[Trasmatta]

> Heard many good projects died

Part of me will never fully forgive them for just letting Half-Life 2: Episode 3 die, never officially cancelling it (even to this day), and refusing to communicate with their fans about it.

People meme about HL3, but most of us Half-Life fans just wanted Episode 3. Episode 2 ends on the most heartbreaking cliffhanger, and we just wanted some sort of conclusion to that story.

[phinnaeus]

I was one of these people until I played Half-Life: Alyx. They've earned back some of the trust that was previously squandered.

[bicknyers]

From my estimations they could not release Episode 3 as public hype eclipsed anything any game studio could produce. The anticipation became too strong as people expect nothing less than perfection. They used Alyx to re-anchor expectations

Edit: I believe a similar phenomenon occurred with Disney's Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, objectively some mistakes were made, but the sheer outcry from fans is an order of magnitude stronger than the mistakes made, imo this is caused from the mismatch of the idea of what Star Wars can be/means to you versus what you can concretely produce (with technical and cultural constraints)

[ACS_Solver]

Could you share a few spoiler-free thoughts about HL:A as a dedicated series fan?

I'm in the same boat. Loved HL1, then HL2 even more, it's one of the very rare games I regard as perfect. Then both Episode 1 and Episode 2 surpassed my expectations, and I was very disappointed with Valve's refusal to say anything at all for years. The HL:A announcement took me by surprise, as I had given up on more HL.

Do you find HL:A to be a good Half-Life game first and foremost? Do you feel it has the top-notch environmental storytelling and attention to detail that the series is known for? Does it make good use of VR's potential?

I'm considering upgrading my PC this year, largely for HL:A and Cyberpunk 2077. The last time I tried VR was with the Oculus Rift in 2016, and it felt underwhelming to me. Very cool for an evening, but then the novelty wore off and the actual gaming felt less satisfying than traditional non-VR.

[rgovostes]

> Does it make good use of VR's potential?

Of the handful of games I've played in VR, Alyx by far feels the most like I am physically present and able to interact with the world. The one time I've ever been tricked by the illusion was when I bent down to look under furniture in a room, and then I tried to push on said furniture to help me stand back up, oops.

Like other Half-Life games it has great physics. You can pick up a marker and write on a pane of glass; you can shake a bottle and see the liquid inside slosh around. The gravity gun concept returns and it is as much fun in VR as when you first picked it up in HL2.

I won't go too much into VR-centric game mechanics for spoiler reasons, but I'm impressed with how creative they got with hand tracking. As one example, reloading is combat is tense because I have to actually go through the motions of getting out a new clip, ejecting the spent one, chambering a round, etc. while a zombie lumbers toward me.

[ehsankia]

The other comment did a great job of explaining HL:A specifically, but I'll answer a few other parts of your comment.

> Do you find HL:A to be a good Half-Life game first and foremost

Absolutely, it's raw HL. The game itself is in the 12 hour range, which is very much in the HL1/HL2 range. It does feel a bit shorter (narratively), but it still is full of content switching between puzzles, combat and story telling.

> Do you feel it has the top-notch environmental storytelling and attention to detail that the series is known for?

Absolutely. It is a bit different, since this is a VR game, but if anything I would say it's even stronger here. The focus is different to fit the controls, but there are truly "WOW" moments. I still remember having my mind blown in HL2 when the huge tower falls as you ride the boat. This game similarly amazes, but in an even more immersive way.

> The last time I tried VR was with the Oculus Rift in 2016, and it felt underwhelming to me

As someone who has had the original Oculus prototype, then the HTC Vive, then the Valve Index. I will say that each iteration made an order of magnitude difference in almost every metric: immersion, comfort, motion sickness, etc. With the latest setup, I would easily spend 3-4 hours straight in Alyx, until the point where my legs started hurting (before my face/stomach, which was the case before).

> I regard as perfect

Unfortunately, I think this is why it ultimately took them so long. It was truly hard to follow up all those great games, and they wanted something they could really be happy with. HL:A does mostly deliver that, though partly sidestep the issue by switching to a different medium, where the standards of a perfect game have not yet been created.

At the end of the day, it does very much feel like a HL game, to a veteran who has played their games over and over.

[akhilcacharya]

> Do you find HL:A to be a good Half-Life game first and foremost? Do you feel it has the top-notch environmental storytelling and attention to detail that the series is known for? Does it make good use of VR's potential?

Yes, 100%. It's the best VR game I've played and I own ~30. Its the only VR game I've played for more than ~1.5 hours straight (I finished Alyx in 2 4 hour sessions and 1 3 hour session).

It's not a novelty. There's segments in the game (particularly at the end) that are incredibly engrossing as a result of VR.

[Trasmatta]

I've been playing it as well, but I'm not too far in. It hasn't grabbed me much yet. Part of that might just be that 2020 has me in a bad headspace, so it's hard to enjoy things as much.

[whatch]

Felt just like you a few chapters back (I'm on 6th now). But now I wish it doesn't end too soon.

[awia]

Have you tried HL:Alyx, you might want to.

EDIT: just saw your reply below. I hope you get through it. It is GOTY for me.

[00deadbeef]

I don’t understand why they released a VR game. Seriously limiting their market. I’m not going to spend hundreds and hundreds just to play one game.

[NineStarPoint]

They are the sellers of a VR headset, and want to increase the odds of that market taking off by adding a great game to it. Business decision wasn’t based around the game’s ability to sell well, but it’s ability to sell headsets. While this one game isn’t going to get me to buy a Vr headset, enough games at this level could, and there 100% are people who bought the headset just to play Alyx.

Which isn’t to say that Alyx could have been made as a non-VR game, from what I know VR is completely integral to the experience. But in choosing to make a different game that could have sold gangbusters vs making this game to support their hardware, they chose the latter.

Edit: Oh also they are so loaded they can do whatever they want basically and as a private company have no authority to answer to that can force them to pursue profit. I get the feeling Gaben is entirely happy with his current level of ludicrous net worth and values seeing a big change in the landscape of gaming in his lifetime over making more money. (It’s also possible that attempting to make new markets for Valve to take a 30% cut of is the best long term strategy to make money regardless)

[chrononaut]

I had thought the same, until I actually played it, and then it made complete sense. It's hard to express how difficult it would have been to have designed a non-VR counterpart with it until you're in the game experiencing it -- the pacing, the environments, the Combine, etc. I feel it's completely different than any Half-Life game, or FPS game that I've played, but familiar at the same time.

As far why they did a VR game at all: I suppose they like to test the waters.

[ehsankia]

This is my own analysis, as a Valve veteran for 20 years and someone who has followed every twist and turns. People will say they made this game to sell VR headsets, but from my vantage point, it's the opposite. They actually created VR mostly for Half-Life.

In one part, HL games were always a place for innovation and pushing the gaming boundary forward. It may have just been fun games to you, but HL1 defined storytelling in FPS games, and HL2 defined physics puzzles and grand landscapes. Each game was better than the previous and eventually they got stuck no being able to make something they were truly happy with.

Valve has always been more satisfied creating something new than more of the same. They experimented with a lot in the past decade. They tried making a horror game with biometric sensors, which did not work but lead to the Steam Controller. They tried a lot more things but VR finally fit the bit. It allowed them to partly sidestep the "perfect game" issue, by switching into a new area that wasn't yet explored and allowed for innovation again.

So yes, they made a VR game because they are once again able to push gaming forward and create a truly unique game, which is the only way they will be satisfied enough to release a game.

[wongarsu]

Probably because they don't need the money and felt the game would be better as a VR game.