Yesterday, Valve unveiled a new compatibility ratings system for Steam Deck, intended to give users a clear indication of how well specific Steam games will run on the upcoming portable gaming PC. And now, a new beta update for Half-Life 2 has been discovered, seemingly released to ensure the seminal FPS meets the requirements needed to earn Steam Deck's top-tier Verified compatibility badge.

Half-Life 2's new beta branch update, as detailed by Valve watcher Tyler McVicker on his YouTube channel, reportedly covers a surprising amount of ground, not only making adjustments to the way the UI and resolution are handled in-game - primarily to ensure the FPS classic fits Steam Deck's aspect ratio and remains legible at its relatively diminutive size - but addressing some long-standing bugs as well.

Details on the latter are limited, but McVicker does highlight a few of the beta update's new UI and resolution scaling features. Perhaps most pertinent to Steam Deck, Half-Life 2's HUD is now unlocked and can scale "perfectly" to whatever aspect ratio it's being played on. Additionally, there's ultra-wide support, plus an FOV increase up to 110.

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Valve has reportedly sanctioned the release of Half-Life 2: Remastered Collection, a passion-project mod that "completely overhauls" the seminal shooter.

As noted by SteamDB (thanks, PCGN), the collection comes from Filip Victor and is "not Valve related", but Tyler McVicker - who focuses on news about Valve and Steam - reports that the remaster has "Valve's consent".

It's apparently the next iteration of the fantastic mod Half-Life 2: Update, a "completely free and extensive community-developed update for Half-Life 2 featuring beautiful lighting, countless bug fixes, and a brand new Community Commentary Mode". It's available to anyone who owns Half-Life 2 on PC and offers "countless" bug fixes in "one free standalone download".

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Earlier this month Valve's Gabe Newell announced he - alongside Weta Workshop and Rocket Lab - would be launching a garden gnome into space for charity, with $1 being donated for everyone that watches. And now the time has come to wave goodbye to Gnome Chompski, who is preparing for lift-off early tomorrow, 20th November, in the UK.

The whole affair is, of course, inspired by Half-Life 2: Episode 2's Little Rocket Man achievement - still one of the finest achievements ever created - which required players to carry an otherwise innocuous garden gnome from the start of the game to a rocket ship near its end. This is not, as anyone who's tried it will tell you, an easy task, thanks to the gnome's infuriating tendency to randomly launch out of Episode 2's open-top vehicles, courtesy of some exuberant physics.

Newell's recreation of Gnome Chompski's Episode 2 adventure thankfully skips to the end, and will see the iconic garden ornament - actually a 6-inch titanium recreation of Chompski created by Weta Workshop, in this instance - blast into space at 2.44pm NZT/1.44am in the UK on 20th November, which equates to 8.44pm EST on 19th November.

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We'll never get to play Ravenholm, the cancelled Half-Life spin-off once in the works at Arkane Studios, but we can at least now see a little bit of it in action for ourselves.

The footage comes from The Untold History of Arkane, a fascinating feature length documentary from Noclip which speaks to several of those behind the project and shows extended sections of alpha gameplay.

Arkane, known for its more recent work on the Dishonored series and Prey, worked on the Ravenholm project as a standalone spin-off from Valve's Half-Life series.

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