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Half-Life: Alyx: everything you need to know about Valve’s return to Half-Life

Half-Life is back. After more than a decade, Valve is returning to the iconic sci-fi universe with a brand-new VR game called Half-Life: Alyx. The new experience takes place before the events of Half-Life 2, and it marks not only the long-awaited continuation of the story, but also the developer’s first full-fledged VR title to date. It arrived in March 2020, and is compatible with all PC-based VR headsets.

  • Adi Robertson

    Mar 27, 2020

    Adi Robertson

    Half-Life: Alyx gives us a big hint about Gordon Freeman’s future

    Half-Life: Alyx screenshot
    Image: Valve

    Half-Life fans have gotten used to uncertainty over the fate of hero Gordon Freeman. Gordon last appeared in Half-Life 2: Episode Two, an extension of the 2004 game Half-Life 2. But the follow-up Episode Three was canceled. The newly released Half-Life: Alyx is set five years before Half-Life 2 and stars Gordon’s ally Alyx Vance, so it doesn’t majorly advance the story. Even so, the new game includes a big hint about Gordon’s future journey... especially if you play through the credits.

    We posted a spoiler-light review of Alyx, so if you’re planning to play it, you might want to stop reading. Otherwise, let’s talk about what Alyx means for the Half-Life universe — where Valve says it’s not done making games.

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  • Adi Robertson

    Mar 26, 2020

    Adi Robertson

    Half-Life’s Alyx Vance, explained

    It’s been a tumultuous couple of weeks for residents of Earth. City 17, formerly one of our planet’s finest remaining urban centers, has been destroyed. A nearly spontaneous uprising has destabilized the Combine Empire’s two-decade stranglehold on humanity. It’s a time of danger, but also hope, and we owe much of it to one woman: Alyx Vance.

    Vance hasn’t received as much attention as her colleague, the theoretical physicist and military hero Gordon Freeman. But a recent chronicle of her early time in the Resistance has sparked renewed interest in her background and achievements. The story itself is worth hearing in full. If you’ve been restricted to official Combine media for most or all of your life, however, you might want a refresher on the context. To get everybody on the same page, we’re answering some questions you might have about Alyx Vance but are too embarrassed (or busy fighting headcrab zombies and antlions) to ask.

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  • Mar 25, 2020

    Ewan Wilson

    Why Half-Life’s City 17 was pivotal to gaming’s post-Soviet obsession

    Half-Life: Alyx.
    Half-Life: Alyx.

    The underground labs of the original Half-Life were set somewhere among New Mexico’s towering desert canyons. It wasn’t your prototypical blockbuster locale, but it was still Hollywood-esque, reminiscent of Cold War-era sci-fi films like Them!, where US Army men battled against giant irradiated ants below a blistering American sun. The setting of Half-Life’s sequel, on the other hand, felt markedly different: colder, darker, and altogether more otherworldly.

    Half-Life 2 didn’t just give us an original setting; it introduced many in the West to a whole new style of landscape, geography, and architecture. City 17 may have been fictional, but the influences were plain to see. Set somewhere in Eastern Europe, the metropolis drew clearly from real post-Soviet spaces. Art director Viktor Antonov has previously talked about how his childhood hometown of Sofia and how his formative urban explorations there inspired the creation of City 17. Other places like Belgrade and St. Petersburg were also used as reference.

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  • Adi Robertson

    Mar 24, 2020

    Adi Robertson

    How Half-Life: Alyx’s designers built an escapist dystopia with a spot of hope

    Half-Life Alyx

    I’m writing this story under self-quarantine for novel coronavirus exposure. I’ve been sequestered for over a week while the city outside my apartment has become America’s COVID-19 epicenter: 13,000 known cases and 125 deaths so far. The governor has ordered six feet of space between all residents in public, and my days are punctuated with the screams of ambulance sirens; at a hospital nearby, doctors have resorted to cleaning used face masks with hand sanitizer. I feel fine, but many New Yorkers are dealing with lost jobs, suddenly shuttered schools, or with the disease itself — deadlier and more contagious than the flu, with no vaccine or cure.

    It’s a strange week to be writing about a video game, especially one that sounds fairly grim on paper. The newly released Half-Life: Alyx is set in a post-apocalyptic city run by mysterious entities who are surgically mutilating and slowly exterminating humanity. At least one reviewer couldn’t enjoy Alyx during the pandemic. Paradoxically, though, I’ve found playing the game almost soothing. It’s a demanding virtual reality shooter where I’m playing somebody a lot more level-headed and competent than myself. With a headset on, I can’t check my phone for coronavirus updates. And apparently, making the game was a form of escapism for its creators, too.

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  • Adi Robertson

    Mar 23, 2020

    Adi Robertson

    Half-Life: Alyx is a satisfying return to City 17

    Half-Life: Alyx art
    Valve

    Half-Life: Alyx is definitely not Half-Life 3. It is a full-fledged game that expands the Half-Life universe. And City 17’s exploding barrel industry is still going strong.

    These are answers to some big questions Valve Software raised last year when it announced the first new Half-Life game since 2007 — but exclusively for virtual reality. Many series have VR adaptations or tie-ins, but Valve promised to deliver “the next part of the Half-Life story” in a package that could help take VR mainstream.

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  • Cameron Faulkner

    Mar 20, 2020

    Cameron Faulkner

    Which VR headsets can you actually buy at the launch of Half-Life: Alyx?

    Image: Valve

    It’s 2020, and the selection of VR headsets has never been more varied — or more sold out. If you haven’t been keeping up with the onslaught of news, most virtual reality headsets that will be compatible with the game from the likes of Oculus, Valve, HTC, and Samsung have been in extremely high demand but with low supply.

    Why the demand? Half-Life: Alyx, of course. It’s the VR-exclusive game from Valve that could be the immersive medium’s first killer app, and it’s coming out March 23rd.

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  • Sam Byford

    Mar 11, 2020

    Sam Byford

    Black Mesa is the perfect way to get into Half-Life before Alyx

    Upon its release in 1998, Half-Life instantly became my favorite game of all time. That wasn’t saying much, really, since we’d only just set up our first family computer, and I’d barely started playing video games. But history has proven my hot take to be a pretty solid one — Half-Life’s blend of first-person shooting and narrative storytelling was incredibly influential, and it went on to spawn a series that stokes near-unparalleled hype and reverence to this day. Just witness how Valve still isn’t able to make enough $1,000 headsets to meet demand for Half-Life: Alyx, which is coming out in a couple of weeks.

    Half-Life 2, though, I never really got on with. By the time it came out, I was a student with nothing but an Apple iBook to my name, and PC gaming just wasn’t a possibility for me. The first time I played it was years later when I got an Xbox 360 and decided to check out the original Xbox version. In hindsight, that port was a technical miracle. But it was still a compromised version, and the Xbox 360’s suboptimal backwards compatibility only made matters worse. I could appreciate what the game was doing on an artistic level, and its physics system was clearly groundbreaking, but it felt like a slog to play. Revisiting it on PC now, with its leaden combat and interminable vehicle sequences, I can only feel the same way. (Though I do think Episode 2 is great.)

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  • Adi Robertson

    Mar 2, 2020

    Adi Robertson

    Valve shows off how you’ll fight and move in Half-Life: Alyx

    Half-Life Alyx

    Valve’s much-anticipated virtual reality game Half-Life: Alyx debuts on March 23rd, and it just offered a little more detail on what we’ll be playing. It released three short videos today showing off combat and puzzles in Alyx, as well as the game’s overall vibe.

    The videos showcase some things we already knew about Alyx. First, much of the game is about semi-realistic gunfights, including manually reloading while being mobbed by enemies. Second, there are a lot of hand-based interactions — in the demo videos, we see Alyx Vance tip over buckets to search for items, grab grenades from midair, pull boards off a barred door, and flip a dead headcrab with the tip of her pistol. Valve has said its Index controllers will provide extra interaction options, but we don’t get any detail on that here.

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  • Andrew Webster

    Feb 13, 2020

    Andrew Webster

    Half-Life: Alyx will launch on March 23rd

    Half-Life Alyx

    The long-awaited next Half-Life is coming very soon. Half-Life: Alyx, a VR spinoff that was revealed last year, will launch on March 23rd. Valve previously said that the game would be available sometime in March.

    Announced back in November, Alyx is the first new Half-Life game in 13 years, and it’s exclusive to virtual reality platforms. Valve says that it will be a full-length title designed to be played for hours at a time. “Today, we generally see playtesters go for 2-3 hours before taking a bathroom break,” programmer Robin Walker told The Verge. And if it’s a success, Valve says that there could be more Half-Life titles coming in the future as well.

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  • Adi Robertson

    Dec 19, 2019

    Adi Robertson

    Watch Tested explain how Half-Life: Alyx will work on every big PC VR headset

    Valve Software’s Half-Life: Alyx is less than six months away, and since it requires a VR headset, lots of players might be considering a major hardware purchase right now. The gold standard is Valve’s own Index, with its high-end construction and unique controllers — but that requires a lot of setup and almost $1,000. The cheaper all-purpose option is the Oculus Quest, which can now be tethered to a PC — but it’s got simpler controllers and a front-heavy design. And what about old headsets like the now-retired consumer HTC Vive?

    Adam Savage’s Tested might offer some helpful guidance. Valve invited Tested founders Will Smith and Norman Chan to play around three hours of the upcoming game on eight PC VR headset systems, including the Index, the Quest, the Oculus Rift S, the first-generation Vive, and the newer HTC Vive Cosmos. The resulting half-hour video segment doesn’t show much gameplay footage, and it doesn’t reveal any substantial plot points. But it covers how the systems handle a few fundamental actions — including walking, reloading weapons, and using the gravity gloves to pull and throw objects.

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  • Nov 22, 2019

    Verge Staff

    The Verge reacts to Half-Life: Alyx

    After 12 long years, there’s finally going to be a new Half-Life game, and it’s exclusive to VR. Half-Life: Alyx is due to arrive in March 2020 for a wide array of PC VR headsets, but none with traditional flat screens, mice, and keyboards. Is it the killer app VR has been waiting for and the fulfillment of Half-Life fans’ dreams? Or is it merely a bump in the road?

    Here’s what a savvy selection of The Verge’s staff thinks about that.

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  • Adi Robertson

    Nov 22, 2019

    Adi Robertson

    Valve’s new Half-Life release isn’t about selling Valve headsets — it’s about selling SteamVR

    Valve

    Yesterday, Valve released a trailer for its upcoming game Half-Life: Alyx — the first we’ve seen of the shooter series since 2007. Valve says Alyx is “the next part of the Half-Life story, in a game around the same length as Half-Life 2.” (For the record, that’s about 10 to 15 hours.) It might even help clear up some of Half-Life 2: Episode 2’s myriad questions. And it’s coming exclusively to virtual reality headsets in March.

    Valve is making a not-so-subtle attempt to sell people on VR headsets, which remain a niche platform at best. It’s using the game to promote its own high-end Valve Index headset, offering Alyx for free — and with some special cosmetic features — to Index users. Oculus and Sony have long used their clout and money to lock up big VR titles for the Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest, and PlayStation VR. Now, Valve has its own flagship product.

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  • Sean Hollister

    Nov 21, 2019

    Sean Hollister

    Half-Life: Alyx minimum specs mean you may need to upgrade your gaming PC

    Valve

    If you’re excited about the first new Half-Life game in 12 years and you’re seriously thinking about a VR headset, you should know that it may not be your only expense. In fact, some people who already use headsets may need to shell out extra cash. That’s because, as Ben Kuchera at our sister site Polygon notes, the minimum system requirements for Half-Life: Alyx are higher than what VR has traditionally asked for.

    While the VR minspec has stayed relatively stable ever since the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive first appeared on the scene in 2016 — a fast dual-core CPU, Nvidia GTX 970 or AMD Radeon RX480 or better, and 8GB of RAM — Alyx now demands a quad-core Core i5 chip or better, a GTX 1060 or better with 6GB of video RAM, and 12GB of system memory.

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  • Adi Robertson

    Nov 21, 2019

    Adi Robertson

    What’s your favorite Half-Life fan work?

    Art for Half-Life 2, a game by Valve Software.
    Image: Valve

    Okay, let’s acknowledge this: the Half-Life series was mechanically and narratively transformative for the first-person shooter genre and gaming as a whole. Many among us loved the first two games, are still bitter about the loss of Half-Life 3, and are tentatively optimistic about the upcoming Half-Life: Alyx, the first full-length game in the series since 2004. But now that we’ve gotten those plaudits out of the way, let’s talk about Half-Life’s other glorious afterlife: the fan works.

    Half-Life 2 was extraordinarily extensible. Its modding system was an accessible way to learn game design, and the popular Garry’s Mod let people pose and move characters to make videos and comics. Half-Life was moddable as well, and over time, fans have built everything from a full-scale Half-Life remake to a first-person cat mod (named, naturally, Cat-Life) to some crucial pieces of ‘00s internet humor. I’d love to hear other people’s favorite projects; these are three of mine.

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  • Sean Hollister

    Nov 21, 2019

    Sean Hollister

    Half-Life: Alyx is officially coming March 2020, and here’s your first look

    Valve

    I have seven screenshots and a press release from Valve sitting in front of me. I’ve had two days to process this. But I’m still in disbelief. Thirteen years after the most infamous cliffhanger in video game history, Half-Life is finally coming back in March 2020 — as a VR game called Half-Life: Alyx.

    Valve tells us it’s a VR-exclusive. And it’s a prequel of sorts, set between Half-Life and Half-Life 2, in the days when Alyx Vance and her father Eli are building the resistance to the Combine’s alien occupation of Earth. You’ll play Alyx, and you’ll be wielding a way to manipulate gravity once more: the “Gravity Gloves,” which we can see Alyx using to pick up a pistol from a distance and interact with puzzles in the game’s first trailer — which you’ll find a little ways below.

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  • Andrew Webster

    Nov 21, 2019

    Andrew Webster

    Valve says it would ‘love to continue pushing forward’ on new Half-Life games

    Half-Life Alyx

    Today, Valve finally unveiled Half-Life: Alyx, its first full-fledged VR game and, more importantly, the developer’s long-awaited return to the Half-Life series. The game will be out in March 2020, and it marks the first new Half-Life title since Episode 2 in 2007. And according to Valve, we might not have to wait another decade to see the series continue — but that depends on the success of Alyx.

    “It’s probably no surprise that many people at Valve have been wanting to get back to the Half-Life universe for a long time, and this experience has only reinforced that,” Valve’s David Speyrer tells The Verge. “In the process of creating Half-Life: Alyx, we’ve had to explore new ways to tell stories with these characters and this world, and we’ve discovered a lot of new gameplay experiences that go beyond what we’ve been able to do before. Of course, we’ll have to wait and see how people react to Half-Life: Alyx once it’s out, but we’d love to continue pushing forward.”

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  • Sean Hollister

    Nov 18, 2019

    Sean Hollister

    Valve announces Half-Life: Alyx, its first flagship VR game

    Two years and nine months after announcing it would build three (3) full-length VR games — a number that Valve Software has historically never been able to count to before, and one of the most exciting announcements in VR’s short history so far — the company has today announced Half-Life: Alyx, the first new game in the acclaimed Half-Life series in well over a decade.

    We don’t currently have any details beyond the tweet from Valve above, which appears to be the first tweet from a new, Twitter-verified Valve Software account established in June. But clearly, we’ll be learning more on Thursday, presumably from this social media account, at 10am PT.

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