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Valve Hires Creator Behind Popular ‘Half-Life: Alyx’ Mod

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Like many of Valve’s best titles, Half-Life: Alyx (2020) is a lot more moddable than your average game, which for PC VR headset owners means hundreds of new modes, missions, and mini-games. Now one of the HLA’s most talented modders announced they’ve been snapped up by Valve.

Nate Grove was responsible for two of the best HLA campaign-style mods, Incursion and Re-Education—both of which are uncannily Valve-like in pacing, setting… everything.

Grove says in a tweet that “a HUGE contributing factor to my hire was my work on my Workshop items Re-Education and Incursion. It was a dream for me (and many others) to work at Valve and I think this highlights the importance of supporting integration of community work into any game. It only makes the product (and the industry) stronger.”

While clearly a capable modder of one of the best VR games to date, Grove is no gaming industry neophyte. Now a level designer and artist at Valve, Grove comes to the company from Annapurna Interactive, which is known for publishing award-winning titles such as Outer Wilds, Stray, and What Remains of Edith Finch. Grove also created custom assets for both HLA mods, which is probably par for the course for someone who’s already spent nearly a decade as a professional digital artist and environmental designer.

What does this mean for Valve, VR and everything? It’s too early to speculate, since the company is by nature a black box that only occasionally sneaks possible hints about upcoming headsets in SteamVR updates. In fact, Grove says the announcement above was their “last post here” on X, formerly Twitter.

If it makes you feel better though, you can always comment “Half-Life 3 confirmed” in the comments.

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This ‘Half-Life: Alyx’ Mod Brings a Slice of Valve-level Action

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Besides making one of the most influential VR games to date, Valve also made sure Half-Life: Alyx was just as moddable as its other iconic titles. And thankfully there’s no shortage of talented modders out there who have built extended campaigns and new levels for the PC VR shooter.

One such HLA modder is Nate ‘Polygrove’ Grove, an Environment Artist and Designer at game publisher Annapurna Interactive, which is known for titles such as Outer Wilds, Stray, and What Remains of Edith Finch.

Last Friday Grove released their first solo HLA mod project, called ‘Re-Education’, something the environment artist calls a “medium-length campaign (30 minutes to an hour) featuring standard Half-Life Alyx style gameplay with a focus on slower pacing and environmental storytelling.”

You can check out the trailer below:

In Re-Education, the idea is to scavenge, explore, and make the dangerous journey while en route to a safehouse on the outskirts of City 17. There, Alyx finds her commandeered train has been halted by a Combine barricade.

“She must make her way through a long-abandoned school to access the switch that unblocks the tracks, but the task may prove more difficult than expected,” the DLC’s description reads.

The free DLC can be downloaded though Steam Workshops, which of course means you’ll need the base game to play.

This isn’t Grove’s first HLA mod either. You may also recognize the developer’s ‘Polygrove’ handle from the credits in the Half-Life: Incursion mod as well, which included the talents of Maarten Frooninckx (Hammer scripting), Ross Joseph Gardner (script writing), and Joey Bracken (voice over).

There’s a host of great content to explore outside of Re-Education and Incursion too, with one of our top picks being the Half-Life: Alyx ‘Levitation’ mod, which brings around 3-4 hours of Combine-ganking fun in an unofficial chapter that you’d swear is direct from Valve.

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‘Half-Life: Alyx’ Mod Brings 3-4 Hours of Gameplay Today in Unofficial ‘Levitation’ Chapter

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If you haven’t played Half-Life: Alyx (2020), Valve’s first Half-Life game in a decade which is exclusively available on SteamVR headsets, then you can look forward to not only one of the best VR horror shooters in existence, but soon heaps more action after the credits roll. The creators of the long-awaited Levitation mod say it’s slated to release for free starting today.

Update (November 25th, 2022): Levitation is now available on Steam, downloadable in 5 separate parts. Here’s a description of the mod, which its creators say takes around three to four hours to complete.

Half-Life: Alyx Spoiler Ahead: LEVITATION is set right after the events of Half-Life: Alyx wherein Alyx returns to City-17 after meeting the G-MAN, and teams up with Russell once again. During her absence, a mysterious levitating building appeared in the Sector X region of City-17. Two key members of the resistance named Barry and Maya decided to infiltrate and investigate Sector X — until their signal went quiet… Now, Alyx must save her friends, and possibly the whole resistance.

Check out the Levitation launch trailer below:

Original Article (June 14th, 2022): Now a pair of veteran modders are set to release an unofficial chapter of the game soon, called ‘Levitation’, which promises four to five three to four hours of expertly realized Combine-killing gameplay.

As seen during the PC Gaming Show, Half-Life: Alyx LEVITATION follows the events of the main game, introducing a floating apartment building in ‘Sector X’ of City 17 which is no doubt a Combine plot to do something highly nefarious, G-Man sightings included.

From what we’ve seen, it looks tantalizingly close to being a Valve-produced DLC, replete with custom voice acting and well-planned enemy encounters. Check out the seven-minute gameplay video below to see just how slick Levitation is:

But it’s not a Valve creation, at least not directly. Levitation was created by CS:GO map designer and artist Shawn ‘FMPONE’ Snelling and animator Corey Laddo, who is known for memes created in Valve’s Source 2 Filmmaker. Thanks to Half-Life: Alyx’s Workshop Tools, anyone can go in and make anything from VR Mini-Golf or bowling, to full-blown chapters like Snelling and Laddo have done.

Anyway, here’s how the modders describe Levitation:

“The basic premise involves Alyx receiving a distress signal from two resistance members Maya and Barry about secret Combine technology buried within a section of the Quarantine Zone known as Sector X,” Corey Laddo tells PC Gamer. “With the help of Russell, Alyx dives deep into Combine territory to investigate this threat and search for Maya and Barry. It’s a completely separate Half-Life adventure that uses Alyx’s ending as a springboard for the narrative.”

Half-Life: Alyx LEVITATION is expected to release for free on the Steam Workshop sometime in early Q3 of 2022. As with all mods, you’ll need to own the base game first. If you’re having trouble deciding, check out why we game Half-Life: Alyx a perfect [10/10] in our full review.

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