Published , by TJ Denzer
Published , by TJ Denzer
Back in 2016, Half-Life fans, modders, and comic creators Ross Joseph Gardner and Michael Pelletier put together a series of unofficial comics set in the Half-Life universe. Half-Life: A Place in the West has now spanned six chapters and gathered a decent following. Several years later, the creators returned to the original chapters that started it off, finding them to be a little less satisfactory than the rest. With that in mind, the first two chapters of Half-Life: A Place in the West have been remade and re-released.
Despite no direct connection with or officialization by Valve, the Half-Life: A Place in the West series can be found on Steam where the first chapter (even the remake) is free. The other five chapters of the comic series are $1.99 apiece. According to the creators, the remakes bring the first two chapters up to snuff with a great deal of experience that was gained over the years of doing them.
“We’re incredibly proud of the remakes,” said Gardner. “Whilst ordinarily we’d be content to move on with the story, we believed the original chapters no longer squared with our vision for the series as a whole. We’ve learned so much from the past few years and we knew we could do better—that we could give the story the beginning it deserved. The art team has done such an amazing job.”
In addition to co-creators Gardner and Pelletier, the comic series contains art contributions from Kristian Rossi (Trespasser, Moonshine), Ester Salguero (Back to the Future #13: Who Is Marty McFly?, Polybius Dreams), DC Hopkins (Green Arrow: Stranded, Steven Universe), Heath Heil, Ivan Miranda, Javier Puga, and Rachel Deering. Music to accompany the comics was composed by Chris Jolley (Assassin's Creed: Chronicles, Gunsight).
2020 was a great year for Half-Life with Half-Life: Alyx having launched to much applause. Work on the Black Mesa mod for the original Half-Life was also completed. If you still can’t get enough of Valve’s popular sci-fi universe, you may enjoy jumping into A Place in the West and taking a romp through its well-crafted story.