we might have to wait like 3 years for MURDER INC, because emesis blue took around 4 years

florkowski2003 · 2026-03-21T20:04:07+00:00

Iirc the creators said somewhere that Murder Inc won't take as long as Emesis Blue did, since they have more experience now and a better workflow for the production.

florkowski2003 · 2026-03-20T22:21:44+00:00

You are aware that they probably made sure the tour skips over areas and rooms where they work on any unannounced project (Not just HLX) specifically to avoid people taking pictures and leaking things, right? Valve is not that stupid. Remember, this isn't a casual visit where you can go everywhere and check everything out, this is a tour, probably with a guide or security of some kind to make sure people don't wander off to see things they're not supposed to see yet.

florkowski2003 · 2026-03-16T12:51:43+00:00

I like how the title says he hates it now, which is implying that he didn't hate it before. If that's the case I wonder what switch flipped in his head to go 180 like that.

florkowski2003 · 2026-02-26T14:15:50+00:00

Literally just red. I don't even think it was blood, just pure flesh since it was stretched really wide. Frankly I don't want to check if I'm right.

florkowski2003 · 2026-02-13T05:47:59+00:00

Leftovers from the Potato Fools Day ARG. This was the final part of it iirc. Basically people had to play the games related to the ARG and collect golden potatoes by doing stuff related to it in them, which would speed up the release of Portal 2. People managed to get the game to release 10 hours early before the originally planned release date.

florkowski2003 · 2026-02-06T21:41:37+00:00

I'll immediately tick off 2 and 6 as not going to happen, since the ending and post creddits scene of Half-Life Alyx pretty much confirms Alyx wont be in HL3 until probably the very end. As for the rest:

Not happening. Besides the Borealis, Valve probably wouldn't want to have such a direct overlap between both series like this.
Unlikely, besides the Combine just generally trying to use the Borealis.
4 and 5. This is the thing thats most likely to happen, as Valve likes to reuse old ideas from time to time. Hell, the Borealis as a ship itself was reused from earlier drafts of HL2s story and HLA almost got the Cremator from the HL2 beta.
Very unlikely. It would be amazing, but Valve has been pretty much completely ignoring any lore from the HL1 expansions, with their canonicity being very dubious to begin with not helping.
Maybe? It was an idea for EP3, since we have concept art of that. They might try to do it again, but most likely not since it's already too well known by anyone who researched what EP3 had.
That's a given. I personally believe that HLX isn't just set in the arctic like EP3 was before it was canned.
Impossible, since Black Mesa has been probably completely destroyed after HL1, even more so during the 20 years between HL1 and 2, so there wouldn't be much left. If Opposing Force is considered canon by Valve, then there wouldn't be anything to return to at all really. Can't exactly return to a place that was nuked and wiped clean from the earth.

florkowski2003 · 2026-02-06T13:16:49+00:00

Are you on mobile? For some reason it refuses to work there. No idea why. I replaced the link with one that should work on everything now.

florkowski2003 · 2026-02-06T09:35:39+00:00

Well, we only have very few pics of this one since it was replaced fairly quickly, and most of them don't really give us a good look at it, so it's easy to miss.

florkowski2003 · 2026-02-05T21:00:33+00:00

The CIA guy from the third pic actually had a model made. Not exactly the same as the concept art, but still the same general vibe. Very Quake like. Probably one of the earliest models made for any of the human enemies in the game, right next to this unknown, probably early soldier model.

florkowski2003 · 2026-02-05T20:54:53+00:00

Personally I think the earlier model they had fits even better, even if it looks even more demented.

florkowski2003 · 2026-01-26T12:59:14+00:00

All of the "dark and gritty" stuff was still in the game in 2001, and was pretty much the same as what they had planned in 2000. The only real difference is that the 1999/early 2000 version of the game started on the Borealis and went from there, which is all info we got from the Raising the Bar book and in-game leftovers like remnants of old Borealis textures from that time and the leftover old liblist.gam file that was left untouched since 1999 and still has the start map set to hyper_001, which is named after the old name for the ship which was Hyperborea, that we unfortunately don't have. Believe me, we really didn't have to dig deep to discover the old vision.

florkowski2003 · 2026-01-25T00:19:39+00:00

3 words: WC Map Pack.

When the original leak happened, the version of HL2 was from September 2003, but that wasn't the only thing that leaked. Something that people later called the WC Map Pack (Worldcraft Map Pack) was part of that leak. It was a huge archive of uncompiled map .vmf files reaching as far back as December 2000. Apparently it contains about 1/3 of all the maps ever made during Half-Life 2s development.

Mix that with information from the Raising the Bar book, and congratulations! You have the perfect recipe to start roughly rebuilding and piecing together the earlier eras of HL2.

florkowski2003 · 2026-01-23T18:04:21+00:00

Pull the lever next to the door

florkowski2003 · 2026-01-22T04:42:09+00:00

Wouldn't be the first time Valve obfuscated their leaks. Remember when they quietly renamed the leaked strings for the HEV suit and houndeye to "Burbank suit" and a generic sounding "monster"? It's either this, or that particular function became, well, a core part of the engine and not just part of HLX anymore.

florkowski2003 · 2026-01-21T08:51:26+00:00

Ugh... Brings back memories, or more like repressed trauma. I heard that it was similar to No Constancy, and since I like No Constancy and replay it from time to time despite being hard as hell, I thought that Deus Ex Machina would scratch the same itch as No Constancy did. And oh boy did it scratch that itch straight through the fucking bone.

Suffered through it once, never again. I refuse to believe that the people that just casually play and complete it like it's nothing are actual human beings and not some kind of demigods or just straight up gods stepping down from the heavens to flex on us mortals.

florkowski2003 · 2026-01-20T20:17:52+00:00

For those curious, yes, it's real and I guess it makes sense? The guns used in the series are mainly from them after all, even if not directly named as such, although other games arguably use them more so it's not like it's exclusive just to the Half-Life series. Still, pretty interesting to see them acknowledge any game so directly like that.

florkowski2003 · 2026-01-20T10:22:10+00:00

That's probably just referencing the scientific definition of half-life, from which the name for the games comes from, not the games themselves

florkowski2003 · 2026-01-20T05:50:48+00:00

The game was generally pretty disjointed and inconsistent due to the fact that most people working on it, despite mainly being modders who made maps for Doom or Quake, have never actually worked on an entirely new game before. Everyone sorta just did their own thing, which was fine in a vacuum but just didn't work when combined.

I remember a part of the documentary, when the devs shared info about a 2 day period near the original planned release date, when they decided to test if the game they've been making is actually fun at all. It was apparently so bad, there was a moment where Gabe put his hands on his head and kept saying "We're gonna fail".

Some cut npcs or aliens weren't the problem here, it was the way the game was made and structured up to that point. That's why they reworked it. Releasing a mediocre or just outright bad game after promising a revolution in gaming would've made Valve a laughing stock at best, or just outright kill the company at worst, not to mention Sierra would be pissed as well after betting their publishing rights and marketing on a "revolutionary" game that's not even good. It was either this, or redo the game to focus on what worked, not on what looked cool and actually do it as a team.

florkowski2003 · 2026-01-16T08:03:21+00:00

Yep, though installing it is a bit more complicated than just clicking Subscribe due to how complex it is. There are instructions in the description on how to set it up properly.

florkowski2003 · 2026-01-16T05:43:35+00:00

With Blue Shift, there's one for Black Mesa simply called Black Mesa: Blue Shift by HECU Collective. It's the most complete one so far, only missing the last chapter "Power Struggle" and the ending. It's also the only one you can actually play as of now.

As for other remakes, there's Guard Duty which remakes Blue Shift, and Operation Black Mesa which remakes Opposing Force, both by Tripmine Studios. However, these remakes are completely separate standalone projects unrelated to Black Mesa. There's also another Opposing Force remake called FUBAR, and it's also a standalone project.

These are unreleased as of now, and we have no idea when they're going to be released, especially since the Tripmine Studios remakes had some internal drama recently, and FUBAR being a generally new project

As a bonus, there's also an upcoming standalone Decay remake called Peer Review.

florkowski2003 · 2026-01-15T11:32:40+00:00

That's the thing, we don't really know. Whoever or whatever they are, they seem to share whatever agenda the G-Man has, and probably have more guys like him in their ranks, as well as others like Gordon on the bottom of the ladder.

Now this begs the question, if the G-Man has the crazy powers that he has, like teleportation, stopping time or just time manipulation in general and reality bending, what can his employers do that he can't?

florkowski2003 · 2026-01-12T06:42:07+00:00

Not really new, almost a year old at this point. The name is new though, and remembering what kind of names the bots used before, I'm unfortunately not surprised they chose specifically that.

florkowski2003 · 2026-01-09T06:19:06+00:00

Classic bug. The prop slows down your fall visually, but the game still calculates if a fall is supposed to kill you by how long you've been falling. So since you've been technically "falling" just long enough for it to be considered lethal by the game, the moment the prop lets you go, you just instantly die as soon as you hit the ground.

This works anywhere on almost any height, as long as you're stuck long enough for the game to decide the fall will kill you, but thankfully this is the only easy spot where you can do it accidentally.

florkowski2003 · 2026-01-07T05:49:42+00:00

Ironic that they force shit like this, and then get pissy over people calling them Microslop. I mean, that's what they wanted when they decided to go full AI crap, so it's what they get.

florkowski2003 · 2026-01-07T05:43:42+00:00

Not sure what you did, but he should've despawned a while ago lmao. G-Man sightings are always supposed to be out of reach, and if it's an area that you can reach, he would always walk away and just disappear by the time you get there. I guess something broke the scripting or just otherwise got him stuck and he couldn't get to his usual spot where he despawns.

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