Way back in June of 2005, a mere 7 months after the long-awaited release of Half-Life 2, Daniel Squire released his first ever mod: Life’s End, a 35-map Half-Life 1 modification (more of a mappack episode than a total conversion, though), in which the player took on the role of Luther Johnson, your average Black Mesa scientist caught in the middle of the Black Mesa Incident, who happens to stumble onto a Mark IV HEV suit (and if you took HL1 mods’ word for it, HEV suits are just about the easiest thing to find in Black Mesa) and thus becomes a part of the subsequent inter-dimensional conflict.

Nearly a decade later, it’s become a cult classic of Half-Life 1 modding, having garnered an aggregate rating of 4.77 out of 5 on PlanetPhillip. A sequel titled Time’s End (picking up where Life’s End left off, but with a brand new janitor protagonist) has been in the works for at least 3 years, but development has been fairly quiet, and the project has undergone a couple of delays. But now, it seems like it’s coming together very well for its upcoming release, early next year. Check out the trailer, after the jump!