Alyx NoVR Team Is Making Their Own “Half-Like” Shooter

An ambitious mod finally being released after years of work, strung together by scrappy hobbyists in their spare time, is only the beginning. When you’ve spent that long huddled together in Discord calls, fuelled only by the excitement of a community and your passion for the project, it’s hard to let go. So, most of these teams stick together and go on to do even greater things.

Black Mesa developer Crowbar Collective, who spent more than a decade painstakingly reimagining the original Half-Life, is now working on a brand-new IP, Rogue Point. Turtle Rock Studios, the modding team behind Counter-Strike, was brought in-house by Valve where it worked for years on making CS a household name while also developing the genre-defining co-op shooter Left 4 Dead. Skyrim modders Modern Storyteller meanwhile took their award-winning The Forgotten City project standalone and earned a BAFTA nomination for their efforts.

The chains forged in these projects are hard to unlink, and we’re seeing that once again with City 1. This team worked tirelessly to make Half-Life: Alyx playable without a VR headset, ensuring that the first new game in the series after 13 years would be accessible to those who can’t use, afford, or simply don’t want to play in virtual reality. It was a noble, albeit ambitious goal, but the team pulled it off. And now, far more intimate with the inner machinations of Valve’s world and game design, City 1 is developing what they call a brand-new “Half-Like” FPS — Chemical-Burn.

This is a non-VR shooter following original character Cindy as she braves the dystopian streets of Hazard City, one of the last human settlements on Earth. But she’s not alone. By her side is Buddy, a dog who can attack enemies, grab ammo, and even help with various puzzles by reaching areas Cindy cannot — think Dogmeat in Fallout 4. The game will be split into 12 chapters, with an apartment you can return to between missions to prepare, read lore, watch the news, and hang out with your canine pal. It’s unashamedly inspired by Half-Life, but that’s hardly surprising.

Chemical-Burn Began As A Half-Life Mod

Chemical-Burn was originally conceived as a mod, built on the same engine the team has been working with for years. But that proved more restrictive than anything else, especially for a standalone game.

“Our first discussions focused on creating a Source mod, whether we would do something in the Half-Life universe or not was on the table,” project and studio lead Anthony Marrelli tells me (who I also spoke to last year about Half-Life: Alyx NoVR). “However, we just weren’t satisfied with Source in 2025. And with a Source 2 SDK nowhere in sight, this idea slowly died out as we just didn’t want to start full development without a modern engine.”

The team instead chose to work with Unreal Engine 5, but Marrelli is keenly aware of the stigma this choice brings, especially on PC. There’s an unending list of UE5 games with significant performance and optimization issues, and the last thing you want in a fast-paced shooter is for things to stutter when you pull the trigger. However, Marrelli assures that won’t be the case in Chemical-Burn, as the team is “focusing on performance, low requirements, and doing lighting the old-fashioned way.”

Even though City 1 has left Source behind, it’s paying homage to its roots with Chemical-Burn, which Marrelli sees as the studio’s “transition” from modding team to indie developer. “We still wanted to have those connective themes, whether visually, in the world-building, characters, and more spots we felt it worked […] The work we did with Alyx and other Half-Life mods is always going to be in our blood.”

However, as modders are wont to do, there’s also a lofty ambition behind Chemical-Burn and its Half-Life inspirations. The team wants to inspire other indie devs to make their own ‘Half-Like’ shooters. “Adaca, Industria, and not many others are out there and we wanted to stick to this genre when moving onto our own full game, in hopes we can establish this sub-genre in the indie scene.” After all, FPS games began life as ‘Doom clones’, but we didn’t see that same boom of imitators with Half-Life.

Chemical-Burn Is Also Taking Notes From System Shock

Some notable elements of Chemical-Burn feel ripped right out of Valve’s seminal shooter. The cybernetic soldiers are clearly inspired by the Combine, the barren outskirts are reminiscent of the oppressive wastes around Nova Prospekt, and the grimy, rundown train station of Hazard City feels like stepping into City 17 again. But Chemical-Burn is also distinctly cyberpunk, with garish neon signs and towering skyscrapers strung about its environment.

Much of this comes from the team’s love of a classic immersive sim. “System Shock is a big influence for how we represent the corporations and cyberpunk twist the world has,” Marrelli says. “The dark colours and bright accents, the way the world makes the player feel insignificant and small, along with how we approach enemy design. We are leaning into the body horror of System Shock and Half-Life, with humans turned into synthetic zombies after taking too many drugs, mecha-dogs similar to the monkeys in System Shock 2, and more.”

Half-Life’s punchy shooting with a more cyberpunk dystopia inspired by System Shock is one bold pitch, but Chemical-Burn is already shaping up to be a standout indie shooter. And with Half-Life 3 rumours bubbling and more fan projects entering development, from full-blown remakes to entirely new expansions, maybe we’ll even see the Half-Like genre take root one day.

In the meantime, City 1 plans to launch a demo for Chemical-Burn by the end of the year, and you can wishlist it on Steam here.

Systems

Released

March 23, 2020

ESRB

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