As some of you may have realised. This year will mark the 20th anniversary of the Half-Life 2 Leak.
While this event is not fondly looked back on in many ways, it is the genesis of the cut content community that has managed to eek by for this long.

To celebrate this, the Valve Cut Content Discord server will be hosting a variety of contests over the course of the year!

(and yes, there will be prizes!)

More details in the coming weeks. Definitely be sure to brush up on your mapping skills in the meantime.

Contests will be posted in ⁠the Valve Cut Content Discord server, in the #2023-hl2-leakmas-contests channel.

Currently, the first competition is currently underway, where people have to make their own fake HL2 beta soundtracks, with appropriate images associated with each song. It's an easy contest to contribute to, but there are more ambitious contests happening soon.

Beyond the Bar Competition #1: Bringing Concept Art to Life

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A new Hl2-beta themed mapping competition is here and its goal is simple, create a playable level from any of Half-Life 2's concept art, and flesh it out with visuals and gameplay.

Unlike the 2019 and 2020 mapping competitions, this competition is not affiliated with the HL2 Project Beta team, but is being hosted by Zapagoogas and Marco198. They have a channel in their discord server for it.

Maps are to be created for Coterminus, not Hl2 beta. Submissions are due June 16th.

Judging information, rules, and more can be found in this Google Doc or by asking in their discord server.

Have fun and good luck to all who enter!
(if someone wants to translate this and repost in the Russian section, feel free to do so.)

After a 9-year hiatus, the fan game Conscript is being brought back to life by the original developer.



Lead developer Biodude posted a new media update talking about new plans, content development, PSP build and change of focus for the project.

Conscript is still being developed by a small team on the FTEQW engine (a feature-rich modded version of QuakeWorld). The game supports better quality models with skeletal animations, hi-res textures, and better effects.



Originally, Сonscript was being developed for PSP, but now the PC version is the main focus.  The old PSP developer build should be released soon, for preservation.

The game will have several separate episodes with its own conscript protagonist in each. The gameplay is fast-paced, reminiscent of Quake itself. The arsenal will include Pipe Wrench, USP Match and Desert Eagle, AR2 (OICW), Immolator, Displacer Cannon, Cremator Head grenade, Tau Cannon, and more.



The new content shows updated Combine units (Trench Cops and Overwatch snipers), the Alien Assassin, Citizens, Bullsquids, and Scanners. Promotional media includes high quality renders, and the showcase teaser has many glimpses of other enemies, weapons and mechanics.

Original update article on Moddb
Biodude’s Youtube channel

Division 2 of Raising the Bar: Redux was released on December 23rd.

Raising the Bar: Redux is a cut-content mod melding numerous eras of the HL2's development combined with some creative liberties intended to smooth over gaps and also bring a unique style to the mod.

Division 1.2 (the final patch to a standalone Division 1 release) was released in December 2020, featuring Gordon's initial arrival in City 17, meeting Kleiner, and then fighting to escape the city. The demo for Division 2, featuring the canal journey, was released in February 2022.

Now, the full Division 2 journey is available. The player will escape through the canals outside City 17, then meet Eli Maxwell, Alyx, T-Bot, and Skitch. After that, they will be forced to fight through hordes of zombies in the Quarrytown, before escaping with the excavator in the mines beneath Ravenholm.

Division 2 also launched with a highly improved Division 1. A patch update fixing any issues the community finds is planned for early 2023. Then, the team will be moving on to the next Division, in the wasteland.


You can download the Division 2 + 1 package at ModDB here: https://www.moddb.com/mods/half-life-2-raising-the-bar-redux/downloads/raising-the-bar-redux-division-2-release

The 2003 Storyline Port for retail HL2 was released exactly one month ago.

It wasn't so prominently covered on this site back then, but now there's a good excuse to talk about it:
The mod has been updated with some new-old content, bugfixes and extra functions.

The summary changelist is:

• Russian translation has been added for in-game text (subtitles and GUI), credit goes to Shift for the majority of it
• The Physgun, the Sticky Launcher, the Hopwire Grenade, and the I-Rifle have been ported over
• The update fixes several oversights such as being able to mount any Strider by +USEing it, and the rebels with Ammo Resupplier flag giving you only 1 pathetic round of ammunition at a time
• Other miscellaneous tweaks and fixes to make the experience better.

The update replaces the old version on Moddb, and can be found here.

Please note that it is designed to work as a mod for the current version of HL2, and not Source SDK 2013.