In preparation for the Steam deck, Valve is adapting Half-Life 2 so that the shooter evergreen can also be played on the handheld. A new beta branch reveals a number of changes coming to the game.

Valve guard Tyler McVicker has already seen the upcoming version and all in one Youtube video Despite the absence of patch notes, important innovations have been collected. Half-Life 2 doesn’t go completely smoothly with beta updates, but it does show off a fair number of new features. According to McVicker, it includes several bug fixes that the fan base has long wanted, as well as optimizations specifically for the upcoming handheld.

In the options, there is now an option to scale the interface and optimize it for higher pixel density. Additionally, additional aspect ratio resolutions are supported, including 21:9 and the corresponding FOV settings. This means that workarounds can be rolled out in the future. Strangely enough, McVicker points out, the resolution and aspect ratio of the HUD can be set separately.

There’s also new support for the Vulkan API, which, unlike Microsoft’s DirectX, can be used natively under Linux and accelerates games there. Since Portal 2 was provided with Vulkan support at the beginning of the year, it can be assumed that Valve will update all of its latest games based on the Linux and Steam deck’s Source engine.

good reason to update

Valve has started checking games on Steam for compatibility with Steam decks and for the results to show clearly, such an adaptation seems almost inevitable. On the one hand, it provides exemplary content in the form of exemplary action to other developers, providing potential buyers with proof of the seriousness of the publisher and, on the other hand, with a greater range of handhelds. Since the Steam Deck’s hardware is only of limited performance, Valve is already out of date, but basically timeless in this regard, the game is perfect for mobile playback.