A lot of things can change during the development of a game. Half-Life is rich with lore, and because of this, things have constantly changed during the series development.

Last week we saw the release of a teaser trailer for a live action fan film, ‘Left 4 Dead – The Movie‘.

Initially created by a small filmmaking company known as Mexican Standoff in 2009, the production has been underway for over five years and is almost coming to completion.

We caught up with the film’s director, Daniele Bellucci to ask him some questions about the movie.

In November 2009, a small filmmaking production studio called Mexican Standoff started working on a non-profit fan film based on Valve’s hit zombie shooter Left 4 Dead.

A trailer for the upcoming film, simply entitled ‘Left 4 Dead – The Movie‘ was just uploaded to YouTube and has already gained some traction, check it out:

This is an editorial by Lilgreenman which analyses the recent development of the “We Want Half-Life 3” fan campaign from a retrospective standpoint. All views expressed in this article are his own.

An animator known as Tim Hijlkema recently uploaded an amazing short film that reimagines scenes from a list of 15 popular video games, including Half-Life, Left 4 Dead and even spin-off Source mod The Stanley Parable.

“One 4 Nine” is a community created Left 4 Dead campaign made by Kevin “keved” Edwards.

It was originally released for Left 4 Dead in 2010, however it received a significant update in July this year. Since One 4 Nine’s initial release, it has been subject to critical acclaim, receiving a hefty 9.6/10 on ModDB and being elected as a “Featured Campaign” by Valve for it’s outstanding quality.

Many of us will have played through most of Valve’s titles and enjoyed them. When we’re wrapped up in the action or the story however, the rules of the game we’re playing are almost invisible to us.

As a level designer it often pays to take a step back and look at the purpose of the content of a level. Why things are placed where they are, what do they add to the gameplay and what can we learn from them.

My name is Jim Partridge and I’m a modder primarily for Half-Life 2. My previous work includes Half-Life 2: Deep Down, Half-Life 2: Daylight and numerous PlanetPhillip competition entries. I decided to join LambdaGeneration this year as a contributor for the site’s Modding & Development section. My primary interest is in level design with a focus on gameplay, I’m a gameplay nerd in fact… Join me in my nerdiness!

Update 11th August: Thanks to everyone who emailed in!

If anyone is still interested, we are still looking for contributors to cover the following specific topics:

• Garry’s Mod – Modding news, playthoughs, gamemode/map reviews, comics! etc.
• Portal Series – Modding news, mod/map reviews, community creativity eg.fan-films, artwork etc.
• Left4Dead Series – Official news, modding news, map reviews, community creativity eg.fan-films
• DOTA 2 – Official news, events coverage, community projects

We are also appealing to anyone who is interested in producing video content, such as playthroughs, mod/map/gamemode reviews and video tutorials.

Also, if you are someone who is interested in producing very occasional articles for the site, we are always interested in publishing ‘guest articles’ as opposed to dedicating yourself as a contributor.

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?