A few gameplay videos have also surfaced of the new Half-Life game.
Half-Life: Alyx, which can be considered as a prequel to Half-Life 2, will be VR-only, as Valve has seemingly gone against the trends. In one of the new gameplay videos, we can see that Alyx uses her gravity gloves to pull a yellow hard hat in from a nearby box. The hat then ends up on our heroine’s head.
It’s not just a cosmetic decision, as it can be highly useful against the barnacle enemies. These have long tongues that could grab you (at least they did that in the previous games, but in Alyx, it won’t happen, as Valve thought that the players did not enjoy the sudden upward movement in testing), which could be deadly if we’re not careful. (In Alyx, they just (?) strangle you. That’s also not beneficial to your health…) But, with a hat, that gets knocked off, and we can escape the encounter without any damage.
It’s an excellent decision on Valve’s end. They could have honestly skipped this altogether, but Gabe Newell has taken care of such a small detail as well (and they even respond to critique, too – we wrote about a screenshot that had ERROR on it, and they explained how it even happened). It’s not common in a VR game – let’s just say that the technology is not mainstream yet.
In the IGN video (which also has this barnacle trick), you can see how the zombies have some glowing body parts. If you shoot them, then the zombie immediately blows up, meaning they likely have a few explosive orbs that can be dealt with a single pistol shot.
Half-Life: Alyx launches on March 23. Valve Index, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift (S), Oculus Quest + Oculus Touch controller + link cable to your PC, or Windows Mixed Reality devices. You’ll need one of these to play the game, and a beefy PC is also recommended…
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