Despite there not having been an official game in the series since 2007 (remember, you were young then, and knew joy), Half-Life continues to inspire fan-created content of the highest level. A Place In The West is the story of three characters in the HL2 time period who head to the city of New Franklin. Intrigue, secrets and deception follow as you’d expect. It just released on Steam for free, with Valve’s blessing to use the game’s name.
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It’s 38 pages in all, beginning with a basic retelling of the universe plot before moving into authors Michael Pelletier and Ross Joseph Gardner’s own story. The art is as good as any indie comic book, and doesn’t take the route of being too stylised to be readable. For those who haven’t read comics on a screen before the custom-made reader is as good as any, with a lovely Half-Life-like menu screen.
We contacted Gardner to ask exactly how involved Valve were and he said it was almost none. The actual production was all them, Valve only needing to give their blessing to use the Half-Life brand name on the Steam release.
It’s available in English and Russian for the time being, with more planned. They also want to produce a short making-of extras video, along with making the next five issues. Presumably each will update to the same program and you’ll be informed via Steam in the usual way.