After a routine experiment goes catastrophically wrong, Dr. Gina Cross and Dr. Colette Green must fight to survive the aftermath of the Black Mesa Incident.
Peer Review is a reboot of Half-Life's third and final expansion, Half-Life: Decay. Return to the Black Mesa Research Facility and relive the chaos from the perspectives of Dr. Cross and Dr. Green. With all missions from the original game and fully functional co-op, Peer Review aims to give a fresh take on classic Half-Life that you can enjoy with a friend.
Yo yo yo, and ho ho ho, bros, non-bros and occasional bros! How’s it goes? Hopefully you lovelies have all been great, because holy whoa, have we. We know the longer gaps between updates can leave you in suspense. But rest assured; the back half of this year has been pretty fantastic for Peer Review. So, let’s dive in, yeah?
As of our last update, we had 5 out of 9 of the game’s missions playable*, front-to-back. During the last 6 months we had our work cut out for us with the missions Crossfire and Intensity. Our renditions of both missions are actually quite large in scale, significantly more than we’d have expected. But we kept in gear, trudging in the sludge, and beaming our matrices, and we’re happy to say that both missions join the ranks of playable. That makes a total of 7 out of 9 missions playable front-to-back!
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
We're on the way to Alpha Threeeee
That’s a lot of playability! It’s almost like a full game now. Every mission still has quite a bit of work remaining, but this is still a huge milestone. So huge, in fact, that it means we meet all of our internal criteria to bring us out of the realm of Alpha 2. Please pick up your PSR party poppers and pizza pies, as Peer Review has officially entered Alpha 3! Whoo!
We’re super excited and motivated to see our little brainchild come together. Next up, of course, are the remaining unplayable missions; Dual Access, and Rift. We deliberately left these for last, and, well, I guess last has finally come. With those missions in place, we’ll be on the road to Beta, where all the final polish and art passing comes together. Exciting!
Speaking of art, where are we on art? Where art we? Wherefore art thou not get to the pretty pictures? Well hold your jets and cool your horses, we’ve got that, too.
At the time of our last update, the missions Crossfire and Intensity were getting their gameplay finalized. The art team, not ones to twiddle any of their three thumbs, have been hammering out those levels’ art while the design progressed. Most recently under art-ing is Crossfire. Take a look at how that’s coming together:
And after you’ve crossed through Crossfire, you’ll trudge into the nice labs of Intensity. But, god, look at you, all covered in who-knows-what. Thankfully this happens all the time, and we’ve got just the thing for you.
The back half of the game isn’t getting all the attention, however. Other missions are still getting their looks sorted out. Everything is under control, as evidenced by the Resonance control room!
I hear you, I hear you; “That’s really cool, but I’m a nasty little sewage boy. Bring back the dirt!” Worry not, the New Mexico desert’s got plenty of that filth for you. You and your wheels.
With that we’re all done with the pictures, and in the home stretch of this update. Don’t panic, you’ll hear from us again, soon. But if you’re panicking extra hard and need to hear from us again immediately, we planned for that! You can get in touch with us over in the Peer Review Community Discord Server. Ask us questions, hear about how the game’s going, join in on some dev streams, it’s a good time!
For those of you who not only love us but also possess some skills, we’re always on the hunt look-out for new team members. If you're looking to volunteer for the project, head over to our team member application form and show us what ya got! With the exception of audio and writing-based positions we’ve got space.
And so ends another progress report. We’ve made huge progress this year, and as we head into Alpha 3 we’re extremely excited to see what the next one brings us. We’ll be back later to keep you in the know. See ya soon, yo!
We’ve made it through half of 2023, and all in all Peer Review has been doing pretty darn good throughout. Our levels are inching closer and closer...
We’ve somehow all survived yet another quarter, which means it’s time for you to hear about how great we’re doing!
It’s time for us to come barging into your notes with a quarterly update once again, so we hope that’s alright.
Just wanted to say you're doing God's work remaking this expansion pack. I'm lucky enough to have a buddy who'll play through this whole thing with me when it finally releases some sunny day. Till then, godspeed you magnificent bastards.
Really excited to see how this mod progresses and can't wait to see it pass the finish line hopefully some day soon!
Will Peer Review include Head To Head gamemode from the original PS2 version of the game ?
It's not part of the scope. We're focusing in the main co-op missions, first. But nothing stops modders from making custom levels and gamemodes after Peer Review is released :)
But not all weapons from Half Life are used in the Decay campaign...
Hello, devs.
Please clarify whether Peer Review will include the bonus mission from HL:D called "Xen Attacks" ?
We don't know yet.
Will the remake be released when all the missions are ready?
The project will be released once:
1. All missions are playable from start to finish
2. All missions are fully balance tested
3. All missions are free of game-breaking and/or major bugs
4. All missions have received an art pass
Right now, we are only 7/9 of the way through Step 1. Once Step 1 is fully complete, the rest of the steps will need to be done during Beta phase, which we have not started yet.
Why are you creating mod for Half-Life 2? Why not Black Mesa or Episode Two? (I hope i wrote everything well, my English isn't the best)
Hi, you wrote it pretty well :)
So, why not Black Mesa? Basically, because we want it to be our own game. We're not Crowbar Collective, same way as Tripmine. We are building the game by ourselves, making our own assets and our own code. This way we can provide a fresh experience with a different visual style too. That also works as a portfolio for the whole team :p
Also, Peer Review has its own mechanics, npcs, weapons etc. and making co-op for Black Mesa wouldn't be that easy since they have a modified version of the Source Engine.
About HL2:EP2, both HL2 and EP2 are currently built in Source 2013. Like, both Lost Coast, EP1 and EP2 are technically HL2 mods. But we're not using any of the HL2 assets, so we're most specifically making a Source Mod, not a HL2 mod.
Anyway, I hope that answers :D Feel free to ask and don't be shy, we can always use Google Translator XD
Understood, thanks!