Half-Life gets new patch, almost 19 years after launch

Though Half-Life [official site] is almost nineteen years old and its sanctioned fan remake Black Mesa is nearing completion, Valve have launched a wee patch for their pretty okay or whatever vintage FPS. The patch fixes a few crashes and exploits, and hit other Half-Life engine games too, such as classic Counter-Strike. Given how much of modern PC games history connects to Half-Life and its mod scene, I'm glad Valve are still tinkering a little. Earlier this year, they finally got Half-Life an uncensored release in Germany too.

Yesterday's patch notes are simple:

• Fixed crash when entering certain malformed strings into the game console. Thanks to Marshal Webb from BackConnect, Inc for reporting this.
• Fixed crash when loading a specially crafted malformed BSP file. Thanks to Grant Hernandez (@Digital_Cold) for reporting this.
• Fixed malformed SAV files allowing arbitrary files to be written into the game folder. Thanks to Vsevolod Saj for reporting this.
• Fixed a crash when quickly changing weapons that are consumable. Thanks to Sam Vanheer for reporting this.
• Fixed crash when setting custom decals.

The same patch went out to other games built on the Half-Life engine: Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Day of Defeat, Half-Life: Blue Shift, Half-Life: Opposing Force, Team Fortress Classic, and yes, even Deathmatch Classic and Ricochet.

Vintage Counter-Strike is still one of the most popular games on Steam (yesterday it peaked at 19,554 people in-game at the same time) so I'd guess that was the main motivation behind this patch. It's nice that other games benefit too. Thanks, CS.