New Update Download: Chapters 7-9 and Thank You! news

The GB_2 Development Team is humbled and honoured to have had such an amazing and successful launch on ModDB over the last week. Thank you to all our fans, to the many news outlets and content creators who covered us and to ModDB for highlighting us on the front page banner!

All of this led to us peaking as the #3 mod on the entire website and becoming the #1 Half-Life mod. We are so thankful for everyone who has played the mod so far and the outpouring of support and donations has been extremely appreciated. Along with all the important feedback we received from your playthroughs and testing.

As a thanks we have been working hard to bring you the next update already! With tons of new features, bug fixes and 3 more chapters available for completion!

The mod is currently in Early Access with not all chapters fully complete at this time. Here are a few issues that are known from the feedback we received from Update #4 and are not fixed yet for Update #5 but the development team is working on it:

• Alyx can sometimes get stuck on the environment, jump and crouch jump to try and get unstuck and use the noclip button if that doesn't work. This can sometimes happen with doors as well. Our animator who is working on Alyx's hands and animations is currently working on a mod on Steam Workshop that will smooth this out, currently works for Chapter 1 and is updating it regularly: NoVR Map Edits Mod - Movement

• The mod can be used to play Half-Life Alyx mods however your ability to play them may be limited due to not being able to interact with certain items in these maps. Many of the wave-based and arena based mods work and this article will outline a set of 15 mods that work "out of the box" or have their own community made scripts!

• There is no way to use the in game menu to adjust settings while playing, you will have to use M on the keyboard to bring you back to the Main Menu to adjust settings before going back into the game. Please ensure you save before doing this! There are autosaves but saving before going back to the Main Menu is advised.

• There can be crashes upon level load and loading after death, please restart the game and reload your save.

• The Gravity Gloves in the separate branch on Git works only for prop objects at this time, not for usable items (resin, health syringes etc). Currently in this form they are great for grabbing items easily to distract barnacles and headcrabs. Along with grabbing explosive canisters easily to throw them for a group kill.

• Covering your mouth in Chapter 7 "Jeff" works fine when holding "H" however when using this on some other maps it will work but three hands will cover her mouth instead, this is a visual bug only as the mechanic still works even when displaying this way.

This update now allows you to get to the end of Chapter 9 and get into the first parts of Chapter 10. That is an additional three chapters added in this update! The last two chapters are a bit tricky and we don't want to openly spoil things either but we already have a lot of the unique gameplay mechanics you find in the final chapters working in an experimental version right now. You can find this branch on the Git! But beware it will spoil you!

This major update is now live on ModDB as Script Update #5 - please see below for an update log:

• Gravity Gloves - Not included in the download but available on the Git branch named "Gravity Gloves" has this gameplay mechanic available and currently works with prop objects only.

• Covering Your Mouth - Hold "H" to cover your breath to not make sound in Chapter 7 "Jeff"

• Chapter 7 Update - This chapter is now completable from beginning to end

• Chapter 8 Update - This chapter is now completable from beginning to end

• Chapter 9 Update - This chapter is now completable from beginning to end

• Health Stations Animation Update - The health stations will now open and crush the grub

Please check the Git page regularly as that is where daily work is posted for anyone to check out! ModDB file updates will happen in larger updates like this one.

We have a lot of great updates to go over, and we are going to showcase what gameplay mechanics have been added, updated and more!

Holding Your Breath

You can now hold your breath in Chapter 7 "Jeff", simply hold "H" and Alyx will cover her mouth as long as you hold it down. This is essential for Chapter 7!

Updated Health Stations

The health stations have now been updated with proper animations and interaction. You can now interavt with the red handle to open the health station which also causes the grub in the canister to get crushed. The end goal is for Alyx's animated hand to use it as well.

Please check out this gameplay footage going through Chapters 7-9 which showcases all the updates!

Thank you again for everyone's support, feedback and love! The team is working hard and we plan to have another update for the last two chapters next week! After the HLA campaign is completable fully in NoVR we will be focusing on polishing up gameplay mechanics, animating Alyx's hands and more!

You should join the Discord! Its a great place to talk with the developers, and the man behind it all, GB_2 also the invite link is: Discord.gg. We are always looking for more talented individuals to join the team! So please join the Discord and show us what you got!

Some plans for the future are posted there and there even is a modlist of compatible mods! The next section goes into this in more detail.

The link for it is: Steamcommunity.com

Our development team has tested every mod on Steam Workshop for Half-Life Alyx and created a list of almost 20 mods that work "out of the box" for Half-Life Alyx NoVR. Most maps are combat focused and those that are not like "Extra-Ordinary Value" a longer mod has their own NoVR script made by the community. The list will be updated weekly so please check back regularly!

Here is the current supported mod list:

1. Antlion Arena 3 - Xen
2. Belomorskaya Station
3. Campaign+: Campaign Overhaul
4. Concrete Choas
5. D1_Terminal_01 Port
6. Gundown at Sundown
7. Holdout
8. Overload
9. Red Dust
10. The Street
11. Industrial Arena
12. Extra-Ordinary Value
13. HL2 Trainstation
14. HL2 Apartments
15. Intervention of the Citadel 3
16. No-VR Map Edits

This script was made using our mods open source script and applying it to the Extra-Ordinary Value mod! Any mod developer can do this for their already released or upcoming mod. Opening the doors to pushing the Source 2 engine both graphically and with its combat gameplay.

All other mods do not require special scripts and at worst may require quick use of noclip to exit a startup area or ladder.