Half Life 2: Raising the Bar REDUX: 5th Anniversary Celebration Update news

Hey folks! It's not been long since you last heard from us, but with our 5^th Anniversary now here, we couldn't stay quiet for long! Typically, we'd look back on an occasion like this at how far we've come – but today, hot off the heels of a new release, we decided it'd be fun to start up the hype train again and take a look at what's coming next! Any good project will be planning for the end as soon as they start up, and that means we already have content – conceptual or otherwise – for every Division until the very end of the mod. So sit back, relax, and take a look at how the rest of RTBR is coming along!

Division 3

Wasteland01

The introduction to the wider Wasteland maps (with a map preceding this introducing the Division still in development) has a lot of goals. First, it's meant to sell the environment you'll be in for most of the Division; secondly, it'll be introducing a whole host of new fauna and creatures all at once. We'll be diving deeper into what to expect in Division 3 once dedicated content updates are coming out, but for now, our blockouts progress well for the Division!

Wastelandjeep02

Of course, we'll have our own jeep journey in Division 3 – one that involves your trusty Tau Cannon and mowing down plenty of antlions, xenians, and Combine alike as you make your way to the Wasteland Depot to rescue Eli Maxwell. A few maps will make up the Jeep progression in Division 3, and if you're worried about how short of a time you're spending with it here, don't worry – because Division 4 will also be bookended with a little jeep excursion from the Air Exchange.

Wastelandtrain

The final map for Division 3 is currently slated as an exciting train heist – having reunited with Alyx, Maxwell, and T-Bot, it's time to fight your way out of the depot, onto a Combine train, and start it moving all the way into Division 4. This map provides a lot of design challenges but will be an exciting conclusion to Division 3, once it's had plenty of iteration!

Division 4

VanceHQ

Captain Vance is a core character of the story, introduced in Division 4 on the way to the Air Exchange. Contrary to the beta's location, we decided to stage him and his conscripts out on the very fringes of the Wasteland as an expendable clean-up crew. Occupying what remains of an old and abandoned oil rig, it's here that Vance has been quietly building his own resistance, waiting for the right moment to strike back at the Combine. Industrial tones are mixing with a warmer colour scheme to suggest this is a place with some friends for Freeman.

Airexapproach

The Air Exchange is one of the most iconic settings of the cut content, and we had to take a crack at it ourselves. The design goal here is not only setting up some of the intro maps to this portion of the mod, but also considering the whole scale of the Airex maps and ensuring when the time comes to assign more team members to Division 4, we can remain internally consistent on every map.

Division 5

Arctic World Materials

Division 5 poses its own challenge – an arctic environment, with very few appropriate assets present in Half-Life 2. We'll have our work cut out for us when it comes to maps like the Hyperborea and Kraken Base, but a key part of our workflow before we get there is setting up a better asset bank of chilling world materials and conceptualising environmental features we can pepper throughout arctic tundra.

Division 6

Vertical Peril (Vertigo Combat Track)

Division 6, being the street wars, will be the climax of much of the game's journey, where characters from across the narrative will band together to take the fight to Consul Breen in City 17. One of these locales will, of course, be the famous Vertigo, and as you fight down floors of an increasingly intense Skyscraper engagement, you can expect to jam to this stellar, Unreal Tournament-inspired track.

FOR READERS: Check out the update video for this one! Timestamp is in the description.

GR9 (Combine and Rebel Variants)

The Combine are bringing the big guns with the GR9, a machine gun adapted by their forces for mobile suppression. A new Combine soldier type will be introduced using this weapon, which melds the actual inspiration with our Combine art style. You might've already spotted a stripped down version of this model on our emplacement guns, but rest assured, it'll be in your hands too! If you were a fan of the GR9's original camo, then you're in luck – it'll also be making an appearance in RTBR! You won't be able to have both variants at once, and finding this one will be tricky in of itself, but you'll have the satisfaction of fighting off the Combine with your own toy instead of one of theirs.

Division 7

Citadel Interior Concept Art

Getting this far out, it's hard to discuss Division 7 without running into spoilers. As with every Division, we actually have more than we're currently willing to show, and some very exciting plans in action – but as a tease, consider our direction with the citadel, depicting an H.R. Giger inspired setting surrounded by uneasy geometry and hostile architecture. Fitting a hellscape into the microcosm environment of the citadel won't be easy, but it'll be one hell of a way to finish up the RTBR journey.

Finishing Up

And that's it for our 5^th Anniversary celebration! Of course, there's plenty more yet to be revealed for Division 3 and beyond, and this year we'll be transitioning to dedicated Division 3 devlogs – but for now, enjoy these glimpses into the future! Five years is a great milestone for any project and having made several releases already, we're looking forward at stoking the fires of hype once more for Division 3. Before we wrap up, the usual spiel of roles we're looking for:

• Competent level designers – We’re still open to having both additional support in the art pass and blockout departments

• Facial flex/sculptor – We’re still in need of someone comfortable with sculpting head meshes in the context of Source (so creation of VTAs as well)

• A general purpose 3D modeller – specialising in hard-surface modelling and texturing, knowledge of the full Source Engine pipeline a bonus but not required

• Captain Vance – We're still looking for a voice actor for Captain Jaxon Vance! Please take a look at our Casting Call Club and submit your audition there if you're interested

If any of these roles look good to you, please add me on Discord at Kralich/David#0901. Thanks everyone, and we hope you're as excited for the future of RTBR as we are!