Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Seven years ago to this very day, uber-Half-Life mod Natural Selection was released. Man! Aliens! Man vs aliens, in a real-time-strategy-in-an-FPS-perspective kinda way! In that time, it’s become something of a landmark in terms of just how far you can stray from the source technology (pun not necessarily intended), just how successful a group of a have-a-go home designers can be, and quite how much prescribed concepts of first-person-shootage can be pushed. Developers Unknown Worlds Entertainment are gearing up for the insanely-anticipated release of the standalone sequel (of which the first and second super-shiny images of this post come from – click to embiggen), whose birth depends hugely on how much pre-order interest they can drum up. In other words, if you’re excited about NS2, you should totally pre-order it. It’s going to be a fine and splendid day in PC land when it finally walks our way.

Right now though, given it’s NS1’s anniversary day, we poked Unknown Worlds’ Game Director Charlie Cleveland into providing a little insight into how this milestone mod came to be…
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Time to check up again on upcoming Half-Life mod-goes-pro Natural Selection 2: is it still bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and wet-nosed? Its creators Unknown Worlds have been dribbling out a stream of bestial teasers for this long-time coming multiplayer shooter. Natural Selection’s big draw has always been man vs aliens – with the neat twist that those aliens are playable. And they’re really not just A Man With A Funny Hat On…
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Well, not all, but a healthy “some”. Mostly regarding that recent teaser trailer for the long delayed standalone sequel to the classic Half-Life mod, which delighted and confused in equal measure. I had a quick chat with Unknown World’s Game Director Charlie Cleveland about the most salient points raised by the trailer. Does the game really look that good? Is it really coming out this year? Which is best, daddy or chips?
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O slimy serendipity! The saga of the troubled sequel to one of the finest-ever Half-Life mods may finally be coming to an end. According to the official website, modders-gone-pro Uknown Worlds’ man v beast FPS-RTS is on track for release via Steam this Autumn/Fall. And to help back up this dubious claim, Kotaku have rounded up some exclusive footage of this hitherto super-mysterious standalone sequel, the jammy b’stards. Reportedly the below is entirely in-engine – in which case crikey.
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The acclaimed man vs aliens FPS-RTS Half-Life mod done good is something I don’t believe we’ve mentioned on this silly old site of ours before, and the same’s true of its impending sequel. Curse our grasshopper minds. Let’s correct that, with a link to a fairly dry but handy fundamentals-establishing interview with the dev team, Unknown Worlds, over on Nofrag. Perhaps more importantly, I’ve conveniently Youtube-snaffled the first footage of the new engine, which is looking impressively shiny.

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