It's been quite the year since we launched Half-Life: Alyx, our full-length virtual reality return to Half-Life. Shortly after its debut, we enabled Steam Workshop support to open the doors for the creativity of mod-makers and make it easy for players to expand on the Alyx experience. Later in 2020, we released over 3.5 hours of developer commentary, adding a new way to experience Alyx while hearing directly from the team about how we built the game.
We are grateful to have been honored by our industry as well as the community of Half-Life: Alyx players. As developers, there is nothing more rewarding (or terrifying) than releasing your work to the public. We are both proud of what we put out and humbled by how it has been received. In addition to receiving nominations from the D.I.C.E. Awards and BAFTA, Half-Life: Alyx won a slate of awards including:
- GameSpot: Game of the Year 2020
- Destructoid: PC Platform Game of the Year
- The Game Awards: Best VR/AR Game
- VR Focus Awards: Game of the Year
- 2020 VR Awards: Game of the Year
As we close out the first year, the number of mods created and shared via the Steam Workshop is in the hundreds, ranging from simple model replacements to full-on campaign experiences. With over 800 now available to try, we thought it would be interesting to shine a light on some of these great mods available to the community, so we enlisted the help of journalist, writer, and Alyx-mod-aficionado Craig Pearson to play and write about his favorites.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/546560/view/3032584660736119720
We are super grateful to the Half-Life community, and we hope this post gives you a chance to enjoy Alyx in some new ways. Gaming has been a much-needed bright spot for a lot of us in this past year, and we consider ourselves lucky to be a part of it.