Half-Life‘s always had horror in its veins. From body-horror aliens lurching down steel corridors to Ravenholme’s infested nest of parasites, sawblades and the residing lifeless, the collection has been pushing spooking with its taking pictures since day one. Sporting extra intimate, high-fidelity spooks, Half-Life: Alyx is not any exception – and with a modding kit out in the open, it was solely a matter of time ’til somebody recreated Kojima Productions’ elusive PT in Valve’s new toolbox.
That individual, because it occurs, was modder AmbientDruth, whos recreation of PT was given airtime by YouTuber William McMahon (cheers, PC Gamer).
PT, in case you’re new right here, was a infamous “Playable Teaser” from Konami and Hideo Kojima meant to construct up a Silent Hill revival that by no means got here. You (or, ideally, some poor idiot you bought to play it for you) would loop across the identical hall again and again, fixing imprecise puzzles by objects or listening for audio cues whereas often having the soul scared outta you.
AmbientDruth’s mod, available to download here, does the pure subsequent step of placing all that in VR, making it objectively 100 instances extra intimidating. Something Alyx put into sharp focus was how lots of the collection’ staples (darkish rooms, flickering lights, crabs that leap at your face) turn into scarier with a telly strapped to your head. That holds notably true for games that have been already making an attempt to scare you.
Granted, the video does carry out a number of the mod’s limitations. I don’t thoughts PT ever having a well being counter, for one. Plus, regardless of being just a few years newer, Alyx’ corridors don’t look practically as sharp. That’s comprehensible, actually. PT had one hall, which meant it may make that one hall look actually, gut-wrenchingly good.
It’d be a disgrace to not name out Half-Life’s illustrious historical past in horror mods, thoughts. With the primary games gently nudging in the direction of the scary facet, modders went full-force into frights – whether or not that’s the primary game’s three-part Romero-esque zombie epic They Hunger, or darkly unusual survival horror Korsakovia, a now hard-to-find experiment from a pre-Dear Esther The Chinese Room. Recreating PT may simply be that, a recreation. But it really works as a pleasant proof-of-concept for fan-created scares to return.
Don’t fear, although. It’s not all horror. Some modders are extra interested by utilizing Half-Life Alyx’ ridiculously-good liquid shaders to crack open a dystopian Dew.
Fair ’nuff.
