The merciless and strange Halfquake mod trilogy returns on Steam

The newest Half-Life mod to resurface, repacked and polished on Steam is Halfquake Trilogy. This was masocore nicely earlier than I Wanna Be The Guy made it a style. Halfquake is a trilogy of surreal and merciless puzzle-centric mods by Philipp “Muddasheep” Lehner they usually’re a number of the most fascinating maps produced for the unique Half-Life. Featuring  hanging, summary environments, genuinely intelligent puzzles, some very silly ones and sufficient deathtraps to put on the ink off your quicksave key. They’re price taking part in, if simply to check the water and your tolerance for ache.

Probably the perfect dissection of Halfquake comes from Noah Caldwell-Gervais and his deep dive into Half-Life’s mods. Halfquake is three more and more merciless adventures, and a problem to rise to as a result of it’s there. While some comparisons could be drawn to Portal in its sarcastic all-seeing ‘observer’ character placing you thru this hell, the tone is extra cynical and – as Noah Caldwell-Gervais defines it – “dark, nihilistic and full of a kind of teenage ennui”. You’ll need to climate some slings and arrows to take pleasure in Halfquake, however there’s numerous satisfaction in overcoming its puzzles.

While the unique Halfquake is – because the title suggests – midway between Half-Life and Quake in its aesthetic, the latter two thirds of the mod are much more visually fascinating. Stark monochrome environments, darkish and summary. Lots of darkish rooms with solely faint white traces to offer outlines, the incomprehensible void and some journeys into nearly eye-searing white-space, simply to combine issues up. The barely crackly outdated beginner voice appearing doesn’t maintain up in addition to the remainder of Halfquake, however the visuals and music (a prolonged all-new soundtrack) maintain up nicely.

Halfquake isn’t the one basic Half-Life mod to see a Steam re-release. Probably probably the most notable is Sven Co-op, a totally standalone launch (no unique game wanted) together with a co-op adaptation of the unique marketing campaign plus dozens extra ranges. Better nonetheless, it’s persistently nicely populated – not unhealthy for a virtually 20-year-old mod, eh?

You can discover Halfquake Trilogy on Steam here. You’ll want Half-Life (the original) in your Steam account to play it, however is in any other case totally standalone.