Half-Life: Through The City mod

Hey there, it’s Kajlo again!

Let's start at the beginning... what has been done in 2023 since the last article? Well... not much to be honest, 2023 has certainly been a very exhausting year for the development of this mod, the change in art direction from something inspired by early 2007 mods to a detailed, more modern approach was a very radical change, which is also worth mentioning learning to design more extensive gameplay of the maps, which is a difficult challenge to overcome.

The Awoken Remaster

I originally planned to release this as "The Awoken Remaster" in late 2023 (hey, I almost got it again), but I still didn't like the gameplay and, as I mentioned in a previous article, I thought the chapter needed a completely different direction and new maps.

I was already quite overwhelmed and exhausted by the amount of work I had to do on the remaster, but that was just the beginning, the hardest part was yet to come. I spent the rest of 2023 creating ideas for how the chapter would go. Some of these ideas were already considered during the creation of the remaster.

Scrapping existing work and starting over is a very hard and risky decision to make, this is practically the 7th time I've done this. The Awoken Demo was decent in many places, but there were still a lot of issues to consider so I’m making this change one last time... as it started to affect me pretty badly. A lot of people helped me through those tough times and I’m thankful for that, if not them I’m not sure if I would be still going.

Industrial Warehouse - February 2024

I got back into development around February this year. The beginning was very, very difficult, especially at this point I hadn't touched a Hammer in months, so I had to warm up too.

This was the first map progress for “Industrial Warehouse”, it definitely looked rough compared to what was shown in the previous article but I would be working on the map for the next 5 months experimenting and learning new techniques to further improve visuals.

Industrial Warehouse – Present Day

This is basically where the mod starts now - Shephard crashes with his Osprey in the ruined industrial building in City 17, which has been overrun by rebels after certain events that took place in the story of HL2. This map does not offer much gameplay, but it has a similar purpose to the map from The Awoken Demo, it is intended to be Adrian Shephard's introduction to the world occupied by the Combine.

Shephard first enters a building completely destroyed by combine canisters and overrun by Headcrabs, this area you will teach you new gameplay mechanics that have not been implemented in the mod yet.

Next up is the destroyed warehouse that was showcased earlier. This is supposed to be a big reveal for Shephard of the Citadel and occupied Earth. You will also notice that the Combine Forces has been deployed to search for the Osprey crash

As you progress, you'll see more populated areas of the Industrial Area and see how Citizens and the Combine work on a daily basis, while checking out suspects following Shephard's arrival. You'll see how much of an impact Shephard has already made since he appeared.

This map uses a custom skybox texture that I created and I plan to make more in the future to give the maps a diverse, unique atmosphere.

Crashed Osprey

So you keep hearing me talking about the Osprey crashing, let's get to it. As you know, initially you were starting the mod with Shephard waking up in a small room, sitting on a chair, which made no sense to many people, especially since it was located randomly in the middle of a train station. The room with chair will still be in mod, but it has been repurposed to a different story segment.

So, my writer suggested “Maybe Adrian wakes up in a crashed Osprey. As if the G-Man teleported the whole thing into City 17 and let it crash.” it was an idea suggested in early 2023 but it never made post conceptual stages... until now

I thought this idea had potential, having Osprey crash in City 17 is a great way to transition Player and Shephard from the ending of Opposed Force to Half-Life 2. I needed a custom Osprey model, so I asked AlphaGarg for permission to use their HL1 inspired Osprey model for Arma 3 mod and they allowed me to use it.

But even with the ready model, I still had to modify some elements to make it look like a crashed wreck, such as visible cracks in the windows or torn off wings. Extra work had to be done.

G-man crashes the Osprey to get the Combine's attention, but it also gives Shephard enough time to get away from them safely and help start the uprising. I'm proud of how this scene turned out and I can't wait to create more crazy set pieces like this in the future

Canals Undergrounds – W.I.P

This was another map I've been working on in the meantime, and while it's not necessarily finished, there are a few screenshots to show here. The sewers will make up almost the majority of Chapter 2, with Shephard meeting up with the rebel crew while being chased by the metro cops who spotted him earlier. There isn't much to see yet as these maps aren't the main focus at the moment

However, there will be various models of Xen plants in the mod, which are not finished yet. I will make them for Raising The Bar: Retail, which is another project I'm working on, I have permission from Tedisaur to include them in Through The City as well. I hope they will make the canals look even more unique.

Artwork done by Soomlarr

Speaking of Models...

I heard some complaints about the Pipe Wrench model, so I recently got an amazing artist for the project. Khult being the second ever 3D Artist for the mod to make models for Through The City, they remade Pipe Wrench into something more refined. They are also the ones who created the custom texture for the Osprey

Some new Music!

Asoforic was making some more music for Through The City and chose a slightly different style for the mod. Going less with just being Opposing Force inspired and more unique and distinct for this mod.

Ashes is a track that is already in the mod, it plays when you enter the warehouse and reflects how much the world has changed in the 20 years that Shephard has been gone

Anti-Civil Activity and Condemned Zone are the theme tracks for the Metrocops and their desperate chase for Adrian Shephard. I plan to make Civil Protection fight more aggressively and be more threatening compared to what you would expect in retail Half-Life 2. Considering the Mod runs on Mapbase now, there are many features that allow you to expand Metrocops behavior and their arsenal.

What’s next? - Another Milestone

The next step I plan to focus on is adding custom unique features to the mod's gameplay, which means I need:

• Dedicaded Coder: Who can code custom weapons such as the Pipe Wrench or Desert Eagle, or any other custom gameplay features to make the gameplay more unique. There is already one programmer on the team, but he is unable to work alone, so help is needed.
• Weapon Animator: I know in the previous article there were custom animations I made, but I'm not an expert in weapon animations in particular + I'm already very busy with level design and a lot of other miscellaneous things, so help is also needed.
• Hard Surface Modeller: Khult already does an amazing job with models, but I don't expect him to do all the work himself, so anyone who knows about creating hard surface weapon models is still welcome to join the development team.

Internal playtesting of the first map for the mod was done, these are the critical features that needs to be done for the first round of public playtesting that is planned to be somewhere at the end of summer, don’t worry there is not a lot of them.

After completing the first public playtests, we are reaching another milestone. I would like to remind you that this and previous articles were covering huge milestones for the mod, so we are actively working on it! If you decide to help with development, DM me on Discord “kajlokylo” or join the Through The City Public Discord server

That’s all for now, see you later!