In November 18, 2019 – Valve has announced on Twitter today that it will be unveiling its new flagship VR game, Half-Life: Alyx, on Thursday this week.
The company wrote on Twitter: “We’re excited to unveil Half-Life: Alyx, our flagship VR game, this Thursday at 10am Pacific Time. Can’t wait to share it with all of you!”
Valve has had three full VR games in the works for a few years, something that was confirmed by Valve Software President & Owner & CEO, Gabe Newell, back in February 2017 in an interview to Eurogamer. Fans of the Half-Life games have been awaiting the announcement of Half-Life 3 ever since Half-Life 2 hit the shelves in 2004. Subsequent smaller sequels, Half-Life 2: Episode One and Half-Life 2: Episode Two, were announced in 2006 and 2007 respectively. Since then, any hint of a Half-Life 3 game has sent the internet into a minor meltdown. Keen-eyed fans had even gone as far as poring through leaked code to come up with theories as to what a Half-Life VR game could look like.
Today’s announcement of Half-Life: Alyx will see the launch of the first of Valve’s three flagship VR games, but it is not the Half-Life 3 title that some fans had been hoping for. What the game will entail is yet to be determined, but it seems that the title will only be playable on VR on launch.
The announcement has been met with mixed response, with some gaming commentators almost annoyed at the fact that this is a VR exclusive title for a franchise where the fans are desperately awaiting a number 3 sequel.
It has been discussed here at Auganix that if Valve were to release Half-Life 3 on VR, that would be the point at which the industry could potentially see a serious uptick in the number of users with VR headsets and would be a step in the right direction towards achieving mass adoption – mainly due to the success and popularity of the other games in the Half-Life series, and the anticipation that has been building for the possibility of another Half-Life sequel. Could one game alone be the catalyst that convinces an entire fan base of millions of gamers to buy into VR? Probably not, but for such a popular franchise, it is certain to convert a good number of fans to the medium.
For now, we will have to wait until Thursday to see exactly what Valve has in store for gamers, but this is certainly a step in the right direction towards getting more VR headsets on heads and controllers in hands.
Image credit: Valve/Twitter
Related Posts
About the author
Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he has been covering XR industry news for the past seven years.