Earlier this week, Valve announced Half-Life: Alyx, its new flagship VR game, and the first game in the revolutionary series since 2007. Fast-forward to today, and Valve revealed the game, and in the process, released its first ever trailer. This new Half-Life game takes place between the events of Half-Life and Half-Life 2, according to Valve, and it’s scheduled to release in March 2020. It’ll also require a VR headset to play, so Half-Life fans will have to invest in that if they want to experience the story for themselves.
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For those that don’t know: Half-Life is a first-person shooter series from Valve — the company behind Steam — that debuted back in 1998. The first game in the series, Half-Life, pushed the video game genre forward, and is widely considered one of the best games of all-time. Then in 2004, Half-Life 2 released, and somehow, it managed to top the first game, pushing the medium forward once again and becoming an instant classic. Then Half-Life 2: Episode One followed in 2006, and Half-Life 2: Episode Two followed in 2007. They were shorter, episodic games, and unlike the games that came before then, they weren’t groundbreaking, though they were still incredibly acclaimed.
As you may know, Half-Life 2: Episode Three was scheduled to release in 2007, but it was delayed. And delayed. And eventually it became vaporware. That was the last we heard from one of the biggest series in video games.
Over the years, rumors, reports, and leaks surfaced claiming Valve was reviving the series, but none of this ever came to fruition. “Half-Life 3” became a meme. However, while fans lost hope of seeing the series return, it was never forgotten. Then earlier this week, Valve announced Half-Life: Alyx, a virtual reality game. Of course, there had been rumors and reports suggesting Valve was bringing the series back via virtual reality, but understandably so, nobody really believed this scuttlebutt. That said, it’s not the return many fans were hoping for, but it did create quite the commotion considering it’s a series many modern gamers never played or know anything about it.
Anyway, as always, feel free to leave a comment or two or three letting us know what you think or, alternatively, hit me up on Twitter @Tyler_Fischer_ and let me know over there. How does Half-Life: Alyx look? Will it be the game to finally make virtual reality mainstream or will it fail to be as influential as the games before it?
