These last few months I’ve let myself work a bit more aimlessly on the project to make it fun for myself again. This has helped build up the motivation to keep juggling it with my professional work and I think we’re at a stage where we can comfortably start targeting a new ship date soon. Before I get into that though, let’s go over some of the mod’s latest achievements.
Some great work from one of our level designers and env artists.
Progress
Old cover animations from the beta have been reimplemented to lean into the pace and style of the game’s combat.
Soldiers prioritize being near cover so getting these working has been a long running temptation. It was a lot of work but I think it was worth it in the end. It really breathes some new life into them!
Chapter 2 is nearly complete, featuring basically no assets from Half-Life 2 at this point. We’ve been focusing on finding ways to better pace the level out and lean into the game’s unique setting, hopefully getting away from some of the generic industrial vibes of the past.
Another benefit to having more time to mess around is improving the game’s core arenas. This single room has probably had the most amount of attention given to it in the project recently, going from good to great in my opinion.
Cleaning up our HUD has also been a big boon for the game’s presentation. The alt ammo placement has always been really awkward so I started with getting that closer to where it is in Half-Life 2. It's still a bit WIP but overall it's looking a lot cleaner.
We also have new pick up prompts. These are a bit WIP but probably close to what we’ll ship with.
The Road Ahead
So I mentioned earlier we want to start targeting a new ship date soon. We will not be publicly stating what this is til the game is basically done, to avoid any more public confusion (and silly dated bits at the end of a trailer.) However what I would like to announce is we will be targeting a full release now, instead of trying to ship the game in 2 or 3 releases. We’ve begun planning the game’s final chapter out and I can’t wait to share more of it with you.
Beyond this, I’m keeping to the promise to make the game open source. After we’re done I’m going to go through and make sure elements of the game not used in the mod (antlions for instance) play nicely with the new AI systems and then put the whole game up on github for anyone to mess with.
For now though, we're fully focused on making the game the best it can be. To hold yourself over, enjoy this video of my current favorite part of the game.
If you’re looking to support my work, feel free to follow me on Patreon, where I get more in depth on current progress: Patreon.com
You can also follow me and the team on twitter
Or youtube!
Ooohhh looking good!!! the lighting is amazing and everything looks great.
Great work!
Wow, high quality work
Amazing kudos to you, not just for the content you create but for your decision to make it open source.
You're now #2 on ModDB! Now go show that dumb STALKER mod that it doesn't deserve the #1 spot!
Lol.
No really, STALKER Anomaly doesn't deserve the #1 spot anymore
Really nice stuff.
A full release instead of early access for chapters to be released with each update? Good to know.
Hopefully we can get a possible release some time later this year, not that I'm trying to rush you considering how projects like these take time.
And I like how this is gonna be open source so that others can try to make their own mods with this version of the Combine AI being more tactical and self preserving.
I hope there's similar upgrades to the rebel AI and squad system in another mod. The squad system is very barebones in base hl2 and the rebels constantly block you in tight spaces
Wonderful news!!
progress is so awesome and exciting. can wait for the game to release. they can take their time.
Insane
This is incredible! i have been quite excited to hear some more news, this gameplay looks extremely fun and engaging, Take your time polishing the mod and making it as good as possible!
Those cover animations look soooo cool! Take all the time you need. I'm absolutely certain that this will be worth the wait in gold! It's things like this that'll make the firefights the coolest they've ever been.
Looks sooo good, nothing can stop you from getting MOTY when you're done,
because you show amazing quality!
It's really humbling see you going from that first Release of Abandon: The Town all the way back in 2015 to potentially turning into a contender for mod of the year!
Stoked for the full release!
Awesome mode ^)
I hope that someday it will be on Steam too!
Thanks for your hard work, guys)
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Looks very interesting, looking forward to the release. Was it by the way the AI changes already through the game code itself?
Not bad
Cant wait good visuals and gameplay really gives off the half life alyx vibes