Prior to Half-Life, first-person shooters were simplistic. You’d dash around settings such as a base on Mars infested by hellish beasts, or a giant castle controlled by fascist maniacs. The game’s box and manual offered a brief plot summary, and you were let loose into levels which were mostly shooting galleries, and amid the carnage finding keys or keycards to unlock doors.

The gameplay was adrenaline-packed and fun, however it consisted entirely of shooting whatever moved across level after level, occasionally finding a bigger gun, or a secret room with power-ups. After say twenty of these levels, you’d fight a big boss that’s more of a bullet-sponge than normal enemies. Once this monstrosity is killed, the game concludes.

Half-Life upends this formula in totality. The intro consists of standing aboard a railcar transiting a ginormous research facility. You’re on your way to work, and must spectate to get a feel for where you are. You hear security announcements, watch colleagues chatting and going about their day, see heavy machinery operating, witness life proceed in a sophisticated, high-tech setting.

In a matter of minutes, Half-Life delivered more world building and atmosphere than any FPS title ever had. That’s before you even start…before you play an unwitting role in a disastrous science experiment which leaves you fighting for survival across the sprawling Black Mesa research complex.

A detailed story develops through the game; events are explained, and we feel immersed in the world before us. Characters have names, dialogue and personalities, and progress isn’t divided arbitrarily into levels with a singular objective of completion. Half-Life is comprehensively designed; the scientific and industrial environment of Black Mesa feels engrossing and realistic, in spite of the violent events and encounters the player must endure.

The puzzles make sense, as they are presented as functioning parts of the facilities you explore. They’re much more than finding a red keycard to unlock a red door, then proceeding to get a blue keycard to unlock a blue door. Likewise, this environmental problem-solving surpasses the worn FPS staple of pressing a button which opens a door on the other side of the level.

In Half-Life, the enemies require imaginative strategies to defeat. The soldier AI was revolutionary for its time, with squad members mobilizing together against threats. On a few occasions, certain opponents can only be killed through ingenious operation of machines. Gordon Freeman’s signature crowbar works both as a destroyer of easier enemies and as a tool to break vent covers and debris, allowing progress.

There’s obvious thought in the pacing of the adventure. The game waxes and wanes between quiet puzzle-solving and discreet navigation, and intense, explosive, nerve-jolting firefights. The soundtrack emphasizes the dramatic changes in mood with a synthesized mix of softly foreboding ambient tracks and energy-filled, bass-heavy adrenaline-pumpers.

The player’s armory is gradually upgraded, and each weapon satisfies a logical role. Even the placement of certain weapons is sensible; ammo and guns are awarded by accessing security offices or fortified checkpoints, rather than the secret rooms of earlier shooters. Your movement, health and armor are overseen by a futuristic hazard suit you don early in the game.

Here in the 2020s, what I’ve described in this review are bare essentials of story-driven first-person shooter games. In the late 1990s though, Half-Life was a groundbreaking effort hitherto unseen and scarcely even imagined. To this day it inspires narratives in videogames, it has received both official and unofficial expansions, plus the excellent fan-made Black Mesa project which expands and graphically revamps the game in the Source engine.

Half-Life is a part of videogame history. It elevated first-person shooters from jaunty, arcade-style distraction to a serious art form; an equal to literature and film.