separate adventures, sometimes set in worlds far removed from Combine Earth.
The Stanley Parable
This is the story of a man named Stanley. Or rather, it's the story of the story: a deviously clever, reactive adventure that second-guesses your every move. As Stanley—or, perhaps more accurately, as the player controlling Stanley—you're free to follow or ignore the various instructions the wonderful narrator bellows over you, resulting in a tangled, branching story that rewards your curiosity, imagination, and defiance. The original Source mod was later expanded into a full game, one our Phil thought extremely highly of in our review.
Download:ModDB, Steam.
Minerva: Metastasis
Adam Foster's Minerva comes close to the quality of Valve's own Half-Life 2 Episodes—in fact, Valve was so impressed Foster joined the company. It's a sizeable story, about the length of an official chapter, with considered level design and a high level of polish. You begin the game strapped to the underside of a helicopter, before being dropped on a mysterious island with a sinister secret.
Download: Steam.
The Citizen
Gordon Freeman ends the Half-Life series as a crowbar-wielding superhero, a figure of legend in the Half-Life universe. Two-part mod The Citizen provides a new angle on the world, casting you as an ordinary oppressed citizen of City 17. Obviously, said ordinary man soon acquires a gun and starts killing people, but you might snap too if you called that dystopia home.
Download: ModDB.
Get a Life
This lengthy, ambitious mod swings from horror to all-out action. Occasional cutscenes tell the story of a subway technician suffering from leukaemia, but Get a Life's unlucky hero Alex also has to contend with the mod's new limb damage system, which causes effects like dizziness and limping, depending on where he's hit by enemies.
Download:ModDB.
Mission Improbable
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to step into the sneakers of Gordon Freeman and set off to repair a Resistance listening post. This impressive Episode Two mod begins with Gordon rowing to a distant coastline: a coastline that reminds you just how pretty the venerable Source engine can look in the right hands. The right hands in this instance are a couple of established game devs, and their experience shines through pretty much every crevice of this slick, well-paced adventure.
Download:ModDB.
Research and Development
Thanks to its then-revolutionary ragdoll physics, a lot of time in Half-Life 2 was spent throwing chairs at NPCs, or flinging teacups with the gravity gun. In that spirit, Research and Development does away with offensive weapons altogether, leaving just a couple of secondary tools to let you manipulate gravity or order Antlions about. Puzzles are the order of the day here, and it's surprising just how easily Half-Life 2's toolset translates to this new focus.
Download:ModDB.
Nightmare House 2
Where there are modding tools, horror mods are sure to follow. You don't need to have played the original—in fact, it's included as a prologue, giving you the chance to explore both a haunted house and a spooky hospital. The horror on offer here is mainly of the jump scare variety, so if you were hoping for the psychological horror of Silent Hill, move on to the next item in the list. Nightmare House 2 is basically FEAR—it even features its own creepy ghost girl—but more FEAR is hardly a bad thing.
Download:ModDB.
Silent Hill: Alchemilla
The impressive Alchemilla drops you in the world of Silent Hill, endless fog, Dark World and all. Not only have the developers nailed the grimy aesthetic of Team Silent's classic series, they've matched its colour palette, borrowed its sound effects, and recreated its lonely atmosphere. It's such an uncanny representation that it may take you a while to notice there are no enemies traipsing around, but then those games were hardly known for their satisfying combat.
Download: Alchemilla mod.
Water
Until now everything we've featured has been strictly first-person, but Water bucks that trend. In fact, it bucks a lot of trends, given that it's a third-person puzzley adventure starring a mermaid. Yes, a mermaid. While you're (initially at least) limited to a fantasy city's waterways, this smart mod soon finds ways to get you exploring land too, using a number of innovative systems. The developers of Water went on to make From Earth, another, similarly inventive Source mod.
Download:ModDB.
Black Mesa
Well, we couldn't ignore Black Mesa, could we? For the unaware, this recreates the original Half-Life in its sequel's shinier engine, and it's been in development since dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Much more than a simple port, Black Mesa updates Valve's game with fancier assets, new voice acting, a reworked campaign and more. The team have also excised Half-Life's much-maligned Xen section, albeit only temporarily until it's been remade to be, somehow, good. While the older mod is free, you'll find the newer version on Early Access, accompanied by a price tag.
Download:Official site.
Overview
Half-Life 2 mods are very plentiful. Half-Life 2 is one of the easiest games to modify, so it makes sense that there are still a number of developers making cool mods to get some extra gameplay for free. You could probably use some help sorting through them. I’ll give you the best rundown I can of the bigger mods on the market with the multiplayer mods on this page and the single player mods on the second. If you really want to see every Half-Life 2 mod available, then just check out this complete list of mods.
Age of Chivalry
This is a fairly interesting multiplayer mod for Half-Life 2. STEAM has an official copy in their store and it’s been gaining a nice boost to its player base since the inclusion. The principle is simple. You can choose to play as a medieval inspired class as part of a campaign of missions. Most are pretty simple and exist as an excuse to raid a castle. It is nice to have the majority as objective based though, since that guarantees a healthy flow of combat.
The classes are probably the real strength here. You can play as a sword master, a heavy warlord, a crossbowman, or an archer. The combat feels fairly realistic with archers regularly taking up good positions as the melee fighters do war below. It’s a fairly fun mod if you are willing to get past the steep learning curve.
D.I.P.R.I.P. Warm Up
This is another STEAM endorsed Half-Life 2 mod. It’s seen a bit of a boost to its community, but it hasn’t been huge. I consider that as a real shame, since it is my personal favorite out of the 5 endorsed mods. You have a choice from a few car models and just drive around shooting at the other team’s cars. It basically plays like a crazy version of an arcade driving game. It gets repetitive and there isn’t a lot of variety in the gameplay, but it is incredibly fun to jump on for a half hour and blow some stuff up while you’re speeding around an arena in a big demolition derby.
Insurgency
This is another endorsed Half-Life 2 mod. I personally don’t care for it. The mod is a realistic combat shooter simulating the fighting between insurgents and marines. The big draw is that it truly is different from most games. A single gunshot is usually enough to kill you, weapons aren’t 100% accurate, and you aren’t a super soldier. You have to listen to your teammates and work together to accomplish anything.
I have to say that I personally don’t like it though. The game just felt like a cheap imitation of Battlefield 2 and I just couldn’t get into the community. You can give it a try if you want. You might really get into it, especially if you can get into a gaming clan. It just never clicked with me.
Synergy
I’m now getting to the Half-Life 2 mods that I really don’t like. Synergy is another endorsed mod that I just don’t like. The idea is that you can play a massive co-op game with a number of other players. It just doesn’t feel right though. There just doesn’t seem to be much to do and it really isn’t much fun to play with random people. I suggest you give this one a pass. There’s too many annoying people online and too little to do in the games.
Zombie Panic! Source
This is another Half-Life 2 mod that I don’t like. It’s one of the most popular mods of the STEAM endorsed ones, but I just don’t like the dynamics. Each game follows the same routine. You start as a group of humans facing a few NPC zombies and possibly a human-controlled zombie or two. If you die you become a zombie. Theoretically, you should play a tense game of cat-and-mouse until the end, but it doesn’t work like that. The humans always rush to the weapon drops and then hide in a room. The slow zombies then futilely fight a war of attrition until they kill enough humans to turn the tide. I’ve heard objective play is a bit more fun, but good luck finding a good game. I also suspect that the demand for this mod will continue to decrease as Left 4 Dead gains a larger following.
Multiplayer Wrap-Up
These are the 5 endorsed mods and you should at least have an idea of what they are about. I could suggest a few other cool concept games, but there’s a problem plaguing most multiplayer games. If they haven’t been endorsed by STEAM, then they tend to have a really small following. Unless you are really into clan matches and organizing matches ahead of time, then you are probably going to be out of luck.
Single Player Mods
These are the single player mods that I can suggest. There are tons of mods available and you can check out a full list of Half-Life 2 mods here if you want to dig through them.
Gmod 10
I feel like I have to give a nod to this even though it’s technically not a single player game or even a mod anymore. It’s now endorsed by STEAM and on sale for $10. It’s basically just a sandbox built on the STEAM engine. You can spawn objects, built things, play with the physics engine, or stage fights with the NPCs. If you are really into making videos and cool pictures, then this cost shouldn’t be a problem. If you are an amateur who wants to play with the Source engine, then you might just want to do some changes in the console before you commit to the purchase. Their should be a guide or two on Brighthub concerning all the ways you can play around with the unmodded game through the console. You can also look for a copy of Gmod 9, but it’s no longer supported officially.
SMod
This is a fairly cool mod for anyone who has already beaten the game once. It does a bunch of things to make the game much more “hardcore.' There are tons of new and interesting weapons and the enemies are a lot more plentiful and powerful. It lets you play the original campaign with a ridiculous amount of stylistic changes, which should put some new life into it. It doesn’t offer anything too substantial, but it’s pretty cool. Substance might be better for you though.
Substance
This Half-Life 2 mod is in the same vain as SMod. It basically just amps up the gameplay. I personally prefer Substance since it works a little harder to be original and a little serious. The biggest addition comes in the form of five suits with four based off of the different Snakes from the Metal Gear series. You have options to switch between a hunter, a spy, a super soldier, a ninja, and a stronger Gordon.
It’s hard to cover everything that they changed. You can look up the Substance mod and see for yourself. Here is a glimpse though. Allies are more plentiful. During the airboat chase through the canal, you will see resistance soldiers and vortigaunts battling combine reinforcements in the water. There are far more enemies spread throughout the levels. You’ll see striders very early. There are tons of new weapons and features. You can set enemies on fire with the flare gun, release a manhack from your stun baton, build a turret, or even use a special grenade to trick the soldiers into killing each other. Enemies like the stealth assassins and the bullsquids are given unique models and added to the game.
It’s just cool, but it does get old after a while, since some of the new enemies just seem forced. You develop combat fatigue easily and it may get boring for you. It’s a cool mod though and it’s really fun to just play around with all the little features they added.
Combine Destiny
I’ve heard mixed reactions on this one, but I personally like this Half-Life 2 mod. You take the role of a combine soldier who’s part of team sent to retake a base in the mountains. It’s pretty cool since you’ll be fighting rebels occupying the facility and even run into a few vortigaunts. The battle then stretches into the nearby town where it’s a three-way fight between rebels, zombies, and your raiding party. Not the best, but it’s fairly entertaining for a few hours.
Rock 24
This is a fairly cool mission cataloging your escape from a secure combine prison. It’s a little short with the average game taking about an hour and half, but it’s a fairly professional Half-Life 2 mod with a lot of effort in scripting and plot. The environments are also fairly nice and make it a new Half-Life 2 experience. It’s another one that’s worth a look as a nice expansion for the game.
MINERVA
This is pretty cool for a single player pack. It’s a set of mission that have an atmosphere similar to the Half-Life series. You are stuck on an island having to fight through the combine guarding the base to please an unknown controller. The mod stalled for a bit in development and you will need to have Episode 1 to actually play the full mod, but it’s a cool experience that’s one of the more professional mods on the market.
Riot Act
This is a fairly new Half-Life 2 mod, but it looks good. You are a resistance fighter taking part in a major escape. The levels are basically just Nova Prospekt, but you get some nice additions. There are allies and new enemies to fight and it should be something fun to try. It’s another mod that doesn’t necessarily bring a lot to the table, but it’s admirable as a professional addition to the game.
Single Player Wrap-Up
There are a lot of single player maps and games. I’ve tried to pick the cream of the crop for you. If you want to look at some of the more interesting concept mods, then feel free, but if you don’t have a lot of browsing time you should stick with these.
