With the impending release of Lambda Core, I think it’s time we brainstormed a page one rewrite of the Xen sequences of Half Life.
Xen, among many gamers, is the most universally derided part of the original Half Life for good reason- the design of the maps pull a stark 180 from the rest of the game and focus a great deal on platforming and resource management, rather than the mix of combat and puzzles inherent to the Black Mesa chapters.
Questions that have to be considered when redesigning Xen are likely as follows:
I. What is the focus of Xen’s design, and how can we improve the levels while maintaining continuity with the original concept of the game?
II. How much longer should Xen be?
III. How should the boss fights be redesigned to fit Black Mesa’s tweaked-towards-HL2-standards gameplay?
IV. What sort of changes to the enemy roster and layouts would benefit the new design?
To start things off, I’d like to come up with a new direction for Xen.
I. Xen’s focus to me is to throw the player into a very alien universe. The player must feel very alone, almost hopeless as he is outnumbered by fearsome adversaries a thousand to one. The levels were designed as platforming maps to contrast the main game and to provide “fresh” gameplay that the player had not seen before. This is made quite obvious through the design, the reduced gravity, and the dead humans in Xen being the only supply drops the player has access to.
My take on new levels for Xen would follow a drastically different direction. Parts of the Black Mesa facility should be haphazardly teleported to Xen at odd angles in some areas of the map, creating a more dynamic environment for the player to traverse. A close analogue would be an early sequence in Prey where the player finds themselves fighting through the bar they started the game in, only with battle damage, the level rotated at a very odd angle, and using portals to reorient the player to fight along walls.
My version of Xen wouldn’t precisely use these ideas perse, as this would require extensive re-coding of Source’s physics engine. Maps wouldn’t be “copy-pasted” from the facility to be reused on Xen, they would be more heavily damaged, at different angles, and support a more platforming focused style of play. Imagine hopping between oddly bent, bolted to the floor/ceiling cafeteria tables hanging over a void while a Harrier teleports into the map trailing flames and debris. Or parts of the Office Complex being thrust into Xen, breaking into smaller pieces and floating in Xen’s expansive void, crashing into the rocks already present and allowing the alien architecture to meld seamlessly with parts of the Black Mesa facility. (And then getting chased by a Garg through it!)
The massive factory spikes in the original Xen would be used by Xenian aliens to “mine” these parts of the facility for raw materials to feed to Nihilianth, who is basically keeping small parts of the borderworld stable (i.e. the floating rocks for the aliens to inhabit). Some of this would likely require cinematic physics, but considering the impressive work on display for the Resonance Cascade and the Blast Pit window crash sequences, this would be fully within the team’s capability. With this scenario’s rendition of Nihilanth’s powers keeping the borderworld stable, when he is killed, the entire map will spin out of control, rocks will collide with each other, and the G-man will teleport Gordon to safety, to continue with the endgame “choice.”
II. Xen should have a similar amount of maps as the original Half-Life, but take advantage of Source’s larger map sizes to increase the length of the chapters, as well as their geometric complexity.
III. Gonarch’s fight was a very well-executed part of Xen for me, and I’d try to reproduce the fight in a relatively similar fashion, just redesigned to fit the tweaked art direction and gameplay. (Perhaps Gordon could chase Gonarch through a meteor shower?) Nihilanth’s fight is a bit of a bore, and should be redesigned to take advantage of the new art design to it’s fullest. Nihilanth could teleport Gordon away at any moment, forcing the player to fight back to the center of the map (Nihilanth’s chambers) through new aliens, but also allow the player to resupply along the way. I’m well aware these are drastic redesigns, but considering the absolute horror that is the original Half-Life’s Xen chapters, I feel a radical redesign is absolutely necessary to regain any sense of playability from this part of the game.
IV. The chapter’s focus on the Xen borderworld basically cuts the enemy roster in half, and spams aliens at the player with little regard for balancing. Supplies are small in number in the original game, and this is very much appropriate. I’d considered having soldiers, scientists, or security guards being teleported in with the pieces of the facility, but this would ruin the solitary feel of Xen and it’s focus on this being Gordon’s mission to kill Nihilanth and, as such, would not be appropriate for inclusion. Some corpses floating through the borderworld with the new architecture, however, would assist in reinforcing this bleak feel, as well as give more areas to explore and loot in search of supplies to continue Gordon’s suicide mission.
This is just my take, however. I really want to hear everybody’s thoughts on the redesign of Xen. Let’s throw our hive mind at the chapters and see what we come up with!
EDIT: Oops. Didn’t see this thread.
