Story

In the depths of the Black Mesa Research Facility, a rumbling noise. It was not loud, yet seemed louder than mere decibels would suggest in the furtive, creaking hush of the facility's underbelly.

There are those who, when the time comes, take control of their own destinies. The right people in the wrong place.

Maurice Andrews was thrown from his feet by the chaos that followed the Resonance Cascade, tearing and deforming the once familiar facility around his unconscious form. Even at this, Andrews, a low-level engineer could not possibly know the full extent of the incident and upon waking he has only one clear objective: Get to the surface.

Even with the support of other survivors met along the way, however, nothing could prepare him for the adventure ahead, the heavy handed presence of the military of the creatures whose existence they were sent to cover up...

Gameplay

Half-Life: The Core is a classic retelling of the events surrounding the Resonance Cascade disaster from a new perspective; that of Engineer Maurice Andrews. Without using bolted-on engine modifications, Half-Life: The Core will provide a grand single-player experience featuring intense action, complex puzzles and believable narrative through all-new locations in Black Mesa with remarkable visual fidelity, pacing and humour.

Requirements

Any PC capable of running the original Half-Life game will be able to run Half-Life: The Core, however due to the increased resolution for the textures as well as the ambitious scale of some of the areas, slight frame rate drops may be noticeable on older or budget systems. We employ advanced optimisation techniques to minimise this, and most players will not exprience any framerate loss.

The Developers

Almost entirely created by just two people, Half-Life: The Core is the endeavour of Andy Morris & James Archibald, with coding from TWHL's Penguinboy - developer of the Sledge Editor Hammer alternative. They try to be friendly and approachable and will answer any questions or comments left on articles or media. On ModDB, their usernames are monster_urby & Archie_SnC.

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This is it, we are in 2024, which I have tentatively dubbed "The Year of The Core" on our social media.

"Wait, does that mean that the mod is finally releasing this year!?" you may ask.

It's too early to say at this point. I am happy to say however that development is now back in full swing. Archie has returned to the project after a lengthy hiatus and I have also been able to spend a lot more time on it over the last couple of months.

So what's been happening?

Clean up on Aisle Core!

Moving the project over to a new version control system has given us the opportunity to remove a lot of the old source files and content that will not be making it into the final release. See the previous article for more details on that.

This has helped to streamline the process of pushing/pulling updates, without a lot of unneeded files cluttering up the place. Not the most exciting update, but then project management isn't a particularly entertaining topic so let's move on.

Textures? More like... bad... textures.

Again, not a dreadfully exciting update, but at least something that's a little easier to show off.

We've recently been going over our frankly massive .wad files and clearing out some of the clutter as well. But a more significant change is addressing something that until recently would not have bothered us. Consistency. Texture scaling throughout The Core's maps has been... let's call it slap-dash. Textures of varying scales, some at Half-Life's standard 1.000, some at The Core's standard 0.500 and then a few more at... 0.125? Or 0.188? Blurgh. When you start to notice it, you see it EVERYWHERE and it starts to look very rough around the edges. In an effort to resolve that, a lot of our old oddball textures are being revamped and properly scaled. Thanks to JACK's wonderful tweaks to the find/replace functionality, this has actually been a pretty painless experience.

Big Blue Box

It's not just scaling though, but techniques used when updating textures or creating all new ones. Where once we relied heavily on Photoshop layer styles and filters, now a lot of details are being hand drawn. This gives us WAY more control over edge highlights and shading and above all else, makes things pop a little better.

Little Cardboard Boxes

Dinky Little Fuse Box

Running around empty corridors? Again?

Last but certainly not least, while we fill in the current gaps in an effort to get the entire mod playable in one long run, gameplay in existing areas is being refined. A lot of playtesting has been done by ourselves but also a select number of Half-Life community members. One thing that was raised is that there is a lot of downtime, spend running down empty hallways or crawling through vents.

No more! While not stripping out and rebuilding huge sections (most of the time), these areas are getting some much needed TLC. Empty room with one too many zombies to kill? Now it's a puzzle section! Looong vents with nothing but headcrabs to smash? How about you fall into a lab with a dangerously malfunctioning laser projector?

Not the easiest thing to show off at this point as it's mostly sections you've seen already, with a little more player engagement.

Onwards then!

So that's all for now for this mini update. We will post more updates in the coming months as we continue to swing towards getting a fully playable beta in the hands of our testers. The release might still be a ways off, but things are looking good for:

2024: The Year of The Core.

Sounds good right? We think so.

Urby, out.

The Cutting Room - Part 2

The Cutting Room - Part 2

News 10 comments

It has been almost 5 years to the day since the first article in what I am charitably calling "The Cutting Room series." I figure after a year of near...

Onwards, into 2023

Onwards, into 2023

News 10 comments

Another year draws to a close and once again, The Core is without a release date. It seems unimaginable that it has been over a year and a half since...

Well well well... This was unexpected

Well well well... This was unexpected

News 30 comments

So, I made a post at the start of the year stating that The Core would in fact NOT be coming out by March 31st. I also said that some time within 2021...

Happy New Year...

Happy New Year...

News 11 comments

First of all, let me just say on behalf of everyone working on The Core, Happy New Year! Let's hope 2021 is a little better for all of us. Unfortunately...

Post comment Comments  (0 - 10 of 942)
AlexGuy
AlexGuy

Possible Gargantua appearance in this mod?

Reply Good karma Bad karma-2 votes
monster_urby Creator
monster_urby

That's no way to talk about Archie's mother.

Reply Good karma+8 votes
AlexGuy
AlexGuy

Uhh, the NPC. I am unaware what you tried to interpret my comment as.
https://combineoverwiki.net/wiki/Gargantua

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monster_urby Creator
monster_urby

I was in fact making a very funny joke, implying that Archie's mother is unfathomably large.

Reply Good karma+8 votes
Guest
Guest

Demo?

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monster_urby Creator
monster_urby

Nomo.

Reply Good karma+2 votes
Guest
Guest

Cool mod can't wait to play Happy New Year

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Guest
Guest

will this make the jump to the 25th anniversary build, or would we have to revert to the legacy build? asking cause i believe no one asked this yet.

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monster_urby Creator
monster_urby

This works with the 25th anniversary build. It was broken for a couple of days, but now it works just fine on the main branch.

Reply Good karma+4 votes
Suphakitz
Suphakitz

I'm so hyped for this, Wishing you guys luck!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+3 votes
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