Relive the Black Mesa incident all over again in this expansion-quality story mod.
Including expansions, the vanilla game offers three points of view alone, while countless mods have added to the Black Mesa lore, introducing new playable stories centring on lawyers, black ops assassins, and even alien slaves.
Half-Life: Echoes is the latest in this tradition of framing the Black Mesa disaster from a new angle, and it’s easily the best singleplayer mod for Half-Life in years, offering incredible level design, thrilling survival horror and blistering action. It also weaves itself into the broader Half-Life fiction in some clever ways.
Created by first-time modder James Cockburn, Half-Life: Echoes puts players in the shoes of Candidate Twelve, another Black Mesa employee who arrives for a normal day at work when the resonance cascade transforms the facility into the world’s most technologically advanced abattoir. Like Freeman, Shepard, and the rest, you must navigate and survive Black Mesa’s labyrinth, battering zombies and blasting marines while the G-Man observes it all.
FAMILIAR GROUND
What make Half-Life: Echoes stand out from other Black Mesa retellings is the sheer level of craft and ambition that has gone into it. To begin with, the mod’s 20-odd maps are enormous and stunningly detailed. Even the very first area you spawn in—an underground car park, impresses with its cavernous scale and moody lighting.
This story is from the Holiday 2018 edition of PC Gamer US Edition.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the Holiday 2018 edition of PC Gamer US Edition.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
TERMINATOR: RESISTANCE
Revisiting Teyon’s game after Robocop: Rogue City.
RICH'N BEEFY
LIKE A DRAGON: INFINITE WEALTH is a dizzyingly huge all-you-can-eat Yakuza buffet
ROUND 8 FIGHT!
TEKKEN 8 is a blend of nostalgia for fans and a pair of welcoming arms for newbies
HOLY HELL
THE INQUISITOR is a grim yet strangely gripping dark fantasy adventure
SHOT DEAD
There are flashes of greatness in SUICIDE SQUAD: KILL THE JUSTICE LEAGUE
THE BEST NON-TRADITIONAL WAR GAMES
Is it possible for wargamers to give peace a chance?
WHEELIE GOOD
Freewheeling with Northern Irish indie studio Billy Goat Entertainment and its next project, PARCEL CORPS
PALWORLD
Shockingly, animal cruelty doesn't make for a fulfilling experience
DIVINE FREQUENCY
This horror-RPG-FPS built in the Doom engine is terrifying
AVOWED
Obsidian's next RPG goes all in on first-person action