Half-Life: Alyx is already a truly impressive experience, immersing players in the world of Half-Life and raising the bar for VR games in general. Its appeal only grew last May when Valve released Steam Workshop tools for it, allowing fans to make mods and expansions for the game. One modder has been working away for several months now to bring combine Alyx's world with that of BioShock's Rapture, and the results are impressive, to say the least.
The mod known as Return to Rapture was initially released in October and already it was an impressive piece of work. Creator Wim Buytaert crafted a short but compelling story in which the Combine had discovered the location of Rapture and sought to invade it and pilfer the gene-manipulating chemical ADAM and superpower-bestowing plasmids. It was all extremely impressive, with hand-tweaked assets from Alyx to resemble the ambience of Rapture and the Buytaert providing their own expositional voiceover, but now the mod is even more so.
Since October, Buytaert has expanded the mod into an entire campaign, across eight separate maps. They've even been granted permission by the developers of BioShock to use original assets from the game, so players can now expect to see even more familiar sights, including genuine Circus of Values and Gatherer's Garden vending machines, littering the ruins of Rapture. A professional voice actor, Seamus Bryner, has also signed on to the project to provide dialogue and flesh out the story even more. Players can also expect to find audio diaries to provide extra context and detail, just like in BioShock.
It's an extraordinary fusion of mechanics and aesthetics from both games: headcrab zombies stagger through the corridors of Rapture alongside other, new enemy types, while one of Alyx's powerful upgrades from late in the base game is repurposed into the familiar Electro Bolt plasmid, granting her the ability to fight off enemies and solve puzzles. Even the opening to the mod draws heavily on BioShock's own opening scenes, while seamlessly incorporating the added mobility and versatility of the VR experience.
Return to Rapture isn't the only time Rapture has been recreated in another game's engine, though. Bioshock Infinite's Burial at Sea DLC famously took players back to Rapture, and just a couple of months ago No Man's Sky player Chongsparks managed to create a sprawling underwater base inspired by BioShock's collectivist dystopia. Return to Rapture may well be one of the most authentic renderings, though, and certainly the first to be explored in full VR.
In any case, it's undeniably a monumental achievement for Buytaert, and a highly-recommended jumping-in point for anyone interested in checking out the numerous mods for Half-Life: Alyx. The sheer unbridled creativity evident in the community will surely keep players entertained while they wait for more news on BioShock 4, or the ever-elusive Half-Life 3, for that matter.
Half-Life: Alyx is available for PC.
Source: Wim Buytaert/Steam