Aftermath of The Grand Update
In November of last year we hosted our biggest studio event so far - from rebranding Black Phoenix into Dark Vector, to reveal and demo of Half-Life: Element 64, revival of Resurgence and release of Half-Life Arena, we were met with great response to those few projects we've been cooking up for the past few years. Now, almost half a year later we are looking forward to share with you some of the developments that have occurred ever since, what you can expect in the future, aswell as some new content to play with...
Feedback and Changes to Element 64
The announcement of Half-Life: Element 64 was met with great deal of positive reception, as was the demo version we have published alongside the reveal. It also allowed us to collect some valuable feedback and discuss tweaks to gameplay design of the mod, which is what we focused on since the beginning of 2026.
To start off, we want to talk about weapon balance and what has changed in that department. Before we get into details, I think it is only fair for us to explain what our goals are with the weapon roster of Element 64:
Crowbar - basic melee weapon of last resort
Pistol - unlike most oldschool shooters, we still aim for pistol to have a viable role later in the game and as thus it is our intent for it to be a bit more of a glass cannon, moderate damage with low to medium accuracy meant for close quarter usage
Shotgun - tool of choice for close quarters combat, moderate to high damage with high spread and short range
Sub-Machine Gun - main automatic weapon in the game, low to moderate damage but highly accurate and versatile
Spore Launcher - exotic grenade launcher, moderate to high damage, low splash damage, ability to bounce spores to damage enemies around the corner
Rocket Launcher - high damage output with high splash damage which makes it very risky to use up close, meant to use against groups of enemies and quickly neutralizing big threats
Gluon Gun - concentrated beam of energy, high damage output focused on a single target, great to dispatch high tier enemies
Displacer Cannon - the BFG of Half-Life universe, very high damage output, instakill within the splash damage range at the cost of slow usage and high usage of ammo
With that in mind, we do acknowledge the flaws with weapon balancing in the demo and after playtesting different configurations, here are some changes that we have committed to so far (note that these values may still change in full public release of the game):
Most common criticism has been that Pistol was way too strong and made SMG obsolete due to them sharing the same ammo pool. We agree on that, and as thus damage of Pistol has been heavily nerfed while retaining its mid-low accuracy. Statistically, it is still going to deal a tinsy little bit more damage per bullet than SMG, but the difference is going to be very minor with aim of making pistol an alternate choice for those who wish to conserve ammunition in later parts of the game without devaluing the purpose of SMG.
Shotgun's damage per pellet has been slightly increased which should make it much more lethal up close, and also slightly more effective at medium range.
While SMG remains relatively similar with a tinsy increase of damage output, Spore Launcher has its projectile trajector slightly nerfed aswell as its splash damage range decreased.
Another noticable change is to general ammo pool as we have increased overall ammo values across all weapons. 9mm (Pistol, SMG) has increased to maximum of 350 bullets. Buckshot (Shotgun) has increased to maximum of 100 shells. Alien Spores (Spore Launcher) has increased to maximum of 25 spores. Rockets (RPG) has increased to maximum of 10 rockets. Depleted Uranium (Gluon Gun, Displacer Cannon) has increased to maximum of 250 units.
In spirit of reworking the resource management aspect of the game, we have also undertook the task of overhauling health / armor items. During the demo, these resources were limited to what base Half-Life game had on offer which was a simple medkit and HEV battery. To give the game a bit more nuance, we thought it would be for the best to diversify these resources and as thus we are going to introduce a number of new items.
For health items, we have reworked the economy to feature three different tiers of restoring players health: Med Vial is going to heal 5 HP and will be the most common form of healing scattered around every corner of the game. Med Kit is going to restore 15 HP, and will be found mostly in side rooms requiring a bit of exploration and venturing off of the main path. Med Box is going to restore 25 HP and is going to be the most rare form of healing, found mostly in obscure corners and secret rooms.
The armor items are more straight forward with only two tiers: battery will recharge 10 units of HEV armor, and can be found in side areas while the new option - Accumulator - will restore 25 AP and will be hidden primarily behind secrets.
Beyond the overhaul of resource economy and weapon balance, we have also went back, completely wiped all item placements on existing maps and re-added them from scratch to accomodate the new items and provide better, more consistent spread of both health, ammo and ammunition across all levels. In general players will be less likely to run out of resources, and we plan to honour this design moving forward as we continue development on Episodes 3 and 4.
While at it, to keep things interesting for those who have played the demo, we have made some minor changes to maps of Episode 1... while the main path remains the same, you will be able to find and explore brand new rooms and areas, aswell as new and tweaked enemy encounters including some surprises to keep you on your toes!
Conveying New Content to Arena
We are also publishing Patch 1.03 to Half-Life Arena, which brings few imporant updates:
First of all, jkBotti addon is being updated to latest version which now includes official support for Arena! This means that bots will work a little better, and are now able to utilize mod-specific weapons such as Auto Shotgun, Heavy Rifle or Silenced Pistol so be on the lookout for new brand of menace both on and offline!
(Thanks to Jussi Kivilinna and APGRoboCop for their work on jkBotti update)
Aside from that, we are also adding a brand new map to the game in form of Conveyor - a map that takes loose inspiration from Residue Processing chapter of the original game, set in disposal area with a number of active conveyor belts for quick traversal around the level. Despite still being designed for Arena's signature lower playercounts, it is one of the most spacious maps on offer and it should offer a breath of fresh air (not literally, it's still set underground) to those who prefer slightly slower playstyle.
Finally to cap things off, and in line with the industrial theme of Conveyor, we are adding everyone's favourite green collar worker of Black Mesa to roster of playermodels in the game - the man, the myth, the legend: Gus!
While moving forward our focus is set mostly on development of Element 64, this may not be the last update to Arena as we are open to bring in more extra content to the mod in the near, or far future.
This wraps up the current update, we are excited to share more updates in the coming months as the progress on development of Element 64 continues. In the meantime, we wish you all the best and thank you for your support so far!