Half-Life: Alyx’s (opens in new tab) modding scene is surprisingly vibrant contemplating the comparatively small variety of VR headsets within the wild. Ongoing initiatives vary from the spectacular Half-Life Alyx: Levitation (opens in new tab), to a mod that transposes Alyx’s VR gunplay into Bioshock’s Rapture (opens in new tab). However these are all nonetheless closely in growth. Half-Life: Incursion (opens in new tab), alternatively, you possibly can play proper now.
Incursion is a “wave-based expertise” that is designed to check your VR taking pictures expertise towards a small military of Metropolis 17’s mix troopers. “We felt the marketing campaign was a bit missing in problem as it is vitally pleasant to new VR customers,” say the devs on the mod’s Steam Workshop web page. “Consequently, this can be a difficult degree for skilled Half-Life: Alyx gamers.”
The mod sees Alyx Vance develop into trapped at a mix checkpoint on the unsuitable facet of Metropolis 17’s Quarantine Zone. She should “handle her sources and use intelligent techniques” to outlive the following combat. These aren’t idle phrases, both. Incursion is designed to be extra of a sandbox expertise than the official marketing campaign. The mod takes place in a big, open-ended degree the place each enemies and sources spawn in semi-random areas, that means the expertise can be barely completely different every time you play. A few of these sources, like resin, might be dropped at a Mix fabricator to craft a wide-array of weapons and weapon attachments. This features a new weapon within the type of Half-Life 1-style journey mines.
The trailer above makes Incursion appear to be fairly intense stuff, with a number of alternatives for improvisational fight techniques. It is also price noting the mod has its personal bespoke voice appearing for Russell, which is pretty respectable, though he sounds much less like Flight of the Conchords’ Rhys Darby and extra like a soccer commentator.
In any case, you can provide Incursion a whirl by downloading it right here (opens in new tab). Set up is all accomplished through the Steam workshop, so it needs to be pretty simple. When you do not personal a VR headset, fear-not, there’s loads of different customized Half-Life motion within the works, together with a Ravenholm (opens in new tab)mod, a fan-made Opposing Pressure sequel (opens in new tab), and an enormous marketing campaign the place you play as a Mix soldier (opens in new tab).
