Welcome to the official Underhell Group

A message about Jeremy Faucomprez (Mxthe)

Some of you have already heard the sad news about Jeremy Faucomprez's passing. He was the creator of Underhell, also known as Mxthe. We all miss him and care about him so much, so as a way of showing respect to him, we want to officially share with you that he died by suicide on March 6th of this year at the age of 35.

This message is written by some of the other people who brought you Underhell: Michael “Mikee” Tsarouhas, Tom Stoffel, and Charly Sotelo, and also with some help from Jeremy’s family.

We’ve been struggling on how to write this and what to say. We want to take this sad news as an important opportunity to raise awareness about mental health and suicide prevention. We need to explain that Jeremy loved and appreciated you all very much. You should all know what Underhell meant to him and to us.

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To get to this point takes lots of difficult experiences in life, and Jeremy had a few of those. For years he was struggling with depression and anxiety. In early 2025 he correctly sought to address all these issues through talk therapy[www.mayoclinic.org] and seeking support from people close to him. He knew that talking about his health was an important step in the healing process. Things intensified late last year. After a sudden manic episode in December 2025, he was admitted to a hospital and diagnosed with bipolar disorder[www.mayoclinic.org].

The three of us spent a lot of time with Jeremy in the last few months, checking in with him regularly, hanging out in Discord voice calls, and playing games. In addition to long late night chats, we did a couple Halo 3 custom maps (House Cleaning and Saving Sergeant Johnson) and a partial Legendary Halo: Reach campaign playthrough with the Iron skull on. We enjoyed that time so much with him, and despite his struggles, he was still very much himself. At one point on House Cleaning, he was literally crying with laughter. During those nights he always spoke very honestly with us and kept us up to date on his mental health challenges. He was hopeful, positive, medically compliant, and doing everything right.

This is part of why his suicide hurt so much. Jeremy was a positive person trying to find happiness. He was full of life, but he was suffering with mental health issues. He did everything correctly, but he ultimately succumbed to the wounds in his mind, through no fault of his own.

Everyone who struggles with depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or whatever other mental health challenge must understand Jeremy’s story. Countless people have saved themselves from suicide. These emotional and mental issues can be healed, but you must act as soon as possible despite what your mind is telling you. Do not ignore the problem. Do not wait. Do not be afraid. Do not be ashamed. If you have depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, or any other mental health concern, seek help immediately. There is no more shame in it than seeing a doctor to get a cast for a broken limb, or taking antibiotics for pneumonia. You need to help your body heal. Family, friends, and resources are there for you or anyone you know dealing with these issues. We hope that Jeremy’s suicide can be used as an opportunity to remind people of the importance of mental health and suicide awareness.

If you’re having suicidal thoughts or need help with your mental health, try the links below and get help. Do not wait:

https://www.iasp.info/suicidalthoughts/

https://befrienders.org/

https://findahelpline.com/

https://www.lifeline.org.au/

If you live in the US, you can dial 988 on your phone for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. If you live in Australia, you can dial 13 11 14.

If you would like to learn more about what it’s like living with bipolar disorder, consider watching this documentary:
https://youtu.be/Oul9nDB06yQ?si=wy6Ll42BnCDgRvsd

If you have a friend or family member that you think is struggling, do not hesitate. Reach out to them and check in with them. Tell them you care about them, and ask them to be honest with you on how they are feeling. Most importantly, create a plan together to get better. Treat it like what it is: a medical issue that gets worse with time, but recovery is possible.

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For Jeremy, Underhell was his start as a professional in the gaming industry. Shortly after Chapter 1 released in 2013, his friend Brandon McKagan (known nowadays for his music work on Trepang2) gifted a copy of the then in early access Insurgency to Jeremy. He fell in love with the game immediately, and noticed it was built on the Source engine with which he was so familiar through Underhell. He applied and was quickly hired at New World Interactive. The skills with Source and Hammer level editor that he developed with Underhell were invaluable on Insurgency, which itself was borne out of a former Half-Life 2 mod:
INSURGENCY: Modern Infantry Combat

After Insurgency’s release, Jeremy worked on and helped release:
Day of Infamy
Insurgency: Sandstorm

That journey brought him all the way from Guadalajara in Mexico to Amsterdam in the Netherlands to Calgary in Canada. After that, he joined the Highwire Games team where he worked on:
Six Days in Fallujah

His contributions across those projects were many, mostly in the areas of level design and game design but also as a producer. He did a lot: the Insurgency tutorial mission, the Day of Infamy map Dog Red, ballistic design and breakable props on Insurgency: Sandstorm, mission design and blood decals on Six Days in Fallujah, and so much more for these and other projects. Jeremy's final work, which is a mission he created, will be included in the next update of Six Days in Fallujah.

Aside from the professional part, personally speaking, Underhell was an incredible creative outlet for Jeremy. That story and project meant so much to him and truthfully we don’t know all the reasons why. We only know it as the thing that he, our friend, did tirelessly. It was something that we wanted to and were privileged to help him on.

For Mikee, it was also a start in the gaming industry. When he joined the Underhell team, something clicked as a career direction. Instead of just doing voice over for Takeo/Raito and the soldiers as originally planned, he did narrative design for new dialogue scenes in the prologue, rewrote the entire game’s subtitles, cast/directed other voice actors, supported the Chapter 1 weapon redesign, playtested, and recruited playtesters. Jeremy recommended Mikee apply to New World after he was hired, and the two went on to work together there for seven and a half years. Mikee’s work on Underhell helped him in writing, voicing, and directing voice over for all of New World Interactive’s projects, as well as acting as a community manager and eventually moving into a lead design role on Insurgency: Sandstorm. He still remembers the numerous 3+ hour meetings with Jeremy Faucomprez and Jeremy Blum (the CEO/Game Director and a fellow modder, the founder of the Red Orchestra mod) designing all the systems and mechanics that make up Insurgency: Sandstorm as it’s known today. Not only that, but Mikee and Jeremy were very good friends. They spent a lot of time together online, and then later, spent a lot of time together physically when they were both living in Amsterdam and Calgary while working for New World. They continued gaming and hanging out online when they lived apart when Mikee left New World for Meta in 2021. When Jeremy was laid off by New World Interactive, and understandably fearful of finding new work in the current gaming climate, Mikee made sure to introduce him to the Six Days in Fallujah team. They immediately took a liking to him and saw his talent. It was a perfect fit with Jeremy’s tactical shooter experience, knowledge of Unreal, and diverse skillset.

For Charly, Jeremy’s brilliance as a game designer was something all of you got to experience through his work. Charly saw it right away too, back when he first played the original Underhell: Prologue (the SMOD version) in 2011. Not long after, he reached out, asking if there might be room on the team for someone who was eager but still pretty unproven as a developer. Jeremy promptly welcomed him in. Over the next couple of years, that turned into the Source SDK 2007 version of Underhell, a project that took a huge amount of time, problem-solving, and persistence from everyone involved. As the principal engineer -- and in practice, for much of the project, the only engineer -- Charly was responsible for implementing and maintaining the core technical systems that made Underhell possible. It was a demanding role that required constant iteration, creative problem-solving, and close collaboration with Jeremy’s vision. Jeremy gave Charly more than just a chance: he gave him confidence at a time when it really mattered. He trusted him with real responsibility, pushed him to improve, and helped him grow. That experience ended up playing a big part in Charly pursuing a career in computer science, something he’ll always be grateful for. Outside of the work, Jeremy was just a good friend. They spent countless hours building things, fixing things that broke, throwing around ideas, or just talking and playing games. Like a lot of friendships that start through modding and gaming, it just happened naturally over time. Charly wishes he’d had more time with him. He’ll carry those memories with him not just as inspiration, but as a reminder of who Jeremy was: generous with his time, driven, and deeply passionate about what he loved. He will be profoundly missed.

For Tom, interacting with Jeremy’s joy, friendship, and creative genius was one of the most beautiful, challenging, and enlightening experiences in his entire life and career. Jeremy was a visionary, a philosopher, a dreamer, and a dear friend. Tom and Jeremy would spend sometimes up to 10 hours straight working, discussing plot points, eating meals, pondering character psychology, composing music, arguing metaphysics and philosophy, recording voice lines, playing games, and goofing around. Not only were these frequent and sometimes daily “sessions” a great opportunity for growth, they were a gift. Underhell was Tom’s first foray into musical composition as well as his first video game collaboration. The opportunity inspired him to go on to work on many other film, TV, and video game projects, but his time with Underhell and Mxthe will always hold a very special place in his heart. Not only did Underhell afford Tom an opportunity to compose music, but it offered him an opportunity to voice act, write lyrics, sing songs, write dialogue, and share in aspects of the creative process which he never imagined he would take part. He wishes he could continue to spend time with Jeremy and that he was still here as he, Tom, Mikee, and Charly, have all remained good friends over the years. He will be greatly missed. Tom would like to say, I love you and I miss you Jeremy. “I’ll be seeing ya, not too early, and not too late.” Rest in peace now my friend.

The point that must be made is that Underhell, an unfinished mod project like so many others on ModDB, had profound and lasting impact. So many mods do, whether or not they release, as they’re important creative expressions, learning tools, and pathways into professional game development. Underhell will never be finished, it died with Jeremy, but it’s important to acknowledge that it already accomplished so much. Your joy in playing it is accomplishment enough alone, but it did even more for the four of us and countless others of its contributors, professionally and personally.

Underhell even in its unfinished state was a testament to game modding, Half-Life modding, and even auteur video game creation where a game feels truly authored by a specific person’s vision. Many of its effects are subtle, immeasurable, and unknown to most who played it, but they’re there. Jeremy got a lot out of Underhell despite not finishing it. So did we, and we know you did too. He lived an incredibly creative life and he affected so many people positively by making video games that put fun into their lives. We should not be sad it’s over.

There was a moment one night in those final months when we were all hanging out where Jeremy took a moment to say out of the blue that he “figured out how to end Underhell”. Who knows how many times he’s thought that, or if he would have ever found the time to do it, or if he would have changed his mind on it. Maybe we shouldn’t even interpret it to literally mean he thought of an ending to the game that he was going to develop. Maybe his ending was to abandon it. The important piece there is that he was thinking of it, right up until his death. It was always important to him and so were all of you.

Waiting is hard, but you don’t have to wait anymore. Be free from wondering what happened and when Chapter 2 will come. Appreciate what Jeremy did. Play something else. Celebrate life. Tell your friends you love them. Make sure they know it. And always, always help them.

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Thanks from Mikee, Charly, Tom, and Jeremy’s family