11 blurry minutes of 15 minute tech demo (scam confirmed)

Here's a zoomed in complication of direct Halflife: Alyx gameplay off-screen.

Yesterday, YouTube channel Adam Savage's Tested shared an extensive breakdown of Valve's Half-Life: Alyx, going hands-on to compare the still-in-development game across a variety of VR devices. And, now, the internet has eked out the gameplay from that original 30-minute video and squashed into down into an easily digestible 11 minutes of juicy stuff.

Tested's off-screen footage, taken from around three hours of play-through, steers clear of plot details and certain advanced mechanics for obvious spoiler reasons, but it does give a solid look at some of the motion-control-based interactions that players will be able to deploy over the course of Alyx's reported 15-hour run-time.

The newly released 11-minute edit (created by YouTuber zck2020) features Half-Life favourites like shambling headcrab zombies and ceiling-dwelling barnacles. On the VR front, though, teleportation and full locomotion movement are showcased, as are a range of natural motion-based interactions, including aiming, reloading, grenade-tossing, door-opening, and more.

Players can, handily, summon objects into their outstretched palms from a distance for more creative kills, and at one point we see an explosive canister being snatched up, tossed freely toward a barnacle's dangling appendage, and then detonated as it's hoisted into the air.

Other eye-catching (and slightly icky) physics-based interactions include moments where the player grabs a box and smashes it against the ground to access an item inside, manhandles a headcrab corpse limb-by-limb, and places several items in a crate before shifting it around.

It's not the sharpest footage, what with being off-screen and all (off-very-small-screen, in some cases), but it's a fascinating look at Valve's next big VR gamble all the same, and gives a solid idea of what the company is striving for in terms of core environmental interaction - even if some of Alyx's more notable mechanics are seemingly still to be revealed.

Half-Life: Alyx will be playable across a range of PC VR devices when it launches in March next year, including the Valve Index, Vive, and Oculus Rift. And if you'd like to see more exuberant physics-based interactions in VR, why not check out Eurogamer's Ian Higton having the time of his life in developer Stress Level Zero's recent Boneworks?

You expect people to waste 11 minutes of their life watching VR garbage lol.

Looks great coming from Valve but still, I have no intention of coming back to HL series but still, Alyx will be interesting to see if this current PC culture will care about HL series.

It's only garbage to you but not for those who likes VR.

I hope those zombie walk animations (where they slump over) are just placeholder because they look so bad. And mechanically it looks like a downgrade from Boneworks. Hopefully they make up for it in level and gameplay design (where Boneworks fails imo)

Mechanically it looks like the VR Mod for Garry's mod compared to Boneworks. Kinda underwhelmed tbh

Gotta love the tech demo argument for 15 hour games.

VR lol, Half Life confirmed dead.

I am waiting for a specific forumite to start crying fowl.

Maybe some of you are finally seeing the light and realizing Valve has been making bad games for many years now.

It’s why they stopped making games. They know they can’t make normal games so they go all in on a VR game because they know no one will play it and they can pay off reviewers.

looks like trash to me

Looks entertaining. I'm running under the assumption that this is a pre-alpha or alpha build, and should therefore be viewed with an open mind and low expectations.

From what I gathered, they're still testing it out and trying to see if it runs on pretty much every commercial VR setup.

Yet another reason Valve is good for gaming; you know if any other studio was doing this they'd make it some exclusive bullshit, which is inherently bad for transitioning VR from niche to mainstream.

Good on Valve. Valve 2020!!!

*Here's a nice article and video (long'ish, but informative) of some folks testing out all the different headsets and VR setups. Sounds like they really enjoy the game, and it seems to work well across the spectrum.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/19/21030649/valve-half-life-alyx-vr-headsets-tested-index-vive-oculus-quest

"One man's trash..." as they say :D

Isn't it more undead than anything? It's sort of been dead for over a decade and now all of a sudden it's come out of nowhere.

Looks worst than a virtual boy game.

So not garbage for less than 1% of the gaming community. Oh and the majority of that less than 1% have a PSVR and can't play it anyway.

Have a nice day :)

@mrbojangles25: You wouldn't happen to be a garbo would you lol.

Same to you Daily. Enjoy your Holiday weekend :)

R.i.p valve

Since TF2 its only been downhill, gaben put valve on the back burner.

Steam sucks too, i caped this the other day, wtf is up with this??? I go to strategy and the first game they recommend or show is some lame weeaboo hentai crap. no wonder developers are jumping to other launchers

Whenever I watch gameplay of VR games it looks like the player is fighting against the controls instead of it looking more intuitive. All the actions look clumsy. It also kinda kills me that I wont be able to sit down at my PC and have a relaxing play session of the next Half Life game.Instead, I'll need to be flailing about with over a thousand dollars worth of VR tech strapped to my face.

Need to find that music track, can listen to Dr.Breen while sitting running.

Exactly!

lol what? All of the HL games combined would not get you 15 hours of gameplay.

@rmpumper: valve have stated that the expected playtime for this is 15 hours..

Can't speak for Half Life Alyx, but the controls in all the VR games I've played are incredible (Boneworks, SuperHot VR, Blade And Sorcery). It looks clumsy because there's a genuine learning curve to VR. The motion controls are actually the best part of VR

Ugh, teleporting. Looks dumb.

Seriously. I have no idea how people play in teleportation. Snap turning sure because it kinda simulates blinking while turning your head, but teleportation feels unnatural and totally ruins the immersion.

The only difficulty I've had thus far is muscle memory, but that equally applies to mouse + Keyboard, fighting sticks or traditional controllers. Or straight up not knowing how guns properly work in Pavlovs case, beyond that it's just as good, if not better. Certainly more immersive and automatically adds a new dynamic by using proper depth and perspective as opposed to a 2D plane displayed over a 3D plane.

Looks great it's so hard for people that never played VR to understand how satisfy it is to even lift up objects and examine them. And shooting in VR is on a whole nother level playing SuperHot VR for the first time I felt like I was Neo in the Matrix.

@pinkribbonscars: Yeah, doesn't look fun at all. You walk in Boneworks, right? Why are they doing VR better than Valve?

@darthbuzzard: yeah it's not like the pope of doritos is known to overblow and overhype stuff...

Maybe half his playtime was spent eating doritos and drinking dew. You don't know that.

This is my favorite video when trying to explain to somehow the difference between pancake and VR gameplay

@pinkribbonscars: Wouldn't be surprised if one of their VR games in development is Counterstrike, seems like a natural evolution.

Doesn't look better than Boneworks. Hopefully it's just a pre-alpha build.

Dont have vr and will not buy one in the next 5 years until it will get better, but this looks amazing fun... and all the little details and textures on those creatures is wow.

@uninspiredcup: if they want to instantly lose 90% of the CS fanbase, then yeah making it a VR game sounds like a good idea....

CS isnt SP and doesnt need "immersion" that would kill CS for good. Even though id argue CSGO has started its death anyway

No it wouldn't, there are multiple versions of Counterstrike all played, all it would amount to is another option for people to play. And I can tell you first hand having played CS and Pavlov, it is more immersive and significantly adds more depth to the gameplay, opening up new options previously unattainable.

https://store.steampowered.com/stats/Steam-Game-and-Player-Statistics

Does the person playing have parkinsons disease, or is that just how VR is?

Shadowplay. Time to come up with another excuse.

Also, you can sit down, you can even lay in bed if you want. another case of someone who hasn't used it barking like a dog that doesn't know what it's barking at.

Are you running away from a mod all because he made a simple statement? Talk about being a coward.

As for half-life alyx thing, I never played a half-life game, so I can't comment on the series but I gotta say, this vr game looks really fun, too bad my laptop can't handle such a power.

This, I didn't realise it until my brother came over and played(tried to) Pavlov for the first time and was struggle to aim and reload the weapon, but when he saw me without even looking to reload the AK and shoot 2 people right after behind cover he wanted to play more... Flash forward several visits and he is finally getting rid of his Laptop to build a PC with a 3600X and a RTX 2070 Super and get a Rift S.

All this hate for VR is coming from people who have never tried PC VR. Its really that simple and they are angry at Valve for making a VR game because they don't want to buy a $400 accessory to play it.

Its sad but I get it.