Half-life: Retrograde
Mod for Half-Life (1998) | Category: Total Conversion
Author: JPE | Curator: Modbadger
Mod for Half-Life (1998) | Category: Total Conversion
Author: JPE | Curator: Modbadger
Half-Life: Retrograde is a mod for Half-Life set parallel to the events of the original game. You play as a maintenance technician who is tasked today with restarting a decommissioned generator to provide the Lambda team with the necessary power for their next experiment.
Black Mesa in Retrograde should feel like a huge research complex where the player can sense its full scale. Therefore, you won't be rushed: you'll be gradually introduced to new mechanics and shown new monsters in advance that you'll later have to fight, but without direct confrontation. This will create a moment of pleasant anticipation and allow tension to build smoothly before everything finally goes awry and turns into chaos.
The author has supplemented the standard tram ride with large-scale cutscenes. Among them is a moment where the player witnesses a train crash, and then an episode where they ride the tram again and collapse into the very area they saw during the first ride.
A smoother and more engaging transition to the Xen world. Playing the original game, the author noticed how abrupt the sudden transition to Xen can seem, so they tried to make the transition gradual, where the player still has full control over their movement during teleportation. The author also slightly changed the scenery of this world.
The puzzles in the game are adapted to your character's role. You're an engineer, not a security guard with access to all doors, so instead of the classic "find a keycard" approach, there will be things like fuses, batteries, circuit breakers, corresponding to your character's technical skills.
In Retrograde, the author wants you to truly be an engineer, not a superhuman who has undergone extensive military training. You'll find yourself in the role of a person who accidentally borrowed a protective suit and found themselves in a situation where they must fight for their life. Consequently, ammunition will be limited, and recoil and spread increased; moreover, a barrel overheating system will be introduced for some types of weapons to encourage you to shoot more thoughtfully in bursts. But in return, there will be more alternative firing modes.
This is definitely a very promising mod, whose development in 2025 is progressing very quickly, but the author doesn't name a release date.
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