Half-Life 2 continues with Project Borealis – first demo now available

[Redaktion]

After 17 years without an official update in the Half-Life 2 saga, a sequel to the cult shooter is now within reach. Though not developed directly by Valve, the game aims to stay true to the original story while giving Half-Life a fresh, modern look in Unreal Engine 5. The prologue chapter is already available as a demo on Steam.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Half-Life-2-continues-with-Project-Borealis-first-demo-now-available.916792.0.html

[Worgarthe]

I don't get this obsession with UE5. The id Tech engine can look equally stunning but UE5 is nowhere near such insane optimisation as the id is where a game can fly with extremely high fps with high 0.1 and 1% lows - on basically any currently average PC out there. To get the same experience with UE5 you need beastly hardware and even then you need DLSS, lowering details, blabla...

[Hotz]

I don't get this obsession with UE5. The id Tech engine can look equally stunning but UE5 is nowhere near such insane optimisation

omg... this is UE5? Whyyy? Why didn't they just use Valve's "Source 2" engine?

[indy]

Watched the first 4 minutes, wondering where exactly UE5 came into play. Looks like HL2 did?

Not that I am complaining. HL2 is amongst favorite games ever.

[The thing is tho]

I don't get this obsession with UE5.

Is there even a permissable licence granting people the right to use modern versions of iD tech engine for hobbyist indie game development? I'm not aware of their licensing model.

UE5 by contrast openly encourages it and states how to do so for free. It has nothing to do with obsession, everyone universally agrees it's terrible but it's kind of the only real available option.

Also one of the reasons iD tech is so good it's pretty much purpose built for their own fps franchises whereas UE5 targets literally everything under the sun (even non gaming applications).

[Hotz]

I didn't know they were even allowed to use another game engine for Half-Life stuff.

And why they didn't use "Source 2", because Half Life: Alyx and Counterstrike 2 surely look great. Wouldn't it have been easier to develop in terms of assets and animations? That is, if they could access the assets from these games, which I don't know if they can...

[Hotz]

Why didn't they just use Valve's "Source 2" engine?

Ok, now I know why: the "Source 2 Engine" still isn't public yet. Still not public after all these years. Who would have thought. That explains why they had to use another game engine.

But couldn't they have made it as a mod for Half-Life: Alyx? They would have lots of models, animations, sounds already - instead of having to create them from scratch.

Though it also sucks when the project is dependent on another game. Maybe they didn't want that. Maybe they wanted it as a standalone game, and needed full control on the project and engine.