What you need to know
- The Pistol Mix modding tool lets you create your own Pistol Whip Scenes with custom audio tracks, enemy placement, environmental design, lighting and special effects, and other changes.
- The Open Beta launches April 13, and "Remixes" will be available for download on May 30.
- While the tool itself is only available for PC VR modders, Quest gamers will find Remixes directly in Pistol Whip in-headset.
- Cloudhead Games says Remixes aren't available for the PSVR 2 port as of yet.
Pistol Whip, still one of the best Quest 2 games, has remained relevant because Cloudhead Games has continued to add free content to it for years. And this latest tool, Pistol Mix, has us excited to dive back in.
In typical Pistol Whip Scenes, you're dodging enemy bullets to the rhythm of EDM tracks while taking them out — evoking a fun John Wick feel and giving yourself a decent workout. But even with custom scenes and a few new campaigns, you only listen to the same couple dozen songs and see the same identical architecture.
With Pistol Mix, you can create your own modded levels and upload music files to accompany them; or, you can just wait for other Pistol Whip players to make levels and then dive into those Remixes on your Meta Quest 2, Rift, or SteamVR headset.
The video below shows how to create a level, and the level of customizability is pretty incredible. You'll pull from prior Pistol Whip aesthetics like the 2089 campaign's sci-fi feel or Smoke and Thunder's Western look, but you can change enemies, obstacles, decor, and even the colors of different elements.
You then go to a timeline view and click-and-drag different elements into it so they appear at specific times. You can control the difficulty by determining how many foes show up, or whether you want your player to dodge a lot of obstacles. Cloudhead Games recommends that you place them at specific beats, matching the bpm of the song you chose.
While you can make levels in "2D" on your computer, you'll want to test them in an "immersive view" to see how well they work, which means trying it out in-headset. That means you'll need a PC VR headset, or a Quest 2 with a Link cable connected to your PC.
If you don't have the hardware necessary to make your own Pistol Whip levels, then you'll have to wait patiently for May 30, when you'll be able to pick out Remixes from a menu in-game on your Quest 2.
If you do want to try out making your own Pistol Whip Remixes, you can download the tool at this link; Cloudhead Games also has a Pistol Mix how-to guide that should help you figure out the basics.
Modding is a rare feature outside of PC games, and we're always thrilled when a developer trusts its community enough to tinker with their game. One of our favorites, Blade and Sorcery, has some outlandish mods from some of our favorite properties like Star Wars and Iron Man.
Even cooler, people took the popular VR shooter Contractors and made unofficial gameplay mods for Halo multiplayer and Star Wars: Battlefront.
Closer to the music rhythm side of things, we're sad that Beat Saber has never gotten official custom track support — which would likely interfere with future DLC sales and could have legal issues associated with licensed music. Frankly, we're not entirely sure how Pistol Whip Remixes will handle that issue.
Whatever the case, we're thrilled that Pistol Whip is putting power in its fans' hands to make their own challenges. We just hope that Remixes come to the PSVR 2 in the future; Cloudhead Games told me they "don't have anything to announce" on that front yet. Given it's one of our favorite PSVR 2 games, we hope that this Pistol Whip port isn't left behind for too long.
