Valve showcases Half-Life Alyx in trio of new videos, and it looks stunning

Ahead of its release later this month, Valve has released a selection of gameplay videos showing exactly what Half-Life: Alyx is all about.

Half-Life: Alyx will be the series’ first installment for roughly thirteen years, acting as a prequel to the second game where you play as Alyx Vance who is trying desperately to survive as the world is dominated by Combine. 

The twist is, this a virtual reality experience, built for the medium from the ground up with innovative new mechanics that seek to redefine how we’ll come to view the space going forward. If anyone can pull this off, it’s Valve, and these new videos tease just what it might look like. 

Valve’s first video is fairly straightforward, beginning in a broken down train cart amidst an abandoned subway station. Alyx begins moving through it, shooting zombies as she does. Before leaving, she examines a headcrab on the ground, nudging it with her gun, teasing exactly how physics could work across the campaign. 

After this, she descends upon a weapon upgrade station where you can customise equipment with different attachments and other bonuses. It seems there will be more depth than your typical virtual reality outing, which is a relief to see since Half-Life: Alyx is poised to launch at £50. 

Following a tense and exciting shootout, the first video concludes. One of my most interesting takeaways is how Alyx’s Gravity Gloves will make picking up objectrrs and analysing the environment far easier, saving the need for bending into awkward positions just to pick an object off the floor.

The second video continues to expand upon the game’s mechanics, starting with a puzzle which involves Alyx connecting nodes around a virtual globe to open a door, using a multitool which might end up having various uses in the full experience.

After this, she ascends into a rather terrifying nest infested with headcrabs and other nasties, although its necessary in order to obtain a material known as “resin” which the player must collect throughout the solo campaign. Counting her blessings, Alyx returns to the surface.

Valve’s final video is the shortest of the bunch, and serves to highlight how your average combat encounter will work in Half-Life: Alyx. Well, those that don’t involve lurching zombies. Combine are intelligent, and will use cover, grenades and other means to draw Alyx from cover to gun her down. So, you must use similar techniques to blow them away, which includes an assortment of firearms that should be incredibly fun to experiment with.

Half-Life: Alyx will be launching exclusively for PC on March 23, 2020. It will work across an assortment of new and existing headsets including the Valve Index, Oculus Quest and HTC Cosmos. We’ll have more on the game going forward, so keep an eye on Trusted Reviews for that!