You are Kovac, a senior agent in the covert Special Black Operations unit. You're deployed to Black Mesa to halt the next phase of the science team's plan after HECU forces are unsuccessful in stopping Freeman from launching the Omega Satellite delivery rocket... ...but you fail, the procedure ends up creating massive portal storms in the sky sending you and your team through a void to oblivion and back. You wake up almost twenty four hours later; the military has withdrawn, and everyone and everything besides your fellow Black Operators are now a target. To make matters worse, another hostile and more powerful alien faction has appeared in the chaos, further complicating the situation. The incident can no longer be contained, you must link up with other Black Ops units and prepare to wipe the facility from the map once and for all...
Hey hey people, 2024 is here!
For those of you who know, you know, and for those of you who have been having a long sleep or forever lurking; WAKE UP BABE, DARK MATTER IS BACK IN DEVELOPMENT!!!
New Years Day was of course yesterday but I was a bit busy, firstly helping a woman with a kitchen on New Years Eve (no, that's not a euphemism!) and then having a relaxing time on the day itself, talking to friends and family and just generally chilling. For on January 1st, I officially became four... FOUR decades old! It's pretty hard to process, I barely remember turning 30, never mind another 10 years on top of that! Still, that is the reality, and as a certain purple skinned Marvel antagonist once said... "Reality is often disappointing".
The Half-Life community is generally much younger these days, I think it sometimes surprises us older fogies that kids as young as 12 suddenly find a new love for the original 25 year old classic, but it just goes to show how powerful the game is after all this time. Whether it's the newfound discovery for the still excellent campaign and it's spin-offs, or being able to work with a mostly user friendly and incredibly versatile engine for modding purposes. Add to that the sequel's enjoyers and those that discovered an entire franchise on the back of HL:Alyx, Half-Life's fanbase is still going strong to this day. Some folks eventually move on in real life and leave things like this behind, people like me, Urby and Unq will be probably be here forever (sorry not sorry guys!).
(continued in comments below!)
Anyhow, I am unsurprisingly glad to see 2023 gone, it marks the end of an era of health problems and a period of depression that I would very much not like to revisit at anytime. Right now I'm looking forwards, not back, into a new dawn.
With that comes the rebirth of Kovac's journey, and the updates that will follow. When Dark Matter first officially launched in February 2019, I had no idea how long it would realistically take to finish, and thus I just went with a ten year window of development "x/x/202x" in a tongue in cheek nod to Valve's infamous "200x". I had no way of knowing that a pandemic would break out, or I would become severely ill which would have a large impact on the project. Since the beginning, the story and scope of the mod has changed a lot, it has gone from a basic story of a Black Ops protagonist's perspective during the Black Mesa incident to something much much deeper. That said some of the story elements have gaps that need reworking, and feature creep is as always a looming concern, but I am confident that the overall blueprint will see the finish line before the end of this new decade!
There is a plan for the release that I will share with you in the next full moddb article update which I hope to bring to you sooner rather than later...
In the meantime, it's good to be back! Despite the upheaval, Dark Matter is still alive and kicking and long may it continue to do so (you know, until it's actually finished!).
A huge thank you to all of you as ever for your support, it means a great deal to me. I am still amazed at how popular Kovac's adventure continues to be, I truly value all the interest and hope the project lives up to the hype, I will do my very best not to disappoint you!
May all your wishes and dreams for 2024 come true! Cheers everyone!
Been playing Half-Life since 98' when I was 11 years old and will continue playing it until the day I die. The classics never die.
Hope everything works out for you, mate. Looking forward to the release day!
Thanks a lot! I have still not played the HTC trilogy, it's on my list and I will get to it sometime! I really had a blast with Urbicide though, really nice work! Be interesting to see what you do next =)
It is true that some folks move on from Half-Life modding eventually.
We call them "quitters."
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Yeah Half-Life among games such as Homeworld always remain strong in my heart as well. To another 10 years Half-Life.
Happy New Year good to see you back ^^
Welcome back and happy New Year
Happy New Year.