Update 23:25 UTC: Well, that was a little sooner than expected. Valve have now officially confirmed Half-Life is back with their VR title Half-Life: Alyx.
Valve have now posted on Twitter to actually announce Half-Life: Alyx. Details are light right now of course so here's exactly what they said to save you an extra click around:
We’re excited to unveil Half-Life: Alyx, our flagship VR game, this Thursday at 10am Pacific Time. Can’t wait to share it with all of you!
This came along with a picture:
That's it, that's all we have until Thursday.
Begin your wild commenting.
Original article:
Valve did say they were working on three VR titles some time ago and it looks like one is almost ready to be shown off, with Half-Life: Alyx.
The information is all speculation and rumours right now though, so take it all with a heavy truckload of salt. We know a Half-Life VR game is pretty much a thing though, ValveNewsNetwork even had a video going over various details on it back in October so it's not like this is suddenly coming out of nowhere.
Now though, we have more apparent leaks. Spotted by PC Gamer, they linked to a pastebin and in a later update a Google Document (update: contents now removed, so link removed) apparently showing snippets from an interview between Geoff Keighley of The Game Awards, Robin Walker and someone else they presume to be Gabe Newell.
These leaks come from someone named Midoriyan, who apparently also leaked out Dota Underlords before it was released which is supposed to give credit to the leak in what looks like a Steam chat with Tyler McVicker from ValveNewsNetwork. Sounds like McVicker from VNN isn't particularly happy about PC Gamer running the story and all the details leaking out like this. Not sure what they expected though, and despite McVicker covering a lot of Valve news, it's not something that only they're allowed to speculate and report on.
On top of that, something else which is quite interesting is that the team from Campo Santo who joined Valve all seem to have removed mentions of In The Valley of Gods from their Twitter profiles. Something is clearly going on over at Valve, although this could be unrelated of course.
Looking over the details inside the links above, they all point to a March 2020 release for Half-Life: Alyx and it will also apparently be shown off at The Game Awards on December 12.
There's further rumours that we may see some kind of announcement as soon as this week. That would line up quite nicely, considering the original Half-Life released on November 19 back in 1998. So Valve could be marking the 21st anniversary with their announcement.
While Half-Life might be nearly 21 years old, for Linux gamers it's not all that old considering Steam only came to Linux back in 2013. I can imagine plenty of our readers playing the Half-Life series long before that though, so it has still been a long wait for a new game either way.
Since this would be a VR-only title, would something like this push you towards buying a VR kit if you were on the fence? Certainly might help me make a decision on it.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Since this would be a VR-only title, would something like this push you towards buying a VR kit if you were on the fence?No. VR still needs a powerful computer.
While Half-Life might be nearly 21 years old, for Linux gamers it's not all that old considering Steam only came to Linux back in 2013. I can imagine plenty of our readers playing the Half-Life series long before that though, ...
Actually, according to my achievements, I played through all the Half-Life games in the first quarter of 2017. That's even more recent than I thought it was.
I won't wait that long with this one though! :D
Last edited by Ehvis on 18 November 2019 at 3:58 pm UTC
Pity that there is no "budget" VR option that runs under Linux. Not only a stronger PC is needed than for VR under Windows, but lower spec headsets are Windows-only.I think the most budget VR on Linux is right now is picking up the original Vive second hand? I think that would be the cheapest, unless I am mistaken but apart from Vive, Pro and Index and I don't think any others work with SteamVR + Linux.
slaapliedje Nov 18, 2019
Yeah, pretty sure that's the case, and it sounds like they finally fixed the bug with the Pro where if you had a G-Sync monitor, it would cause screen tearing. Weirdly the Index didn't have the same issue.Pity that there is no "budget" VR option that runs under Linux. Not only a stronger PC is needed than for VR under Windows, but lower spec headsets are Windows-only.I think the most budget VR on Linux is right now is picking up the original Vive second hand? I think that would be the cheapest, unless I am mistaken but apart from Vive, Pro and Index and I don't think any others work with SteamVR + Linux.
VR support in Linux is actually pretty decent, I just wish the performance was on par with Windows for the stuff I need to run under Proton (like Elite Dangerous, which is roughly 90 FPS less in performance, last time I tried.... getting about time I try again.)
If i can play without VR, then immediately pre-order.But... applying the usual Valve-watchers' arithmetic (2+2 = Half-Life 3), making a VR Half-Life title will have required the creation of up-to-date assets (although, honestly, HL2 doesn't look too bad for its age), and surely they wouldn't just let them go to waste on a niche title that relatively few people are going to buy?
Since this would be a VR-only title, would something like this push you towards buying a VR kit if you were on the fence?No. VR still needs a powerful computer.
Now, I'm not actually saying “Half-Life 3 confirmed!!!1!!”, but I wouldn't be surprised if we saw something for us flatscreen plebs. An HD remaster, maybe?
Maybe this is the first of many things that will finally push most people to VR.
We'll see, it's difficult to trust Valve but the Index is a great product and it won't matter if they don't make something great to play with it.
Mountain Man Nov 18, 2019
After everything that Valve has done for Linux gamers with Steamplay, I wish I could review this Half Life game, but after spending $2500 on a PC capable of playing it I was kinda tapped for cash and couldn't hope to afford the extra $1000 for the VR headset required. Is it good or bad? I have no idea. Hey, Steam itself was TERRIBLE when it launched. I was one of the people that couldn't even log-in in 2004 when it launched. I actually used a pirate copy of HL2 for literally years until I got the Black Box with my ATI 2900XT and was genuinely surprised to be able to log in years later and have my account still be valid. Now Steam is my primary game platform, has been for quite a while, and looks to continue being so into the future.
Maybe this game launch will have a similar outcome - EPIC disaster followed by slowly but surely taking over the entire market. We'll see.
Last edited by jarhead_h on 19 November 2019 at 6:45 am UTC
When VR hardware with few compromises reaches the $299 price point and supports Linux, call me. It would probably spend 90% of its life in my tech closet as opposed to actually being used, but at least I would feel less guilty about it.
Besides, now that HF3 has been officially announced anyone pricked Pitchford on twitter to uphold his stupid pledge regarding B3?
Last edited by Mal on 19 November 2019 at 6:53 pm UTC
Since this would be a VR-only title, would something like this push you towards buying a VR kit if you were on the fence?
I've had the opportunity to try out Oculus CV1 with ETS2, IL-2:BoS, DCS and Alien:Isolation quite a while ago as well as some tech demos and static museum-type presentations on a decent hardware and the VR technology just isn't there yet. Tech demos and static presentations were great, in regards to other titles - it was okay for casual, short intervals (coincidentally the type of gameplay that dominates the VR market at the moment), but overall it felt like trying to play the game while having a bag on your head while it was making you nauseous at the same time. I'd give it 5 years before trying it again.
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