Raising The Bar: Retail mod for Half-Life 2: Episode Two

We are pleased to announce that Raising The Bar: Retail is becoming its own official mod!

The first thing everyone should know is that the mod will be divided into 5 parts, or, to be more correct, divisions. Division one is everything from the beginning of the game to the end of Ravenholm. Division two is everything from the beginning of the coast to the beginning of Nova Prospekt. Division three is the entire Nova Prospekt. Division four is street wars. Division five is the citadel.

Regarding the idea of creating RTB:Retail…

The creation of Raising The Bar: Retail stems from our time with mods like Coterminus. I’ve always wanted there to be a mod that would add beta elements to the retail levels in ways that make sense, thus why Coterminus is one of the inspirations.

What else we’d like to point out is that this is not purely a reskin of the existing levels - A lot of new content and secrets were hidden on many levels. So, even if you’re familiar with HL2, we recommend you take a look through these levels with a new eye to catch all the details.

And now, for some screenshots!

Route Kanal

Adding new areas to existing levels was a no-brainer to giving players familiar with HL2 a reason to explore our maps. These added areas feature new combat encounters and art art passed to the same standard as the rest of the map, emulating the designs set out in RTBR’s rendition of their levels. Inimini was primarily assigned to this map, working alongside both Dmitron and Tedisaur to wrap it up.

Water Hazard

Revisiting Water Hazard meant taking a close look at the direction RTBR went with for their canal maps; and the additional reference of Episode Two’s 2006 beta. Then, the goal was to couple it with the memorable atmosphere of the original maps, to create a best-of-all-worlds.

Ravenholm Mines

The Ravenholm mines always seemed like a missed opportunity in HL2, over before they really began; so, in Retail, we took inspiration from Episode Two’s more sprawling mine complex and RTBR’s Division 2 climax of Minetown, making the space more logical and expanding their scope.

Ravenholm Church

The Ravenholm church and the graveyard started off with very primitive geometry, so when updating the fidelity of the two areas we took inspiration from the beta’s iteration of the church. From there, we crafted a fully fleshed out interior to explore, likewise the graveyard map received more detail and gameplay alterations which you will see later to cap off Grigori and the player's journey.

Town_02a

Town_02a was a favorite of the team to edit, being that it allowed us to return to an iconic locale, but with newfound inspiration. We expanded the explorable areas of the map, giving more depth to the abandoned town, and also additional props for a savvy player to scavenge in their fight against the zombie denizens of Ravenholm. This was primarily Inimini/I’s responsibility, with Dmitron assisting wrapping up the visual design of the map.

New NPC Textures

The levels aren’t the only thing being changed to match - our texture artist An_Unknown_Player has been hard at work changing the textures of RTBR’s enemy models to resemble the colour schemes seen in the final game!

Metrocops and Elites

Unknown had always wondered how the RTB:R metropolice (as well as other characters) would look like in the retail Half-Life 2 colours and Raising The Bar: Retail was the perfect opportunity to explore that concept. Whilst working on these reskins, new techniques for nailing down details were learned and put into practice to help enemies match their surroundings better.

Regular Zombies

Zombies were probably some of the most challenging retextures that had to be done for the mod. The biggest ask was changing the colour of the underlying shirt whilst retaining the blood detail, but some careful photo editing and painting in of details led to the result above.

Combine Soldiers

The combine soldiers were some of our favorites to retexture given Unknown’s past experience reskinning this model. Matching the camo detail was probably the most challenging aspect of the retexture, but it really came together in the end result.

New Xen Flora & Fauna Variants

We're going to be adding new Xen flora and fauna variants for most of the RTBR Xen line-up to make the world feel more alive! The variants consist of new designs to help match the world of HL2 with a twist of RTBR. Along with new variants, we're also creating the different stages of their lives, going from young to old. Here's some examples created by our concept artist, Soomlarr. The designs were made to have a blend of HL1 but unique enough to feel like a new iteration. Our modeler, Kajlo, will be bringing these concepts to life. You can also expect some of these designs to appear in Through The City.

Finishing Up

Well, that's all for us. We’re currently still at work designing and polishing the first Division to make sure it’s in a good state before putting it in your hands. You can join the Raising the Bar: Redux Discord server here, where we’ve been given our own channel for discussion.

If you want to help with development, we're currently looking for

• Artpassers
• 3D Modellers – We're looking for talented 3D modellers with hard-surface experience

If you're interested, you can apply by sending a message to Tedisaur on discord.

Thanks, and we hope to see you playing the mod soon!