A Start of Something New... news - Half-Life: Crossfire mod for Half-Life

A START OF SOMETHING NEW:

Hi Folks

Welcome to Half-Life : Crossfire, a singleplayer modification for Half-Life that uses the Spirit of Half-Life toolset in conjunction with the Xash3D engine. Why use both of these? Put simply, Spirit provides me with a wealth of options and enables to me to make gameplay tweaks without any additional coding and Xash3D is able to handle the higher poly count/size of the levels I'm throwing at it.

I've been a massive lover of the Half-Life series ever since I was a teen in 1998 tearing through Vortiguants and HECU in my bedroom. When the national lockdown hit here in the UK in early 2020 I needed something to occupy me so decided to pickup where I left off 15+ years ago. It turns out you really never do forget how to ride a bike and I soon got myself thoroughly obsessed back in everything Half-Life and was amazed that the community is now stronger than ever. This will be my first mod released to the masses and I'm really excited to get your feedback on what has really been a true passion project for me.

STORY:

In the mod you play as Sgt. Jordan Foster, a Black Mesa Security Guard who (in typical Half-Life fashion) finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Following a near death escape, you learn that in order to stand any chance of getting out of the base you'll need to find Dr. Gina Cross and utilise her skills, experience and expertise to stand any chance of making it out alive.

GAMEPLAY:

I'm aiming to provide good solid Goldsource gameplay together with a more updated visual style that's as enjoyable to play as it is to experience. The mod will take you through a variety of locations from the labs and industrial corridors of Black Mesa, to the war torn surface and alien vista's of Xen.

In terms of allies/enemies you'll find along the way, you'll find your usual assortment of friendly scientists and security guards (both male and female) and all your favourite border world aliens. Spirit enables me to provide quite a bit of variety in the appearance of your pals and, using a bit of trickery (as I have zero coding experience!), bring some other enemies from the franchise along for the ride. The models I'm using for this are, for the most part, courtesy of the Trusty Crowbar packs with a few tweaks here and there to fit my purposes, as they really fit the asethetic I'm going for.

RELEASE DATE:

The golden question! I'm currently around halfway through my planned campaign sitting at around 16 maps completed in total which roughly puts me half-way through Part 2 of the 3 part story I've got on paper. I'm working pretty solidly on this whenever I get the chance however, as we know from the last year, anything can happen! So at present I'm aiming for a 'end of 2021' release date, however time will tell!

Lastly thanks for your interest, it's taken me a long time to get to the point of making this public and the kind words I've received so far are really spurring me on to make this the best release I can.
Until next time...

Andy_Shou