Hal-Life: Alyx is coming in March 2020. As we already know, a new installment of a mythical saga. But now there is a new and interesting surprise, Valve will also offer tools for the modding community to do everything they have done for years in other Valve titles: change the look of the game however they want. And of course, that brings new possibilities and a greater attractiveness to the project.
Half Life: Alyx, virtual reality and mods
After twelve years of Half-Life 2 saw the light, a new installment was finally announced. It is not the expected Half-Life 3 that many wanted, with a classic control based on keyboard and mouse (default gamepad), but one based on virtual reality.
Exact, to play Half-Life: Alyx it will be necessary to have a virtual reality headset. And, in addition, a fairly powerful PC. Well, Valve itself has revealed that to play it you will need a graphics card capable of moving the entire graphical environment and 16 GB of RAM. That limits, although with recent equipment there should not be excessive problems if they are focused on the gaming sector.
Regarding why a virtual reality game and not a traditional one, because of a simple question of possibilities. As shown in the video interview below (in English), the company began to experiment with the technology and saw the many new possibilities it offered. That's why they decided to bet on it and take the game to a VR environment.
Also, and I find this very interesting, for the design team, researching with VR was a way to take the pressure off of making a title like Half-Life 3. So, although this is called Alyx, what they really did was the third and highly anticipated installment.
However, let us return to the main topic. Valve has confirmed that tools will arrive to build new virtual environments you enjoy in your new game. In this way, as it happened with titles like Counter Strike, the mods They will become very important in the future of the game by giving new opportunities to all that creative community that revolves around the video game and the Valve titles in particular.
Also, this can be a very powerful tool that would rival Unity or Unreal when it comes to creating VR experiences. Logically we will have to see what options it offers and what its limitations would be, but theoretically it will have a lot of potential. And it would also be a way to revitalize the commitment to virtual reality that we all know came with great force, but gradually lost interest due to a lack of content and not options.
With a story set between the events of Half-Life and Half-life 2, you will have to embody Alyx Vance and take responsibility for the fact that you are humanity's only chance of survival.
Finally, the game will be available via steam And if you want to get ready, these are the minimum requirements for the game:
- SW: Windows 10
- Processor: Core i5-7500 / Ryzen 5 1600
- Memory: 12 GB of RAM
- Graphics: GTX 1060 / RX 580 - 6GB VRAM