‘Half-Life: Alyx’ Trailer: A full-fledged VR prequel that hits March 2020. But VR only? Fuck me.

Well, Half-Life: Alyx looks rad. The son of a bitch is hitting March 2020, but you gotta have a VR headset.  And, I ain’t got one of them! So, enjoy it friends that do.

Forbes:

Half-Life: Alyx is Valve’s first foray into the Half-Life series since Half-Life 2: Episode 2 left us with yet another cliffhanger and no resolution.

Unfortunately, rather than pick up where the story left off, Half-Life: Alyx is a prequel set between the events of Half-Life and Half-Life 2. You play as Alyx Vance–a major character from the previous games–rather than Gordon Freeman.

Oh, and it’s a virtual reality game designed to played using a VR headset and motion controllers. Prepare yourself for disembodied hands.

The game releases on Steam in March, 2020 and you won’t need a Valve Index to play it, though you will get the game for free if you’re a Valve Index owner. You can see compatible headsets below.

Instead of a Gravity Gun, this time around Alyx will have Gravity Gloves–which makes sense given Valve’s push into wearable tech and the Valve Index’s finger-based controller. A Valve Index without base stations will cost you $749, while a kit with the base stations costs $999. Both include Half-Life Alyx.

VR is still not cheap when you want all the bells and whistles. I’m just not sure even a AAA game like this will make a system that expensive worthwhile.

Here’s the trailer:

It looks great–though I have to admit I would still be about fifty times more hyped if this was not a VR exclusive and was also releasing on PC and consoles. But it does look fun, funny and very much like Half-Life 2 but prettier. It makes me want to play through all the old games again. I’ll certainly be playing it, though probably on my Oculus Quest headset rather than forking over a grand for the Valve Index.

The game will ship with a set of Source 2 modding tools so expect mods, player-created levels and so forth.