Half-Life: Alyx is rumored to be announced this week, with Valve reportedly set to reveal the VR successor to Half-Life 2. While no Half-Life 3, this title will allegedly take place after the events of the last entry in the series, with reports indicating it will release in March, 2020. It is also suggested in an alleged leaked interview that Half-Life: Alyx‘s success could dictate the future of the Half-Life series.
An alleged transcript of an interview held by Geoff Keighley with Valve was published in a Google Doc (via PC Gamer), with Keighley discussing Half-Life: Alyx with Valve game designer Robin Walker and an unnamed second participant. (The document’s creator suggests this second individual may be Valve co-founder Gabe Newell.) The transcript was leaked by user Midoriyan, whose identity was reportedly verified by the individual who leaked Dota: Underlords.
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In the interview, Keighley questions why Half-Life: Alyx will be a VR title. “But why does this have to be VR only? Which you know is a fair concern for people, right?” Geoff is quoted as saying. “It’s like, are they forcing me to buy VR to have the next “Half-Life” experience? Is that just ’cause you think the opportunity for innovation was sort of in the VR space with this? You’re not doing a flat-screen version of this game, right?”
Valve allegedly responds: “Yeah, I mean we would love to be delivering a version of this that you could play with a mouse and a keyboard, but as we said, it began as an exploration of VR.”
“March 2020, Half-Life: Alyx comin’ out, and again, yeah, we’ll do “The Final Hours” next year,” Geoff reportedly says to Robin. “You know, it’s been so fun to do those with Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Portal, and that will take everyone through really the past decade at Valve and all that you guys have been through, all the experiments that you don’t know about.”
The interview also touches upon Half-Life 3, suggesting that Valve doesn’t know if it will begin development on the third entry in the Half-Life trilogy.
“In March, yep. The trailer [for Half-Life: Alyx],” an unknown speaker is quoted as saying. “But I think people probably wonder, okay, moving forward does this mean that Valve now is just making VR games? Are we going to get that Half-Life 3, or that new big, epic kind of Valve game down the road? Or is it, oh now we’re makin’ VR games, that’s what we do?
“I mean, we’re very excited about this, but you know, until we ship, you never know. Maybe we’re all really wrong, and it’s terrible. We have to wait and see what the reception is like.”
We haven’t independently verified this leak, so as always, take this information with a pinch of salt. However, with the announcement reportedly set for Wednesday, November 20, we should hear much more about Half-Life: Alyx sooner rather than later.
