There are a couple of things that PC games get to experience that console owners struggle with; it’s not necessarily a statement that one is better than the other, simply that they offer different experiences. One of the biggest features for PC gaming has to be the modding community, which allows users of all walks of life (and coding prowess) to offer far more content than the developers sought to include in the base game.
Whatever you’re looking for, modding communities have it in spades, allowing users to customize the content of titles as they see fit. From Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2 to legendary mod-fests like everything Bethesda creates, modding brings new avenues and means to play titles that have been explored infinitely.
Some titles, such as Garry’s Mod, focuses entirely on user-generated content that implores players to get a bit creative with the tools that they have at their disposal.
Yet no studio has the panache and history of mods like Valve does, which makes the recent announcement coming from Valve in regards to Half-Life: Alyx all the more fascinating.
Half-Life: Alyx now officially has Steam Workshop support, meaning that users can now use and explore a myriad of content all circling around the base game of Half-Life: Alyx; the first VR experience that couples the legendary franchise from Valve with high-grade hardware.
The possibilities alone are difficult to pose as anything other than exciting.
Expand the world of Half-Life: Alyx. Find new community creations in the Steam Workshop, or make your own using the newly released development tools. https://t.co/6oQ30f8aGN pic.twitter.com/lIrvZVmbXg
— Valve (@valvesoftware) May 15, 2020
Counter-Strike came about to be the powerhouse of competitive first-person shooters entirely based upon a Half-Life mod; the title has consistently broken records for popularity and has an impressively deep professional scene.
The Team Fortress franchise was originally a mod based on the original Quake which released back in 1996.
Mods consistently offer far more depth than developers can manage to fit into titles during consistent crunches and creeping scope, and they can often become far greater than the sum of their parts. Skyrim still receives mods to this day, Morrowind has modding contests on NexusMods every May, and even the recent Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord became infinitely more playable on release due largely to the success of mods.
The residing question that is likely on the minds of many following this announcement is whether or not a few students or hobbyists have a bizarre idea to turn into a mod for Half-Life: Alyx. The possibility that the next greatest thing already being under development is, empirically, exponentially high.
