How a Half-Life 2 cyberpunk mod became its own game after 13 years

G String wasn't supposed to be a game. The idea stemmed from a series of architectural study maps for Gmod that creator Eya Eyaura then spun into a conversion mod of Half-Life 2. It wasn't supposed to go anywhere, either. After the beta for G String was released, Eyaura wanted to leave it behind but inevitably couldn't. "I was in a bad place," she tells us. "Nothing was happening for me, but I kept getting feedback about G String, so I kept working on it."

Almost 13 years later and G String has just released on Steam, a far cry from the Half-Life 2 conversion mod it once was. The cyberpunk shooter tells the tale of Myo Hyori, a bright teen in a dark future and a metropolis that's on the brink of imploding. There are light environmental puzzles to solve, and a plot to follow through a long campaign. What was once a mod is now a fully fleshed out PC game.

While G String has various cyberpunk themes and undertones, they weren't there at the start. "The whole cyberpunk vibe wasn't intentional," Eyaura says. "Growing up, I never even thought I could make a game, let alone a shooter. It was not an option in my mind. It seemed too difficult. But it came together eventually."

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