Half-Life: Alyx (2020) is already inspiring modders to strip Valve’s flagship VR title of assets and character models for their own strange and wonderful devices. Exhibit A: you can now play some Wolfenstein 3D in VR, replete with HLA’s guns, grenades, and enemies.

Created by modder ‘Grandmasterethel’, the new mod uses the game’s enemy Combine soldiers in place of the Nazis you’d otherwise see haunting Castle Wolfenstein, albeit with the iconic ‘Mein Leben!’ scream when they inevitably explode.

Check out the full play-through from YouTuber VHS Productions to get an unholy eyeful of what happens when ultra-retro meets the bleeding edge of VR.

Provided you own Half-Life: Alyx, you can of course download the mod for your own enjoyment, although we haven’t been able to verify for ourselves if it’s 100 percent safe or not, so download at your own risk. You can find the links in the map here (Google Drive link) and the HLA launcher here (GitHub link), both of which you’ll need to play.

VHS Productions also concludes the video with a brief tutorial on how to install. Here’s the timestamp for when it starts.

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Granted, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen Wolfenstein 3D in VR, as a number of fan projects have brought the game to life. This is a pretty cool way of using ready-built assets though, and we hope to see more.

In that vein, it’s really only a matter of time until someone completely remakes the original Half-Life (1998), or maybe even finds a way to create other Half-Life mod favorites. Let us know in the comments below if you’ve spotted any new ones!

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Greyl

    Well there you go, Half Life Alyx IS going to be a big deal for the PC VR modding scene; you won’t get mods like this on closed platforms, like PSVR. It’s not up for debate anymore.

    • GR1M

      Great time to be a vr gamer!

    • Andrew Jakobs

      why would this be any different compared to using unity3d/unrealengine4? I don’t get excited by this mod as there’s already a more true Wolfensteind3DVR version available..

      • gothicvillas

        Yes, this reminds me of a game called Compound

        • Jistuce

          Because Compound is trying to channel the brightly-colored, low-resolution visual style of early FPS games like Blake Stone and… wait for it… Wolfenstein 3D.

          Compound is intentionally designed to look like this game.

      • Greyl

        The difference is the exposure these mods will get, thanks to Half
        Life / Half Life Alyx’s popularity, and the franchise’s history with the modding scene. The mods may even gain the interest of Valve, who may potentially even hire or bring light to these modders.

      • Because you have already the tools ready, so they are better for people that don’t know how to code or have less budget. With Unity, you must have a bigger technical knowledge

    • Pablo C

      You do get similar experiments in Quest, through Sidequest though.

      • Greyl

        Yeah, that’s what I like about the Quest; it’s actually very open, much like an Android device. Which is no surprise since it runs on a variation of Android, I believe.

    • Ad

      Well no, this is a huge debate. This is just a map. Alyx may very well be kind of a disaster when it comes to modding.

      • Greyl

        We’ll see when they release the official tools and later, the Source 2 SDK. But the fact people are already making these preliminary mods, and these mods are getting exposure, due to HLA’s growing fanbase, is a telling sign that Half Life Alyx is serving to be a solid platform for the VR mod-making scene.

        • Ad

          It’s a great platform because it’s source 2 and everyone has it, but I think the building blocks are a lot weaker than people expected.

          • They got this far w/o building blocks.

            You have no faith in modders

            GTA has no building blocks and they ported Vice City to GTA5.

            What disaster…

          • Ad

            It’s not about faith, it’s about not making them jump through endless loops. And I’ve asked modders if they can do things like custom weapons in Alyx, they flat out said no.

          • Greyl

            We told you that these early mods were impressive because they were made without official mod support from Valve. Common sense and Valve’s comments indicated that official mod support was coming, and it was exciting; yet you still tried to find something to argue about.

            It’s been less than a month, and Valve have officially rolled out mod support: https://www.roadtovr.com/half-life-alyx-modding-tools-downloads-steam-workshop

            But I’m sure you’ll still find something to complain about.

          • Ad

            There is no documentation for vscripting, so modders cannot restore any cut features without included scripting, nor can they add their own features. If you actually think instead of just repeating “mod support,” you would realize that I never doubted there was mod support, just what level of support and how it could hook into the game.

          • Greyl

            But it’s pretty obvious that what you want is coming, based on previous comments and precedents set by the Half Life games and Valve as an open-friendly company. It’s petulant and impatient of you to expect it all to come out, in its entirety, so soon after HLA’s release.

          • Ad

            So now you admit we don’t have what we would need to play the things people are swearing is possible right now, but you say it will obviously come right away. What I think is that Valve may wait until they have an online source 2 game out, or something that far in the future. When you look at the news of the internal debate about an SDK, or how the game was constructed, what I’m saying is completely reasonable. And I’m not demanding anything, I’m saying people should have reasonable expectations, although if we want the kind of scene you suggest where everyone moves over to Source 2 and people start getting hired by Valve then yes we would need it sooner rather than later.

          • Greyl

            I never said anything about the stuff “people are swearing is possible right now” in any of my comments, only that HLA will eventually become a big deal for the VR modding scene in time. I said: “We’ll see when they release the official tools and later”,implying that big things will come when the rest of the tools are later released.

            I’m not saying HLA or even the Source 2 SDK will be better than UE5, Unity or other engines, just that it will be a significant platform for the VR modding scene, due to HLA’s popularity and Valve’s past precedent with the mod scene.

            But regardless, the core of the matter is, you made it your business to be a dick and intentionally rain on a parade where it wasn’t needed. And evidently, it wasn’t just me who noticed it, OOLuigiOo noticed it too.

          • Ad

            The reason I’m raining on the parade is just that modders can’t keep up with people’s expectations and small devs are considering just giving up because people’s standards are about to be way too high without any reason.

          • Greyl

            Again, we keep telling you, the game has only been out for less than 2 months, and these tools are literally a day old. Yet, even so, modders are already making cool things and there’s a fervent Steam workshop community brewing. Manage expectations? Sure, but the game’s already living up to my expectations of being a solid platform for VR mods, even after 1 day.

            Are we going to get the next Garry’s Mod out of it? Who knows, but I guarantee someone is already working on a simple version of it right now. Also, Garry Newman himself, teased interest in making Garrys Mod 2, using the Source 2 engine.

          • Ad

            You just keep repeating the same mistake again and again. This is kind of pointless. And yes Garry’s Mod 2 has announced it will be using Source 2 when Valve allows them code access. That could be massive (if they care about VR) but that’s also a completely different program.

          • Greyl

            Your original desire to find something to argue about in the first place was pointless, and you don’t even have a point to make anymore. The ‘manage expectations’ aspect of your argument doesn’t factor in to the debate anymore, since HLA’s mods are already living up to my expectations, and my opinions are the thing you’re replying to, not some strawman about what you saw others post.

          • Greyl

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpeG34anjc8

            Wow, it’s almost like “Half Life Alyx IS going to be a big deal for the PC VR modding scene” and I was completely right, and the community are enjoying the mods:

          • Ad

            I actually have changed my mind broadly. I’m in multiple modding discords and people are figuring out how to do a lot of things that they didn’t think would be possible.

  • MadMax1998

    I don’t get why people call these things mods; they are simply maps built with Hammer that have some scripting in them. Proper modding (as in coding) is not yet possible in HLA

  • So many memories with Wolfenstein 3D!

    • Yah, I seem to “Remember” they didn’t use crosses for the Nazi symbol.

      You can shoot a man, burn him, and blow him up. Laugh as his gargles his own blood while drawing his last breath… but by god, don’t have the wrong picture on a wall. Might be offensive!

  • Ad

    There’s already a free tech demo that lets you play Wolf 3D in VR with controllers, teleport and smooth locomotion, and room scale. It even takes .WAD files to play other levels.

  • Kyokushin

    That’s the better reason to buy Alyx than to play Alyx.

    • brandon9271

      That sounds like something someone would say if they’ve never actually played the game.

  • Jaysin Vialoux

    I made this video. Just so you all know, there is now a way to increase speed so now it’s just as fast as original wolfenstein so no need to teleport anymore