We should probably begin with the game's name, as revealed in
a leaked Game Awards 2019 presentation and confirmed hours later by
an official post from Valve. Half-Life: Alyx is a brand-new game in the Half-Life universe designed exclusively for PC virtual reality systems (Valve Index, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Windows Mixed Reality).
This is, in fact, the oft-teased "VR game" mentioned by Valve over the past few years and
the one we had been told to expect by the end of 2019. Today's leak includes a revised release window of March 2020, which our sources indicate is likely—but also subject to change due to the phenomenon that fans call "
Valve Time."
The game's name confirms what has been loudly rumored for months: that you will play this game from the perspective of Alyx Vance, a character introduced in 2004's
Half-Life 2. Instead of stepping forward in time, HLA will rewind to the period between the first two mainline Half-Life games.
A data leak from Valve's Source 2 game engine,
as uncovered in September by Valve News Network, pointed to a new control system labeled as the "Grabbity Gloves" in its code base. Multiple sources have confirmed that this is indeed a major control system in HLA.
How do they work? We've gotten hints that they might more accurately be described as "Magnet Gloves," in that they let players magically point to and attract distant items to your hands. Instead of having to walk all the way to an object in VR or bend over to grab something from the floor, HLA players will have a handy point-and-snag system. And we're told that these are spiritual successors to HL2's Gravity Gun, in terms of revolving around realistic physics. Maybe that means we can, or cannot, grab certain items due to real-life physics systems or obstacles.
Our sources have told us not to expect one iconic weapon in HLA, however. Each of these sources mentioned that a virtual crowbar was tested at one point in the game's multi-year development but was eventually scrapped. To be clear: we don't have conclusive evidence that the crowbar won't eventually appear in the game in one way or another. (If Valve plans to upgrade the game with a physical crowbar purchase, my sources sure haven't heard of it.)
