Assumed it took more than a ten years soon after 50 percent-Lifetime 2: Episode 2 for the upcoming entry in the franchise, Fifty percent-Everyday living: Alyx to be launched, numerous of the developers on the undertaking truly feel emboldened by Alyx’s reception to continue on the series sooner instead than later.

This arrives from 50 %-Lifetime: Alyx – Last Hours, a fifteen-chapter posting in the variety of an app accessible now on Steam, in which Geoff Keighley supplies an in-depth glimpse at the progress of the game by itself, the 50 percent-Lifestyle franchise much more broadly, and VR at Valve considering the fact that the launch of Fifty percent-Everyday living 2: Episode 2.

In addition to the breakdown of Alyx’s progress, Keighley shares other information about the franchise due to the fact 2007, like that Alyx marked at the very least the sixth attempt to do something with the assets given that 50 percent-Lifetime 2: Episode 2.

The gradual quietening from Valve on new computer software releases over the very last ten years, Keighley writes, was because of to a combine of a concentration on improvement on internal application engine Supply 2 (which finally was recognized in Dota 2 and subsequent titles) and an interior culture that promoted simplicity of starting up new tasks — meaning for several years there had been many internal program projects that were started, but hardly ever concluded.

As a section of these ongoing Source 2 experiments, Valve labored on a amount of software initiatives that were being in no way introduced, together with an RPG challenge encouraged by Monster Hunter, Dim Souls, and The Elder Scrolls that hardly ever left the conceptual stage, an open-planet Remaining 4 Lifeless match, a recreation with item development and deconstruction known as Arti (that would eventually be resurrected as a VR knowledge in-enhancement together with Alyx), and for a time, 50 percent-Existence 3.

Also, the corporation commenced to commit intensely in tech, to begin with focusing on AR but in 2013 laying off a significant chunk of its components crew and pivoting to VR alternatively.

By early 2016, numerous workers at the enterprise identified the concern of way too lots of small, unfinished assignments, and rather managed to rally a greater group about a massive VR task leveraging Valve’s concentration on the Vive and other forthcoming VR tech that would use the Half-Life IP. This would develop into Fifty percent-Daily life: Alyx.

Remaining Hours information the intricacies of Alyx’s progress, closing on a be aware of optimism for the potential of the 50 percent-Life franchise.

“This ice has been broken, now we’re hoping to smash by way of the ice totally,” mentioned Valve designer Phil Co. “We’re not frightened of Fifty percent-Existence no more.”

Much of the 50 percent-Existence: Alyx group is hoping the company will produce a complete-scale 50 percent-Everyday living recreation for additional common platforms, but some are not sure Valve has the measurement and scale of personnel for such a venture.

That mentioned, there is at minimum a person other new software package undertaking from another inside team which is been in-development because 2018, and the organization is also searching to its VR hardware to see what’s up coming now that the Index engineering is correctly presently two decades old.

For the record: A preceding variation of this article erroneously stated that Closing Hrs was obtainable for cost-free. It has been amended previously mentioned.