The Half-Life: Alyx Commentary Update has finally arrived, letting players experience some neat behind-the-scenes surprises from the developers of the virtual reality game starring Gordon Freeman's Half-Life 2 sidekick Alyx Vance.
Half-Life: Alyx has been out for several months, but that doesn't mean development was done. The developers had plans for post-launch features; one of these was a series of in-game commentary tracks, continuing the tradition that was first started with Half-Life 2. Developer commentary has finally arrived as part of the latest patch, albeit a little later than intended.
Check out the Half-Life: Alyx Commentary Update trailer to see some of the new bonus extras for yourself!
Pandemic Slowed Development of Half-Life: Alyx Commentary Update
Players can easily enjoy the Half-Life: Alyx Commentary Update by grabbing a virtual headset and putting it on your head at one of the 147 different points of interest distributed throughout the game. It's a cool implementation of the feature — but it took us much longer than expected to actually get it.
"We later shipped Steam Workshop integration while in quarantine in May and, over the summer, we have had time to reflect on the development of Half-Life: Alyx," read a news post on the game's official website. "We have collected 147 different points of interest from the team and recorded over three hours of audio commentary, covering every aspect of development, including design, art, animation, rendering, sound[,] and more."
"Like much of the world, we are all working from home, which means that rather than using our comfortable high-quality recording studio at the office, we have been recording our commentary voice overs in closets and blanket forts around greater Seattle."
As one might expect, the developers also make a point of noting that the commentary tracks are going to be full of spoilers. It's probably a good to play your very first game with the commentary track turned off.
Players can experience the Half-Life: Alyx Commentary Update in the game right now. If you haven't already picked up this game, you can buy Half-Life: Alyx on Steam starting at $59.99 or your regional equivalent.
What do you think of the Half-Life: Alyx Commentary Update? What do you hope gets added to the game in the future? Let us know in the comments below!
