Half-Life 2's anniversary update broke a simple speedrunning strat that was in use for 20 years, so Valve has now fixed the 'fix' in a new patch

Half-Life 2 key art.
(Image credit: Valve)

Speedruns are often reliant on the most random, funnily obscure quirks in any given game. You don't need to look further than the recent 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Half-Life 2 20th anniversary update for proof, as Valve added a fix to the two-decade-old game that acciden🌼tally broke a small speedrunning strategy, and it's now had to fix its 'fix.'

Valve could have probably messed with spꦿeedrunners by rejigging any square inch of Half-Life 2, but this time it added an invisible wall to a giant sewer pipe in the Route Kanal section of the game, which you can see in the playthrough video below. As explained by , Valve seemingly always wanted the pipe to be blocked up until the player completed a puzzle, flooded the room, and was able to swim through it. 

Half Life♍ 2 Walkthrough Part 3 - Route Kanal (2024, Hard, No commentary) - YouTube Half Life 2 Walkthrough Part 3 - Route Kanal (2024, Hard, No commentary) - YouTube
ex🔥plains that the 'player clip' was previously only present in the Xbox 360 version of the game, oddly, so PC speedrunners were free to skip the puzzle using unconventional and sometimes glitchy means, like defying gravity with a cursed barrel to lift yourself into the pipe. Some players and flood the area sooner instead, so the new invisible blockage mꦆight not have affected every player.

Regardless, the rest of Valve's hefty update has locked some speedrunners out of various other strategies, big and small,💛 meaning it's probably best to play Half-Life 2 on an older build if you're planning to whizz through it as fast as possible. For now, as of earlier this week, Valve has at least "removed collision from an underwater tube that speed runners enjoy," as it writes in its latest . 

Half-Life 2: Episode 3 never happened because Valve’s Gabe Newell thought “just pushing the story forward” wasn’t a good enough reason to make it. 

Kaan 𓄧freelances for various websites including Ro♉ck Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.