Rumor: Valve Will Announce Half-Life: Alyx VR Game At The Game Awards

What? Half-Life news? But Valve hasn't said anything about Half-Life in years, you say. Valve has abandoned Half-Life, you say. If the rumors prove true, it looks like Valve is actually working on a new Half-Life game, just not the one we expected. 

This information comes from a leaked interview with Geoff Keighley and Valve dev Robin Walker. According to the transcript, Geoff says: "March 2020, Half-Life: Alyx comin' out." This fabled new game is, as you may have surmised by the title, about Alyx Vance, the hacker and helper that protagonist Gordon Freeman relied on in Half-Life 2. Evidently, the game will take place from her perspective, up close and more personal than we previously thought. Half-Life: Alyx will reportedly be a VR game. 

Earlier this year, Valve announced it was working on a "flagship" VR game but gave no hint to what it could possibly be about. Why not dust off one of their old, fan favorite IPs? They could finally deliver a new Half-Life game while still jumping on the lucrative VR wagon. The leaked interview indicated VR is the only way we'll be able to play this new entry in the Half-Life series. "I mean we would love to be delivering a version of this that you could play with a mouse and a keyboard, but like as we said, it began as an exploration of VR," said an unnamed source.

Why is this fabled game VR only? Apparently, VR is the best way to play Half-Life: Alyx because it's all scrambling, real time, tough decisions. "You can see their whole body — Respond to the situation. You know, panicking, dropping clips on the ground as they fumble their weapons 'cause a zombie's in front of them, all these things, they're just – it's been really fun watching playtests." 

We'd really like to see those playtests. For now, we'll have to wait for The Game Awards on Dec. 12 to see if Geoff Keighley will spill the beans about what Valve is doing with Alyx Vance.