Levels have the same forward momentum and minimal backtracking, but Alyx moves at a slower pace through denser and more fully formed spaces. Where Valve poked fun at Gordon’s stoic ‘90s-shooter hypercompetence, Alyx has more realistic - if top-notch - fighting capabilities. That’s partly because Alyx is a more human-seeming character than Gordon, and City 17 is nearly the whole setting, not the pit stop it was in Half-Life 2. At the same time, it feels like a very different kind of game. Alyx is more like the sequel’s add-on Episodes, extending the plot without starting a new chapter. The series’s first two installments practically took place in different worlds. While there’s a lot more detail, you’re facing a similar crowd of hostile alien fauna and transhuman soldiers as well as similar weapons and environments - although soldiers give those classic Half-Life barrels a wider berth.

‘Alyx’ is an extension of ‘Half-Life 2,’ not a new ‘Half-Life’ chapterĪlyx is set in the same urban dystopia as Half-Life 2: a washed-out and decaying Eastern European metropolis called City 17. It’s not just a good VR game it’s a good video game, period. It advances the series’s main plot, but it doesn’t come close to resolving it.īut if you keep these admittedly big reservations in mind, Alyx is a worthy addition to the Half-Life universe. While it’s about as long as the landmark Half-Life 2, with my game clocking in at 15 hours, it doesn’t feel as big or as narratively and mechanically fresh. The game is fighting VR’s inherent hardware limits, a pandemic-related headset shortage, and the difficulty of building a game for a new platform. That’s setting a very high bar, and, for now, I’m not sure Alyx clears it.

Many series have VR adaptations or tie-ins, but Valve promised to deliver “the next part of the Half-Life story” in a package that could help take VR mainstream. These are answers to some big questions Valve Software raised last year when it announced the first new Half-Life game since 2007 - but exclusively for virtual reality. And City 17’s exploding barrel industry is still going strong. It is a full-fledged game that expands the Half-Life universe. Half-Life: Alyx is definitely not Half-Life 3.

Half life 3 announcement