Word of warning right off the beginning: this is a personal log and retrospective so be wary of sombre and unhappy tone it might take. I will start by saying the quiet part out loud: 2025 has been the polar opposite of great year, I’ll go as far as to say it was the worst one out of all 30 years of my life so far – and I do not use those word lightly.

There was always this feeling in my bones, that year 2025 would somehow be significant one. I never knew in what way or how, but I had just a feeling, a premonition that this one in particular would yield some things… and it did. Few of them good. Most of them bad. I’m not going to disclose everything because some of them are extremely personal but I think it’s worth to take a sideways glance at some of the things that have happened and make some notes along the way.

Let’s start with content because there was a lot of it. Most of the year was spent working level and game design on some projects – which after many delays were finally announced back in late November – alongside a rebrand of our studio from Black Phoenix to Dark Vector. It was a big event that we were planning to do in some way for years and it finally came to be with pretty lucrative effects – we announced Half-Life: Element 64 with an instant demo release which yielded fair amount of feedback and response – so much that we made it to the news of some major gaming outlets and even got a relative thumbs up from some big names on the boomer shooter scene aswell as Valve fandom itself.

Aside from successful announcement and fairly positive reception to demo of Element 64, also came the release of Half-Life Arena on steam which was originally a small mod I have made alone just for me and my friends as an improved version of the regular deathmatch, scaled down for small player counts that would be fitting for quick and fun games with mates. The decision to do that came pretty late to be honest, as it happened only this summer and with some engine-based shenanigans we actually had to port the mod to 25 Anniversary engine branch of HL1 literally two weeks from launch which created chaos in itself – but it managed to work and after some hiccups and elaborate problem-solving we managed to get the mod ready one day from announced release day. Whoof, lessons were learned… I have to give HUGE credit to my partner in crime – Tom – who has done all the programming and despite no obligation to help with Arena he made the choice to listen to my pleas for help and save the project from much worse fate. I genuinely don’t think I deserve this guy’s help, so if anyone is reading this – make sure to remember that Tingtom is even more integral to workings of this studio than I am.

Then also came the announcement of something… unique. The Making of Resurgence which as we have explained in the update post – is essentially us salvaging what we could from the game we couldn’t finish, and creating something special out of it. I was thinking for over a year how to bring Resurgence back to life so all the effort that went into it wouldn’t go to waste – and there were a lot of options on the table but ultimately I had to face the reality and admit that it is just unfeasible for such small team to pull of this big project basically aspiring to be a full-on indie game set in pre-existing universe. However, one day I had an epiphany and thought – what if we did basically a Developer Commentary, but on steroids? So, that’s what the project WILL be, though make note that it is still conceptual and in pre-production and details are being worked on and planned out. For now, we have done some post-launch caretaking of Arena and are planning to return to Element 64 in 2026 to finish off what we started.

While mod work was the primary focus of this year, and it did have a toll as I spend a significant portion of the year crunching after work to make as much progress as possible, I also had to take stops to catch and breath and do something different for a moment. As such, I nibbled on some side mapping projects, for one I have released Coyote in July which was a small King of the Hill map for Team Fortress 2 which was surprisingly met with overwhelmingly positive response on Workshop despite having zero expectations that anyone would even see it… wow! Then in mid November I thought it was time to finally publish something for Far Cry 4 as it is still my favourite of the franchise and I have a soft spot for Kyrat and its beautiful scenery. Finally, in late December I finished off Canvas which is a wingman map that was being painfully sculpted since 2024, as I really wanted to close chapter on my adventures with level design for CS2 – but more on that another time.

Aside from level design I also took a fair bit of time editing videos – my clips of Critical Role and D&D channel took a significant leap forward which was pretty nice and in all honesty it became more fulfilling than my main channel – where I spent most of the year simply releasing a bunch of gameplay vidoes to empty my massive archives that were taking up almost 4 external hard drives… didn’t really have much time to do scripted videos anymore which is sad, but it was also a reality I had to face – as much as I’d like to, it’s just not sustainable for me to do. Between struggling with voice over and consistency of video releases, I think a certain chapter of my journey with YouTube has come to an end and while I’ll still likely be making some videos – it will be more to my own satisfaction rather than trying to accomplish anything – which is perhaps as it should have always been to be honest…

Aside from regular YouTube gameplays, clips, compilations and what now, I had also directed and put together a bunch of trailers. Of course all marketing materials for our projects at Dark Vector – so the trailers for Half-Life: Element 64, Arena and The Making of Resurgence, but I have also continued my collaboration with Dustfade to bring two new trailers for Military Conflict: Vietnam. It was fun making them and I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute and help others in some ways. Aside from the trailers, I have also designed the logo for Rainbow Herbicides update aswell as new artwork for promotional purposes.

Music… music, music, music. Most of it linked to modding projects, I have composed a bunch of tracks most of which you can hear in the demo for Element 64 – but for now only two of them have been released to the public – the main themes from Arena aswell as Element 64 itself. I do hope to eventually publish full album on streaming services, and already have done some research on which distro would suit me best but again – it’s just plans for now and we will see what comes of it in time.

Back in summer I have also finished some courses and obtained certificates for web design – HTML, CSS and what not. Yeah, not exactly big or significant achievement and to be fair – I already had knowledge, but with an active Codecademy subscription I wanted to get something out of it and it seemed like the most doable thing in the span of time I had. With that, I took upon designing the new website for Dark Vector using Bootstrap as base which was good exercise and I think ended up being a bit better than my previous attempts at web design.

I am probably forgetting something minor still, but you can figure out that why it was a relatively packed year over here. Mind you, all of this was done while still working full-time day job and sacrificing basically all vacation time to work MORE on these projects. In the end, it took a significant toll on my wellbeing and mental health which unfortunately wasn’t in the best place to begin with.

The beginning of the year was very dark, and while I will not get into details of that because it’s too personal and quite frankly might be upsetting, let’s just say that I had a close call. Around the same time also came a betrayal, abandonment and general recurring theme of ostracism which you’d think one would get used to by now – but it still sucks as much as it ever did. So, with quite possibly one of the worst moments of my entire life kicking off the year and messing me up for months, I think perhaps it’s why I chose to distract myself with so much work. In the end, it probably wasn’t the best thing to do and some sort of therapy would have been healthier but unfortunately my distrust for people in this industry is likely what stood in the way more than anything else. As intensity of the workload has increased as the year went on, my health was going proportionally down and by the time we hit that event in late November I was admittedly on the edge – sleeping about 4 hours a day which in turn led to physical effects like light-headedness caused by the increasing sleep debt I had accumulated. Thankfully, I have managed to take it easy for tail end of December and get a little bit of it back so I’m slightly better now, but hopefully this is not going to repeat in the future – though given my tendencies I do not have high hopes for that.

If there was one healthy thing I did this year – it was bikeriding. Man, I have busted so many tires this year from cruising around town and vicinity it’s almost comical, but it was well worth it! Still trying to lose some weight and while the progress was slower than in 2024, I don’t want to complain too much because it was still made. Oh, and I also just remembered that I quit the job at the company I was working at for the last 8 years – only to find the new one to be practically the same level of dull, slightly infuriating office work, but slightly better paid and 5 times further away. I had jumped on the offer in hopes of getting on the hybrid work model but it turned out to be kinda a ruse so now I’m back looking for something else. Sheesh!

With that, while 2025 had some wins towards the end, I have to admit that the toll it took on me was too big to consider it anywhere near a good year. But, if there is one thing to take away from it all, its this: it will take A LOT of calamity-level shiz to happen in order for the new year to be worse. On that note, I am signing off… it’s 11:15PM, December 31st and I can finally say: Goodbye 2025, you will NOT be missed.