Please let me start by introducing us as a team. We are InterWave Studios, an entertainment software and technology company that was founded at the beginning of 2008 by source community developers.

Our History

So what more can I tell you about us then? Well over previous years from working through projects such as SourceBans, SteamBans, Detox Anti-Cheat, IRCRelay, TodaysBigFail.com, from our programming team, and with and art team that has built experience in development through large modification titles such as Insurgency, Black Mesa: Source, Firearms: Source, Half-Life² Capture The Flag, Deviation, Sven Coop and more, through various means we essentially joined together as a team with the express purpose of developing a retail video game, designed and made by gamers, for gamers.

The Idea

Our goal as a now complete, full-circle team was to build a commercial product that would be more interactive and immersive for players than existing retail products. Being born from community development, the steam strapped together the remainder of the Stargate: The Last Stand design to finish its beta build. The idea to do this was born of care for the community that got us where we were, and of an appetite to get our production machine well greased for our big show, a product that we designed called "Distant Hope".

While we took the road down our own project developments, an unfortunate set of circumstances had overcome one of the most outstanding modifications ever designed for the Source engine, Nuclear Dawn. The original founders of the project were so incredible with their free work, that major studios couldn't get enough and swiped them all away one by one. As we drew to the end of the Stargate game's development, the incredible uniqueness of Nuclear Dawn's design was at the very brink of being lost forever... until we found her.

The Mission

Our Operations Director, Ben Palmer headed up a recovery mission to get each original developer of the project, and bring them all to a table for discussion. He saw an opportunity to combine our passionate ideas that we had been brewing for Distant Hope with those existing entities already in place for what Nuclear Dawn's release should have always been. After much negotiation, Ben brokered a deal with the leaders and surrogate leaders of the game, giving InterWave Studios a chance to show off what we could produce with the current aspects of Nuclear Dawn, a chance to begin to merge our own product and refine the design, making the player engagement more functionally advanced than the designers ever had a real opportunity to achieve - a test for which the result would return the opportunity to finalize it into a commercial product.

After many months of finalization work on existing projects, and a little presentation work for the original team, we can now officially announce that we will be continuing the development of the Nuclear Dawn game into a fully fleshed out retail product.

Armed with an all new design document, grown and evolved from the original concepts of the Nuclear Dawn modification at its heart, the game is in full swing development for release at some point in 2010 (next year).

But why in the world is it going to take so long? Well as soul-destroying as it is to say, and admit for the remainder of the original development team, a large proportion of the publically released content for the mod version of the title was in one way or another fabricated for PR.

This is, not to say that the artwork was not beautifully crafted for Nuclear Dawn - however, in a slightly bizarre move for the previous key project manager, certain functionality was fabricated for the sake of various publications, which have since haunted the product and the community left trying to hold what was left back together. of course not! This lead to various cut backs and dissections of the game in an attempt to get it released before death, thereby leaving a mangled Counter-Strike capture the flag mod with a couple of incomplete levels, disguising the remarkable artwork and just as remarkable programming behind it.

Going Commercial

So, as a commercial studio, our team are working on producing the game in the glory that you have all secretly wished for deep down inside for all of this time. We are active with our community, and will be keeping you, the community, involved through every step of the way, with news updates and forum interaction throughout our experience working on the product.

We have to be clear that InterWave is not developing this product out of commercial greed - we are developing it out of passion and commitment to gaming, in the knowledge that we can create something spectacular for a whole new community to be born from.

The game will be as true to its concepts as ever, with our own implementations as well as the key originals, re-applying all of the features that were lost in the final month's of the product's life as a modification. As a retail product, we are not looking to extort our community, however, with financial backing the product is capable of so much more than ever before as a free mod, with all of the bells, whistles and goolies that you could dream of in a big-name title.

From this moment onward, Nuclear Dawn escalates to an all new level of incredible, intense, immersive and engaging team-based play on the Source® engine and its vast, loyal, dedicated community of gamers. This product - this game... is a game for true gamers, that know the meaning of online combat.

Media

Below you can see a concept from one of the first new levels under development. Based on the infamous Empire State Building in America's Big Apple, the building is found at the heart of our manhattan environment.

Then, followed closely, you can see our new Consortium Faction Exo-Infantry. Based on the same concepts, these player models will replace those existing in Nuclear Dawn as you have always known it. The previous player models (as beautiful as they are) became prey to wild dogs one night in the creator's bedroom - that is to say, they were given to a mod in development and we are not to talk about it.

As always, stay tuned, and keep watching this space, and we will update you with our progress.

On behalf of the entire InterWave Studios team I would like to express my admiration for the extended devotion that has been shown to the Nuclear Dawn community for all of these years, and we would like to assure you that we are here and settled in for the long haul with all of you.

Kind regards,
Michiel Beenen
Managing Director InterWave Studios