Zombie Rush, Mr. Freeman

Stunning transformation of the Source engine with Half-Life 2: Wars.

By Nathan Davis on 13 March, 2009

Till evac: Defend the crap out of those antlions.As you may have heard, the Halo universe, home of the hit first-person shooter on the Xbox consoles, has had the real-time strategy treatment via Halo Wars. If you’re perhaps miffed that the game wasn’t brought to the PC and after some form of recompense or, hell, just a fan of real-time strategy games, a particular Half-Life 2 total conversion mod may well be up your alley.

Called Half-Life 2: Wars, it’s evidently targeted as the PC’s first-person-shooter-goes-real-time-strategy alternative to Halo Wars. Still based in the Half-Life 2 universe and sticking to Valve’s established canon, this somewhat original take on the game will have you control either combine or resistance units and see things from a very different perspective. Unfortunately, zombies and antlions are just NPC races, but we’re hoping that’ll change with time.

The developer has laboured over the title since 2007, and says many things have changed for the better since releasing beta 0.5. Working toward a beta 1.0 release, the developer has primarily concentrated on bringing in full multiplayer support, as it presently only supports single-player.

“A lot of the focus has been on making multiplayer work and improving the Half-Life 2 code to run better as an RTS online,” explains developer Ennui. “The scripting language Python has been fully implemented, exposing much of the game code and allowing us to add units, buildings, and abilities through scripts rather than in C++.”

“Much has also been done to the game to improve latency issues, navigation, and AI, including a brand new NPC system that runs much more smoothly online and allows full control over how all of the units behave,” Ennui says, adding that it now also includes the expected elements of a multiplayer real-time strategy game, such as a team colours and a game lobby.

In light of all of this work, the developer plans to release a small multiplayer demo very soon. “Nothing special, just to show off our game lobby, new NPC system, and multiplayer capabilities,” reveals Ennui.

More antlions: Kindly demonstrating team colours.

The current releases are not representative of final gameplay, but they do serve as excellent technical demonstrations of an independent developer managing to translate the Half-Life 2 universe into a real-time strategy game. This work is finally coming to a close, however. “Focus over the coming months will slowly shift from proof of concept and engine optimization to actual gameplay,” he says. “The game is in the process of being fully redesigned to replace the lackluster gameplay, with the help of suggestions from our dedicated forum community.”

The interesting aspect of this game is how it’s such a spectacular use of Valve’s Source engine, which was designed pretty much exclusively for developing first-person shooters. Transforming it into something that can play host to a real-time strategy game is quite a feat, if only for performance reasons alone, given the engine’s heavy focus on high-detailed close-ups. This, not to mention having to seriously alter the algorithms for AI and path-finding so as to suit such a comparatively exotic form of gameplay.

To take it for a spin, you will need the Orange Box, or at least Half-Life 2: Episode 2, as it borrows many components from the episodic sequel. You can grab Half-Life 2: Wars right here, and, if you can, make sure you let the developer know what you think of the mod so far, as feedback from fresh eyes can only help to improve such an exciting project.

Below is the most recent video demonstration of gameplay. The final clip shows the developer playing around with implementing jumping as a path-finding feature.

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