Half-Life and modding are principally synonymous. Whether it’s painstakingly remaking the unique in Black Mesa or spawning totally new multiplayer genres in Counter-Strike, Gordon Freeman’s misadventures are as a lot a platform for brand spanking new works as they’re stable shooters in their very own rights. This weekend, Valve introduced Half-Life: Alyx again into that lineage with Steam Workshop assist and the beta launch of HL:A’s enhancing instruments.
Given it’s simply come out, the Half-Life Alyx workshop is fairly skinny proper now. Rough early maps sharing shelf-space with fight encounters, firing ranges, and the form of meme-y rubbish that sadly floods the Workshop ecosystem throughout Steam. But you then’ve received horde modes like Xen Thug, the necessary VR lightsaber trainer (pictured above), or a easy small room from which to practice the piano.
Many of those mods had been developed earlier than official instruments launched, utilizing awkward hacks and workarounds. But going forwards, modders now have entry to a full suite of bespoke editor instruments to make their very own City 17 adventures.
As revealed by Valve in an announcement last night, the Half-Life: Alyx editor beta instruments embrace the Hammer 2 world editor, a model of Source Filmmaker for Source 2, and editors for supplies, particles, fashions, animations and “subrects” (one thing Valve describe as “smart texture sheets”. I don’t know what they’re both).
I’m truly correct excited to get my arms on Hammer 2. I’ve been messing in Half-Life 2 map-making for over a decade – and whereas the brand new editor’s been accessible through Dota 2 for yonks, it’s not fairly the identical for those who’re not making first-person homicide corridors out of massive gray blocks. With Half-Life: Alyx being VR and all, you’ll nonetheless want a headset to take advantage of the modding package. A debug-only VR-free mode exists for testing, but it surely’s awfully barebones.
To get you began, Valve have included a number of pattern maps to display the fundamentals – how they compose enemy encounters, or the right way to use new instruments like tile meshes and texture hotspots. You also can load up any Alyx degree to dig beneath the hood of any explicit setpiece from the principle game.
Dominic Tarason ran down a few of the best Half-Life 2 mods in his Modder Superior column final 12 months. Hopefully, it’s not too lengthy earlier than we see Alyx creators blow these out of the water.
