If you’re a long-time fan of first-person shooters, the name Gunman Chronicles might just trigger a forgotten memory. This ambitious title, released in 2000, was built on the iconic Half-Life engine and even saw surprising involvement from Valve, who also funded the project. Yet, despite these deep ties, Gunman Chronicles has never appeared on any modern PC storefronts, including Steam. Recently, the project lead offered a candid look back, revealing how his development team found themselves at Valve’s headquarters to complete the game, and why its eventual launch felt ‘anticlimactic.’
Gunman Chronicles is fondly remembered by some for a couple of standout features. Firstly, its customizable weapons system allowed players to adapt guns for different combat situations – a cool innovation for its time, even if not as complex as modern gunsmithing. Secondly, the game boasted a truly bizarre array of enemies, shifting from massive dinosaurs one moment to alien adversaries the next. While it never achieved the revolutionary status of Half-Life, it certainly shared some stylistic similarities.
It’s widely known that Valve was involved in the project, offering vital support to the team at Rewolf Software, including funding and even office space at their Seattle headquarters, to help bring the game to fruition. Herbert Flower, the head of Rewolf, recently spoke out in a magazine interview, shedding light on the unique experience of collaborating with Valve.
Flower recounted how, after gathering a globally dispersed group of modders, his team began to run low on funds to complete Gunman Chronicles. A proactive developer reached out to Valve, leveraging the game’s reliance on the Half-Life engine, and pleaded for the company to ‘save us.’
This urgent plea led to Valve flying the entire development team—including modders from Italy, Ukraine, and Germany—to Seattle. What was intended to be a brief visit extended to about two and a half months, as Gabe Newell himself granted them extra time to finalize the game. A $20,000 injection of cash and the invaluable assistance of a Valve QA tester were also instrumental. Flower humorously noted that while they nicknamed the QA tester ‘the game Nazi,’ he was ‘the most valuable thing we ever had from Valve, I’ll tell you what, aside from the free caffeine upstairs.’
Despite this close working relationship, Flower admitted that his interactions with Newell weren’t always smooth. ‘It’s not like we hated each other. It’s like two people with bad breath. We’re like ‘OK, can’t wait to get out of the room with this guy.”
While countless developers today would jump at the chance to create their game within Valve’s esteemed walls, Flower and his team’s experience wasn’t quite the dream scenario one might imagine.
Flower claims that Valve, despite delegating publishing to Sierra, took a significant cut from Gunman Chronicles’ sales. After Sierra also took their share, the team allegedly received only 11% of the earnings. These meager returns, combined with severe team exhaustion, effectively ‘threw water on the flame of my soul,’ he lamented.
The game’s launch, despite Gunman Chronicles’ evident potential, ultimately felt ‘anticlimactic.’ Flower described, ‘There was no big party. We were burned out, and the team kind of just faded off as they [went] home. [We were] dropping people off at the airport, good friends I might keep in touch with, but never see in person again.’
Given that most projects Valve has been involved with are readily available on Steam today, Gunman Chronicles stands out as a curious anomaly. While the interview didn’t definitively explain its absence, Flower’s best guess points to a dispute over rights after Sierra’s eventual merger with Vivendi, which later became part of Activision Blizzard.
Despite being built on the bedrock of one of the greatest PC games ever, making innovative design choices for its era, and selling reasonably well, the critical reception for Gunman Chronicles still bothers Flower. He recalls reviewers saying, ‘Oh, this game is too much like Half-Life!’ To which he responds, ‘What, the best game that you ever rated? Too much like that, huh?’ A perfectly fair point, one might argue.
Considering Valve’s immense success and financial might today, largely thanks to Steam, the offer of their assistance and resources is a golden opportunity many studios would covet. This makes Flower’s candid story all the more captivating. If hearing about Gunman Chronicles has sparked a wave of nostalgia, perhaps explore some other classic titles. Or, if the idea of turning a T-rex into Swiss cheese sounds like your kind of fun, there are plenty of dinosaur games to explore.
Do you have any incredible stories about games from decades past? Come and share them with our community – we’d love to hear them.