Developers Of Half-Life 2 Mod Raindrop Join The Long Dark

Kickstarter is a fickle beast, and for every grand success story like Double Fine’s Broken Age there are a dozen dreams put forth to the people that do not break through. One such dream is the story of Raindrop, the hyper ambitious exploration-focused horror title that began as a total-conversion modification for Half-Life 2 in 2009, and changed to a full game in Unity 3D under development by the two man team of Nihad Nasupovic and Max Ramirez. These two took to Kickstarter last year to fund a full Raindrop game, and sadly came up empty handed, ending on November 11 far short of their goal.

But their efforts were not in vain; The Hinterland, the upstart developer behind the highly successful and anticipated horror-explorer The Long Dark, has brought aboard the young talents of Raindrop according to an announcement on The Long Dark‘s official site.

The Long Dark, for those unaware, is the “post-digital” story of William Mackenzie, a bush pilot who finds himself stranded in the Pacific Northwest after a mysterious aurora takes out all of humanity’s technology. Promising evocative, first-person, exploration-centric storytelling, its eye catching art-style and accomplished development staff has attracted more than 250,000 dollars American on Kickstarter and the vocal talents of Jennifer Hale and David Hayter.

Speaking on the site, Creative Director Raphael van Lierop explained how Max and Nihod got their attention; “We were so impressed with what we saw of Raindrop…that we approached them right after they wrapped up their Kickstarter. We were sad to see their campaign fail to reach its target, but we thought that these two guys just had way too much talent to waste. And with both Raindrop and The Long Dark being very atmospheric, exploration-focused first-person experiences…We know their formidable artistic skill and Unity expertise is going to help us push the quality of the game even further.”

And for those who wonder of Raindrop‘s future, van Lierop says this; “And as we move forward, we hope we can do even more to help Nihad and Max keep Raindrop alive.” This is something we are seeing more and more often these days, modders being tapped for their talents by developers, and it can only add to the fidelity and originality of games going forward. You can learn more about The Long Dark here, including the original Kickstarter pitch.