A little over four years ago, we wrote an article to announce that version 2.0 of a little community-made ‘mod’ going by the name ‘Half Life 2: Update‘ had been released in response to Valve’s infamous 2010 Mac update that brought a weak implementation of HDR (High Dynamic Range) to Half Life 2 and an insane number of crippling bugs.

Half Life 2: Update fixed many of those bugs – unofficially – and enhanced many of the HDR effects in the vanilla game and just today, the lead developer Filip Victor has announced that the third and final iteration will be released for free on Steam this Friday, March 27th.

Many Source mods, new and old, have been taking advantage of Steam Greenlight as of late. From Aperture Tag, to Portal Stories: Mel, to Estranged, and many others to boot! Some authors may be coming under fire for deciding to release their projects on Steam with a price tag. However most want to utilize the Steam service for its advantages in reaching a wider audience, easy installation and regular updates at no cost to the user. The newest one to add to the latter’s list is 2009 classic Joutomaa, by Sauli “Mephasto” Saarimaa.

In a recent post on the Black Mesa forums, developer Chon “TEXTFAMGUY1” Kemp has posted a couple of screenshots of the maps Gasworks and Stalkyard from the game’s yet to be released multiplayer component.

So it’s been a little too long since our last instalment of In Development. Let’s rectify that, shall we?

Many moons ago, you might remember an article we posted about how Valve had given the Black Mesa team (now known as the Crowbar Collective) the opportunity to sell their mod as a full retail product. Despite announcing that a Source SDK 2013 version of Black Mesa would also be available for free, the announcement was met with mixed criticism. There was an overwhelming amount of support for the team, but there were a number of people who were concerned with what ‘ethical’ implications this choice to go retail might have. Should community made content that has always been available for free suddenly be given the chance to be monetized?

In case you’ve never heard of it, Opposing Force 2 is a mod that serves as a fan made sequel to the very well received Half-Life expansion, Half-Life: Opposing Force (if that weren’t obvious enough). After several years of development, people have gone through a number of phases where they ask “is this mod dead?” Only to be quelled by the developers themselves who regularly reply to posts on their ModDb page – no one ever seems to read the comments, do they? Unfortunately, the team is no longer able to work regularly on the mod, due to another project that has taken up much of their spare time. But before the internet trolls take to ModDb and other forums, they should know that Opposing Force 2 is in fact far from dead. The team still wants it to see the light of day, so they are commissioning help from the community!

You ever notice how just as the community starts to drop down into the dumps, something comes completely out of left field and gives us something to talk about again? Funny how that happens with Valve…

Well, the holidays are finally over! It’s a new year and it’s about time to get back to reporting news…from last month. Better late than never I suppose. – You may remember a mod announced a couple years back called City 17: Episode One. If you don’t, feel free to check out their ModDB page. Since you’re clearly a mole person who’s been living under a rock. The developers strove to make a number of enhancements to the Source engine to offer a more visually enticing experience to compliment the mod’s atmosphere and nicely crafted gameplay.

Update: According to Deniz Sezen on the Black Mesa forums, the rumors about Black Mesa being ported to Source 2 are false: “Just to dispel a large rumor (and I know I’ll be viewed as the grinch that stole christmas): We are NOT on Source 2. It wouldn’t make sense for a company to license tech they haven’t proven yet with a released title to a mod team. Our [visual] however, WILL be improved. Don’t get me wrong though, we’d love a Source 2 license but our fans would be waiting another 9 years if we had to port again.”

Can’t say I didn’t warn ya.

Since I am sure many of you will have mixed feelings about the news mentioned in the title, I just want to make it clear right out of the gate that an updated Black Mesa will still be available for free and will be supported!!! Now, onto the details…