As part of the lead up to the release of Half-Life: Alyx, Valve just made every game within the Half-Life Complete collection available for free. This freebie is for every single Steam user, but there is a small catch.
The free period lasts from now through to April 1, 2020. That's still about two and a half months worth of play time that they're giving you, which is plenty of time to play Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, and Half-Life 2: Episode 2. This should also include Half-Life: Opposing Force, Half-Life: Blue Shift, and Half-Life: Source, the Source "remake" of the original Half-Life that adds in some physics stuff here and there.
That's a lot of Half-Life for those that need to get caught up on the franchise before the release of Alyx. Speaking of which, Valve did say something very interesting in their announcement of these free games.
Half-Life: Alyx is coming in March, and we are celebrating early by making all games in the Half-Life Collection FREE to play for Steam users, from now until the day it launches!
Of course, deep down in my gut, I still feel like this game is going to get delayed. It just wouldn't sit right with me if a new, high-profile, highly anticipated Valve title was released when they said it would be. It would be like the ultimate confirmation that we've all travelled to an alternate timeline.
Just thinking aloud.