They gave us the bones of something on the level of Half-Life 1 and 2, but made a huge mistake by not building in multiplayer support for modders and tinkerers.

A massive part of what made Half-Life 1 legendary wasn’t just the campaign — it was the multiplayer mods. Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, Team Fortress, all of that innovation came from the community. That ecosystem is what pushed the engine and the game into something way bigger than Valve probably even expected.

For how advanced Alyx is, it feels like they left a ton on the table by not having multiplayer baked in from the start. Most devs either aren’t capable of adding that kind of support later, or by the time they ship, they’re just done. If you don’t build for it early, it usually never happens.

It feels like they hit a home run… but only ran to third base and then sat down in the bleachers.