‘So while Valve is hinting at lore that transcends map boundaries, it’s disappointing
to know that they’ll never do anything more with it’.
…Or perhaps they will. For there are things hidden around the latest
coop map – which if nothing else, perhaps clue us in about what Valve might be working
on next. Hidden within the terrorist base are several
construction sites. And they do tell something of a story. I mentioned in my last video that
there were numerous blueprints and images of the map Ancient in one of the control panels.
…but there’s more than just that. For if you look out of the window, into the construction
site below, it represents Ancient’s bombsite B, suggesting that the terrorists are using
this place as a way of practicing an attack on that site, which is recorded and studied
in the office above. Which I admit is kind of cool. The way the enemies spawn in this
zone is almost like you’re playing a retake map- which remember, is another thing that
was introduced in this ongoing CS:GO operation. But there’s something even more interesting
going on. Because there’s ANOTHER construction site. And this one takes the form of Mirage’s
bombsite B. And sure enough, head up to the control room above this area and it contains
a load of pictures of Mirage’s Bombsite B, and this whiteboard which may or may not
contain more secret clues to what this all means.
Now I don’t want to read into this too much but MIRAGE REMAKE CONFIRMED?!?!
H1- could that mean it’ll come out in the first half of this year? What could this mostly
erased text mean? And what about this here? Like I said, it’s best not to read into
this too much. But in the bible, Job 13:15 says ‘Though he slay me, I will hope in
him; yet I will argue my ways to his face.’, which mirrors the toxic state of matchmaking,
and is a sentiment that can be seen repeated in the books in the blind navigation coop
puzzle room, which are juxtaposed against a puzzle that requires teamwork to win. Either
that, or enough consecutive losses for it to simply give you the win out of pity. Also
like matchmaking. But like I said, best keep our expectations
low and not to read into these books too much. And this room shows us that Half Life 3 is
under construction! Confirmed!!! Now I hate baseless speculation, but since
H1 leads to Mirage, which we know already is coming out in the first half of this year,
I suspect H2 refers to the second half of this year. Let’s take a look at what Valve
have in store for then. Hmm, it just leads to stairs.
You might say this is a floor in my argument, but I disagree. It’s stairs. As in, they’re
taking STEPS towards Half-Life 3, which, being H3, will be the half AFTER H2, or two halves
after H1, which means, with absolute certainty that it will be coming out in the first half
of next year. And there’s more than just that: go up to the control panel just above
this, you can see two buttons which require 2 people to operate, thus showing us that
Half Life 3 will feature a coop mode. Now I don’t want you blowing this information
out of all proportion. It might be that this isn’t what’s happening. It might be that
Half Life 3 could support 3 or even 4 players, don’t rule out that possibility. And it
might very well come out before next year. I don’t want to spread misinformation or
anything here. Fun fact: this coop level uses several textures
with ‘overpass’ in the name. HR_overpass, implying that at some point that map will
be getting a graphical overhaul. These tiles sure do look like the older ones, but with
4x the number of pixels. If you ask me, Overpass doesn’t need a full make-over just yet,
so this might be something similar to what Mirage got a couple of years ago when a load
of its models were upgraded. Sort of like an upgrade, but short of a total remake. So
this could be something else that we could see from the game at some point in the unforeseeable
future. One more thing: in one bit of the coop mission,
you’re told to ‘Search the room, grab any piece of intel you can find. We’ll sort
through it later’. And inside one of those rolled up scrolls is THIS. Sadly it’s too
low-res to make much sense of -damn you, Source engine- but we can make out this text here,
which reads ‘Abflafskanal’. And I believe this holds the key to uncovering the next
part of the puzzle. So I ripped these files from the game. Then
I pieced them together to make the fullest image I could, I brightened it all to about
the same level… and got THIS. WHAT IS IT?! Parts of it look like an engine
diagram. This bit here looks like a stairwell. But I can’t for the life of me figure out
which existing map it could be referring to, if any. But then, since I beat the coop map
without noticing the Mirage and Ancient bits, perhaps I’m not the right person for this
task. What do YOU think it could all mean? Smash that subscribe button, hit that like
button and punch out a comment below.