Of course, that doesn’t stop fans from revisiting the iconic shooter over and over again. Despite the Half-Life 2 ending on a frustrating cliffhanger, its impeccable action, roster of memorable characters, brilliant level design, and the fact that it springboards from its genre-defining predecessor means it’s still a beloved sequel. Even though it came out in 2004, the visuals still hold up to this day, and while millions have been playing it for almost two decades, there are still some secrets about the game that not everyone will know about.
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For example, a discovery has been doing the rounds which shines a light on one aspect of Half-Life 2 that many will find gruesome. In a recent post on Reddit’s r/eyebleach forum, someone asked where the “corpse1.mdl” model gets its detailed texture from, which depicts the dead body of a hobo NPC with a severely charred face. A response links to a forensic photo that depicts a very similar image, essentially indicating that Valve, when developing HL2, must have mapped the burnt image of a real dead person onto the model. Twitter user Richter Overtime also posted about it recently and while they did provide a link to the original, and gory, photograph, Twitter insisted it be taken down.
While it’s not uncommon for video games to be gory or depict brutality, many might feel Valve took it a step too far by using the face of an actual corpse as a texture for an in-game model. A report from The Gamer shows that someone has already swapped out this texture for a digital version instead, for anyone who would like to distance themselves from this gruesome Half-Life 2 detail.
While the developer is mainly known these days for its Steam platform, Valve’s early success can be traced back to the original Half-Life, released in 1998. Both this and the 2004 follow-up are considered by many to be among the greatest FPS games of all time, but even though the sequel is still a classic, there will be some out there who remained blissfully unaware about this rather disturbing revelation until now.
Half-Life 2 launched in 2004 and is available on Mobile, PC, PS3, Xbox, and Xbox 360.
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Source: The Gamer
