Yet another mysterious oddity from Gearbox Software’s unreleased-yet-leaked Dreamcast version of Half-Life. It was well known before the shipping date that the DC version would not include any multiplayer component. However, it was hinted in interviews that it could still be a possibility through some sort of expansion, perhaps even a multiplayer-only focused Half-Life DC game. With the cancellation of the main title, that plan obviously never had a chance to pan out. Still, there’s the question of how much, if anything, had already been developed for the port’s potential multiplayer content. All of the PC’s default deathmatch maps had been left in the DC version’s pak file. Left largely unchanged from the originals (And hence, would be unplayable given the Dreamcast’s limited capabilities), these were likely just leftovers overlooked during the converting process. However, this video demonstrates an additional, fully functional yet unused map left in the pak file simply called “dm_office”. Obviously based on a section of the Office Complex chapter, this level has no equivalent in the PC game and curiously uses the “dm_” prefix unlike any other official deathmatch map. The small scale and confined nature suggests that this was built specifically for the Dreamcast to be used in either splitscreen or low-player networking mode. Nonetheless, this map did eventually surface in the PlayStation 2 port’s Head to Head mode in virtually identical form. Whether this was its planned …

25 Responses to “Half-Life (Dreamcast) – Unused Deathmatch Map”