Episode Two speedrun achieves near-flawless perfection

The Elusive Half-Life 3 and an Insanely Quick Half-Life 2 Speedrun

While the release of Half-Life 3 seems unlikely, fans still have the original two games and the Alyx VR experience to enjoy. Over the years, gamers have been challenging themselves to complete the Valve FPS series in record time. A recent speedrun by the SourceRuns YouTube channel has set a new benchmark, completing Half-Life 2: Episode Two in an astonishingly quick time of 9 minutes and 46 seconds. This impressive feat was achieved by speedrunners jorik and qv2b, who meticulously spliced together 196 separate segments to create this impressive run.

To witness this incredible speedrun, check out the video on YouTube. The video showcases the players’ ability to exploit glitches and skip entire sections of the game. Most notably, the majority of the speedrun takes place during the final battle at White Forest, where players struggle to find alternative methods to bypass the fight. Despite its modded version, which removes cutscenes, the video has yet to be featured on speedrun.com. Nevertheless, qv2b holds an impressive second place on the leaderboard with a time of 31 minutes and 12.850 seconds achieved a year ago.

Half-Life 2 is undeniably one of the most influential FPS games of all time, surpassing the impact of its 1998 predecessor. The ability for players to navigate through the game (including its expansions) at such incredible speed highlights the remarkable skills of these gamers in guiding the silent protagonist, Gordon Freeman.