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S6 E208 Bad endings = new beginnings? (Jan 2026)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes January 8, 2026 Leave a reply

🎮 What if the “bad ending” of Half-Life… wasn’t the end at all?

In this episode of Completely Machinima, Phil, Tracy, and Damien dive into one of gaming’s most legendary “what ifs.” We explore a fan-made Half-Life mod that does the unthinkable: it turns the game’s infamous impossible ending—the one where you’re meant to die horribly—into a brutal but beatable continuation of the story.

Instead of accepting your fate at the hands of the mysterious G-Man, this mod asks: what if you survived? The result is a fascinating piece of fan fiction-meets-game design, complete with eerie “backrooms” vibes, authentic Half-Life visuals, and a surprising amount of new gameplay—made nearly 20 years after the original game launched.

Along the way, we talk about:

  • Why Half-Life’s world still inspires creators decades later
  • The passion (not profit!) behind modding communities
  • How mods act as hidden résumés for future game developers
  • Steam, new hardware rumors, and the eternal hope for Half-Life 3
  • Plus a bonus machinima pick featuring Ryan Gosling awkwardly—but brilliantly—dropped into Half-Life 2 😄

Whether you’re a hardcore Half-Life fan, a modding nerd, or just love stories about creative communities keeping worlds alive long past their expiration date, this episode is all about the joy of saying: “What if we didn’t stop there?”

👉 Let us know what you think on our socials—tell us which game ending you wish someone would rewrite.

Here’s the audio version of this episode –



and here’s the YouTube version –

Here’s the link to the film –

Surviving the Bad Ending in Half Life (Remastered) by Sanity Lost, released 8 Oct 2025

And the second film is a Half Life machinima that includes Ryan Gosling

Ryan Gosling in Half Life 2 by eli_handle_b.wav released 21 Oct 2025

S5 E198 RDR2 John Wick (Sept 2025)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes September 10, 2025 Leave a reply

This week’s film selectiion is a technical masterpiece, made in RDR2. It is both an homage to the game and the film. John Wick’s Red Dead Redemption is made by eli_handle_b.wav, and is worth every second of your time watching it! 



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes & Links

John Wick’s Red Dead Redemption, by eli_handle_b.wav released 9 August 2025 –

S4 E97 Elden Ring: Monty Python (Oct 2023)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes October 4, 2023 Leave a reply

Kicking off Season 4 of the podcast, we review a Monty Python inspired film, integrating one of their greatest films with Elden Ring – Holy Grail.  The film has been made by The Escapist in collaboration with eli_handle_b.wav and is a brilliantly edited and composited mashup.  It is also a very appropriate pick for this episode since Monty Python were the inspiration for this podcast in the first place, so we reflect in the show that we’ve now been working on this podcast longer than the original Star Trek series ran + another 20 years collaborating on top of that too!

We also discuss news items: the launch of Starfield; Nexus Mods; Unity’s faux pas with the community of creators; Ricky’s attempt to install an AMD 7800T graphics card; and, the Sims Machinima & Animation Convention.



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes and Links

Monty Python & the Elden Ring | Multiverse by The Escapist, released 8 August 2023

The Escapist is a website by gamers, for gamers, about gamers, releasing new videos every day at its website: http://www.escapistmagazine.com

A ‘how to’ using AI with largely free tools including Adobe Express to remove the background of images and put anything generated by AI back into the image, by Guy Parsons – https://twitter.com/GuyP/status/1704886297649631324

Starfield promotion –

Unity blog posts –

Original news post

Retraction post

Interview by Jason Weimann with Marc Whitten, Unity’s general manager –

Sims Machinima & Animation Convention 2023 website here and event recordings here –