Half-Life: Alyx

Half-Life: Alyx is a single-player first-person VR shooter with action and horror elements, set in an incredibly detailed and carefully crafted game world. At launch, it supported HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Valve Index, and Windows Mixed Reality headsets. You can finish the game in 10 hours, while a thorough, complete playthrough takes around 15, thanks in large part to its full story campaign—something rarely seen in VR.

Alyx takes place in City 17, 15 years after the events of the first game and five years before Gordon Freeman arrives. The city is completely occupied by the Combine, who use it as their main base for carrying out their plans to wipe out humanity.

The developers preserved and expanded on all the familiar features of post-Soviet City 17: the industrial design of human buildings stands alongside the aliens’ enormous structures, and the same cars, containers, air conditioners, apartment furnishings, and much more all return. More attention is given to Xen’s wildlife breaking into the game world: many areas, especially basements, are filled with eerie fungi, carnivorous plants, and flowers that release harmful spores.

Alyx’s world is made up of linear levels, and the player is always moving forward. Valve worked to craft every square inch, not just with high-resolution textures but with meaningful details. Players can pick up and use all kinds of objects: put a bucket on your head to fool a barnacle; open a box and rummage through a stack of magazines; turn a radio’s dial; draw on windows; or grab a barrel, throw it at an enemy’s feet, and blow it up.

Exploring the world is an important part of the game, since supplies are always scarce. You might find ammo behind a book on a shelf, grenades in a toilet tank, or a health kit in a refrigerator.

Alyx features a familiar lineup of enemies (headcrabs, zombies, barnacles, Combine soldiers, antlions, drones, Striders, and others), all trained in new tricks. The bestiary has also been expanded with new subtypes, such as armored and electric headcrabs and zombies, as well as Combine machine gunners and assault troops with energy shields.

Alyx takes place between Half-Life and Half-Life 2, at a time when almost nothing is known about the enemy. The main character is Alyx Vance, whom Gordon Freeman meets in the second game. Along with her father, Eli Vance (a former Black Mesa employee who escaped during the Incident), she discovers an important secret about the Combine that could deal a heavy blow to the occupiers.

Meanwhile, the Combine has tightened its control over the planet. The surviving humans have been driven into cities, including Alyx’s father. If the Combine find out who he is, they will kill him immediately. The brave young woman must not only save her father but also continue his work: the fledgling Resistance needs weapons, and crucial research is being conducted in secret.

Alyx brings back all the important Half-Life characters, including the G-Man and the Vortigaunts, and introduces a few new ones. For example, there’s Russell, the inventor of the gravity gloves, who will advise and guide Alyx on her adventures. Unlike other VR projects, this game is more personal and features many cutscenes with supporting characters.

Unlike the stern Gordon Freeman, Alyx is a young woman who has spent her whole life under the Combine occupation and her father’s protection. She has only recently joined the Resistance and hasn’t seen many terrible things. So throughout the game, she shares her thoughts, jokes to herself or with Russell, and asks him to keep her company by chatting.

At the same time, Alyx expands and deepens the Half-Life universe with new weapons, monsters, and enemies, descriptions of events, and details about the larger story, which includes some very unexpected twists.

Alyx changes some of the series’ signature features. Gordon Freeman’s fast-paced shootouts are replaced by smaller encounters, where the heroine faces a handful of different enemies, such as heavily armored Combine soldiers and a few zombies. There are only three weapons: a pistol, a shotgun, and a submachine gun, though they can be upgraded with resin, a versatile crafting material.

The shooting is different from classic Half-Life games: instead of a crosshair, there’s a ring showing the area in space where a bullet might hit. Later, you can add a reflex sight or a laser sight for more accurate shooting. Boss fights are still part of the game, and each one is unique.

An important part of Alyx is its survival horror. The designers created many very dark rooms where players nervously look around with a weak flashlight and rely on their hearing, listening for things like a headcrab scuttling or zombies groaning. Otherwise, the single-player gameplay is typical: kill and fetch, go and find, and similar tasks, like in old-school shooters.

Puzzles make full use of 3D space. For example, you might hack an interface in the form of a 3D sphere, or connect a device by tracing wires scattered across several rooms, while enemies may be walking nearby.

The gravity gloves show information (health, stamina, and ammo), highlight the way forward, grab nearby objects, and more. They’re also useful for solving especially difficult puzzles, such as unlocking a door from a distance.

You can move using either the classic teleport, a quick move to a chosen point, or the classic walking mode. The game also tracks your head position, naturally shifting the view and making the experience more immersive. You use the controllers to shoot, operate Russell’s equipment, and perform all other actions.