Half-⁠Life 2

Half-Life 2 is built on the Source engine, and physics turned out to be its main feature: objects have weight, they fall, float, hold a door shut and break under load. The gravity gun turns this into a tool. It pulls in a crate, a barrel or a saw blade and hurls it back, so the junk lying around the level becomes the weapon, and puzzles are solved with weight and leverage.

The story is told without cuts. The camera is never taken from the player: conversations, explosions and journeys happen around the hero while he walks and looks wherever he wants, and there are no separate cutscenes in the game. The people you talk to behave like participants in the scene, follow you with their eyes and speak as things happen. The third consequence was no longer about gameplay. The boxed disc required you to create a Steam account and go online at least once: a thing bought in a shop turned out to be tied to a service. Steam had existed before that, but it handed out updates on a voluntary basis, and this game made it mandatory. This is where the current order began: the library is kept on the seller's side.