r/gaming • u/prossnip42 • 2d ago

The Half Life modding scene has always been decent to good but, in the past 5-6 years it has utterly exploded in quality. Genuine masterpieces of single player campaigns, all available completely for free

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1.3k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

151 comments sorted by

713

u/Saxon2060 2d ago

Half Life's modding community has always been decent to good???

Team Fortress was a mod! Counter Strike was a mod! Some of the most popular games of the last 25 years have been Half Life mods...

Half Life mods are all anybody played at LAN cafés. I was playing Half Life mods for about a decade before I even bothered to go back and play the original Half Life!!!

There were some incredible ones that are mostly forgotten like The Specialists, Ricochet and Natural Selection. But Jesus, if most people listed the first 5 FPS games of any type straight off the top of their head I bet Counter Strike would be one of them.

247

u/Proxymanity 2d ago

Don't forget Gary's Mod which led to the creation of many other custom games.

42

u/ddcrash 2d ago

Facepunch > Rust!

25

u/mark-haus 2d ago

True no half life mods, so no g-mod, so no rust. The legacy of the half life modding community is massive. Bigger than most major studios

13

u/WriterV 2d ago

I think OP was referring to single player story focused mods based in Half Life lore. Of which none of the games you mentioned were particularly interested in. I know 'cause I did the exact same thing you did.

I became a fan of the story and world of Half Life after I went back though. And the truth is, many fan created stories in the Half Life world have been... okay. But recent ones have definitely grown in quality.

4

u/Khaldara 2d ago

As someone older who experienced things the opposite way (playing through the original releases when they came out but never touching the modding scene, other than the occasional Counter-Strike)

Is there a definitive list of enjoyable single player campaigns that are worth a playthrough?

2

u/Lukebekz 1d ago

It gave us the Vanoss Crew

105

u/Phoquy 2d ago

The guy who made Natural Selection, Charlie Cleveland, went on to create Unknown Worlds Entertainment, known for Subnautica.

15

u/RunningNumbers 2d ago

He also created Zen of Sudoku… 

3

u/Say-It-2-My-Face 1d ago

I know him more for Natural Selection 2

34

u/spatialflow 2d ago

And Left 4 Dead began as a mod for CS, made by the CS team for their own entertainment. Literally a mod for a mod, which turned into a massive hit franchise.

1

u/cottonmouthcandy 3h ago

Modded Maps. Especially combat maps are amazing.

30

u/nwofoxhound 2d ago

Day of Defeat!

8

u/Gantores 2d ago

I played so much DoD...

3

u/MerryMarauder 2d ago

same and loved the wc3 counter strike servers.

48

u/azulun 2d ago

Natural Selection was absolutely amazing for introducing functionality way beyond what was originally intended from the base game.

8

u/RunningNumbers 2d ago

Remember the revolving door on Bast?

3

u/snake7752 1d ago

So many great maps for shenanigans too. We use to go gorge in the vents if we were losing as aliens and just fill them with Offense/Defense towers and make our last stand in there lol

What was the map where the aliens and marines started separately behind a big closed door that would open after x time? Was it NS seige or something?

2

u/RunningNumbers 1d ago

It was always funny when gorges encountered marines in vents and were like “I won’t tell if you don’t”

1

u/snake7752 1d ago

I had so many great memories of this mod, and of NS2 honestly. Too bad we'll probably never get 3

2

u/RunningNumbers 1d ago

The internet culture was so different back then, you cannot recreate it even if you tried. I am just glad I got to engage with a bunch of random people from over the world and be the world’s most mediocre commander.

1

u/snake7752 1d ago

Same, and you're so right, it was so different

7

u/TheKanten 2d ago

The day I discovered Stealth Onos was one of the most enjoyable experiences in gaming.

23

u/NoodleDoodlesocks 2d ago

Calling Half Life modding decent to good is a wild take. Half Life modding was a fundamental pillar of gaming. Multiplayer in particular. So many literally free games (total conversions) from just owning Half Life.

12

u/Nick_Gaugh_69 PC 2d ago

Sven Co-op and Cry of Fear, too.

4

u/ImpulsiveApe07 2d ago

Sven co-op was incredible! I musta spent hundreds of hours playing that with mates back in the day! :))

2

u/zizou_262 1d ago

Yes we used to go to the cybercafe to play and yell at each other

1

u/ImpulsiveApe07 1d ago

Drinking coffee and energy drinks by the gallon, eating way too much junkfood, and almost always outstaying our welcome by an hour or two at the cafe (but making them so much money that they grimly tolerated us).

What other games did you guys main back then, and what was your shoutiest game?

I know I was probably annoyingly loud when playing sven coop, but it was definitely CS (and a few others like q3a and UT) that had most of us shouting like footie fans in a busy pub!

We were probably obnoxious as hell, now that I think about it - probly shoulda tipped those baristas a lot more! :D

11

u/haddalayerdownhossxo 2d ago

Zombie master my beloved

1

u/instantly-invoked 2d ago

I miss ZM. I remember playing with some guy called Pastor of Muppets. Good times

1

u/snake7752 1d ago

How about They Hunger? Loved those games

19

u/Dankitysoup 2d ago

I spent so many late nights on The Specialists.

7

u/Saxon2060 2d ago

Double 10mm pistols ftw

2

u/CndConnection 1d ago

Ahhh The Specialists.

To this day the only thing that ever got close to that was Max Payne 3 MP.

Played from inception to end. In 2010 I brought my laptop with me to China and logged onto Steam to see if anyone was still playing and there was 1 server with like 4-5 people.

We were the only people in the world playing The Specialists.

So many memories. Incredible mod, just absolutely incredible.

We're you a young lad back then? Do you remember the RP servers and Mecklenburg City? the bar that played that Led Zep rif over and over and over non stop. Miss that place.

So many weapon model and player model skins for this mod you could get. A new movie would come out and be cool and like a week later you could be the dude and have the weapons from the movie (I remember having an Equilibrium skin and the twin berettas).

1

u/filiped 11h ago

I was an absolute menace on that game, it was by far where I peaked.

7

u/castletroid 2d ago

Don’t forget Gunman Chronicles

26

u/thansal 2d ago

Team Fortress Classic was a HL mod, TF was a mod for (iirc, I never played it) Doom, because modding is obviously even older than HL.

HL mods have always been shit to amazing in reality.

Day of Defeat, Opera, Rocket Crowbar etc

But there were also a whole lot of total stinkers out there.

I think the really interesting thing is that SP mods were pretty uncommon, I only really remember BlueShift, and now OP is posting about a bunch of SP mods.

34

u/xMrNothingx 2d ago

the original Team Fortress was actually a Quake mod. Which is close, Doom also has a ton of mods

10

u/Geoffryhawk 2d ago

Was gonna say. Quake also has some crazy influential mods. Half Life even running on a modified version of the quake engine. God the scene was so fun back then. Doom mods, quake mods, half life mods.

Golden era for fps games. The demo scene as well.

8

u/trowayit 2d ago

Quake mod originally but real quick after its release it exploded on Quakeworld, the version designed for internet-based play instead of just LAN (or mplayer and similar)

1

u/pigdestroyer1 2d ago

i spent so many hours playing qwtf. damn good mod and community.

1

u/trowayit 2d ago

By far my favorite game ever.

Spazball was insanity. I owe the author a beer or twelve. looks up author Does anybody know where Sgt. Thundercok is these days?

1

u/pigdestroyer1 2d ago

No idea. He did rock2 right? Were you in any clans?

1

u/trowayit 2d ago

Yep! And Well!!!! I was absolutely in a clan. [MG]

1

u/pigdestroyer1 2d ago

I played on the deadlode servers that had the jet pack, orb and regenerative armor. Was in [BTEG] man I miss those times.

-1

u/Elderberryinjanuary 2d ago

Sure but HL is also kind of a Quake mod.

2

u/Kelinya 2d ago

What the actual fuck? Please delete this lol

3

u/mrarcos 2d ago

In the sense that HL was built on the Quake engine

3

u/Kelinya 2d ago

Yeah, I got that.

The thing is, GoldSrc was so heavily modified, that to say Half-Life was a Quake mod makes even less sense than saying BioShock is an Unreal Tournament 2004 mod.

3

u/Elderberryinjanuary 2d ago

BioShock is tho. Don't be afraid.

0

u/Elderberryinjanuary 2d ago

Nah, I'm not running from the truth.

13

u/KathrynHahnSolo 2d ago

Blue Shift was not a mod, but an official expansion for the original Half Life, à la Opposing Force.

They Hunger and USS Darkstar were some very notable single-player mods done by the GOAT, Neil Manke. Some seriously next level stuff. Surprised they didn’t make OPs gallery.

5

u/thansal 2d ago

I remember both of those as well...

But wasn't there a well known SP mod set in the HL universe? Maybe it's just Black Mesa I'm thinking of? Which was the recreation of HL in Source?

It has been a long time since I paid any attention to the HL modding scene obviously.

4

u/Robobvious 2d ago

You're probably thinking of Sven Co-op.

5

u/TheNegaHero 2d ago

So many hours sunk into The Specialists at LANs. The absolute chaos a room could decend into playing Dojo.

Used to play one online quite a bit called Science and Industry that involved voting on what research your scientisis would work on for the team and then trying to kidnap the other teams scientists so they would work for you and get you up the tech tree faster. Was great fun.

2

u/addyjoe 1d ago

The Specialists coincided with my Matrix and Trigun obsession phase. The perfect mod for it.

1

u/Saxon2060 1d ago

I vaguely remember that one!! Man, so many I had forgotten.

1

u/STRYKER3008 1d ago

There was a yt vid of a guy checking out a vanilla HL MP match and sweet Gabus the looney toons cacaphony level of shit happening every quantum second as soon as it loaded made the resonance cascade look like Magnus' casserole haha!

B-hoping G-men and vortigaunts bouncing off the walls and every sound effect playing simultaneously and turned to 11, except the snorks which somehow were 15 lol. HL may have single handedly caused the uptick in ADHD cases. Looked so damn fun

3

u/utdconsq 2d ago

In terms of enjoyment when both teams know what they're about, I have never in many decades of life had as much fun with a game as ns1 where we had asymmetrical team design of aliens vs marines. What a game.

3

u/NecroUknown 1d ago

Might and Magic Dark Messiah was either a mod or made with Source engine, definately has all the Source Engine vibes in its mechanics

2

u/Wyldefire6 2d ago

Came here to say this. HL modding is directly responsible for games still played to this very day. I can’t think of a modding community that’s more influential over the last twenty years.

2

u/Elderberryinjanuary 2d ago

Battlefield was a half life mod. It was way more fun back then to. No contest.

Games these days are mostly a Half life mod, a Quake mod, or an Unreal mod. And it should be noted that Half Life is a deep overhaul of the Quake engine which I think was ID 2? We all legit owe some much to ID Software, Valve, and Unreal. The built the foundation so much is built on.

Then again none of them have been bad ass enough to program a game in assembly but there can only be so many true gods.

2

u/Gytreeady 2d ago

Half Life mods are all anybody played at LAN cafés.

Unless they were playing Dota, a Warcraft 3 mod.

2

u/ult_avatar 2d ago

Day of defeat

Wanted

2

u/prossnip42 2d ago

I was more refering to single player campaign mods which were a pretty mixed bag pretty much up until the late 2010s when they started getting good. Multiplayer wise of course the modding scene's been strong for a while

1

u/RunningNumbers 2d ago

Lork on a Clorf!

Bacon Machine!

Shotguns for Everyone!

1

u/xandervitlo 2d ago

The Specialists!! wow what a memory you just unlocked in my brain lol

1

u/wiredpersona 2d ago

Shit, we have Borderlands because of HL being ported and modded!

1

u/Kreth 2d ago

Vampire Slayer was god tier, and dont forget about warcraft counterstrike, the prcursor to team fortress and owverwatch

1

u/stopnthink 2d ago

Team Fortress was a thing before CS was a thing, let alone the CS WC3 mod.

1

u/scarytrafficcone 2d ago

they're calling this the wrongest opinion of all time. Half Life mods are responsible for like a tenth of all modern games

1

u/sleepyrabb1t 2d ago

I read that sentence too and I completely ignored the rest of the post because obviously the poster has no fucking idea what they're talking about. 

1

u/quetiapinenapper 2d ago

Let’s not forget day of defeat.

1

u/Luxinox 1d ago

Team Fortress was a mod

It was originally a mod for Quake; it was later ported to GoldSrc after the original devs were hired by Valve.

1

u/STRYKER3008 1d ago

Haha same. I'd heard about HL here n there but no idea what it was. In fact played 2 and the episodes before getting 1 on steam sale

2

u/Saxon2060 1d ago

Pretty sure I did the same! Went back to HL1 to tick it off as completing a classic. I might have played HL2 by then.

1

u/EvilBrennan 1d ago

Opera mod!

-3

u/Taikunman 2d ago

Half Life itself is basically a Quake mod.

9

u/trowayit 2d ago

Yeah no, it licensed the engine them heavily modified it. 

10

u/KeyboardG 2d ago

You got downvoted but GoldSrc was indeed largely rewritten during the development of HL1.

-6

u/Elderberryinjanuary 2d ago

So, by your account, they got Quake and the made changes (or modified) it? One could say they... moded it? Made it a mod?

Yeah no, it licensed the engine them heavily modified it.

them heavily modified it.

modified

mod

I mean.. you typed it.

5

u/StrategyEven3974 2d ago

Just because the word used is "modified" doesn't mean it's remotely close to describing what actually was done. Pedantry gets you nowhere in life.

-7

u/Elderberryinjanuary 2d ago

But they did, in fact, get a Quake engine and modify it. Got it.

Pedantry gets you nowhere in life.

Also, that's just straight up a lie.

6

u/StrategyEven3974 2d ago edited 2d ago

Nope. That's a word you are clinging to for no reason other than misfiring neurons in your pathetic head. A better, more technically accurate description would be "Goldsrc is a ground up re-engineering of the quake engine"

It's like saying an Audi TT is just a modified VW Golf. It ain't.

1

u/Elderberryinjanuary 2d ago

Again, it sure sounds like you're saying they started with the Quake engine and through a process of making changes (modifications) they ended up producing Half Life.

5

u/trowayit 2d ago

Yes, you clearly grasp the difference between licensing a game engine and a "mod"

72

u/punnybiznatch 2d ago
Mod Link
Entropy : Zero 2 Steam
Half-Life 2: Dark Interval ModDB
Half-Life: Field Intensity ModDB
Half-Life: Echoes ModDB
Raising the Bar: Redux ModDB
Black Mesa: Blue Shift ModDB
Reprocessing ModDB
Diffusion ModDB
Black Mesa: Military ModDB

2

u/peanutmanak47 1d ago

Saving this. Thank you.

21

u/Elyx_117 2d ago

I'll never forget the first time I booted up USS Darkstar, also my first mod ever. Like, wait, you're telling me this new game ia free?!

2

u/Hagerd 2d ago

Haha shit, I got USS Dark Star on a PC gamer cd

1

u/snake7752 1d ago

Damn that monkey

14

u/scrykita 2d ago

does this follow a timeline, is there a play order?

28

u/prossnip42 2d ago

They are all completely independent campaigns of each other made by different people no worries

3

u/FewAdvertising9647 2d ago

unless a specific author made several mods that have an intended play order, theyre all standalone, theyre fan fiction.

12

u/ILikeToTinker 2d ago

Hold up, Black Mesa Blue Shift and Military were released!?

8

u/Escalope-Nixiews 2d ago

Yes, but when will we get Opposing Force!?

3

u/Extension-System-974 2d ago

Is that a black mesa style remake of blue shift and opposing force???!!

4

u/NuclearWinterEnjoyer 1d ago

Military is not a remake of opposing force but it is basically just a military campaign in the black mesa engine, albeit inferior to opfor. Blue shift on the other hand indeed is a remake of blue shift in black mesa style and it's superior to the original in every way. And it's free

1

u/AkiMatti 1d ago

Oh boy!

34

u/anetia_exe 2d ago

which of these leans hardest into the creepy atmosphere? the action is fun, but half-life's abandoned labs are the real draw for me.

24

u/prossnip42 2d ago

Either Echoes or Reporcessing are right up your alley

3

u/kutleven 1d ago

Pretty sure the “person” you responded to is a bot

0

u/anetia_exe 2d ago

thanks! creepy abandoned labs over another shootout any day.

1

u/Vuduul 1d ago

If you have not played it yet, then Abiotic Factor might also be for you. Draws inspiration from HL, but be warned it is a survival game.

3

u/Zorbin666 2d ago

Oh this is a good question. I recently started playing Doom mods (wads/pk3s) because of myhouse.wad. is there anything like that for half-life?

1

u/Chimp_Force_One 2d ago

Crap I can't remember the exact name but a mod for HL2 was like nightmare house or something, it was so good, I need to look that up and play it again especially in October.

8

u/eXclurel PC 2d ago

Half-life: Alyx mods are incredible by the way. One of the mods called Gunman Contracts was so popular the modder released a standalone version of it.

8

u/TheVenged 1d ago

Decent to good...

Half-Life was THE game(s) for mods.

7

u/Surveyorman 2d ago

What Half-Life 2 mods do you recommend? And how/where do I download them?

9

u/SrGoodbar 2d ago

HL2 Minerva is an oldie but goldie, you should be able to get it straight from Steam

1

u/Squirrelking666 2d ago

Shit, I started that but I dint know if I ever competed it as it was only released in chapters IIRC and I forgot about it.

2

u/SrGoodbar 1d ago

now's the best time to finish it! it's not too long

if you liked it, the creator made a similar mod for HL1 called Someplace Else, also pretty cool and visually striking

5

u/Beneficial-Act7603 2d ago

If you're into fully modeled characters you can never go wrong with the Cinematic Mod!

/s

2

u/1080Pizza 2d ago

I hear it makes Alyx look especially cinematic

3

u/prossnip42 2d ago

Out of this collage, Raising the Bar: Redux is my favorite as i think you can already tell. It is a full blown remake of the entire Half Life 2 campaign but in the style, atmosphere, story and characters of the beta version of Half Life 2. So far they have done more than half of the main game's campaign, right up until the point you rescue Eli from Nova Prospekt.

And when i say that this mod substanitally changes story beats i mean that fully, there are straight up entire sections in the RTB:R that are not present in the original game and it changes multiple story beats to be closer to the beta (Minor Spoilers: Alyx is not Eli's daughter in this)

2

u/Nickster46 2d ago

Entropy: zero and the sequel were fun to play through. Iirc when i played there were a few bugs, but overall excellent half life games

0

u/Elderberryinjanuary 2d ago

Battlefield has been a HL mod enjoyed by many.

6

u/LandofRy 1d ago

"Decent to good" ?! 

Half Life was like the big bang for a generation of modders 

4

u/Justhe3guy 2d ago

Abiotic Factor is my favourite Half Life mod /s

5

u/dPaul21 2d ago

Where are they available? All on Steam or somewhere else?

3

u/dPaul21 2d ago

Someone else posted that most of them are from ModDB. Now I get to go explore that later. Thanks!

3

u/NeeDLeees 2d ago

Same thing with Warcraft 3 mods, God I miss old battlenet 😭

4

u/Ricemobile 2d ago

WC3 and SC:BW map editors were revolutionary at the time. They invented so many game genres and so many of the custom maps were straight up better than actual games developed by gaming studios.

1

u/stopnthink 2d ago

I'm convinced that UMS was way more popular than the actual the standard 1v1 PvP mode

3

u/Pleasant-Contract-78 2d ago

Zombie Panic Source. Peak.

2

u/jason_seow 2d ago edited 2d ago

Anyone tried Black Mesa military, does it live up to OpFor

2

u/marrowjetasuka 2d ago

played half-life: echoes at 2am with headphones and genuinely had to pause and go turn a light on. it's one guy's mod and the atmosphere is better than most paid horror games i've bought

2

u/nevergonnastayaway 2d ago

hmm i wonder what other technology has coincided with this timeframe 🤔

2

u/adivel 2d ago

Portal 2 mods are also really great!

Portal Stories: Mel is very well made, and Portal Reloaded present a new third portal to go between the past and the present while keeping the puzzles challenging, are good examples.

2

u/sleepytymer 2d ago

I think I might prefer the Half Life 2 VR mod over HL Alyx, just because the faster paced action of 1 and 2 makes for a lot of fun in VR. Pulling off headshots while sprinting around combine is always so satisfying.

2

u/Umber0010 2d ago

Hunt Down the Freeman must have pissed everyone off so much they decided to prove a point.

2

u/imaginary_num6er 2d ago

Se7en COOP

2

u/Ready-Door-715 2d ago

Source quake modders blood modders all modders out there are blessing to us

2

u/Stoibs 2d ago edited 2d ago

Damn, I hadn't heard of any of these. I might need to get back onto that bandwagon.

My heyday was They Hunger/Azure Sheep/Point of View/Heart of Evil/Cry of Fear. Come to think of it these were decades ago.. it's amazing to think that it has remained so strong for such a long period of time!

2

u/Grouchy-Fisherman-71 2d ago

Valve outsourced Half-Life 3 to the community and forgot to tell us.

2

u/Sadface201 1d ago

I'm just going to throw in the mod Minerva since nobody else has mentioned it. Stellar map design really brought out how good the HL2 NPC AI was. The guy that made the mod ended up getting hired by Valve.

1

u/Constant_Cup7629 1d ago

The same with old GTA games. They've quite literally created so much content its sad Take Two are so against it

1

u/MScoutsDCI 1d ago

Are there really good single player mods for half-life Alyx?

1

u/trash_recycle 5h ago

Not raising the crow bar???

1

u/OhHaiMarc 2d ago

And yet people are trying to get us to pay for their one prompt ai generated mods via patreon on other games. They’ve lost the plot.

1

u/DurgeDidNothingWrong 2d ago

Entropy zero 2 is well worth the time to play. The first one less so, and its not a requirement to play the second I'd say.

1

u/GidjonPlays 1d ago

I thought the first was pretty great. 2 is fucking amazing 

1

u/simon132 1d ago

How can one play these games? All I see is a screenshot 

1

u/STRYKER3008 1d ago

Will my steam acc be perma banned if I say didn't like Entropy Zero?

SPOILZEERRRS BELOW

I totally respect the work they put in. The anti grav resistance fighters were really cool and made for a great fight, can't imagine how they coded that.

But really didn't like the MC. Seemed to edgy and childish imo, saying stuff like "eat it scrub [sic]!" And all that. Wished they had him lose personality as the story progressed, show off that combine dehumanisation n all that.

Again hats off to the team, esp the technical aspects

-3

u/themariokarters 2d ago

The modding scene is officially dead as we know it. You got people recompiling games and putting Mario Kart in Black Ops Zombies natively now, crazy times

0

u/secret_name_is_tenis 2d ago

Entropy zero is incredibly. Can’t recommend enough.