Earlier this week, a hearsay hit the web – because it has many occasions earlier than – {that a} new Half-Life game was going to be introduced at The Game Awards subsequent month. That turned out to not be true, and Half-Life: Alyx was revealed as we speak as an alternative.
Although the preliminary reveal didn’t find yourself belonging to The Game Awards and Geoff Keighley, he’s concerned. He’s producing one other ‘The Final Hours Of’ story on the game, as he did on Half-Life 1 and a couple of, to be launched subsequent 12 months. Right now nonetheless you possibly can watch a 22-minute dialog in regards to the game between Keighley and Valve builders Robin Walker, Dario Casali and David Speyrer. They talk about the origins of the undertaking, why it’s VR solely, their pleasure about doorways and – most candidly – Half-Life 3.
They’re all very nicely groomed. This – and solely this – is why I’ll by no means work at Valve.
Most of the chat is delivers comparable solutions to what was stated when we spoke to Valve just before the Half-Life: Alyx announcement. Robin Walker was surprisingly candid when requested about Half-Life 3, nonetheless.
“Back in 2016, when we started this, Half-Life 3 was a terrifyingly daunting prospect,” says Walker. “I feel to some extent, VR was a means we may idiot ourselves into believing we had a means to do that. By beginning with VR after which attempting to consider Half-Life and the way that labored with it, and playtesting these, you’re instantly in an area the place you have got one thing we perceive nicely: Half-Life-style gameplay. [Add] a brand new platform with new prospects, and we will try this translation, and we will watch folks play it. So inside every week or two, we’re beginning to study.
“So it was really easy to not think about the big picture of like, ‘are we making Half-Life 3?’, and just focus on, let’s figure out what people enjoy in this and let’s make forward progress. In some ways VR was a little bit [similar to] the way the gravity gun helped in Half-Life 2 where it just became the tentpole where you could wrap so much around, VR became this thing we could wrap everything around. Whereas Half-Life 3, if tomorrow they’re like, hey you’re working on Half-Life 3, it’s like, ‘Ohhh god.’ Terrifying!”
Keighley hints all through about extra particulars to return in subsequent 12 months’s The Final Hours Of on the game, which can recount now simply HL: Alyx’s improvement, however “everything that’s happened in the last ten years at Valve,” together with particulars of earlier improvement experiments. That sounds legitimately fascinating, a minimum of to me.
Other particulars talked about within the video embrace information that Campo Santo builders (who joined Valve final 12 months to proceed work on In The Valley Of Gods) are concerned in Half-Life: Alyx, and that “Jay and Erik” from Portal 2 are concerned in writing the game. That’ll presumably be Jay Pinkerton and Erik Wolpaw, who each left Valve over the previous few years, although Jay returned final 12 months.
My hope ranges, they’re rising. Go watch the Half-Life: Alyx trailer and first round of screenshots.
