The last time I played this game was over 13 years ago-- and just for 45 minutes.

I'm SO GLAD I picked it back up because I absolutely LOVE how fun and chaotic it is, ESPECIALLY with friends!

Thanks to the 20th anniversary and February 18th update, new life has been given to the game.

It's really incredible how now you can just create and host a game through Steam's servers from the main menu, and use community created controller key-layouts!
Very user-friendly, thank you Valve!

BUT IT NEEDS STEAM WORKSHOP LIKE GMOD'S!!! 🔥

This section might seem a bit silly, but due to recent events, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch is currently delisted from the Steam store.

That means the only ways to obtain the game currently are to buy Half-Life 2 for $10 USD, or The Orange Box for $20 USD!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/220/HalfLife_2/

Launch Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, select "Create Server," choose a map, and ensure "Use Steam Networking" is checked.

Select the "Game" tab, give your server a name, password, max player count, time limit per match, frag limit per match, and check/uncheck any additional options you desire.
Click "Start."

You can now invite your friends to play by going online on steam, right-clicking your friend, and clicking "Invite to Play." They can also right-click you on steam and join that way.
If you didn't create a password, other players can use the game's server browser to join you.

If you would like to change to a specific level, open up console ( ~ tilde button on your keyboard after you enable it in menu>options>advanced ) and type "changelevel levelname" -- replacing "levelname" with the name of the actual map. E.G. "changelevel dm_underpass" and hitting enter.

I made a button layout just for Xbox controllers! The goal was to make the experience feel as close to normal Half-Life 2's controller experience while considering the extra fast-paced nature of Deathmatch.

Plug in whatever controller you're planning to use, turn it on, launch the game, open "Options," click the "Mouse" tab, check "Enable the gamepad," and then choose your options.

This step is optional but recommended: turn on fast weapon switch to easily swap weapons in the heat of the moment (enable it in menu>options>advanced)🔥

Next, open your steam overlay, and then choose the controller icon on the bottom of your screen in the row with the other options.

Under "Current Button Layout," click the big button displaying your current layout. Click "Community Layouts" to find this, or click "Search" at the top, and then paste the following into search:

The BEST HL2:DM Gamepad layout (with toggles!)

Once that pops up, click on it, and select "Apply Layout."

If you need to know what each button does, press every button on your controller when you're in-game!
Or, if you're a nerd, click on my layout and then see how each button corresponds to a different function, or keyboard/mouse button. From there, compare what these buttons do when you open up your main game menu's "options" menu, and viewing which keys are assigned on which function.

Someone named "b̵u̵t̶t̷ ̴h̴e̷a̶d̵" just joined and is being a nuisance!

Open up your console ( ~ ), then kick them by typing in "kick" followed by their name exactly as it appears on the scoreboard when you press "Tab." E.G. "kick butt head"
The same works with banning. Replace "kick" with "ban"

Oh no! Their name has special characters in it and can't be kicked with the name method? Try this!

Open up your console ( ~ ), type "status," and see what "userid" they have.
Then, kick them by typing in "kickid" followed by their userid number. E.G. "kick id 4"
The same works with banning. Replace "kickid" with "banid"
This is also a great way to kick bot players!

Alternatively, you can "kickall" which will kick every player from your server, including yourself, thus killing the server instance.💀👻

Make sure your map has a navmesh by selecting your map, loading into the game, opening up console ( ~ ), and typing in "nav_generate"
This will help the bot players navigate around the map almost exactly like real players would (I say almost because they don't typically use ladders).

Then, go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Half-Life 2 Deathmatch\hl2mp\cfg
OR
Right click on your Half-Life 2 Deathmatch game listing on steam, click properties, Installed Files, then "browse," open the hl2mp folder, & open the cfg folder.

From there, open/create your "autumnbot.cfg" file, then paste the following and click "save."


Replace the two number 4's with how many bots you'd like.

After you've done that, create your game through the main menu, open up console ( ~ ), and type the following:


This will spawn player bots with different playermodels but all the same name, "Bot Name" into your server map.

If you would like to press a single button to make this happen, open up console ( ~ ) and type


If you would like to change the difficulty of bot players, open console ( ~ ) and type in
Where "#" is the difficulty level. 0=easy, 1=normal, 2=hard, 3=expert.

The bots are very player-like! They will use their gravity guns to hurl props at you, collect weapons, strafe back and forth, and of course, SHOOT YOU!
Yes, they can miss some shots. But they generally have pretty good accuracy, so watch out!

I'd recommend having at least one human player playing with you. :>

I hope this helped!
Thank you for reading this far!
I love this game and it'd be great if you could thumbs up and send this to anyone you know who might be interested in playing!
Show them how easy it is to set up and play! 🔥