Why Not Episode 2 Flashlight?

[Spaghettacus]

Really need this for HL2 and Episode 1

[Phantom Limb]

Because Valve is being Valve. And Valve is lazy.

[Architector #4]

From what I heard some people noting elsewhere, it's because some pacing and tension in HL2 and EP1 were designed with them joined, meaning you have to balance between sprinting and flashlight, for example.

It might be that, I suppose?

[LittleNinja]

HL2E2 flashlight would TOTALLY ruin HL2E1 or even ravenholm from HL2.

[DaimeneX]

There is an in universe explanation that the Portal Storm messed with the suit and caused the flashlight to gain its own power source. At least according to the Ep2 Commentary, lol (people kept running out of suit energy during the antlion guard section)

[Winter Rose]

It's actually seemingly possible to have the episode 2 flashlight, kinda. No separate HUD display for it in base game, or episode 1 most likely, but there's some new commands including one called "hl2_expansion". Setting it to ep2 and then either loading a save or changing map puts it in effect. Might be best to explore this carefully since there could be other side effects to changing this, but if you really want the flashlight to be on its own battery, there's that

[Falleax]

Someone should just make a mod for it, since we got the workshop now.

[Valvatorez(Cox Cable = awful ISP]

Originally posted by DaimeneX:

There is an in universe explanation that the Portal Storm messed with the suit and caused the flashlight to gain its own power source. At least according to the Ep2 Commentary, lol (people kept running out of suit energy during the antlion guard section)

It was from damage to HEV Suit, the Portal Storm is just the cause of it. One of the commentaries say it was a back up function or something.

[PÖIЙ† βLΛЙK]

Originally posted by Winter Rose:

It's actually seemingly possible to have the episode 2 flashlight, kinda. No separate HUD display for it in base game, or episode 1 most likely, but there's some new commands including one called "hl2_expansion". Setting it to ep2 and then either loading a save or changing map puts it in effect. Might be best to explore this carefully since there could be other side effects to changing this, but if you really want the flashlight to be on its own battery, there's that

There's also "hl2_episodic", where setting it to "2" brings up the ep2 flashlight on the hud, when used in conjunction with "hl2_expansion ep2". Probably worth making a guide or a separate post about this.

tl:dr, put "hl2_episodic 2" and "hl2_expansion ep2" in the console, save and load, and you get the full ep2 flashlight. Side effects unknown.

[Lefita Caliente [Vivi]]

Originally posted by Phantom Limb:

Because Valve is being Valve. And Valve is lazy.

No because imagine Ravenholm with infinite flashlight lmfao

[Hydra]

Originally posted by Architector #4:

From what I heard some people noting elsewhere, it's because some pacing and tension in HL2 and EP1 were designed with them joined, meaning you have to balance between sprinting and flashlight, for example.

It might be that, I suppose?

The problem with this logic is I've never once encountered an area where this was an issue. It was always just an annoyance. If there was some genuinely dark area (I guess Ep1's elevator section counts), then sure, but in HL2 especially there's zero use case. It's not like this game is Doom 3 levels of darkness and light management. And in the case of Ep1, there's always flares around where darkness is a huge issue, whose entire purpose is "you don't need a flashlight when these are around".

And to those who claim Ravenholm was dark, what brightness setting are you using? Because I think that entire level is set during a full moon.

[Winter Rose]

Originally posted by PÖIЙ† βLΛЙK:

tl:dr, put "hl2_episodic 2" and "hl2_expansion ep2" in the console, save and load, and you get the full ep2 flashlight. Side effects unknown.

Only need hl2_episodic set to 1 for the ep2 flashlight hud to be visible. Either way, I'll probably experiment with this a bit to see what other effects having these commands set like this when not in the actual episode 2 campaign could have.