If you never got a chance to play the original Half-Life, you probably don’t realize the impact it had on the gaming community. The game featured a sense of immersion that was kind of groundbreaking to players and creators in 1998, and its developer Valve has held a longstanding reputation in the industry by consistently hitting that same mark with every one of their games since, a quality which few others have been able to match.
One of the major things that stuck out for players in Half-Life was the extended intro sequence that had you playing through protagonist Gordon Freeman’s slow commute to work, from the long train ride to the meandering, chatting co-workers in the physics lab. It goes without saying that it’s a fond memory for fans.
Director Brian Curtin, who you might be familiar with from his previous Half-Life fan film Beyond Black Mesa, is back with a commendable tribute to that very sequence. Combining live-action and some pretty swanky CGI for a home-made short, Half-Life: Origins is a brief callback to your first run-in with Black Mesa. It’s a nostalgic trip if you’ve had a chance to play the classic PC shooter, and even if it’s all new to you it’s definitely worth a look:
Hopefully it’s enough to tide you over while Half-Life 3 painfully remains a mystery.
