January 2024 Progress Update news - Outcast mod for Half-Life 2

Hello once again everyone, and happy new year! I want to start off this article by thanking each and everyone one of you. If you aren't aware, we were chosen by the community as number 9 for ModDB's Upcoming Mods of 2023. While a small milestone for most, for us it was a huge shock. We were super happy to see the community coming out with so much support for us during this time. Thank you everyone for believing in this project, we hope to bring even more stuff out in 2024. Now, lets jump in to some of what has been worked on.

Over the past several months I have been constantly working on the chapter one maps. Gameplay, layout, scripting, everything is being touched up on. The most focused on map has been the very first map of chapter one. We want the wasteland to have a big first impression, so while there's a lot of stuff we can't show yet, there is some I want to show.

Beware that this map has only been properly artpassed by Marco once, and will be subject to many more.

First we'll start with the typical changes to the scene you've all looked at many many times. The starting area has been touched up on a lot more, once again. This time with changes to lighting, detail, layout, and even added scenes. Here's a look at a well known view.

This map is large and detailed. We're pushing the budget pretty far while still staying in playable and enjoyable framerates. I've been spending a lot of time recently going through and applying proper optimization techniques. LOD models, prop fade distances, hint/skip and area portals have all received their fair share of work in this map. It still needs work to be satisfactory, but it is much more improved than it was a month ago.

To continue my trend of reworking the Xen Infestation areas, this beloved(by myself) area has not missed out.

And some more progress on a previously shown area.

Aside from this stuff you've all seen many times now, i have added on entire new sections to the rebel camp. It is now a fully playable area, with several sights to see and many encounters. I will show some images of the new camp.

This wasn't the only map I worked on however. The second map has also received tons of work, but is still pretty work in progress. It requires a good bit of gameplay and scripting, as well as detailing/artpassing.

I'm pretty happy with this map so far, but there is a lot more stuff i would like to add.

Nothing is cooler than seeing the houndeyes roaming in the foggy distance, minding their own business.

One of the things you may notice is the new mountain models. These are not completely finished yet, as I would like to give them higher quality textures. In this foggy map, it works quite well and adds a lot to the skybox, making the area feel much more expansive than it already is.

You may have noticed this update took a bit longer than usual, and doesn't go too in-depth. This is for a reason. For the past several months I have been working incredibly hard on lots of things behind the scenes for Outcast. Animations, scenes, maps, programming, modelling has all been done, and lots of it. Of course, we want most of this to be experienced on everyones first playthrough, with the articles simply showing off some less important stuff. So, after sitting on this idea for several months we are happy to announce..

The Outcast: Part One Demo.

Originally, I had planned to make a small demo with various random areas from the game. This was in 2021. At the time I had no idea what I was doing, and as a result the planning and work that went into that was mostly for nothing as all of that was scrapped. When we switched to the part focused release, we thought it would be pointless to have a demo. As time has gone on and we're seeing its taking quite a while to get all of part one done, we have decided to work exclusively on the first few maps that were already mostly finished, and pack them into a demo. Don't worry though, the rest of part one is still being worked on, focus has just shipped to finished the demo levels first. Let's discuss what this demo will contain.

The demo will contain three maps. The prologue map and the first two maps of chapter one. Players will get to experience the opening of the game, as well as get a taste of what the wasteland chapter has in store for them. Now, i know the question on everyones mind. "When is it coming?"

SOON

The first map is almost ready. The other two maps have good progress, but the second wasteland map in particular has a lot of things I want to add to it. I also have some assets and programming to get finished, but luckily most of that is already complete. Marco and I will be working very hard in the next few months to get this playable and fun. We hope to release this within the next few months, April at the latest. With that being said, we will likely not make another update until the demo releases. This is so we can stay focused on making the demo maps as polished as possible. Stay tuned, and before then here's a small teaser of the first map.

And for the fans of our Beyond the Bar competitions, expect an announcement regarding BTB2 soon!

We hope everyone enjoyed this article. Thank you everyone for a fantastic year for source modding. We look forward to bringing you great things this year. As always, if you have any questions or would like to leave some feedback you can join us here in the Discord Server or message me at Zapagoogas on Discord. Thanks, see y'all next time.