New life has been breathed into Valve’s seemingly dead Half-Life franchise with the announcement of Half-Life: Alyx, a VR game taking place in between the first two Half-Life games. It’s been more than a full decade since Half-Life 2: Episode 2, so people may need a refresher on what these games are about. A new generation of gamers need a proper introduction to the Half-Life franchise as well, so Valve has announced that all the games in the Half-Life franchise are free-to-play.

Until the release of Half-Life: Alyx, every Half-Life game that’s currently available can be played for free. Note, however, that “free to play” isn’t the same as “free.” You can pick up the games, you just don’t have to actually pay to play them until the deal ends. Official sources say the deal lasts “until Alyx is released,” while other sources say April 1st. Either way, people have more than two months to hop onto the deal, which is plenty of time to play through the whole series.

The deal includes all the officially made Valve games, so it’s not going to include stuff like the officially endorsed Half-Life 1 remake Black Mesa. You get the mainline Half-Life games, but you can also get your hands on some weirder side material like Blue Shift and Lost Coast. If you want to keep this stuff permanently, well, you’ll have to buy it. I honestly recommend waiting until a big Steam sale because all of Valve’s original stuff tends to get bundled together in a crazy good deal.

This is all, of course, to honor the upcoming release of Half-Life: Alyx, which is still due to be released in March. I expressed doubts about the game because it looks like something that’ll be out of reach to a lot of ordinary people. However, at the very least, everyone can enjoy the games leading up to it. Valve has also announced that the developers will be doing an AMA at 9 AM Pacific Time, so there’s more Half-Life stuff to jump on.

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