Valve's president, Gabe Newell, set his team the goal of redefining the FPS genre.
Development lasted five years and cost US$40 million. Half-Life 2 was created using Valve's Source game engine, which was developed simultaneously. The player controls Gordon Freeman as he joins a resistance movement to liberate Earth from the control of the Combine, a multidimensional alien empire. Like the original Half-Life (1998), Half-Life 2 combines shooting, puzzles, and storytelling, and adds features such as vehicles and physics-based gameplay. It was initially published for Microsoft Windows through Valve’s digital distribution service Steam. Half-Life 2 is a 2004 first-person shooter (FPS) game developed and published by Valve Corporation.
