Half-Life: Alyx has been out for two days and so far, it is quite the success. The user reviews average is now labeled as 'Overwhelmingly Positive' with 97% approval and according to SteamDatabase, the game peaked yesterday at almost 43K concurrent players, which is a record for a Virtual Reality only game.
Will the game remain a VR-only title, though? In an official capacity, that is likely. However, given the moddability of the Source 2 engine, many expect a non-VR mod to appear relatively soon.
Valve's Programmer and Designer Robin Walker agreed with that assessment in a statement given to Polygon. He also added that it will only make it clearer to everyone why Valve chose to make Half-Life: Alyx a VR exclusive, though.
The answer to this diverges significantly depending on which members of the team you talk to, so this answer is definitely just from me. There are a set of people on the team that are concerned about that. Personally, I’m not concerned about it at all. It will clearly demonstrate to people why we did Half-Life: Alyx in VR. It will be a very crisp way of seeing all the stuff we got for the move into VR. If people play a modded version on a standard display and say this is is just as good, that will teach me a lot. I will realize I’m wrong, and we didn’t get as much as we thought, and I love to know whenever I’m wrong.
Yes, it’s going to happen. I’m fine with it, for the sake of the other members of the team I don’t want to say I encourage you to do it, but it’s going to happen. I think people will then hopefully have an even greater understanding of why we decided to build Half-Life: Alyx in VR than they do now.
Of course, if and when that ever happens, we'll be sure to let you know. Until then, stay tuned on Wccftech.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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