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Valve's president, Gabe Newell, set his team the goal of redefining the FPS genre. Development lasted five years and cost $40 million. Half-Life 2 was created using Valve's Source engine, which was developed at the same time.
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Players control Gordon Freeman as he joins a resistance movement to liberate the Earth from the control of a multidimensional alien empire, the Combine. 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 first published by Valve for Windows through its distribution service Steam. Half-Life 2 is a 2004 first-person shooter (FPS) game developed by Valve.
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