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Instead of hiring professionals, like Berkan mentioned in his interview with RunThinkShootLive, a plethora of Youtube personalities were hired to fill roles such as voice actors, and even technical positions like level designers. Here’s where we find another bizarre fact. Well, according to some sources, Royal Rudius (or rather Berkan) used a substantial chunk of their investor money to buy Steam bots, essentially fake profiles that posed as humans and helped to vote HDTF through the Steam Greenlight process. Regardless of the growing fan discontent and development confusion, the game somehow managed to get through Steam Greenlight - a now defunct process that allowed Steam users to vote on indie games they wanted to appear on the marketplace.Ĭonsidering the negativity and the brave few who still had hope for HDTF, you might wonder how such an unpopular title made it past the Greenlight barrier.

To further add insult to injury, apparently Frank was barely online and was also the only person that had the authority to approve anyone’s work. As one contractor explained it: “If you forgot what you had to do for the day and Frank wasn’t online, you were fucked”.

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There is also regular mention of a lack of proper and professional leadership. Beyond a disorganised and often “dead” Discord group, most of the independent contractors, such as level designers and sound engineers, had almost no contact with each other and were rarely, if ever, provided the opportunity to view each other’s work. Now while this might not be entirely unusual, the way these contractors were utilised certainly was. Beyond the core development team (around five people) that worked from a small office in Los Angeles, Royal Rudius ostensibly recruited around 60 independent contractors that came and went over time. Now with money to back the project, development on a full-fledged Hunt Down The Freeman began. Of all the bad things people say about Berkan, you have to give him one thing the man is dedicated as fuck. Somehow, things were starting to look up for HDTF for once. He also managed to secure substantial investments, allegedly including US$50 000 from YouTuber Bolloxed. Behind the scenes though, Berkan was already assembling a new team and formed Royal Rudius Entertainment, the indie studio behind the currently released Hunt Down The Freeman. It seemed like the final nail in the coffin for HDTF. On the contrary, it escalated the negative backlash to a point where the project was abandoned and the development team disbanded. After this interview, the only remaining form of redemption this project had left was an upcoming playable demo, which Berkan promised would answer the ocean of questions that was coming his way. He seemed to show a lack of experience in both game development and general knowledge of said community. While Berkan was confident in his interview, albeit a tad incoherent (he isn’t a native English speaker), he didn’t inspire much confidence in the Half Life community. Through all my research for this piece, this interview was by far the most enlightening look at the early days of Hunt Down The Freeman and the man known as Berkan.

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The Indiegogo campaign didn’t fare any better raising a meagre US$12 of its ambitious US$100 000 goal.Īround the same time, as HDTF started garnering more attention, Berkan eventually found himself being interviewed by RunThinkShootLive, a Youtube channel dedicated to reviewing “single player maps and mods for Half Life Games”. No one was too fond of the idea of killing their hero Gordon Freeman either. While some considered it an exciting prospect (pun not intended), many quickly criticised the use of cutscenes, the blatant presence of copyrighted assets, strange bugs, amateurish voice acting, and inconsistencies in Half Life lore. The trailer received strong but mixed reactions. To start generating hype and introduce their brain child to the world, an Indiegogo campaign was launched, followed by an early concept HDTF trailer. It was originally planned as a short film, but focus quickly shifted towards the development of, in Berkan’s own words, “an entirely original, standalone story-based FPS game that takes part in the Half-Life Universe”. In 2016, a team lead by a man named Berkan Denizyaran aka “Frank” (his western name) had the idea of telling a Half Life story via the perspective of a Marine who sought vengeance against Gordon Freeman, the iconic protagonist and hero of the Half Life series.

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