

The exploration of Half-Life 2's development was still fascinating, but more about the technical side, as the company had already been built up by that point. My favorite part actually ended up being the exploration of the first game's development, since you see the different players at Valve come into the picture and the vibrant modding scene that sprung up around the game. What surprised me however, is that despite having "Half Life 2" in the title, this is really more of an exhaustive history of Valve up to that point and goes into great detail about really every Valve product up to and through HL2. With Half-Life Alyx on the way and rumored to take inspiration from cut concepts from Half-Life 2, it felt like it was finally time to read this beloved behind the scenes of the game that famously explains some of the cut material.
