Valve has released Half-Life: Alyx’s mod tools, leading to fan-made lightsabers

Valve has released the editing tools for Half-Life: Alyx, enabling the community to create its own levels, models, textures and animations for the VR shooter.

There is already a growing selection of mods on the game’s community page, including fan creations based on Star Wars, Monsters Inc and more.

In addition to the tools, Valve has included several sample levels to explain the features added in Alyx. It’s also made the entire set of campaign maps available for editing, including interactive objects and prefabs.

“This is the first Beta release of the Alyx Workshop tools suite, and we intend to add to and improve them in the coming weeks,” it said in a blog post.

Lightsabers in HL Alyx from r/HalfLife

I’ve been playing around with the new HLA workshop tools. What do you guys think? from r/HalfLife

Included in this release are new or updated versions of:

Half-Life: Alyx is now among the top-rated PC games of all time, according to review aggregation site Metacritic.

Valve’s VR shooter has a Metascore of 93 based on 76 reviews. The highest-rated PC titles according to Metacritic are Half-Life 2, Grand Theft Auto V, The Orange Box, Half-Life and BioShock, which all have Metascores of 96.

According to the latest Steam Survey data (deconstructed by Road to VR), Alyx’s March release coincided with nearly one million additional VR headsets being registered with Steam, marking a record high.

VGC’s Half-Life: Alyx review calls the shooter “a stunning return for Half-Life and an essential VR purchase – if you have the required equipment and space.”

For more on the game, the future of the series and VR, check out our recent Half-Life: Alyx interview with designer Robin Walker and programmer Kerry Davis.