Half-Life: Alyx is a 2020 virtual reality (VR) first-person shooter game created and published by Valve. It was released for Windows on March 23, 2020, and for Linux on May 15, 2020. The game works with most PC-compatible VR headsets. Players control Alyx Vance as she completes a mission to take a powerful weapon from the alien Combine before the events of Half-Life 2 (2004). Like earlier Half-Life games, Alyx includes combat, puzzles, and exploration. Players use VR to interact with the game world and fight enemies, using "gravity gloves" to grab objects from far away, similar to the gravity gun in Half-Life 2.

The earlier Half-Life game, Episode Two, was released in 2007 and ended with an unfinished story. Valve tried many times to make more Half-Life games but struggled to decide on a direction. In the mid-2010s, Valve tested VR technology and saw a need for a major VR game. They tested ideas using games like Portal and found that Half-Life was best for VR.

Alyx was made using Valve's new Source 2 engine, starting in 2016. It had the largest team in Valve's history, including members from Campo Santo, a studio Valve bought in 2018. VR influenced nearly every part of the game's design, including levels, combat, movement, and pacing. Valve planned to release Alyx with its Index VR headset in 2019 but delayed it to rewrite the story based on feedback.

Alyx was praised for its graphics, voice acting, story, and atmosphere. It was called the first VR "killer app," meaning it helped VR gain popularity. The game was nominated for many awards and won "Best VR/AR" at the 2020 Game Awards. Valve noted that VR games have a small audience, and Gabe Newell, Valve's president, said Alyx is an investment in new technology. As of 2024, the game had sold more than two million copies.

Gameplay

Half-Life Alyx is a video game that uses virtual reality (VR) technology. Players see the action from the perspective of a character named Alyx Vance, who fights the Combine, an alien empire that has taken over Earth. Like previous Half-Life games, Alyx includes combat, puzzles, exploration, and a story. Players use VR to collect supplies, operate controls, throw objects, and use weapons. The game features gravity gloves, similar to the gravity gun from Half-Life 2, which let players pick up objects from a distance.

The game includes scary situations where players must survive with limited resources. In one part of the game, players face Jeff, a blind monster that hears sounds. To avoid being discovered, players must move quietly and throw objects to distract him. In this chapter, alien spores cause Alyx to cough. Players can stop this by covering their mouths with their hands.

Alyx works with all VR headsets that are compatible with SteamVR, such as the Valve Index, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Meta Quest, and Windows Mixed Reality headsets. Because the game was designed for VR, the developers said there are no plans for a version that does not use VR. The game also allows players to use custom content created by others through the Steam Workshop.

Plot

Earth is under the control of the alien Combine, who enforce a strict and harsh rule. In City 17, Alyx Vance (Ozioma Akagha) and her father, Eli (James Moses Black), are captured by Combine forces during a campaign targeting the Resistance. Russell (Rhys Darby), a Resistance member and inventor, saves Alyx and tells her that the Combine plan to move Eli to Nova Prospekt for questioning.

In the quarantine zone, a part of City 17 filled with dangerous alien creatures, Alyx meets a vortigaunt named Gary (Tony Todd). Gary asks Alyx to help save other vortigaunts and predicts that Eli will die. Alyx stops a train carrying Eli, and Gary rescues Eli from the wreckage. While being held captive, Eli learns that the Combine are hiding a powerful weapon inside a vault located in the quarantine zone. He tells Alyx to find the vault and retrieve its contents.

Alyx fights through Combine forces and disables a power station that keeps the vault suspended. She discovers that each station is powered by a captured vortigaunt. She frees the vortigaunt, who promises to help disable the other stations. Alyx escapes a hazardous waste worker named Jeff, who has been infected by aliens. Eli contacts Alyx and warns her that the vault is a prison built to contain something the Combine found. Russell suggests the vault holds Gordon Freeman. Alyx crashes the vault to the ground, but instead of finding Freeman, she releases the G-Man.

As a reward, the G-Man offers to help Alyx. She demands the Combine be removed from Earth, but the G-Man says this would not benefit his "employers." He shows Alyx a vision of events five years in the future and gives her a chance to change what happens to Eli, who is set to die at the hands of a Combine Advisor at the White Forest rocket facility. Alyx acts, killing the Advisor and saving her father. The G-Man tells Alyx she has proven herself capable of replacing Freeman, with whom he is no longer satisfied. Despite Alyx’s protests, he puts her in a special sleep and leaves. Five years later, Freeman wakes up at White Forest and reunites with Eli. Realizing the G-Man has Alyx, Eli decides to kill him and gives Freeman his crowbar.

Development

After releasing Half-Life 2 in 2004, Valve started creating a trilogy of shorter games called episodes, planning to release them more often. Half-Life 2: Episode One came out in 2006, and Episode Two followed in 2007, ending with an unfinished story. Episode Three was planned for 2008 but was canceled. Robin Walker, a designer at Valve, said the company used the Half-Life series to explore new ways to combine technology and art. However, he noted that no clear idea for Episode Three could create a sense of excitement or growth for players.

After releasing Left 4 Dead in 2008, Valve stopped making episodic games and tried several times to create more Half-Life projects, but these efforts failed. Valve decided to finish developing their new game engine, Source 2, before starting a new game. This was because working on Half-Life 2 and the Source engine at the same time caused problems. In 2016 and 2017, several Half-Life writers left Valve. Journalists saw these departures as a sign that new Half-Life games were not being made. Walker said Valve’s flat management structure, where employees choose their own projects, slowed progress. The team wanted to work together on a large project, even if it wasn’t everyone’s favorite idea.

By 2013, Valve tested virtual reality (VR) using Half-Life 2. In 2015, they partnered with HTC to create the HTC Vive, a VR headset released in 2016. Gabe Newell, Valve’s president, wanted the company to work like Nintendo, which makes games and hardware together. In 2016, Valve released The Lab, a collection of VR games, and realized players wanted a bigger VR game. Walker wondered if Valve could create a VR game as influential as Doom, a classic first-person shooter from 1993.

Valve made several VR prototypes, with three projects in development by 2017. They found that the puzzle systems from Portal, another Valve game, were confusing in VR. Instead, they chose to use Half-Life. Walker said creating Half-Life 3 felt very difficult, and the team saw VR as a way to return to the series. They worried that making Half-Life 3 a VR-only game might upset fans, so they considered making a prequel instead.

Valve used assets from Half-Life 2 to build VR prototypes and focused on gameplay systems that worked well in VR. They found that Half-Life’s systems fit naturally in VR but that VR changed many design aspects, like combat, level design, and pacing. For example, shooting in VR requires players to move their hands in space, which feels different from using a mouse and keyboard.

Valve did not make a non-VR version of Alyx, a game in the Half-Life series, because they believed it could only work in VR. They expected fans to modify it to run without VR, but some team members were concerned this might lower the quality of the experience.

Half-Life: Alyx started development in February 2016 and entered full production later that year. The team, which had about 80 people, was the largest in Valve’s history. It included Campo Santo, a studio Valve bought in 2018. Some staff were hesitant to join because Valve had struggled to finish projects before. Mike Morasky, who composed music for Portal 2 and Team Fortress 2, worked with Kelly Bailey, who composed music for previous Half-Life games. He was inspired by industrial music from artists like Nine Inch Nails and The Prodigy.

In late 2018, Valve tested the full game with all employees. The results showed VR was a good choice. The final weeks of development happened remotely because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

To help players avoid feeling sick in VR, Valve added several movement options. They were inspired by the 2018 VR game Budget Cuts, which lets players teleport between locations. Though teleporting seemed jarring at first, players quickly got used to it. Walker said teleporting became background noise, and players focused more on what they were doing.

To slow players down, Valve filled levels with things to catch their attention, like threats, collectibles, or interesting objects. They also made all players the same height when teleporting, even though taller players might need to crouch in real life. Players didn’t notice this change because they focused on moving toward their goals.

Every weapon in the game is used with one hand so players can interact with the world. The crowbar, a famous weapon from earlier Half-Life games, was not included because Valve couldn’t make melee combat work in VR. Players might accidentally hit objects with the crowbar, causing confusion. They also wanted Alyx, the main character, to have a different identity from Gordon Freeman, the hero of previous games. Other weapons not used include a trip mine, slingshot, shield, and rocket launcher.

Because players move more slowly in VR than in typical first-person shooter games, Valve adjusted enemies to make combat fair and fun. Antlions, enemies from Half-Life 2, were too fast, so their speed was reduced, and players could shoot their legs to slow them down. Fast zombies and headcrabs were removed because they frightened some players in VR.

A monster named Jeff, who is blind, was added to a chapter to create tension in VR. The team tried different designs, like a Combine robot, before choosing a creature inspired by horror movies. Players had to trap Jeff and then release him, which they found enjoyable. The chapter was set in a distillery with many bottles players could throw to distract Jeff. Alien spores made Alyx cough, which caught Jeff’s attention. Players had to keep one hand free to hold a bottle. At the end of the chapter, players trapped Jeff in a trash compactor, and most chose to crush him.

Merle Dandridge, who played Alyx in earlier games, returned for initial voice recordings in March 2019. However, playtests showed Alyx needed a younger voice, so the team made changes.

Release

Valve announced Half-Life: Alyx in November 2019. They waited until the game was nearly finished before sharing the news, hoping to avoid delays that had happened with earlier Half-Life games. They were aware that players, who had waited many years for a new Half-Life game, might be disappointed if the game was a VR experience, so they carefully controlled how they shared information about it. To help promote Alyx, Valve made the previous Half-Life games free to download on Steam from January 2020 until Alyx was released. Valve planned to show Alyx at the 2019 Game Awards that December but canceled the event hours before it started, stating they were "hard at work on the game."

Alyx was released on March 23, 2020. It was free for owners of Valve Index headsets or controllers. Valve later released a Linux version of the game on May 15, 2020, along with support for Vulkan rendering on both Linux and Windows platforms. A pre-release version of the game was accidentally shared on Steam. This version included tools for developers that allowed actions like picking up objects and firing weapons. However, basic actions such as pressing buttons or filling Alyx’s backpack could not be completed using a mouse and keyboard.

When asked about future Half-Life games, designer David Speyrer said Valve was open to creating more games but wanted to wait and see how players responded to Alyx. According to Walker, "We absolutely see Half-Life: Alyx as our return to this world, not the end of it."

Mod tools for the Source 2 engine and Steam Workshop support for Half-Life: Alyx were released on May 15, 2020. Valve announced plans to release a new Hammer level editor for Source 2 and intended to share a partial Source 2 software development kit later, focusing first on completing and supporting Alyx.

In March 2023, fans created the "NoVR" mod, which allows players to play the game without a VR headset. This mod also enables the game to run on less powerful devices, such as the Steam Deck. Reviewers noted that the mod reduced the game’s immediate, immersive feel, and that mouse-and-keyboard controls could not fully replace the precision of VR controllers.

Reception

Half-Life: Alyx received "very high praise" from Metacritic, a website that collects game reviews. OpenCritic, another review site, reported that 97% of critics recommended the game. By April 2020, it was among the top 20 highest-rated PC games on Metacritic. VG247, TechRadar, and Video Games Chronicle called it VR's "most important application."

The game's announcement trailer was viewed more than 10 million times in the first 24 hours. Most fans were excited, but some were disappointed because Alyx was only available in VR, which was a small but growing market in 2019. Before the game was released, Vic Hood of TechRadar said he was enthusiastic but noted that many fans still hoped for a Half-Life 3.

Kevin Webb of Business Insider wrote that Alyx could help increase interest in VR, an industry that had struggled to attract serious gamers. Andrew King of USGamer suggested that Alyx might be a turning point for the modding community, which creates new content for games. He explained that Alyx made it easier for players to use tools provided by Valve to make new VR creations, something that had been difficult before.

Dan Stapleton of IGN said Alyx was one of the best shooter games and the best VR shooter. He believed Valve had created a new standard for VR in terms of interactivity, detail, and level design. He described the game as feeling like something from the future, one that other VR games might take a long time to match.

Ben Kuchera of Polygon wrote that Alyx changed how first-person shooter games work in VR. For example, reloading guns, which is usually done with a button press, became more engaging in VR. He said the game's design would lose its meaning if played as a standard game, even though more players might enjoy the story. Alyx won awards for Best World Design and Game of the Year at the Easy Allies 2020 awards.

The Valve Index headset, controllers, and base stations sold out in the United States, Canada, and Europe within a week of Alyx's announcement. By mid-January 2020, they were sold out in all 31 regions where they were sold. Superdata reported that Valve sold 103,000 Index units in the fourth quarter of 2019, which was the highest number of sales for a VR headset during that time. However, the COVID-19 pandemic limited Valve's ability to produce enough units for the game's release.

Valve's Greg Coomer said not everyone would play Alyx when it first launched, and its audience was "relatively small" at the time. Newell described the game as an "investment in future technologies." In 2021, PCGamesN wrote that Alyx was "artfully crafted" but had little cultural impact. As of December 2024, Alyx had sold more than two million copies.

Half-Life: Alyx won "Game of the Year" at the 2020 VR Awards. At the Game Awards 2020, it was nominated for "Best Game Direction," "Best Audio Design," and "Best Action," and won for "Best VR/AR." At the 17th British Academy Games Awards, it was nominated for "Best Game," "Game Direction," "Audio Achievement," and "Artistic Achievement." At the 24th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, it was nominated for "Action Game of the Year," "Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction," and "Outstanding Achievement in Game Design," and won for "Immersive Reality Technical Achievement" and "Immersive Reality Game of the Year."