Neptune is a single-player modification for Half-Life 2, taking place entirely outside the mother game's universe. Set primarily onboard a mysterious and desolate cruise liner, floating in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, Neptune allows the player to slowly unravel the dark and disturbing past of the ship as he/she explores its once-grand rooms, corridors, concert halls, restaurants, bars and maintenance areas. Taking influence from games such as System Shock 2, BioShock, Thief: Deadly Shadows and Silent Hill, Neptune is an atmospheric, narrative-driven, horror-based shooter; an exercise in videogame storytelling and tense level design. It is expected to be released in Q3 2009.

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A couple of new screenshots from the early sections of the mod, plus a shiny new website!

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It's been a while! Sorry about that. We've been working away at Neptune reasonably solidly, and, slowly but surely, everything's starting to come together a little bit.

Firstly, some bad news. We had a meeting a couple of weeks ago and decided our provisional release date of "Spring 2009" is no longer feasible. We are now tentatively aiming for a "late Summer" release. What's important to us is that we don't rush this. We could probably spend another month on the mod and have it playable, but who does that benefit? We want this to be really good, and we're prepared to put in the extra time to ensure this is the case. Hopefully you're on our side with this.

At least we have a bit of something to show for our efforts. Here are a couple of new screenshots. Both are work-in-progress. One is from the very, very beginning of the mod. Literally a few seconds in. That's why it's all bright and sunny and docked, and why there aren't any crazy horrible foes lurching about. The second is a short while later, after everything goes a bit wrong and you find yourself clambering aboard that mammoth Neptune Ocean Liner. In other words: the ship's foyer.


"Tra-la-la, off to catch some fish..."


"Crap, this isn't right..."

Our brilliant sound designer Jesse Harlin has, in addition to making noises into a microphone and twiddling knobs to make them sound good, been slaving away on a wonderful website. It's pretty much finished now, and you can go and have a look at www.neptunemod.com! We're still tweaking little bits and bats, so do go easy on us until it's all functioning smoothly and in line with this here page.

Oh, and the captain's written a new entry in his log. I wonder what on Earth he's talking about...

Right. Back to work, then. Let's try figure out where this bloody leak is. Serves us right for setting the game on a delapidated ship, eh?

All the best, chaps. Onwards!

The crew x

Post comment Comments
LongBottom
LongBottom

Why announce a release date of spring if you don't know if you can hit it?
Just let's the fans down.

Wait till your confident you can hit the date, so no one waits till late summer and hears another delay.

A bit more practical you see.

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LewisDenby Author
LewisDenby

The release date was always provisional, and we always made that known. The new one is extremely tentative as well, but announcing a rough timescale gives us a focus to work towards. We hope not to let people down again :)

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Jesternz08
Jesternz08

yeh, at least i personally like to hear even rough release dates, even if they do get delayed, means I have a time to look forward too, as apposed to just waiting without seeing the end.

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RogerRamjet
RogerRamjet

Excellent screenshot. The mapping, lighting and textures look brilliant. And, I agree with Craziestdan, best not to give a release date or season unless you know you only have a little clean up work to do and minor bug fixs. Top update guys...

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8472
8472

Excellent work - but your web-site's navigation doesn't work properly in Opera. Still, summer isn't that much later than spring! :D

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LewisDenby Author
LewisDenby

Will mention this to Jesse and try get it sorted asap. Cheers for the tip-off.

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the_simian
the_simian

I'll check into the Opera thing.
-Jesse

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the_simian
the_simian

Here is a screenshot of Opera view viewng the site:
S5.tinypic.com
it seems to work for me, cna you elaborat eon the problem?

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chris_sloany
chris_sloany

im really glad to hear how ur putting quality above all,nice to know. by the way awesome media!!!!

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ausbushman
ausbushman

Some very convincing mapping there! Excellent work.

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Jesternz08
Jesternz08

lookin good guys, keep up the good work!

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horizonbreakk
horizonbreakk

Im not sure if its something on my end, but I just tried to register on your forums using a gmail account and got this error: "the entered e-mail domain has no valid MX record". This was after using Google Chrome and Firefox. Maybe your site no-likey Gmail?

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LewisDenby Author
LewisDenby

Will check this with Jesse as well, and report back.

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Wilhelm_III
Wilhelm_III

It can't be that, I signed up with gmail.

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the_simian
the_simian

that odd, because I use gmail myself and I'm the admin.

I'll have some known good gmail accounts try to reproduce your problem. I'd try again, as it may have just been 'sunspots' (read: mysterious intermittent problem).

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the_simian
the_simian

problem solved.

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dufake
dufake

Great textures, keep the good job.

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vfn4i83
vfn4i83

Love whta you guys are doing. And cant wait

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Pallorwag
Pallorwag

Feed me more screens like these :D
Looks very rusty, how it should be though.
Keep up the good work.

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