Earth's Special Forces: Current Development Status (2024)

Updated

Earth's Special Forces (ESF) is currently in a transitional state: the team has moved its project from Half-Life to Sven Co-op, and as of the March 14, 2024 update, every model and character is now in the game, mostly animated and working. What's still missing is each character's unique transformation animations and their bonus tiers, along with fixes to an outdated FMOD audio version and the map clutter system.

Why the move happened

Valve's November 2023 25th anniversary update for Half-Life broke many mods. The update adjusted Half-Life's memory usage, and because Half-Life doesn't have the "LargeAddressAware" (LAA) header flagged, it can only access 2GB of total memory rather than 4GB. For ESF, that ceiling was fatal — the base Trunks model alone is as large as all of Half-Life's models combined, so the game hit the memory wall and stopped working.

The team could have enabled the LAA flag themselves, but worried that doing so could potentially trigger a VAC ban. Sven Co-op, by contrast, was given access to the source code and could alter the game to use 4GB of memory. That's why ESF moved there.

What works now

  • All models and characters are in the game — mostly animated and functional.
  • Map switching no longer requires restarting the game. Previously the game had to be closed and reopened to change maps.

What's still missing or broken

  • Unique transformation animations for each character.
  • Bonus tiers for each character — Dalte is currently working on these.
  • Transformation audio — being set up per character and sent to Da (per the update).
  • FMOD audio — the old version ESF uses for sounds is outdated enough to cause its own problems and still needs fixing.
  • Clutter system — needs cleanup so map changes work flawlessly without issues like rocks spawning in the air.

The short version

The Sven Co-op move solved the major memory problems, but introduced new ones (notably the aging FMOD audio). The project is playable in large part — characters and models are in — but transformation animations, bonus tiers, and audio work remain outstanding.