Half Life Alyx could create a new VR boom. Could Virtual Reality games be a serious investment? Learn why Half Life Alyx is opening the doors for more Virtual Reality sales and could pave the way for a possible Half Life 3 game.
Half Life Alyx concept art gives you a sense of mystery of the adventure that lays ahead.
When we think of certain video games, their developers/studios usually come to mind in the same thought. For example; Legend of Zelda is Nintendo. Uncharted is Naughty Dog. Halo is Microsoft. Mega Man is Capcom. Half-Life is Valve. For this we will be sticking to the Half-Life series, specifically it’s new entry Half-Life: Alyx. That’s right, a new entry in Valve's popular series. Sadly it is not the Half-Life 3 we’ve all been begging for, but I believe that this could possibly be the piece needed to get HL3 off the ground. More on that later, for now let’s talk about Half-Life Alyx.
Half-Life Alyx is a virtual reality (VR) first person shooter coming out of its developer Valve. Story line-wise, this game takes place between Half-Life 1 and Half-Life 2, where you take the role of Alyx Vance as she takes on a mission to seize a combine super weapon. This game is a fully immersive VR experience for PC and supports most PC compatible Virtual Reality headsets. Unlike the other HL games where you play as Gordon Freeman and his gravity gun, you have Alyx and her gravity gloves to grab and manipulate various objects in-game.
Since back in the mid 2010s, Valve has been experimenting with VR with some of there games like Portal, but obviously settled on Half-Life. Valve collaborated with the electronics company HTC to develop the HTC Vive, a virtual reality headset released in 2016. In 2016 Valve released The Lab, a collection of VR mini-games. The team developed several other prototypes, with three further VR projects under development by 2017.
Back on my earlier speculation on the future of Half-Life. The last game in the series, Half-Life 2: Episode 2 was released back in 2007. Through much trial an error on Valve's part, we never got an episode 2 or a Half-Life 3. With the out-of-nowhere release of Half-Life: Alyx and the success it has seen, their could be hope for the future of the series. Valve could see all of this and by some miracle decide to return to the drawing board and give the fans another installment of Gordon Freeman and his adventures in city 17.
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Article Written by Joshua Lowe Tech Journalist
lowejoshua@ymail.com
