Half-Life: Alyx (2020) has been in the wild for a little under two years now, and modders have been busy using it to make cool stuff—just like they did with the original Half-Life (1998). Enter ‘Gunman Contracts’, a multi-chapter mod that scores some serious style points while smartly leveraging Valve’s Source 2 for some John Wick-style action.

Gunman Contracts is set of free mods for Half-Life: Alyx created by Germany-based graphics designer ‘ANB_Seth’.

There’s already two individual chapters available on the Steam, ‘Chapter 1 – The Extraction’, which came out last September, and now ‘Chapter 2 – Art of War’, which released late last month.

Here’s a look at some of the action from Chapter 2 to whet your appetite, gameplay courtesy Virtual Insider:

Both chapters focus entirely on human enemies (re: not shambolic monsters), and include custom sounds, assets, original score, and voice acting. Enemies can be taken down with either one headshot or two body shots, however its four difficulty levels are determined by the amount of damage the player can take.

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To play Gunman Contracts, make sure to have a copy of Half-Life: Alyx and subscribe to both chapters through Steam Workshop. Open the game and that’s it!

Gunman Contracts is free, however creator ANB_Seth has a Patreon page for users looking to support future chapters. They say they’re hoping to make Gunman Contracts a long-lasting series with more chapters yet to come. Check out the Patreon here.

What are you favorite Half-Life: Alyx mods? Let us know in the comments below!

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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 3,500 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • ApocalypseShadow

    Looks great for a mod. But why do I not like the sound of that gun? Sounds metallic instead of more bang. More pop. Maybe it’s just me.

    • Sven Viking

      The creator changed the gun sound in Chapter 2 then reverted it and added a gunshot sound selection option after many people didn’t like it.

  • implicator

    Don’t forget that at higher difficulties enemies react much faster. It adds real tension to the game.

  • the vast majority

    Looks incredible.

  • Alexisms

    The title is presumably a play on “Gunman Chronicles” a retail released full conversion of Half Life by Gearbox from back in the day. But you knew that already.

  • Speeder Slippo

    OK.. here is the paradigm shift, inflection point: Facebook-Meta’s Metaverse just sucks, sucks, sucks and sucks even more, it will never be a jumping off point for the VR Universe. ALYX “IS” the jump off point. If everyone mods Alyx and builds out from Alyx then you have a stunning photo perfect Metaverse… Ready, Set.. MOD!!!

    • Sven Viking

      We need a full SDK though :/. The things people are doing now are really pushing the limits of the level editor, but without code access you’re never going to get a new Counter-Strike or Garry’s Mod out of it for example.

      Valve said they’d like to do a full SDK but it’d be a lot of work and they had no current plans. Considering they did have specific public plans for the Source 2 SDK in 2015 but it’s nowhere to be seen so far, it could take a while.

    • ViRGiN

      found the valve worshipper. alyx was the most babified vr game ever made. it’s made for people with missing limbs.

  • Sven Viking

    Open the game and that’s it!

    Just to elaborate for anyone who hasn’t used Alyx mods before, you then activate the mod in the in-game Addons menu, choose to start a new game, select the Custom Game tab or whatever it’s called, and select the appropriate Gunman Contracts map from the map list.

    • asefd

      thank you! i tried a few months ago and had smaller mods working but couldnt get these big ones working! i was missing some steps

    • Marcin Adamski

      Saving this comment!

  • Tommy

    Hell yeah! Keep em coming!!

  • T Sheehan

    And we still don’t have a Counter-Strike VR Offensive game…how, again??

  • The enemies seem to be slow, deaf, and stuck in place. Were all of the badguys in John Wick just targets that hung around to catch a bullet?

    • Jeroham Ortiz

      I agree that some of the enemy AI is mostly dumb and they also usually announce themselves before shooting, so it mostly becomes predictable. But it is still pretty challenging and fun!

      I haven’t tried higher difficulties yet but I read they react faster. Hopefully, enemy AI will be improve in future releases.

  • Jeroham Ortiz

    It really feels like a whole new game. It could use some improvements in enemy AI but overall it’s quite a cool mod and plays great. I felt like being John Wick or Bryan Mills (Taken)