Valve Confirms ‘Half-Life: Alyx’, Its “Flagship VR Game” – Full Reveal Coming Thursday

Yeah. If you can’t self insert what’s the point?

Information about this was already leaked awhile ago and this is just confirmation from Valve. I indeed have already decided not to play a game about Alyx in VR with her robot “dog”. That is what this game is all about. I’ll happily take a crowbar wielding Gordon Freeman, not so much an Alyx playing VR fetch with her robot dog.

If you think that is the content needed for VR, then I can only disagree with you. If they were willing to give a true HL experience with Gordon, many people would be rushing to join the VR bandwagon. Alyx? Not so much, she’s a niche character that not a lot of men want to play as. That is just the objective reality of it all. I’m pretty sure there are more men playing VR than women at this point as well. Just food for thought.

Made up fact? It is an observation based on reality. Its like saying most cats don’t enjoy being in water. Its just common sense at this point.

Valve can obviously win. The whole point is to make VR attractive. Having HL3 in VR would be a big win for the platform. The only reason Non-VR owners would complain is largely because they do not have the money or want to spend it on a VR headset. The same logic applies to any game that comes out at full price and they can’t afford it. The only difference is the latter has become normalized.

You the player are Gordon Freeman, he doesnt need a voice because your voice is his. That is what makes him good. You are not the center of the world when you are Gordon Freeman, but rather the world itself is and you are along for the ride. They have intentionally designed the character of Gordon Freeman (you the freeman) that way and it works very well, especially for immersion.

Do you seriously need a voice actor and a script writer to speak for you? Most games are already like that, and yet you dismiss what made HL unique? Some fan….

Well no you have to go back to HL1 to get the design philosophy. Gordon as a silent protagonist was an important component of the story telling, as it the basis for the story telling approach that required the world itself to tell the story. NPCs speak for you, look at you and give you a voice. The story telling was often very subtle, something you had to figure out for yourself. It raised questions more often than it provided answers.

For example, on your journey you would find the Gman watching you in various places. Sometimes just casually walking away beyond reach. Not everyone would even notice this. The story was told around you, and if you were paying attention you would pick up on the subtle story telling through the surroundings. This is the unique design philosophy that drove HalfLife, it did not need advanced tech or anything else. Just the silent Gordon Freeman (which doubles as YOU the player) and the environment telling you the story instead.

Previous FPS games sometimes had a voice and a face to the player, sometimes not, but the story telling was done often through cutscenes or audio logs/voice overs and with a design philosophy that required just gunning down everything that moved while going through one corridor or another. Your player character really did not have any character beyond the voice added to your own or the cutscenes. An example of this would be Duke Nukem, where he would leave snarky comments that follow his actions, or soldier of fortune where you were basically treated to multiple cutscenes.

In contrast, again, HalfLife scripted events going on around you, using areas you cant quite get to but can see to set the stage for something to occur. It was like a series of theater stages from which you were the audience half the time, more importantly you were always in full control of your character. When you combine this with the story and character of Gordon Freeman, told through the people around you, it becomes a very unique character that no one in the HL universe can replace.

You say it is sad that I am not interested in playing the role of Alyx, that the game is the generations most innovative genre defining game, while also admitting I have no idea how “good” the game will be is a bit odd. This is because you are using emotional appeal as the basis (it being sad), followed by claims that even you admit at the end have no idea are even true. My only advice would be to learn from hype.

How many times have people hyped themselves up and imagined something far beyond what you actually get. Perhaps the difference between my mindset and yours is that I have gone through years of this, I don’t fall for hype anymore. I know my preferences, I know what I would like to see from the HL franchise, and know that I could just as easily watch youtube videos to get whats being presented. In fact I am far more interested in the mechanics and technical components of the game, basically whether or not Valve found a better or different way to cover challenge mechanics in VR due to VR limitations and input style.

Finally, I cannot believe even for a second that the Half-Life fans as a whole were more interested in Alyx than Gordon Freeman. There is a reason that whenever you type in half life fan art, you get a mixture of head crabs and gordon freeman. Alyx is rarely seen. She was the “hot” assistant that helps you in the story for a bit. Its a trope we have seen before, it really did not have any depth beyond just that. She was also a character that popped up in HL2, not HL1 so she is relatively new to the series. Obviously her importance is lower as a result.