What online multiplayer features do the Half-Life games have?

Question

I'm confused about the multiplayer modes in the Half-Life series. Half-Life and Half-Life 2 appear to have launched without online features, but now have paid multiplayer offerings Half-Life Deathmatch: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch on sale, respectively. What confuses me greatly is that Half-Life Deathmatch: Source was released after Half-Life 2: Deathmatch.

Can you elaborate the release history? Did both major releases in the series launch without multiplayer? Are the expansions Opposing Force and Blue Shift (for HL1) and the episodes 1 and 2 (for HL2) exclusively singleplayer content?

Answer 1

A few things you need to know:

1. Half-Life (1998) predates Steam (2003) by 5 years.
2. Half-Life: Source is a port of Half-Life to the Half-Life 2 game engine.

Half-Life 1 included Deathmatch in its original launch. I know, because I was playing it in the late 90s. It still exists as part of the game's Steam release.

As you've noticed, Half-Life 2 didn't have Deathmatch shipped as part of the game. Instead, it was shipped as a separate game.

Following Half-Life 2's release, Half-Life 1 was ported to Half-Life 2's game engine. This included Deathmatch, which is now shipped as a separate game just like it was for HL2.

As a side note: Opposing Force and Blue Shift are both single player expansions for Half-Life 1. The multiplayer games for the HL1 engine were Deathmatch Classic, Ricochet, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress Classic, and Day of Defeat.