Half-Life 2 Episode Achievements: All 36, and the Hard Ones

Half-Life 2's achievement page on Steam lists 69 achievements. The game you remember had 33. The other 36 arrived on November 15, 2024, when the 20th Anniversary Update folded Episode One and Episode Two into the base game and brought their achievement lists with them.

This vertical's achievements guide covers the original 33. This page covers the other 36: what each one asks for, which game it actually counts in, which ones a reload can rescue, and the handful that need a dedicated run. Where the wikis go vague, the rules below come from Valve's own achievement code, which shipped in the Source SDK 2013 and sat in Valve's public repository until February 18, 2025. That code predates the anniversary build, so treat it as how the system was built rather than a guarantee about every line of today's version.

Why Half-Life 2 now lists 69 achievements

Valve's anniversary update notes say it in two sentences: "The achievements for Episode One and Two have been added to Half-Life 2. When launching the game it will attempt to read data from installed standalone Episodes to re-grant those duplicated achievements."

The arithmetic checks out against Steam's own global stats. Half-Life 2 (app 220) returns 69 achievements: its own 33, Episode One's 13 and Episode Two's 23. The standalone Episode apps still exist and still list 13 and 23 on their own.

Two practical consequences:

• Old unlocks need the old apps. If you earned Episode achievements before November 2024 and they are missing from Half-Life 2's list, Valve's note says the game reads them from installed standalone Episodes. The same notes say those standalone apps now live in the Tools section of your Steam library. Install them, then launch Half-Life 2.
• Every Episode achievement has two percentages. Little Rocket Man shows 1.6% on Half-Life 2's page and 10.0% on Episode Two's own page (Steam global stats, October 10, 2026). Each page measures its own game's players, so the same unlock reads very differently depending on where you look.

On Half-Life 2's list, Gnome Alone has a new description: "Launch Half-Life 2 after Gabe Newell launched a garden gnome into space." It's the one free achievement in the set.

Which game each achievement counts in

On Xbox 360, The Orange Box had six achievements shared across all three Half-Life 2 games, according to Combine OverWiki. The PC version split them up, and Valve's code pins each one to a single game with a game-directory filter. Two Episode achievements, Grave Robber and Zombie-que, carry the same treatment: the code comment on each says it is shared across the Episodes on Xbox 360 and locked to one Episode on PC. Steam's per-game lists agree with the code on all eight.

The merge doesn't seem to have changed that. In a Steam discussion from November 2024, players reported that Hot Potat0wned would not unlock in the base game and that Think Fast! and Zombie-que were still Episode One only.

Your save file holds the progress

Valve's achievement code keeps progress in one of two places, and knowing which one saves you the most grief.

The left column resets to zero whenever a new game starts, and the code fires that reset on a fresh map load, which is what picking a chapter from the menu does. Loading a save, on the other hand, restores the count to whatever it was when that save was made. The right column keeps every cache you have ever found, across any number of playthroughs.

That cuts both ways. Get Some Grub needs all 333 grubs in one continuous game. But a pass/fail run also stores its armed-or-failed state in the save, so a reload from before the mistake undoes the mistake. Quicksave like you mean it.

Episode One: all 13

Chapter placements come from the Combine OverWiki and Half-Life Wiki achievement tables. The last column is Episode One's own Steam page, checked October 10, 2026.

Two of the counters are looser than their names. Zombie-que's code counts standard, fast and poison zombies and Zombines, so any of them will do. Car Crusher counts any physics prop built from Valve's vehicle models, as long as the kill is credited to you.

The One Free Bullet

On Xbox 360 this was worth 40 Gamerscore, more than any other achievement in the trilogy by OverWiki's tables. Steam's description: "Finish the game firing exactly one bullet. Grenade, crowbar, rocket, and Gravity Gun kills are okay!" "The game" means Episode One.

Both wikis say the one shot you need is a padlock on a fence door, and the Half-Life Wiki puts it in Lowlife. Here is how the code keeps score:

• It only reads your guns. At the end of the episode it adds up the shots fired from the weapons you are carrying. Alyx's shooting never touches it, and both wikis tell you to let her do the work.
• Only bullet ammo counts. The tally covers weapons whose ammo is flagged as plain bullet damage. Rockets, frag grenades, SMG grenades and the pulse rifle's energy ball are flagged as burn or dissolve damage instead, and the Half-Life Wiki also lists SMG grenades as allowed.
• It arms at the start. The achievement switches on with a map event called EP1_START_GAME and is judged on EP1_BEAT_GAME. A chapter select starts a new game and clears it, so play from Undue Alarm to the end in one run.
• A stray shot can be undone. Each weapon's shot count is a saved field, so reloading a save from before the shot takes it back.

OverWiki notes Citizen Escort can be earned on the same run, and the Half-Life Wiki points out that Exit 17 has an RPG ammo crate to lean on.

Pacifist and Citizen Escort

Pacifist is the Direct Intervention puzzle played politely. Both wikis say two stalkers in the core room reset the energy ball holders with their lasers. Don't kill them. Move fast after loading the two receptacles each bridge needs, and the achievement pops alongside Containment.

Citizen Escort fails if any citizen dies between the moment the escort starts and the moment it ends, and the code doesn't care who killed them. The wikis count about four trips from Barney to the train. Save after each one.

Episode Two: all 23

Again in chapter order, with Episode Two's own Steam percentages from October 10, 2026. The wikis disagree on which chapter Gunishment! sits in, so the table gives the place instead.

Grave Robber is easier than its name. The code fires the moment you pick up a Zombine's grenade with the gravity gun, so you don't have to throw it anywhere. Deadly Harvest is stricter: the code checks that you placed the mine, and OverWiki says one thrown like a grenade doesn't count.

Little Rocket Man, chapter by chapter

The gnome is in the communications building where Alyx first radios White Forest, lying under a low wooden surface among some glass bottles. Crouch to see it. From there it has to reach the rocket at White Forest, and you have to shut it inside the capsule. Both wikis stress that putting it in without closing the hatch earns nothing.

It doesn't have to be in your hands the whole way. The wikis' route notes cover where to park it and where you can't:

• This Vortal Coil: leave it with Alyx and the Vortigaunts before you go down into the nests, because you come back to that room. Combine OverWiki found clip-brush filters in the map files that let the gnome ride the Victory Mine elevators on ep2_outland_02 and ep2_outland_04 when other props can't. Valve made room for it.
• Freeman Pontifex: don't leave it in the overlook room with the monitor and the sniper rifle. You can't go back once you head down into the settlement. Lean it against the door facing the bridge so it falls through when you open that door from the other side, or throw it onto the near side of the bridge.
• Riding Shotgun: wedge it into the Muscle Car, through the back window frame or behind the passenger seat, and drive like you are carrying eggs. Don't leave it in the car at the Advisor barn, because the car can be moved to make room for an APC. When the car catches fire and the chopper fight moves into the yard, park it under a boxcar.
• Under the Radar: leave it in the garage while you go after the Autogun, but not on the long table in the middle. That table is deleted when the repaired car spawns, and anything sitting on it goes with it. During the White Forest Inn ambush it can wait in the house, and before the race with Dog you can drop it near the start line and come back for it.
• Our Mutual Fiend: into the capsule, hatch shut.

The idea came from the players. Combine OverWiki, citing a 2008 1UP feature, says Valve had heard about a fan challenge of carrying the baby doll from the City 17 playground through Half-Life 2 in a milk crate. The team nicknamed it the "crate baby" and built the gnome achievement out of it. Then life copied the game: in November 2020 a titanium gnome flew on Rocket Lab's Return to Sender mission, launched November 20, and Valve added Gnome Alone to mark it.

Get Some Grub: 333, and any death counts

The goal in Valve's code is 333. The useful detail is what the code leaves out: it doesn't filter by attacker. Every grub death counts, whether you stepped on it, shot it or blew it up. Shoot the ones on ceilings instead of hunting a way up to them.

Because the count lives in your save, the 333 have to come in one continuous game, and a reload rolls the tally back to the save point. Start this one from New Game at To the White Forest. Both wikis' grub pages place the grubs in the Victory Mine. Their achievement tables stretch the hunt across the first three chapters.

It's the rarest achievement in both places you can look: 7.9% on Episode Two's page and 1.3% on Half-Life 2's, the lowest of all 69. It was already there in 2014: Guinness World Records lists it as the hardest Steam achievement in Episode Two, earned by 2.3% of owners as of August 5, 2014.

The grubs pay you back. OverWiki, citing Valve's commentary, says each one drops a healing nugget sized to how hurt you are, so a full sweep doubles as a health supply.

Puttin' On a Clinic: what counts as a miss

The Riding Shotgun chopper dies to its own bombs, punted back with the gravity gun. Valve's code sets the number: 5 bombs on Normal and Hard, 3 on Easy. The difficulty guide reads the same values.

A miss, per the code, is a bomb you launched that either hits something other than the chopper or explodes on its timer without hurting it. Only launching a bomb you have caught with the gravity gun arms that check. A bomb you never catch can't miss, and neither can one you catch and simply let go. Two habits follow:

• Line up the shot before you punt. A catch never counts against you; a bad punt does.
• Save after every hit. The failed state lives in your save, so a reload wipes a miss.

None of Valve's Episode achievement code checks the skill level, so dropping to Easy for this one fight means three clean punts instead of five. The difficulty guide covers changing it mid-game.

The two cache hunts

Piñata Party wants all nine web caches, the supply bundles tangled in grub webbing. Both wikis put the first in To the White Forest and the other eight in This Vortal Coil. It's stored globally, so a cache broken on any playthrough stays broken. One catch: the code turns off progress pop-ups for this achievement (Valve's comment calls them "distracting"), so you won't see a running count.

Cache Checker wants the five radar caches in Under the Radar. Valve's code names them van, shack, RPG, cave and hanging. The Muscle Car picks up a radar module from a Resistance outpost on the way, and OverWiki's screenshots show it marking nearby lambda stashes. This one is global too. Gordon Propelled Rocket sits in the same chapter: both wikis describe the second lambda cache as a grenade jump onto a platform you otherwise can't reach.

Payback and Neighborhood Watch

Payback needs a Hunter to die to a flechette. Both wikis say to catch a volley on an object held with the gravity gun, such as a tire, and fire it back at the Hunter. The code adds a condition: the killing damage has to come from the flechette itself. If the impact of the thrown object is what finishes the Hunter, the kill belongs to the object, which fits both wikis' warning that not every flechette-studded prop unlocks it. The episodes guide covers the Hunter fight itself.

Neighborhood Watch was worth 35 Gamerscore, second only to The One Free Bullet. You have to stop every Strider in the final siege before it destroys any building outside the silo. Both wikis say to save after each Strider kill. The episodes guide's Magnusson Device section is the toolkit for doing it.

The rarest achievements on the list

This table sorts Half-Life 2's merged 69-achievement list by global unlock rate, with the same achievement's number on its own Episode's page alongside. Both were checked October 10, 2026, and ties follow the order on Steam's own page.

All 19 of the rarest achievements on Half-Life 2's list come from the Episodes. The first original Half-Life 2 achievement is Lambda Locator, at number 20 with 4.2%.

The finale achievements show the same effect. Escape From City 17 is at 6.4% on Half-Life 2's page and 48.6% on Episode One's. Defense of the Armament is at 5.3% against 60.7%. Part of that gap comes from how the merge works: Valve's note says old Episode unlocks are re-granted from installed standalone Episodes, so they only appear once Half-Life 2 has been launched with those apps on disk.

Before you start a run

• Commentary off. Valve's code refuses to award achievements in commentary mode, with the comment "can't be in commentary mode, user is invincible". The commentary guide covers why that is a separate playthrough.
• Cheats off for the whole run. The code won't award anything on a map where sv_cheats has been switched on. The console commands guide is for a different evening.
• Difficulty is free. None of the Episode achievement code checks the skill setting, so pick whatever makes the run survivable.
• One game, one save chain for the counters: Get Some Grub, Hit and Run, Bone Breaker, Live Bait, Car Crusher and Zombie-que all reset on a new game.

Quick Action Checklist

• Half-Life 2's Steam list has 69 achievements since November 15, 2024: the original 33 plus Episode One's 13 and Episode Two's 23.
• Missing old Episode unlocks? Install the standalone Episodes from the Tools section of your Steam library, then launch Half-Life 2.
• Think Fast!, Conservationist and Zombie-que only count in Episode One. Grave Robber, Bone Breaker, Deadly Harvest and Hot Potat0wned only count in Episode Two.
• Start The One Free Bullet from Undue Alarm and save the shot for the padlock. Rockets, grenades and energy balls are fine, and a reload undoes a stray bullet.
• Grab the gnome in the communications building, park it rather than carry it through fights, and close the rocket hatch.
• Get Some Grub is 333 grubs in one continuous game. Shoot the ones out of reach, because every grub death counts.
• Line up every chopper punt, and save after each hit. Easy needs three bombs, not five.
• Web caches and radar caches stay found across playthroughs. You won't get a progress pop-up for the web caches.
• Turn commentary and sv_cheats off before any achievement run.