News Half-Life: Alyx - Releasing March 23, 2020 on SteamVR

[crimsonheadGCN]

Trailer:


Store Page:


Interview:

Half-Life: Alyx

A VR Return to Half-Life. Set between Half-Life and Half-Life 2, Alyx Vance and her father Eli mount an early resistance to the Combine's brutal occupation of Earth.

www.half-life.com

 

[lazerfox]

 

[TheGreenArrow]

Woooooo

 

[Kylac]

rise and shine Alyx Vance

 

[Theswweet]

 

[Phoenix RISING]

Excellent.gif

 

[Aelphaeis Mangarae]

Very interesting. It's kinda interesting playing Jurassic Park: Trespasser and thinking about how the design evolution of that game's successors eventually led us here. Trespasser was basically a proto-VR game except you picked stuff up with a fair bit of fiddly mouse button holding and mouse rotation. Valve are evidently hoping this'll be the killer app for VR. Hopefully the game "just works". Also, I hope the writing is up to snuff.

 

[Durante]

Happening.

 

[beep boop]

I still can't believe it.
Nuts.

 

[ramoisdead]

I don't have VR and neither am I interested at the moment. Yet, I'm still curious on what Alyx is and what it can do to really push VR into the mainstream audience more so than other titles currently. If one company can achieve that, it's Valve.

 

[Arulan]

A monumental moment. I can't wait to see how Valve pushes VR game design with this.

 

[Panda Pedinte]

Finally!

 

[Parsnip]

Very curious how it will look, like character models and such. HL2 and the episodes were a long time ago so in my head that's what the characters look like.

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

Very interesting. It's kinda interesting playing Jurassic Park: Trespasser and thinking about how the design evolution of that game's successors eventually led us here. Trespasser was basically a proto-VR game except you picked stuff up with a fair bit of fiddly mouse button holding and mouse rotation. Valve are evidently hoping this'll be the killer app for VR. Hopefully the game "just works". Also, I hope the writing is up to snuff.

Oh, you mentioned Jurassic Park Tresspasser so i get to shill my favourite Let's play of the game. One of my most watched/listened to series on youtube. It's really educational and goes into the development background and issues, the game's physics and weapons and of course the story and how it references the film. It helps that Research Indicates has a great voice for commentary.


Highly recommended!

 

[fantomena]

Please have good physics. That's really all Im asking.

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

Sorry for the derail i though tit was the Steam thread! Ooops!

Can't wait for more news about the game! It's going to cause so many twitter/forum/reddit meltdowns though.

 

[ISee]

I want to be excited, but what if it is just a simplistic game?

 

[TheTrain]

Absolutely incredible, I know that I'll have an Index by the end of the year.
Thank you Valve T_T

 

[low-G]

Militant VR proponent here, I just hope they blew it out of the water. I'd also love them to continue the Half Life story eventually.

Very interesting. It's kinda interesting playing Jurassic Park: Trespasser and thinking about how the design evolution of that game's successors eventually led us here. Trespasser was basically a proto-VR game except you picked stuff up with a fair bit of fiddly mouse button holding and mouse rotation. Valve are evidently hoping this'll be the killer app for VR. Hopefully the game "just works". Also, I hope the writing is up to snuff.

I think it was always a natural evolution. And I loved Trespasser in the day -- innovation matters a lot to me. But this game was so forward-thinking it was like inventing Super Mario Bros before the invention of electricity.

I'm happy that AVGN did a very thoughtful and fair episode on the game:


you know it's got something to it when AVGN in-character thinks it's kinda interesting

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

Tyler McVicker's reaction to the announcement:

 

[Routa]

A monumental moment. I can't wait to see how Valve pushes VR game design with this.

I don't have VR and this is even why I'm excited. To really see the field pushed and advanced, games need to be exclusive to take advantage of the platform.

 

[gabbo]

I don't have VR and this is even why I'm excited. To really see the field pushed and advanced, games need to be exclusive to take advantage of the platform.

I agree, but I do hope, as I definitely don't have the money to drop on a VR headset of any quality, that it will come out later as a nonVR edition.

 

[RionaaM]

I'd be a little more excited if Valve cared enough to sell the Index here. As it is, this is just a curious anecdote to me. Good for those who'll be able to play it, of course.

 

[sauce]

HL3 confirmed

 

[5taquitos]

And just like that, getting the rig VR-ready had become top priority.

 

[Kuro]

Finally.. Is this where Gabens redemption arc begins?
Not that he needed any.

 

[sauce]

Finally I can talk about this

First had the privilege of playing and working on it a bit over 2 years ago during my time at Valve. It was honestly already a crazy amazing experience back then, Valve has poured so much love, care, and though into the next story in the Half-Life universe. I can’t even imagine how much they’ve polished it these last two years.

If the direction is still the same as it was some time ago, there’s another huge announcement tied to this that’ll likely happen simultaneously or soon after, which nobody has heard or mentioned anything of. That could mean it was scrapped or is under particularly tight wraps. I’m hoping for the latter

(emphasis mine)

Half-Life: Alyx Announced

Finally I can talk about this :) First had the privilege of playing and working on it a bit over 2 years ago during my time at Valve. It was honestly already a crazy amazing experience back then, Valve has poured so much love, care, and though into the next story in the Half-Life universe. I...

www.resetera.com

 

[Kylac]

finally getting that half life movie

edit: or more realistically Source 2 SDK

 

[Arulan]

This is just speculation on my part, but I'd think that Valve would want to recreate the modding and user-created content boon that took place with the original Half-Life, but for VR. It wouldn't surprise me if they spent a lot of time creating modding tools and have it ready for launch.

 

[Le Pertti]

I'm mostly just amazed to see a Tweet from Valve! Not sure I've seen one of those linked ever.XD

But yes very excited to see this, they do have some immense expectations on them that's for sure!

 

[Alexandros]

 

[Ibuki]

I'd absolutely love to get an Index because I am sure this game will be improved by using Knuckles, but my Rift CV1 will have to do for now.

 

[Ge0force]

Great news!

Console-only gamers are gonna be furious if this turns out to be a Steam exclusive game.

 

[KainXVIII]

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

Ok, I changed the thread title...

 

[sprinkles]

I wonder if the Index will be discounted this Winter Sale (even a little would help).

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

I wouldn't be surprised if Valve announces that all purchases of the Index will get the game for free.

 

[Aelphaeis Mangarae]

Great news!

Console-only gamers are gonna be furious if this turns out to be a Steam exclusive game.

Valve haven't been interested in consoles for a long time. I don't see this comings to consoles anytime soon, if ever.

 

[Alextended]

Oh, you mentioned Jurassic Park Tresspasser so i get to shill my favourite Let's play of the game. One of my most watched/listened to series on youtube. It's really educational and goes into the development background and issues, the game's physics and weapons and of course the story and how it references the film. It helps that Research Indicates has a great voice for commentary.


Highly recommended!

And this video can show how Trespasser mechanics would be so much more intuitive in VR (while lamenting it didn't drive gaming into a physics renaissance).

Great news!

Console-only gamers are gonna be furious if this turns out to be a Steam exclusive game.

How can it be anything other than exclusive, at least until PS5 with PSVR2 and up to date controllers/tracking becomes a thing to even start considering it?

 

[C-Dub]

Great news!

Console-only gamers are gonna be furious if this turns out to be a Steam exclusive game.

I've seen people port begging for this (and Stormland) for PSVR - as if that'll ever happen on lousy PS4 and PSVR hardware. There's just so many roadblocks to this being a thing: the power of the base PS4 (Pro might be able to do it, but Sony are 100% against Pro-only games which is fair enough) and the limitations of the PS Move controllers.

Honestly, I doubt this'll come to console ever, even next-gen. Valve are done with console platforms and the inability for them to be more timely with their updates thanks to certification. Even Apple App Store shenanigans have frustrated them with their iOS app updates, so I doubt what the console guys are doing with their updates will ever keep them happy.

 

[ISee]

That title change, lol.

 

[Swenhir]

OP, you are a bad person. Brilliant title .

 

[TheTrain]

(emphasis mine)

Half-Life: Alyx Announced

Finally I can talk about this :) First had the privilege of playing and working on it a bit over 2 years ago during my time at Valve. It was honestly already a crazy amazing experience back then, Valve has poured so much love, care, and though into the next story in the Half-Life universe. I...

www.resetera.com

Seeing how all the valve staff is reacting on Twitter it seems really something huge, it must be a relief for everyone involved seeing the game announced and almost ready to enter the market.
I'm pretty sure that this will be next big thing of videogames.

 

[Nzyme]

This is going to be really fun! Still a big HL fan, anything new is going to be great regardless.

I just hope I can get a bit more comfortable with full movement locomotion as I prefer it over teleportation but still haven’t acclimated to it yet


I think probably the most amusing thing I’ve noticed in all this is the absolute staunch dismissal of every aspect of this, mostly because of an illogical platform loyalty. With any other game it’s a matter of, “this could at least be interesting, hopefully it will eventually come to x which I’d prefer”, but of course not so with this.

 

[fantomena]

Tyler who is behind Valve News Network:

 

[Alexandros]

Tyler who is behind Valve News Network:

He deserves a lot of praise for his work over these last few months.

 

[Kthulhu]

Awesome news!

I'm assuming Valve will probably make it available on as many headsets as possible. Hopefully not too much is lost by using something other than an Index.

 

[Durante]

Awesome news!

I'm assuming Valve will probably make it available on as many headsets as possible. Hopefully not too much is lost by using something other than an Index.

I think the biggest challenge is input, the HMD really shouldn't make any difference.
But I'm pretty sure that even for input Valve created usable profiles for all devices out there. They basically put far more work into device-independent and adaptable VR input layers than anyone else.

 

[Alextended]

 

[ISee]

In all honesty: Is the Oculus Rift S good? I could get one for 400€.

And would it make sense to buy one instead of the 1100€ Index VR?