Half-Life: Dark Matter mod

Kept you waiting huh..?

Yeah... sorry about that, for a long time I had wanted to bring you a proper update but it was a long way down to the content generator room and there were... things in the way. What things you ask? Well...

First it was studying full time during the pandemic, meaning I had to focus most of my time on assignment work. Then of course came the fateful admission to hospital multiple times after the end of my first year due to a failure of a heart valve, something which required surgical intervention. The situation was so serious I felt I had no choice but to explain it to everyone so you would all understand that development would take a hit. Despite the upheaval, I still managed to bring small updates every now and again, and successfully completed my diploma a year later.

After taking a break for a while to try to get back to focusing on the mod and looking for work, I suddenly received a slot for my operation in early 2023, due to another patient cancellation. Despite me being far from ready, I accepted the appointment, and braced myself for the major operation ahead.

Thankfully everything went well, apart from a few complications that required more hospital time, the valve was replaced successfully and the danger was largely averted. I decided to put the project on hold during my recovery time so I could fully concentrate on getting better, as well as focus on other aspects of my life too. Unfortunately post-surgical depression hit very hard after a while and I was put on anti-depressants for the first time in my life. Physical health was good, mental health not so much. Eventually I pulled myself back upwards, and finally by the end of 2023, I decided the time was right to resume development once again.

As many of you know, I do most of the work on the mod and other friends and acquaintances have helped to fill in the bits which I can't do myself such as modelling, coding, music etc. Unfortunately some of those helpers left development over the course of the pandemic and my own upheaval for personal reasons owing to their jobs and such. Programming ceased completely as a result which meant the code base was frozen for some time, worse, the original source code was lost due to data failure. Thankfully now, another friend has taken over the code and the lost content has been rebuilt entirely with several new additions since, which is fully backed up on GitHub.

So yeah, been a bit of a rocky development period to say the least!

But enough of the past, you're here to learn more about the present and the future of the game right? Well then...

Upon restarting development, I returned to where Kovac's adventure begins, the first chapter of the campaign.

The beginning, which takes place in Sector G, has been through a few iterations over time. I built the first part of it back in 2022, but it wasn't until this year that I finally started to actually construct the rest of it. In the past Kovac was going to be held in a storage facility inside a shipping container and would escape after the doors were blasted open due to a grenade detonation during a fire fight between HECU and aliens. I felt that was dropping you in the action too quickly, so to counter that I had a vent that you crawled through collapse, so you fell down into a sewer below. I still wasn't happy with that idea, so after some brainstorming, it hit me that part of Sector G was the Drainage Canals, so the idea came into fruition that Kovac would start right at rock bottom, literally.

After being captured and tortured by HECU forces some time after "Friendly Fire", he would be shot at close range and dropped into the bottom of a silo pit. This location leads into a sewage system and said Drainage Canals, and from there he makes his way back to the storage area where he was first held, in order to find the thermal goggles and a working com link so he can inform Command that his part in the mission continues. As the player, you'll start the game with low health, and no armour, and you'll need to use the standard flashlight until you can procure the more advanced equipment you're used to.

Here you can see some shots from the first map of Chapter One: "New Orders".

I've always enjoyed the "Blast Pit" aesthetic and so I've coupled that with the "Duty Calls" style, sticking largely with that texture set and similar lighting to make it feel like it's part of the same location.

Another chapter I'd been having problems with is "Paradigm Shift" set in the Lambda Complex. I had been trying to make a layout for the new areas vs the old areas so they would fit together nicely (Lambda Coolant system and core levels A to D fit inside the grid space of one map). I threw the old layout out and worked on a new one and now I'm much happier with it, still some work to be done but it's finally getting there.

You can see some newer screenshots from Level C and B as well as the eastern section of the sewer network beneath Central Command & Communications.

I had wanted to bring you media from the other two chapters of the first part of the game called Phase One (see the release information below), but they're not ready yet, so I'll stick those up in the new year.

As mentioned above, code has been frozen since 2021 and I'd been using the old base for everything till this year. The code base has been rebuilt and we now have some new features to show you! Thanks to Shepard62FR who used to work on Arrangement in the past when it was still a thing. His recent works includes Half-Rats: Parasomnia, Half-Rats: Redridge as well as various contributions to certain projects like TimeWarp.

First of all, we've finalised the thermal vision mode.

What was originally rather hard on the eyes has now been reworked so you can see things much more clearly. The visuals are inspired by Metal Gear Solid and Aliens Vs Predator 2, so the enemies are highlighted in bright red, until killed at which point they lose their glow. The view weapon remains unaffected so as not to distract the player from seeing the threats in front of them clearly in the darkness. The battery drains at the same rate as the flashlight and Opposing Force's night vision, and also flashes when the charge is below 20%, so you know when to switch it off.

Secondly, we've added a new "intelligence" feature into the game.

The idea behind this is that due to Kovac working for a special unit that is under the control of an intelligence agency, part of his job is to gather important information that may be relevant to the mission at hand. Certain paper documents and computer laptops will show an intelligence icon (i) when the player is in their vicinity. By pressing the use key, a VGUI display pops up showing you the contents of the physical or online document. Most are typically memos from Black Mesa's "support personnel division" and the Administrator's office, as seen in promotional letters in the manual for Half-Life and expansions. Sometimes you'll find things like item manifests and highly sensitive information about weapons technology etc. You may even find ways to open certain areas that would otherwise be closed off.

Intelligence offers a way to link up with existing lore documentation such as Colette's analysis of specimen GG-3883, as well as expanding on it. The best thing about this is that it's entirely optional. You can play through the campaign without reading a single word if you don't want to, which is perfect for second playthroughs if you just want to Run. Think. Shoot. Live, and leave the reading for books (!)

Half-Life: Dark Matter - Game Features Demo - ModDB

MASSIVE shoutout to Westeh for editing this footage into an extremely cool video, many thanks buddy! 🙏

I had wanted to bring you a short gameplay segment, but again I needed more time to get that together. As I said originally, it's better to wait on that until it's in a more polished state, rather than rushing it, so it looks rough and flat. Soon™ hopefully...

One thing you'll notice in the models from here on is that they're in the LD (low definition) style, when before they were more oriented towards HD (high definition) look. This is because there has been a switch to focus on the LD style over the HD one going forward. There are obviously several HD variants of existing NPCs missing from the High Definition Pack, so not only will we have to produce all new models for the many new things that will appear in the game, but also fill in those missing gaps as well. It is much easier to create the new LD models to complement the existing ones, plus LD style is generally much more favoured in the community. We'll deal with the HD stuff later when the time comes.

In addition to Shepard joining the team, we'd also like to welcome Dakashi of Half-Life: Extended fame! He's been hard at work on various models from props to weapons and NPCs.

Here you can see the first new melee weapon that you will find in the game; the Fire Axe.

The axe functions more or less the same as the pipe wrench, there's a primary quick swing and a secondary charged shot as well, though the axe is more powerful due to being bigger and having a sharp blade. The weapon isn't quite game ready yet, but it is being animated and should soon be finalised in the code, so look out for a demonstration in the next update!

Not pictured due to being previously shown way back in 2019, is Kovac's new knife; the M9 Bayonet (see here). Unlike Opposing Force's knife which is rather useless, the M9 has a three tier functionality; You can slash things with it as normal by consistently pressing the primary fire, holding down primary fire charges the weapon into a stabbing attack which will instantly kill any humans if you hit them from behind. This makes it ideal for stealth runs against grunts. Lastly, the secondary fire will allow you to throw the knife as a projectile, when thrown at a surface it will stick into it, allowing you to pick it up again (provided you haven't thrown it out of reach). When thrown at an enemy, the knife will then disappear due to the limitations of the feature whereby having a knife stick into an enemy would be impossible without coding in multiple model variants for every relevant NPC. It's a video game anyhow, not real life. Again, work to make it function properly in game is ongoing, so look for that in the future as well.

On the NPC roster- You've been waiting for them for a long time, on many occasions have I been asked "Black Ops zombie when???" I'm now happy to introduce you to Mr Male Assassin zombie himself!

This variant of the headcrab zombie is much much faster than your average mutated scientist, barney or soldier. They move at twice the speed of the latter, so you better keep moving if you value your brain being intact!

Your fellow Black Operators have a slightly new look from before.

The male assassins now sport a com link on the side of the head the same as the female version for consistency and to make the whole idea of the real time radio feature make sense in the game. They also carry shotguns as well as the usual MP5 and M40A1 rifle. Other little details have been added such as removing the straps from the heads without thermal vision goggles on, cylindrical grenades and greatly improved UV mapping. The female assassins are largely unchanged from the Opposing Force version, apart from a little UV fix and the same maskless version sans straps.

Kovac's item pickups are now present in the game.

Armoured vests and kneepads making up 75/25% of your total protection respectively. Once the thermal goggles and com link are procured, the flashlight is overridden with the new vision mode and real time radio functionality is activated.

Kovac now has finalised weapon view model arms.

The original ones were a placeholder that took a long time to be replaced, although you only saw them on a few pieces of media. Now they're much more improved, looking like a full HD remake of the Male Assassin's NPC arms, you really feel like you're playing the part of a Black operator.

Finally, the Opposing Force grunts have even had a little makeover thanks to Suparsonik.

Aside from some head modifications in much the same way as the HD ones shown a while ago, they have had some UV and bug fixes and have never looked better! We've also modified the engineer and medic grunts for more variation, now featured in the game as well!

As with chapters and code features, there are many more models to show off to you in time!

As always, the biggest question on every mod fan's mind is always the inevitable "when do I get to play this?"

The answer is; probably a lot sooner than you realise. Now don't get too excited, the release date is still not set in stone and remains at "-/-/202-", but rather than delivering the whole game in one chunk, the release is now going to be split into three segments; Phase One, Two and Three. Phase One will comprise of the training facility and chapters 0 (intro) - 4, Two will contain 5-8, and Phase Three is made up of 9-12 and the outro. This allows us to not only concentrate on a set number of chapters as a priority, it means you all get to play the game quicker and thus can provide valuable feedback which will help us to make any changes and improvements needed going forward. There will of course be internal alpha and beta testing, as well as closed testing with a certain number of participants to ensure the experience is smooth and bug free.

The full titles for the Phase One chapters are:

0 - 'Drop Zone'
1 - 'New Orders'
2 - 'Escalating Circumstances'
3 - 'Broken Arrow'
4 - 'Paradigm Shift'

Although we are still working on aspects of Phase Two and Three, these are minimal and focus is mostly on Phase One. Everything shown in this media update is from the first phase, you will only see Phase One media until the release time, after which the revealing of Phase Two content will begin. Areas from non-Phase One chapters from previous media are highly likely to be altered or changed completely. I'm leaving everything up as developmental history, but you should consider older content mostly to be deprecated media.

The plan is also to eventually have the game on Steam, which will make it far more accessible to people. It would be nice to have that sorted before the completion of Phase One so we can do an early access release for each segment until the whole campaign is complete, however it is more likely that those will be released on ModDB and other places to start with and then the final completed product will appear on Steam.

So there you have it folks, Half-Life: Dark Matter's production has been very up and down at times, but I'm happy to say that the project is very much back on track and very cool things are happening! If you like what you see, then spread the word! You will find updates outside of ModDB in various social media form:

X (Twitter)
Bluesky
(youtube coming soon)

You can also follow us on the LambdaGeneration Community platform for site exclusive posts every now and again! If you're a Half-Life fan who enjoys looking at news and artwork from the games and other Valve titles like Portal and TF2, it is the place for you to be!

LambdaGeneration Community Profile

Last of all, you can join our Discord server for announcements and small media drops every now and again. Click the button below to join us:

The mission to bring you Kovac's journey continues once again. If you're impressed with all this, you ain't seen nothing yet!

Alas in the present, here ends the transmission.

For now, this is Command signing off...

Until next time 👍

-D3ads-