The inspiration for the massively popular GMod, JBMod, has finally gotten a Steam page, 18 years after Half-Life 2 came out and 16 years after the release of GMod. According to the page in question, fans of the game can expect a full release at some point in the very near future. “Coming soon,” the page says. “Really.”
According to the team working on the project, JBMod was “the first mod ever released for Half-Life 2.” JBMod was “originally created by Jb55 on the HL2World forums before being handed off to Team JBMod, a small group of modding enthusiasts on the forum.”
“JBMod enables the physgun in Half-Life 2, first seen in pre-release tech demos such as those shown at E3 in 2003, which was ultimately cut from the final game,” the Steam page reads. “The physgun allows you to move and manipulate objects with the help of physics. JBMod also adds several new features such as additional physical constraints and item spawning using console commands.”
“The initial Steam release brings the original mod from 2004 to a more modern engine,” the developers explain. “Stay tuned for further updates! As always, JBMod 0.6 is coming soon.”
The person behind GMod, Garry Newman, took note of the upcoming release of JBMod, remarking on Twitter that “I was actually terrified of JBMod when I was making GMod. They always claimed to be just about to make a huge release that would render us redundant. This is one of the reasons I worked so hard for so long to push it forward so it couldn't get caught.”
GMod or Garry’s Mod as it was known at the time was created as a mod for Half-Life 2 back in 2004 and later expanded into a standalone release that was published by Valve on Steam in 2006. GMod is a sandbox physics game which allows players to spawn assets and interact with them by various means including the Physics and Tool Guns.
