Story update, weapon renders and more ... news - Lost Hope mod for Half-Life 2

Questions & Answers

What’s the essence of the mod?
In short it’s an urban-warfare survival game.

What’s unique about it?
It has a good balance between non-combat exploration and intense firefights.
You'll see extreme gore, as you would in real-life warfare.
We aim to immerse the player in a thrilling cinematic experience.

What are the mod’s gameplay actions?
It uses the default HL2 feature set as a base, but has some added features as well.

What’s the gameplay recipe?
It's a bit like Half-life 2 meets Killzone in a post WW3 China.

What’s the game's story?
Stranded in a horrific post WW3 hell you need to reach safety with help from rebel allies.

What's the player's story?
You are a foreign war journalist who is covering the rebels side of the story during the start of 'the third wave'.

What will the weapon arsenal be like?
We aim to make it realistic, but definitely with a futuristic touch.

Will the mod be Singleplayer and / or Multiplayer?
Currently only Singleplayer.

Rebel character concepts

Before we continue with the story, we would like to show you some concepts of the rebels that are found in the mod. Seeing how the entire populace is caught in this conflict, it’s no rarity to see women and children involved in the fire fights.
These concepts are of the ‘average’ rebel, armed with military equipment.

Prologue

The First wave

After the coup d'etat, led by an elite faction of the Chinese military, many civilians revolted when they found out about the plans to trade their resources for weaponry. They foresaw that this would lead to endless oppression, and more importantly, famine. All across the country, rebel cells popped up, swearing to overthrow the military regime and defend their hard-earned resources (food, water) and freedom.

The rebel leaders called upon all civilians to help them fight the regime, which would surely lead to the death of many innocent people.
The military leaders responded by arresting and assassinating rebel leaders, trying to cut off the resistance before it grew too large, but no matter how many were arrested or killed, others would take their place.
These attempts to stop the rebellion, in which many civilians became victims, only caused more hatred towards the regime.
As more and more civilians joined the rebel groups, huge riots arose all over China, clearing the cities of everything that represented the military regime.

During the intense riots, most of the emergency services were disabled, leaving many cities in a state of chaos. By this time, many innocent civilians had already fled the major cities to escape the seemingly endless violence.
After continuously being pushed back by the massive amount of rebels, all military forces were ordered to make a hasty retreat to cut their losses. This gave the rebels the chance to stop the export of their resources and to prepare for the second wave that was sure to come.

The Second wave

After falling back, military forces took time to recuperate from the heavy fights. The riots had led to many casualties on the side of the military. Additionally, some soldiers had crossed over to the rebel’s side, supplying them with weapons and other military technology.
The military leaders ordered all remaining units to prepare for an operation to regain control over the major cities.
The plan was to have all civilians in the major cities evacuated to minimize collateral damage in the coming operation. The military troops were ordered to set up checkpoints in all suburbs, to control the flow of evacuating citizens and to filter out any rebels trying to escape.

When this plan was put to practice, it soon turned out to be a suicidal mission for the soldiers that were sent in to guide the evacuation.
Once the rebels found out what the regime was planning, they ambushed and slaughtered the highly outnumbered troops.

It slowly became apparent that the regime was losing its power , and if nothing was done, they would not be able to join the WU.
Concerned about the loss of their troops and the recent cut-off of the export of resources, the military regime pleaded for help from the WU to regain control of their major cities, in order to fulfill the initial deal.

This was of great concern to the World Union, for they were secretly dependant on China's export. Answering the plea for support from the military regime, the WU decided to supply them with their state-of-the-art military technology and to help the regime regain control.
The agreement was made to decimate all regions known to be under rebel control, in a large scale operation, taking all collateral damage into account.

Both parties agreed that it was vital to make sure that no media coverage would take place during this 'operation'.
With support from the WU the military regime closed all borders, took down all non-military satellites, and jammed all radio frequencies. While this media blackout was being set up, shipments of the WU military equipment were being flown in.
A few days later a grid of UAV's were hovering above the rebel-controlled regions with no one on the ground knowing what was about to unfold.

The Third wave had begun...

Weapon renders

As promised we'd also show some weapon renders!

The AR7 is a rifle carried by the Chinese army. It is often taken from dead soldiers by rebels after a firefight. This makes it a popular weapon on the battlefield for both sides.
It comes fitted with a camera, instead of a scope, which gives a live feed to the HUD integrated into the Chinese soldier’s helmet.
The AR7 magazine contains 30 high-velocity APR2 rounds that pack quite a punch.

Thank you for reading, we hope this answered some of your questions.
We hope you all had a fantastic New Years Eve and we wish you all the best for 2009!

Don't forget to track & vote for our mod!!

-Lost Hope Dev Team