Operation Lambda Developer Interview. feature

Hello Community, I'm here today with Shaktal and Anthony. Shaktal is the project leader of Operation Lambda, and Anthony is the lead modeller.

Adam: Hi, so, I'll start off by asking you what gave you the idea to start this mod?

Shaktal:Well, I saw that there was a massive area in Half-life that hadn't been explored or covered, of course I saw several other mods trying to cover small areas of the stories, I just didn't feel their storylines were in enough depth to answer unanswered questions. Don't get me wrong, they are great mods, and I had a lot of fun playing them, I just didn't feel the storyline was strong enough. Also, Operation Lambda aims to cover a large number of events, some of which are widely ignored by the majority of Half-life fans.

Adam: Do you plan to include any surprises that are related to the official story of HL1 and HL2?

Shaktal: We do have several surprises planned, we're not going to reveal them now, we wouldn't want to spoil the surprise! But be assured, there will be several things revealed!

Adam: In HL1, we never heard about any scientist that disappeared before the Resonance Cascade, at the start of this game, will it be in Black Mesa and someone says "Hey, where did 'Name' go?" Or something like that?

Shaktal: Gordon Freeman and our protagonist worked in completely separate parts of Black Mesa, they only vaguely knew what was going on in each part of the facility, Black Mesa is massive and it is split into many separate areas.

Anthony: Well if you think about it, hardly any of the scientists were mentioned in Half-Life1 and if we implemented something like you say, it would seem like a cheap explanation. We don't play as anyone massively important to the company like Dr. Breen for example. You have to remember that most of the main characters popularity and importance came from their reputation just after the accident, sure some played a big part in the invention of the technology they have and Gordon saved life after life but this was only recognized after the accident which makes them the more important to the rebellion. As you play the role of Dr. Alex Rhoza, our protagonist, you build a reputation for yourself amongst the people closer to you rather then getting in touch with Dr. Vance and Dr. kleiner as you yourself don't know of their where-abouts either.

Adam: Well, it seems interesting, because we've not had much information about the Combine Homeworld, so how will you generate it to satisfy massive Half Life fans?

Shaktal: Our main priority whilst writing the story (aside from making an interesting and fun storyline), is to make sure that every aspect of our mod, however small and seemingly insignificant fits in with Half-life canon. Obviously, we cannot account for anything proven wrong in later half-life games, but we can assure you that our mod will fit with all the prior Half-life games.

Anthony: Well honestly this is a rocky road for us as we are still developing the world but you or any of the other Half-Life enthusiasts will not be disappointed, we are hard at work researching everything about Half-Life, we are currently even playing through the games and even taking notes of the key story-lines in each game and finding out everything we can to support the reason for our mod. Also, our artists are studying the Artwork and the previous Artwork of the Half-Life Graphic Artists so we can adapt their tastes and styles to make sure our environments match perfectly with the Half-Life world.

Adam: Will you be asking to use things from other mods, such as Black Mesa, or Seven Hour War, to fulfil certain scenes? Or will you have a team that will do that from scratch?

Shaktal: I'll let Anthony Attwood, out lead model designer, answer that one.

Anthony: Currently we have a large team whom are dedicated to turning this idea in to a true game in itself, we are designing everything of any importance from scratch, minor props such as traffic cones or earth foliage will most probably be taken from the Half-Life games.

Adam: Thank you for answering these questions. Is there anything else you'd like to say?

Shaktal: Only that it's going to be a great game when it's done, and that we hope to please all those loyal Half-life fans out there, looking for some more of the story to be revealed!