Yesterday, VRFocus reported on a rumour Valve was working on a virtual reality (VR) edition of Half-Life called Half-Life: Alyx. Valve being the secret company that it is, rarely confirms any rumours regarding projects, let alone anything to do with the Half-Life franchise. However, last night the company broke from the norm and announced that Half-Life: Alyx is real and more details are soon to arrive.
Valve made the announcement on its very new Twitter account – only opened in June 2019 – with the Half-Life: Alyx tweet being the very first. The company confirmed that Half-Life: Alyx will be its flagship VR title and that this Thursday (21st November) would see its official unveiling at 10am PT (6pm GMT).
Hopefully, that’ll be a teasing trailer, showcasing some gameplay, characters or even a hint at the storyline. If there’s no video VRFocus would still settle for a couple of screenshots. Support for all SteamVR compatible headsets like Valve Index, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Windows Mixed Reality is expected.
Other details about Half-Life: Alyx has surfaced online with Ars Technica reporting that the title is a prequel, set between the original videogame and 2004’s Half-Life 2. A single-player experience, you’ll supposedly take the role of Alyx Vance a character introduced in Half-Life 2.
Half-Life: Alyx will continue around the series’ physics-based gameplay, with a new control system called the “Grabbity Gloves” being employed. Supposedly these function like ‘magnet hands’, allowing players to attract distant objects without the need to walk there or simply picking stuff up off the floor. This would certainly favour VR motion controllers, especially the new Valve Index controllers with their finger tracking and pressure sensors.
Ars Technica also notes that sources say the iconic crowbar which has featured as the first Half-Life weapon may not be making an appearance this time around. What will be showing up in Half-Life: Alyx are doors, as a Valve developer went into great detail about a couple of months ago.
There are only two days to wait until official details are finally released. When they are VRFocus will bring you as much information as possible.