Half-Life Goes VR
VIRTUAL REALITY has been the Next Big Thing for so long it’s gone beyond a joke. We look at the state of play in the VR market on page 46, and one conclusion is that VR still needs a game that makes you want to jump on board just to play it—the killer app. Valve may be about to provide such an incentive: a AAA VR exclusive, Half-Life:Alyx.
It’s set between the first and second main Half-Life games, follows the adventures of Alyx Vance, the secondary character from Half-Life2, and promises to be the same mix of tense combat, puzzles, and strong story line. You interact with the world via a pair of disembodied hands, which looks a little strange at first. The Gravity Gun makes an appearance, and so-called Grabbity Gloves enable you to manipulate objects at a distance. The game has been built from the ground up using Valve’s Source 2 game engine, the first big title to do so. The release is due in March 2020. It’ll set you back $60, or if you spring for a Valve Index headset, it’ll come as part of the bundle. However, this high-end tethered system costs a buck short of a $1,000. Ouch.
This has been some time in coming—back in February 2017, the head of Valve, Gabe Newell, said the company was working on three new “full” VR games. We shall see if it’s been worth the wait, but the material we’ve seen so far does look mighty fine.
Half-Life was the game that made Valve as a company, perhaps this new installment can help make VR, too. All good stuff, but can we also have the final part of the story, please? Episode 3 remains tantalizingly elusive.