Ding

This is your captain speaking. Our flight out of Sestero Grand International Airport is packed to the brim with antsy passengers. My flight crew and I all understand that a long haul flight to China is very taxing for the average passenger, but we've come prepared with ample in-flight entertainment to tide you over until our arrival. Please, fasten your seatbelts and keep all smoking in the appropriate part of the cabin. We hope you enjoy your flight.

Now then, for our first piece of in-flight entertainment: Some kind of cartoon featuring a colorful horse and cat-like creature, discussing various high-tech futurey stuff that’s way over our heads! What even is an “internet?” Is that something they made up for the show? We don’t know! And thanks to our close ties with the fellas involved with the production of this silly cartoon, everyone on-board gets complimentary garments like the ones worn by these weird animal creatures! We hope you enjoy the show, and be sure to pay close attention, this has some surprises you won’t want to miss! You might even see a familiar face or two!

(Loveweb tie-in cosmetics by Arsen, based on concept art by Shadok)

Speaking of garments, some long-awaited new fashion has arrived onto the scene! And for participating in this flight, everyone on-board gets it free-of-charge! Ahem, free forever, of course. Enjoy showing off the latest fashions to your friends and coworkers, and make them jealous for not participating in this premium aviation experience! Now, one of my flight attendants reminded me a moment ago that these were all bought by corporate in bulk from a Dillard’s. So please, enjoy the free luxury garments.

(Welding gloves, overalls, hoodie, and sweatpants by Wendy, based on concept art by OverlordLettuce)

(Tennis visor, dirt bike helmet, and redone Quake gloves by Arsen, the helmet being based on concept art by Extra Ram)

Next, check out this refinement to a well-used piece of weaponry: The China Lake! Beefier, sturdier, and much more intimidating, this tried and true piece of ordnance is now better than ever! Send your foes running in fear as you rain hellfire on them from above!

(Model by Arsen, based on concept art by HypnOS 1999)

And we’re not done yet, going along with our theme of showcasing the technology of tomorrow, get ready to hear the new and improved VOX automated announcement system! Now he can say many more words with better clarity, so you shouldn’t have as much trouble understanding what he says! They really ought to start fitting our DC-10s with these, would save me some hassle.

Thanks to the discovery of FlexTalk, our ol' pal VOX has finally gotten the revamp he deserves! Brand new lines, more consistent audio quality and levels, and in general his dialogue is a lot more faithful to how he speaks in Half-Life and TFC! Coming next update! pic.twitter.com/xu2apyq0KD

— Open Fortress (@OpenFortress) May 14, 2024

Finally, look up! Look down! Look out! We don’t just have in-flight entertainment, for the first time ever experience a live demonstration of a brand new, state of the art piece of equipment: The Jetpack! A cutting edge device demonstrated by none other than the captain of danger himself, the Mercenary! As you exit the cabin, watch the skies above Wushu as the Mercenary goes where no man has gone before! On their lonesome, anyhow.

Thank you for flying Danielle Airlines on this long haul journey of ours! We do hope you appreciated your lengthy stay with us, even if our seats were packed a bit tightly over in the economy class cabin. The one expense we do spare is space on our economy class tickets, much apologies. However, for those of you returning to the states with a ticket to “LAX”, we heard that the roads in Los Angeles have gotten a (much) needed re-paving over the last few months. So on your return home, you can burn rubber like there’s no tomorrow!

Farewell, travelers! Wherever your journeys may take you, we’re sure they’ll be more than thrilling. There’s many different places to land these days, so we hope you tell us about your potentially hazardous travels yourselves some day. Now go out there and witness that beautiful, burning world!

Bon voyage!

Calling all mercenaries! The eggheads over at R&D have been looking for new ways to expand our horizons, all in order to best demonstrate our firepower on all fronts both physical and digital, and to let the criminal underworld know this: We. Mean. Business. Long story short, we just discovered this new-fangled "YouTube" thing, and by then it had occurred to us that we now have the technology to show off some of our strongest mercenaries we've got to offer! While at the same time, catching instances of goons goofing around on the job, just for that false sense of security if one were to enlist. Which is why we need YOU!

Yes, that's right. It's about damn time to show this world what you're really made of. Whether you're a godly ass-kicker, or a goofy goober, there's always room for a merc like you! If you've got what it takes, then march right on over to [email protected] and hand over YOUR clips, all for the chance at being showcased in one of our future broadcasts. Now GO! MOVE IT!

(In layman's terms: Send us your clips, whether they're cool frags or assortments of funny moments, and we'll put em' in compilations on our official Youtube channel.)

Something we're going to be doing a lot more on the Open Fortress blog and YouTube page is showcasing content created by the OF community; on this blog, we'll be giving those posts the "Community Spotlight" tag. We're starting today with a playthrough from none other than Vinny Vinesauce - that's right, the founder of the Vinesauce streaming collective recently played our lil' old mod, and the VOD upload is now available for all to enjoy. Check it out down below by clicking the thumbnail image, and don't forget to check out the rest of the Vinesauce content lineup as well if you haven't already!