Natural Selection 2: Unnaturally Close?

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.

That's all their own engine, too. While I wouldn't put money on the game itself looking quite as shiny as this presumably ultra-textured and hand-lit scripted snippet, it gives us a general sense of the look and tone they're going for with NS2.

That there's still so very little in the way of screenshots and the like after all these years is a bit of a worry, but Unknown Worlds are so confident the release is finally on-track (thanks to some outside investment) that you can pre-order NS2, in normal or special edition flavours, right now. While it's obviously a bit of a gamble to do so, it will get you early access to the upcoming beta.

We'll be seeing a lot more of this one over the next few months, I don't doubt.