This Monday of March 23, marks the release of Half-Life: Alyx, the brand new episode of the famous video games saga which has been awaited by longtime fans for more than a decade. To everyone’s surprise when it’s been announced a few months ago, this new version is exclusively available in virtual reality, and as a result, offers an immersive solo adventure only to players already possessing a virtual reality headset (the Valve one — the Valve Index — being strongly recommended for experiencing the best overall game feel).

The Half-Life: Alyx universe allows you to deep dive a few years before the Half-Life 2 events, in the heart of the dystopian City 17 where you will meet many different protagonists as you make progress in your journey, such as aliens, zombies, soldiers as well as members of the rebellion, of which you are a notorious partisan. During a fifteen to twenty hours long adventure, you will be led to explore every bit of this incredibly rich world with its so unique atmosphere, which is the trademark of the Valve‘s flagship license.

The virtual reality classic interactions, such as the manipulation of objects, weapons and decorative elements, are a perfect fit with the technological continuity of the first-person shooters games mechanics: it now becomes nearly instinctive to open and rummage drawers, eject a magazine out of your weapon in order to reload it or even turn a crank to open a closed door. Regarding the mobility aspect, multiple modes of different movement have been implemented, such as targeted teleportation or continuous movement, which makes the adventure accessible to all player profiles (especially those who are motion sickness sensitives).

We will not reveal further elements but if you have the opportunity to get your hands on the new Valve gem (especially in these times of lockdown), we can only recommend it, as it is, by far, the best VR experience you can find at this time.

You can find the full Half-Life: Alyx test here

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