One-off purchase
Half-Life 2 cost to play
What Half-Life 2 costs on Steam UK, its PEGI 16 rating, and how many people still play it on Steam.
Half-Life 2 gameplay, images and trailer
© Valve, Half-Life 2 trailer “Trailer” on Steam · Steam store page
The short version
- From £8.19: Cheapest standard price: Half-Life 2 (Steam UK, standard price)
- One-off price: Bought once; no store currency or random items on this page
- 13 h to beat: Main story: 13 hours (HowLongToBeat)
- 63p an hour: £8.19 ÷ 13 hours (main story)
- 2,686 Steam peak: Peak concurrent players on Steam, last 30 days (Steam Charts)
- PEGI 16: Age rating
- Released
- 16 November 2004
- Developer
- Valve
- Platforms
- Xbox, PS3, Linux, Android, PC, Mac, Xbox 360
- Age rating
- PEGI 16
- Genre
- Action, Shooter
- Modes
- Single-player
On this page
Half-Life 2 player count
Concurrent players on Steam, from Steam Charts, read 28 Oct 2026.
- Peak, last 30 days
- 2,686
- Peak, Sept 2026
- 2,327
- 1,321 on average
- Change vs Aug 2026
- −4%
- monthly peak
- All-time peak
- 64,085
Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with a link to this page.
Is Half-Life 2 dead?
No. Half-Life 2 peaked at 2,327 players at once on Steam in September 2026, with 1,321 playing at any moment on average. That is steady with the three months before. These are Steam players only; people playing on Xbox, PS3, Linux, Android, Mac, Xbox 360 or other PC stores aren't counted, so the real number is higher.
| Month | Average | Peak | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| September 2026 | 1,321 | 2,327 | −3.8% |
| August 2026 | 1,475 | 2,418 | −18.1% |
| July 2026 | 1,706 | 2,951 | +11.1% |
| June 2026 | 1,400 | 2,655 | +9.6% |
| May 2026 | 1,420 | 2,422 | −9.5% |
| April 2026 | 1,481 | 2,675 | −8.9% |
| March 2026 | 1,528 | 2,937 | −3.8% |
| February 2026 | 1,716 | 3,054 | −28.1% |
| January 2026 | 2,186 | 4,249 | +3.6% |
| December 2025 | 2,280 | 4,103 | −2.3% |
| November 2025 | 2,011 | 4,200 | +56.0% |
| October 2025 | 1,430 | 2,692 | – |
What Half-Life 2 costs to play
| Item | Price | Per | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Half-Life 2 (Steam UK, standard price) | £8.19 | game | store.steampowered.com Checked 21 Oct 2026 |
How long is Half-Life 2?
Half-Life 2 takes about 13 hours to finish the main story, and about 20 hours to complete everything.
- Main story13 h
- Main + extras15.5 h
- Completionist20 h
Cost per hour (main story)
63p
£8.19 on Steam UK ÷ 13 h
Source: HowLongToBeat, read 28 Oct 2026. Your time will vary with difficulty and play style.
How Half-Life 2 is rated
GamesChart Score
88.7, #20 of 3,236 rated games
#1 of 2004 · #3 of the 2000s · #6 in Shooter · #5 on Mobile
Critics
Players
Built from 235,162 ratings across 5 of 5 sources. Critics and players count 50/50. Ratings pulled 5 November 2026.
Where it sits in the ranking
- #19
Red Dead Redemption2010 · Rockstar North88.8 - #20
Half-Life 22004 · Valve88.7 - #21
Hollow Knight2017 · Team Cherry88.7
Half-Life 2 questions
How much does Half-Life 2 cost in the UK?
Half-Life 2 (Steam UK, standard price): £8.19. Prices checked 21 October 2026.
Is Half-Life 2 free to play?
No. Half-Life 2 is not free to play: you buy the game to play it.
How long is Half-Life 2?
Main story: about 13 hours. Main + extras: about 15.5 hours. Completionist: about 20 hours (HowLongToBeat). At £8.19, that's 63p per hour (main story).
What age rating is Half-Life 2?
Half-Life 2 is rated PEGI 16.
How many people play Half-Life 2?
Peak concurrent players on Steam, last 30 days (Steam Charts): 2,686, checked 21 October 2026. Its all-time Steam peak is 64,085.
What is Half-Life 2's all-time Steam peak?
64,085 concurrent players on Steam, the highest Steam Charts has recorded for Half-Life 2 (read 28 October 2026). The peak in the last 30 days was 2,686. Players on other stores and consoles aren't counted.
Is Half-Life 2 dead?
No. Half-Life 2 peaked at 2,327 players at once on Steam in September 2026, with 1,321 playing at any moment on average. That is steady with the three months before. These are Steam players only; people playing on Xbox, PS3, Linux, Android, Mac, Xbox 360 or other PC stores aren't counted, so the real number is higher.
Do these Half-Life 2 player numbers include consoles?
No. The player counts on this page are Steam only (Steam Charts, read 28 October 2026). People playing on Xbox, PS3, Linux, Android, Mac, Xbox 360, through Game Pass or on other PC stores aren't counted, and publishers rarely publish those figures.
Who makes Half-Life 2?
Half-Life 2 is developed by Valve.
Half-Life 2 is a single-player first-person shooter developed and published by Valve. It was first released on PC, through Steam, on 16 November 2004, and later came to Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Mac, Linux and Android. On PC it is sold at a one-off price on Steam.
How it plays
Half-Life 2 is a first-person shooter. The player is again the research scientist Gordon Freeman, crowbar in hand, on an Earth that has surrendered to alien invaders and is being stripped of its resources and people after the events at Black Mesa. Valve describes the campaign as a mix of immersive world-building, boundary-pushing physics and combat.
Half-Life 2: Episode One and Episode Two are included. They continue the story after the base game, are reached from the main menu, and start automatically when the previous part is finished.
Buying the game also adds Half-Life 2: Deathmatch to the Steam library, a fast multiplayer mode in which the game's physics play a part; it has straight deathmatch and Combine versus Resistance team play. Through the Steam Workshop players can add whole campaigns made by the community, or replace weapons, enemies and the interface.
What it costs
At standard price Half-Life 2 costs £8.19 on Steam UK, the store Valve runs itself. This page records the Steam price only; we didn't check prices for the older console versions.
Players
The 30-day peak on Steam Charts was 2,686 concurrent players on 21 October 2026. The all-time peak on Steam is 64,085. Steam Charts only counts players on Steam, not on older console versions.
Age rating
Half-Life 2 is rated PEGI 16 for violence (pegi.info, PC, 16 November 2004). The later Game of the Year Edition and the two episodes are also PEGI 16.
How we checked
The price is from the Steam UK listing, read on 21 October 2026, at standard price. Player figures are from Steam Charts on the same day. The rating is from pegi.info. The gameplay description is based on the publisher's Steam store page.
It ranks #20 in our best games of all time ranking.
Card art and page images: screenshots from Valve's Half-Life 2 Steam store page. © Valve. All trademarks belong to their owners. GamesChart is not endorsed by or affiliated with Valve.
Official links: Steam
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Sources
- Card art and page images – Half-Life 2 Steam store screenshots (Valve), published by store.steampowered.com
- Steam UK – Half-Life 2, published by store.steampowered.com
- PEGI rating – Half-Life 2, published by pegi.info
- Steam Charts – Half-Life 2, published by steamcharts.com
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GamesChart’s text and figures are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with a credit link to this page. Game art, logos and screenshots belong to their publishers and aren’t covered.