Valve releases a bug fix - for the original Half-Life

The original Half-Life is widely considered one of the most important PC games ever made. While on the surface it seems to be nothing more than a story-driven first-person shooter, Half-Life brought some interesting mechanics into the gaming world, such as interactive storytelling that let the player move around during cutscenes and other scripted events. Valve has supported the game with various updates since its release in 1998, including a slight tweak to the game engine and some models a few years back. That support continued earlier this week with the release of a new update that fixes a few bugs.

Perhaps the most interesting bug fix concerns a possible security hole. The update has fixed malformed (read: non-standard) SAV files that could allow arbitrary code to be executed and written into the game folder. This arbitrary code could be used to exact a malicious attack. Other fixes include mostly crash preventions, including crashes that occurred when custom decals were used or when switching between specific weapons.

The Internet, being the Internet, quickly turned the update into a joke. Many comments in the update thread asserted this was confirmation of Half-Life 3, the long-expected but never released follow-up to Half-Life 2 and the subject of a very popular internet meme. Others questioned why Valve was spending time and resources updating a nearly 19-year-old game and asked that they instead work on releasing a new game, Half-Life related or otherwise.

Still, it’s nice to see support for a venerable classic PC title continues to this day, especially this far after release. The update was released on July 10th, 2017 and should be available for players through the Steam client.

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