The opening chapter of Half-Life 2, ‘Point Insertion’, is one of the most memorable gaming experiences of all-time. And soon, with Project 17, you should be able to play it in VR.
Project 17 was announced last week — it’s a new Half-Life: Alyx mod, currently in development, that aims to remake the entire opening chapter of Half-Life 2 as a playable VR experience. The announcement came with a trailer, embedded below, that looks absolutely stunning.
Back when Alyx came out in March, some modders managed to port over the environment from the first chapter of Half-Life 2 into Alyx. While you could walk around and explore, it was just an environment — the story didn’t play it and it was just an empty playground. It also used the original assets from Half-Life 2, so it looked quite dated.
Comparatively, Project 17 is a much more in-depth and stunning recreation. The team is using the upgraded assets from Half-Life: Alyx, where possible, to recreate the scenes and environments from Half-Life 2. For missing assets, they’re creating new ones themselves and sharing them with the public in collaboration with the Half-Life 2: Remade Assets team.
As you can see from the trailer and these screenshots, the recreation looks absolutely fantastic so far. Plus, it’s not just an environment you can walk around though — Project 17 should let you actually play through the entire opening chapter in full, rebuilt for VR.
The team does make it clear that they aren’t rebuilding a VR version of the entire game, stating that currently “the community does not have access…that would be required to create a truly faithful recreation of Half-Life 2 that is enjoyable for the player.”
There’s no release date for Project 17, but the team says it will release “when it’s ready™”.
You can follow the project over on its website or on Twitter.
