Look, we all want a third installment in Valve’s iconicHalf-Lifeseries. But the sad truth is, it’s almost certainly never going to happen. As such, we’re stuck with the first two (as well as the VR gameAlyx). But that’s a good thing, becauseHalf-Life1 and 2 are exemplary first-person shooters. So loved is the series, that fans continue to tweak and modHalf-LifeandHalf-Life 2to their own ends.
TakeTeam Vestigeover on ModDB (viaPCGamesN), which has taken the legendary sci-fi FPS and turned it into a horror experience. Called “Disrepair,” this mod forHalf-Life 2sees the player slip into the hazard suit of a Combine worker who’s been sent to investigate and photograph the radioactive anomalies that have cropped up around the Black Mesa facility.
What ensues is a short but creepy experience, not too dissimilar to the likes ofSlender: The Eight Pages. The player is tasked with photographing several pieces of artifacts around the infected building, while ominous sounds drill into their ears. It also has a slightSCPvibe about it, in that internet-urban-myth kind of way. You can see YouTube user Farawaygaming diving into “Despair” above.
Take that, Ravenholm!
When you think ofHalf-Life, you probably don’t think of the word “horror.” While the games do have their more unsettling moments (the Ravenholm section inHL2springs to mind), it’s not a franchise known for scares.
That’s why thisHalf-Life 2mod, andothers like it, are so interesting. They take something that has a very distinctive aesthetic about it and turn it into something that’s fairly unsettling. With the tunnel vision-style lighting, black and white graphics, and the eerie tones of this darker side of Black Mesa, Team Vestige is just one of many reasons people keep returning to theHalf-Lifegames after all these years.
