Shortly after the release of the famed Orange Box, Valve embarked upon a series of "Directed Design Experiments" that Gabe Newell hoped would spark a new wave of creativity at the studio. One of them, as explained by the Half-Life Wiki, was called F-Stop, and it was enough of an internal hit that it was tapped for full development as a prequel to Portal. For reasons unknown, that prequel never came to be, and the whole thing sunk into obscurity—another Valve mystery, to be occasionally whispered about in Reddit threads.

One of the reasons so little is known about F-Stop is that Valve simply refused to talk about it, apparently out of hope that it would actually turn it into a proper game someday [Half-Life: Alyx stares directly into the camera]. Valve seems to have had a recent change of heart, however, as an upcoming YouTube series called Exposure, being made by indie studio LunchHouse Software, will not just explain how F-Stop was intended to work, but actually show it in action.

"The mechanics are not based on speculation or hearsay. Instead, Exposure uses the original, official code from Valve's own F-STOP, or as it was properly named, Aperture Camera," the video description states. It also notes that Valve has given the studio "explicit permission to continue with our project using their original code."

The "gameplay" in the clip bears more than a passing resemblance to Superliminal, a perception-bending first-person puzzler released in November—a similarity that didn't go unnoticed on Twitter. That may be why Valve is suddenly willing to let this cat out of the bag: There's not much point in keeping your special mechanic a secret if someone else has already turned it into a game, after all. 

And while an unused game mechanic might seem like a thin basis for a multipart video series, LunchHouse's Tristan Halcomb told USgamer that there's enough to it to make more than a dozen videos, although they're aiming to keep it to five or six.

A full release schedule hasn't been set yet: Halcomb said LunchHouse wants to "discuss the future of the project a bit more with Valve to see what opportunities we may have going forward before committing to a follow up, so we're working based on their schedule to some extent." For now, you can follow along with the project at exposure.lunchhouse.software.

Back in 2015, the announcement that Star Wars: Battlefront would launch with skill-based matchmaking instead of a server browser felt newsworthy. Today, a game releasing without custom server support is just business as usual. Gradually, over the last 10 years, the server browser has fallen out of fashion. Battlefield 5 is perhaps the only game I've played this year that offers one, and it's a shadow of what was once a major feature of of the series. With only limited configuration options, it exists simply as lip service to player expectations.

You just need to look at Team Fortress 2's menu to see how much things have changed. Where once the server browser was front-and-centre, now it's buried below a suite of matchmaking options.

Perhaps this sidelining of custom servers was inevitable. After all, it's harder to sell map packs when players can download an endless stream of player-made alternatives. And it's hard to make players care about your persistent progression system if player-run servers can offer decentralised leaderboards. The systems designed to keep players coming back into multiplayer—many of which were popularised in the early 2010s in response to the perceived threat of pre-owned sales of console games—don't work if players have all the control.

That's not to say matchmaking is bad. There are obvious benefits to matching players based on their level of skill. It's easier for new players to get to grips with a game, for one, but also gives those with more experience a more interesting challenge. Stomping newbies may be fun for a while, but it's destructive to the long term health of a game.

Matchmaking also lets developers tailor playlists based on the size of the playerbase. It's a relatively benign way to keep a game feeling populated, even after its initial popularity has waned.

The downside, for me at least, is that matchmaking misses out on a key component of what felt like such an important part of the PC gaming ecosystem throughout the '90s and '00s.

Mod squad

I took an unintended break from PC gaming in the early 2000s, during a period when I could only afford a laptop that threatened to go nuclear if I so much as looked at C&C Generals. When I returned around 2007, I had almost a decade of 3D gaming to catch up on. In doing so, I fell in love with the wild and chaotic world of first-person multiplayer shooters.

I arrived late, but it didn't matter—the party was still raging. The FPS scene was a hotbed of creativity, as modders and mappers filled the most popular games of the day with strange, delightful curios. As someone who'd spent the late-'90s sampling every Tiberian Sun mod I could get my hands on, it was beautiful to see, and it was all made easy thanks to PC gaming's support for custom servers.

The server browser became a shop window into an infinite number of candy stores, promising everything from the mundane—24/7 de_dust—to the sublime. Race maps. Prop hunt. Mario Kart. Instagib. Achievement farming. RP. Laser death cat. A new map, a new mode, a new chance to see something you'd never seen before, and, sometimes, would never see again. Just double-click on a map you'd never heard of before and you'd be transported into a brand new world.

I regularly dipped into a Half-Life 2: Deathmatch server that disabled everything but the Gravity Gun—forcing players to fling toilets, radiators and circular saws at each other. I spent more time than I care to admit playing TF2 in an instant respawn server that featured special power-ups, no time limit, and a set of rules that all-but-insured nobody would ever complete the objective. I once wasted an afternoon in GMod as a watermelon, rolling around a race course with other players. I never found that server again, but I didn't really need to. Ephemeral weirdness was part of the charm.

To be clear, PC gaming isn't any less weird or wonderful in 2019. The chaos is still here, and still just as glorious, but now it's found in Minecraft mini-game servers and through GTA5's FiveM mod. It's found on the front page of Itch.io, or as a standalone project from the makers of some beloved mod. In some respects there's less need than ever for custom servers, because—also this decade—game making tools became more widely available and easier to use. The fact that creators can more easily make their own game rather than relying on blockbuster releases as the base for their creativity is ultimately a net positive.

Curtains up

But if custom server mods where what tempted me into exploring a game, it was the personalities of my favourite servers that kept me coming back. It was the specific map selection, or the perfect combination of settings, or just the atmosphere created by the regulars. It was dropping into a favourite TF2 server and knowing that sometimes everybody in it would be duelling with the Heavy's finger emote—with bans immediately issued to anybody who dared shoot an actual gun.

Player-run servers are a hangout. You join—often mid-way through a match—and play around until you've had enough. The stakes can be as high or as low as the server's culture dictates. You have your regulars, but also a rolling procession of transient visitors that help keep the place feel active—like tourists stopping in at a local pub. And, yes, servers can be toxic or hostile or just generally not worth your time, but it always feels special to discover one that you want to come back to.

Matchmaking, meanwhile, is a performance. You queue up, load in and you're on—playing with unknown people to complete an objective and win the match. If something out of the ordinary happens—if a dance party breaks out in a Destiny 2 survival match—it's almost always because something has already gone wrong (usually half of your team deciding to peace out mid-round).

There are pros and cons to both methods, but I think it's a shame just how completely the pendulum has swung in favour of matchmaking. There are games that experiment with both; that separate out custom servers and matchmaking, much like the current version of Team Fortress 2—which, at its best, is still incredibly weird. And there are still games that fully embrace the spirit of '00s multiplayer shooters, like Warsow or Xonotic—both free and worth checking out. But these feel like the exception rather than the rule, and, inevitably, that's reflected in the number of players populating their servers.

Instead, the very idea of decentralised communities has migrated out of individual games and become broader and more freeform. Maybe I just need to find a good Discord server instead.

Great moments in PC gaming are bite-sized celebrations of some of our favorite gaming memories.

While the Half-Life series has a lot of iconic moments, from the lab accident that started it all to learning why we don't go to Ravenholm, none stand out for me as much as leading the resistance to retake City 17 near the end of Half-Life 2.

Gordon's journey does a great job of making you want to get back at the Combine from the very beginning. They're jerks. They hit you with sticks. They make you pick up trash that isn't even yours. Much of the first few hours of the game are spent showing you how bleak and oppressive life has become for humanity since the invasion, with Breen's smug face proclaiming it a paradise. And then you get little glimmers of hope as you're reunited with Barney and start discovering pockets of resistance.

This all culminates when you return to City 17 as the fabled "Anticitizen One", the Combine's most wanted. You've become more than a scientist thrown into extraordinary circumstances at this point, more than a bearded videogame protagonist with a gun. You're an inspirational figure. Alongside you, facing the same daunting odds, are ragtag freedom fighters in weathered jackets and fingerless gloves showing that, for all our faults, we humans refuse to go down fighting when you try to take over our cities with flying knife robots and giant tripod walkers.

As I fought brutally through the streets I felt proud of my resistance comrades. They didn't have plot armor or a gravity gun but they followed me into danger anyway. When I took down a stalker with a rocket launcher, they cheered and surged ahead to press the hard-won advantage. And while at this rate we may never see how the war ends, we won the battle. We at least showed the Combine that Earth doesn't bow to brain bugs without giving them a black eye.

I look forward to bumping into some of these brave men and women around a fire barrel again in the upcoming prequel, even knowing some of them won't survive what's coming. Gordon became a symbol, but they were the real heroes.

Well, OK, that’s not exactly true. Gordon was still the real hero. But they helped!

It's Half-Life 2's 15th Birthday today! On November 16th, 2004 Valve released one of PC Gaming’s most celebrated games, the hotly-anticipated Half-Life 2 would go on to become the foundation of a generation of games and famous mods. The continued adventures of Gordon Freeman were a hallmark First-Person Shooter with a physics-based engine that encouraged you to play with the world around you. (It also launched the pale lighting and muddy tones aesthetic that defined that era of games.) Without Half-Life 2 and its Source Engine, we wouldn’t have a lot of landmark games: Team Fortress 2, Portal, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, and Insurgency, to name a few.

Half-Life 2 also heralded the launch of Steam’s new look and new role as a storefront for Valve’s games. No longer just a service for multiplayer and updates, Steam has since grown into the primary platform for PC Gamers around the world and an industry juggernaut. To many, the success of Steam has wholly eclipsed the Valve games that launched it.

Half-Life 2 has not dimmed in popularity, though. If you’re looking to get back into it, can I recommend the popular combat enhancement Half-Life 2: MMod? It’s quite good and just updated last month. There’s also long-thought-dead mod Logistique, which re-emerged this year after eight years in torpor and updated just yesterday.

Two quick notes: While it cannot consume alcohol at all, I would like to say that in theory Half-Life 2 can legally purchase and consume alcohol in the Central African Republic. That said, it should be ready to vote and smoke in time for the 2024 United States Federal Election.

On a personal note, I can still remember anxiously pre-ordering the collector’s edition of HL2 months before it released. The Source Engine tech demos and trailers were impressive, but at the time there really was no knowing whether the game would be everything it promised to be: Both cutting edge and easily modded, both innovative and traditional. It’s fascinating to look back now and see the game that inspired a generation of PC gamers and game developers turn 15.

🥳🎂🎈🎉!

I used to reinstall Team Fortress 2 every year for Halloween, dressing up in seasonal cosmetics to fight giant enemies like the Horseless Headless Horsemann, Monoculus, and Merasmus, or to just drive around in karts. Those events continue, and Scream Fortress 11 is live right now. As is the case in recent years it's more of a showcase for player-made creations, with two community maps and a host of community-created cosmetics.

Those maps are a king of the hill map called Laughter, and a payload map called Precipice. The cosmetics are bundled in a collection called Spooky Spoils which includes a bird head for the Engineer, a shark head for the Pyro, and a two-piece velociraptor costume for the Scout. The Soul Gargoyle from previous years returns as well.

Scream Fortress 11 continues through November 7, and you can find Halloween matches to join under the Special Events category of the Casual section.

Valve has finally vanquished a few more bugs in Half-Life 2. We might never get to play the conclusion, but at least we can rest easy knowing that NPCs can blink once again. 

Half-Life 2's NPC have been stuck in this nightmare since 2014, when Steam switched to the SteamPipe content distribution system. The change caused problems for a lot of Source mods and games, but the absence of blinking was definitely the most eerie. 

Despite the visibility of the bug and the mountain of threads bringing it up year after year, Valve seemed content to let its NPCs stare for eternity. Unofficial patches solved the issue, but now Valve's finally put out an official fix. An update went out yesterday and deals with a few other lingering issues. 

• Fixed a hitch when saving games
• Fixed SteamVR running when entering the settings menu
• Fixed missing sounds on combine soldiers
• Fixed NPCs not blinking

Half-Life 2: Episode One and Two, Lost Coast and Half-Life: Source have also been updated.

I just started a new game to see for myself, and both the G-Man and the NPCs on the train have full control over their eyelids again. Revolutionary! I'm sure they're very relieved.

Cheers, RPS. 

The Half-Life 2 modding scene is alive, well and doing some exceptionally silly things. Hosted by Map Labs on Mod DB, Half-Life Abridged is the fifth and most recent in a series of themed HL2 mapping contests, challenging entrants to quickly produce a single level based around a specific theme. This time, it was based around the concept of boiling down an entire chapter of Half-Life (1 or 2) into a single bite-sized level, perfect for the Free Man on the go.

Breaking all prior records for Half-Life 2 jams, there were twenty-five entries in total, all bundled up and ready to play here. Many put tongue firmly in cheek, like Intrasslad by "Salamancer", which re-imagines the entire Nova Prospekt chapter of Half-Life 2 as a trip to Ikea, and replaces Alyx Vance with a lamp. It also won first place in the contest.

Also notable is HWY 17 by "ThatsRidonkulous", which takes the 'abridged' concept perhaps too literally by squashing down the entirety of Highway 17 into a single bridge, breaking all of space and time in the process. Does that make it an Einstein-Rosen bridge, then?

Fun fact: It is never wrong to use theoretical physics jokes in a Half-Life article.

While some play it straight, a bunch of the levels are elaborate jokes. Anomalous Materials by "iiboharz" and "Jackathan" is an easter-egg and secret-laden romp that abridges Half-Life 1's first chapter. Gordon slept in today, and there's only six minutes until he's fired. Get suited up and to the test chamber ASAP, even if the world does seem to be conspiring to slow you down.

Lastly, a personal favourite is Father Grigori's Wild Ride by "RockyB", squishing Ravenholm down into a deeply unsafe haunted house fairground ride. Comfortably sitting in your mine-cart, you can kick back and relax as an animatronic Father Grigori gives you a tour of the headcrab-laden town. You'll occasionally need to use your gravity gun to switch what track you're on, and decapitate some zombies with saw-blades, though. Please keep all limbs inside the car at all times..

Many of these maps have rough edges, on account of being developed with a time limit for a competition, but they're still some of the funniest and most creative levels I've seen for the game. This collection is well worth a look.

Getting all this set up is, thankfully, pretty quick and easy. You don't even need to own Half-Life 2, but you probably should, or you won't get half the gags.

Step 1: Pop open Steam, check the Tools section of your games library and download  Source SDK Base 2013 Single Player.

Step 2: Right click on it in your Steam library, click Properties, Betas, and select the 'upcoming' branch.

Step 3: Download Map Lab #5: Abridged from Mod DB.

Step 4: Unpack it to your Steam\steamapps\sourcemods directory.

Step 5: Restart Steam and look for 'Abridged' in your game library. Have fun!

Team Fortress 2's in-game economy went haywire last week when a bug showered players with rare, Unusual quality hats. Valve fixed the bug the following day and trade-locked the affected hats, stopping anyone profiting from the glitch—but it's now relented, and says players can trade one of the hats they obtained via the bug.

The hats came from older item crates: for a short window, opening one such crate guaranteed you an Unusual hat, which are the most sought-after items in TF2. On investigation, Valve said that a "small number of accounts acquired these hats, and a smaller portion of those accounts acquired an exceedingly large number of them" in the aftermath.

It has ruled that players can trade the first bugged hat added to their account. The rest will be permanently trade-locked. If you have more than one, you can refund the cost of the hats, or the crates or keys you got them from. Refunds will go live in "about a week", Valve said yesterday. The number of hats made tradeable represents roughly a month's worth of Unusuals.

Some players actually deleted the hats because they were worried they'd done something wrong by opening a bugged crate, Valve said. "While we appreciate the concern, you didn't do anything wrong, so hats from bugged crates deleted before the tradable date will be restored to your accounts with the same restrictions described above.

"We apologize for the inconvenience of this incident, and we’ve added safeguards to prevent incidents like this in the future," it added.

An influx of rare items is playing havoc with Team Fortress 2's economy. Unusual quality items are appearing in a high number of crates and the marketplace is starting to be flooded with them, driving down their price. Today, a warning went up on the unofficial Team Fortress 2 subreddit telling players to stop trading items until the glitch is fixed. 

"There have been numerous reports, and sightings in the wild, of an apparent serious economy flaw that is resulting in the guaranteed uncratings of Unusual quality items," wickedplayer494 wrote. "As a result, demand for certain types of crates believed to be affected has soared, and supplies of Unusual quality items are flash flooding the market."

Wickedplayer warns that unsanctioned real-money trades taking place outside of Valve's official Community Market are especially high risk at the moment, though dabbling in any grey market comes with lots of risks.

While Valve is yet to confirm the glitch, its impact is already being felt by the 12-year-old game's still lively economy. A quick hop over to the Community Market shows the significant increase in Unusual items. Good news for people hoping to get a sweet hat they've never been able to afford, but probably less so for people who treat Steam trading like a second job.

Take a look at the Unusual Birdcage above. It's a level 10 hat that's exactly what it sounds like, a birdcage you can plonk over your head. Over the last month, it's sold for anything between $19 to $110. Sales are often all over the place as people who don't know the value of the item chuck them in the marketplace for a quick buck, but today saw it hit a new low, going below $4. So far, 89 of these hats have been sold just today, compared to 20 across the last month.

With players and presumably less scrupulous sorts getting wind of this exploitable glitch, Team Fortress 2 has seen an explosion in concurrent players. It's been teetering around 60,000 players or just below, but today saw that leap to more than 90,000. People love their hats. And a fat Steam balance. You can see the most recent numbers at SteamDB.

Even if Valve manages to fix things today, it's unlikely the Community Market will recover quickly, if at all, with all these additional and once incredibly rare items floating around. Perhaps more drastic measures will have to be taken, but I expect there will be a lot of pissed off people if their sales get reversed.

Those mysterious wizards at Valve are up to something, and it may be related to Half-Life. What exactly is going on isn't clear, but based on recent updates to existing Valve games, it has something to do with the Citadel. In the video below, Valve News Network's Tyler McVicker explains what the community has unearthed in a recent low-level engine update to Dota 2.

Initially, Citadel appeared to refer to a level in the still-unannounced Half-Life VR project, but McVicker says that it eventually became apparent that it's an entirely separate Source 2 project. What it might actually be is anybody's guess, but it "has a lot of things related to stealth, AI pathfinding, and a top-view minimap," and according to McVicker is definitely not the "flagship" VR game Valve teased earlier this year. 

Interesting, right? Of course, as McVicker is careful to say, there's no confirmation this is a new Half-Life game, or that it's even a shooter. Since the Citadel project appears to be using a similar Source 2 build as Dota 2, chances are pretty good it's a top-down tactics game.

But Source 2 can do a lot of things, and there's really no telling what Citadel is going to look like—yet. Is there still room in the world for a new Half-Life? I'm going to go ahead and guess "yes."