Natural Selection is an action-strategy game for the PC. It is a "Half-life modification", which means it is written on top of the Half-life game engine. "Mods" are a new sort of underground game development that enables small teams to create games using the technology of existing games. This means less expensive and lower risk game development, which allows experimentation and innovation. This arrangement also implies that "mods" are made as art, not for making money. When complete, Natural Selection will be released for free to all owners of Half-life, which is required to play Natural Selection.

Game summary

Multiplayer-only Half-life mod where one team plays marines and the other plays aliens. The humans must keep their cool and work together to assault an alien-infested spacecraft or colony. Marines vs. marines and aliens vs. aliens scenarios are also supported.

"First-person strategy" with a real resource model and consequences for actions. Both sides are genuinely different and together they accommodate different play styles:

Marines::Fighting skill is less important, strategy and communication take its place. Playing as a marine will be a tense experience with methodical planning and strategy, interrupted with action.

Aliens::Playing as an alien will be an intense action experience, rewarding reflexes and alien heroics. Communication and coordination don't require typing.

Accessible, fast, mouse-driven interface: no keys beyond those used in Half-life needed.

Simple to learn and play, it is hard-core action/strategy for a mainstream audience.

Innovative social dynamics lead to memorable games.

Atmospheric indoor sci-fi environments full of steam, smoke and ambient soundscapes

Natural Selection is out, go get it already! :P

Recent Changlogs:
Version 3.2
Version 3.1
Version 3.0

The team is now working on a version for Half-life II and will post news here when ready.

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Natural Selection Natural Selection Natural Selection
Blog RSS Feed Report abuse Latest News: 3.0 Trailer

5 comments by BigBird on Feb 22nd, 2005 digg this super bookmark


In anticipation of Natural Selection 3.0, the Natural Selection team have released the official 3.0 game trailer!

See what people are saying about it and have your say on the Natural Selection forums.

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MetaMod+AMXModX+RCBOT

MetaMod+AMXModX+RCBOT

Mar 26, 2008 Multiplayer Map 2 comments

WARNING THESE ARE NOT MY PLUGINS!!! In this pack you will have Metamod, amx mod x and rcbot... !!ISNTALLATION!! First Extract These file into your c:/program...

Natural Selection v3.2 Installer

Natural Selection v3.2 Installer

Mar 02, 2007 Full Version 4 comments

The full client installer for Natural Selection v3.2. Check out the full changelog here.

Natural Selection v3.2 Server

Natural Selection v3.2 Server

Mar 02, 2007 Full Version 0 comments

The dedicated server zip for Natural Selection v3.2. Check out the full changelog here

Natural Selection 3.0 Trailer

Natural Selection 3.0 Trailer

Nov 24, 2006 Movies 0 comments

The official Natural Selection 3.x Trailer.

Natural Selection v3.1 Dedicated Server

Natural Selection v3.1 Dedicated Server

Mar 09, 2006 Full Version 0 comments

A complete installer for the Natural Selection v31. Dedicated Server. Remember to check the NS website for the latest server patches, at the time of writing...

Natural Selection v3.1 - Full Client Installer

Natural Selection v3.1 - Full Client Installer

Nov 19, 2005 Full Version 1 comment

Natural Selection v3.1 has some nice new features in it, including a new teammate order icons, a fantastic new map called "ns_shiva", minimaps...

Comments  (50 - 60 of 264)
Dr.Worm
Dr.Worm Jan 9 2007, 4:15pm says:

gizzle it won't be that much plus everyoen who downlaoded the game for HL1 this mod downloaded ocne they did that they were noobs too then over time got good soo if the buy it sure they will be noobs but then they will be good soo just takes time and I will buy NS:S becuase it's gonna own hardcore i would buy

+1 vote     reply to comment
gizzle
gizzle Jan 9 2007, 2:46pm says:

NS was such a nice game in times of hl1, i would appreciate a public release for free for the source engine.
But since now much people say NS:S is coming for money is that right ? Well if it will be a retail game i think the community will shrink and something like in dod: s will happen : "ONLY" NOOBS ARE BUYING THE GAME, your idea of gameplay will not fullfill because most of the buyers didnt even play NS and have too much money to spend on games. Look at DOD:S now its hard to find an esl match, public doesnt make fun anymore because most people dont even know that they have to take a flag instead of just fragging everyone and having the best stats. This is just an idea that gave went to me right now and thus there will be much detailed hard worked mods for the hl²-engine and they are all coming for free (PVK2, Golden Eye, Empires, Dystopia .... just to name a few ones) so the community will spread over theese mods instead of high anticipated NS:S .

+1 vote     reply to comment
tigersmith
tigersmith Jan 11 2007, 3:52pm says:

nice explanation

+1 vote     reply to comment
tigersmith
tigersmith Dec 1 2006, 8:28am says:

Some good stuff just got posted on the NS Site.

Unknownworlds.com

+1 vote     reply to comment
tigersmith
tigersmith Nov 23 2006, 11:19am says:

NS 3.2 Public Beta is out.

www.naturalselection.com

+1 vote     reply to comment
Erty_Reveloutions
Erty_Reveloutions Nov 20 2006, 11:02am says:

Hello, Unknown Worlds Entertaiment team is busy up with NS:S, and they needs some texturing work for it. I have personally tried to apply to work for them, but haven't gotten any answer yet. If your experienced artist, like me, apply by them!

+1 vote     reply to comment
tigersmith
tigersmith Nov 3 2006, 9:44am says:

San Francisco, California. October 31st, 2006 - Unknown Worlds Entertainment, Inc. today announced plans for Natural Selection 2, a sequel to its Natural Selection game for Half-life.

Natural Selection 2 is the next wave in the war for survival between humankind and the Kharaa. Natural Selection 2 is the next evolution in multiplayer action/strategy gameplay and will be targeted for both competitive and public play. New features include dynamically changing environments, a new resource model, flexible game scripting and modes, and new weapons, abilities and upgrades. Natural Selection 2 will be a stand-alone commercial game for release on VALVe software's digital distribution service called Steam (http://www.steampowered.com).

Natural Selection was released on October 31st of 2002 and since then has been played by 300,000 players for over a billion player-minutes. It won Gamespy's Mod of the Year and became the most popular independent "mod" for Half-life. Natural Selection v3.1 is available for download free from the Natural Selection site (http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns). Unknown Worlds Entertainment, Inc. (http://www.unknownworlds.com) is a self-funded independent game company based in San Francisco, CA.

We'll be releasing lots more information on the game, the features and the technology via our site news and frequent updates to our new game development blog.

Also, as you have now noticed, the site is baaack! Not only is it back but it's been completely redone. After well over a year and half a dozen programmers, it's finally operational. It's not perfect, but is completely functional. Please let us know if you find a problem with the site so we can fix it. Don't spread it around to your buddies so they can have their way with us and put us out of commission for another year. It was a huge amount of work, but you'll see every message from the past 4 years is still here. We just couldn't bear to let 1.5 million posts get flushed down the drain. There are new YouTube trailers, mailing lists and much better admin tools to keep the riff-raff out. Let's hope it was worth the wait.

As promised, we are going to start testing NS v3.2 with Constellation members later today. You will receive an e-mail today or tomorrow with full instructions. Remember to try to withhold judgment on changes until you've played a few games! The Constellation system isn't functional yet so if you haven't donated previously I'm afraid you're out of luck and you'll have to wait until the public release.

One of the big problems that we had when the site went down was funding. Primary funding for future NS development came from the Constellation program and when the site went away so did that. I had to put future NS work on hold to pay the bills. I also wrote a small game called Zen of Sudoku to bring in some money more quickly. Zen is feature complete and will go live on some big portals (including Steam) shortly. Between Zen and some other funding we've secured, we can safely announce our next game! It's taken a long time, but it's great to be in a position to self-fund our own games instead of relying on publisher or investor interests. We'll be able to make the game we want to make and won't have to compromise for anyone.

It's also my pleasure to announce the new Technical Director for Unknown Worlds! Max McGuire helped out on NS in v2.0 days, but his day job was writing the engine, tools and technology for Titan Quest. Max has been writing game engines since his early days in high school and was the Lead Engine programmer on Titan Quest. He was also the first employee at Iron Lore. Max will now apply his formidable talents to Natural Selection 2 and our future games. Welcome, Max!

We are also planning on releasing a technology demo (like we did with NS) as soon as possible so level designers can start making maps for official inclusion in the game. We know that you die-hard players will download that and probably figure out some way to play it as well (Skulk racing, anyone)?

At long last, we're excited and optimistic about the future...again!

+1 vote     reply to comment
tigersmith
tigersmith Oct 14 2006, 2:05pm says:

As development of NS 3.2 draws to a close and we begin to prepare for constellation testing, we want to share a selection of the changes with you.

The patch will contain balance changes, useability improvements, map updates, new maps and a list of bugfixes and exploit preventions. This is just a selection of the changelog, the full changelog will be announced along with the final details for constellation testing.

In the next preview, we will focus on the map changes and additions in Natural Selection 3.2.

All of the information detailed in this preview is subject to change.

Gameplay Changes

* "Ghost" placement model for marine structures:
o When a marine structure is first placed by the commander, it will be a ghost structure.
o A ghost structure is partially transparent (but still solid) and will be immediately recycled if touched by an alien player returning 90% of the structure cost.
o A ghost structure can be attacked and damaged without triggering an immediate recycle.
o The commander can choose to recycle a ghost structure in the same manner as an unbuilt structure.
o When a marine player starts to build a ghost structure, it will turn into a normal unbuilt structure.
* When redemption chooses a destination hive, it will not choose a hive under attack unless no other active hive is available.
* Removed telefragging by adding pushback to IPs and PGs.

User Interface and Game Asset Improvements

* Updated HUD icons to more clearly indicate the level of marine weapon and armor upgrades.
* The minimap can now be displayed during the pregame.
* Hive sight HUD text:
o Added transparency effect: the farther from the center of the screen the HUD text is, the more transparent it will be.
o Added cl_labelhivesight cvar (default 1) to allow players to disable hive sight labels on the alien HUD.
* Modified the hitboxes of certain structures to more closely match their visual counterpart.

Bugfixes

* Fixed commander keyboard scrolling ( +scrollleft, +scrollright, +scrollup and +scrolldown ).
* Heavy armour and jetpack are now visible in the readyroom.
* Fixed bug where the commander didn't see an accurate representation of alien health.
* Fixed a bug where the lerk flight animation did not play with the crouch key held down.
* Fixed a bug where some alien attack animations didn't play when the attacking alien was crouched.

+1 vote     reply to comment
Goldenbird
Goldenbird Aug 19 2006, 3:10pm says:

the player animations are so great :)
Youtube.com

+1 vote     reply to comment
nick111
nick111 Jul 16 2006, 4:24am says:

Needs an update soon.

+1 vote     reply to comment
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Platform
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Game
Half-Life
Developer
Unknown Worlds
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Release Date
Released Jun 3, 2007
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