Valve has released not one, not two, but three (!) Half-Life: Alyx gameplay trailers — and there's a wealth of information contained within.
While all of these trailers reveal multiple new things about the game, each of them has roughly one particular focus, as well as a different method of locomotion (transportation, shift, and continuous respectively). We'll go over some of the biggest hits of each of these trailers, starting with the first.
Half-Life: Alyx Gameplay Trailers — Gun Mods and the Dark Secret of Health Packs
Our first trailer opens with Alyx walking through a subway car, seemingly surrounded by headcrab zombies. Alyx loads a magazine into her pistol, gets startled by a zombie, and quickly guns down two of them. We then see a bit of physics interaction when the player pokes a dead headcrab with her gun and the corpse moves.
Next, Alyx encounters a boarded-up opening. The player had to actually grab the boards with their hands to remove them. Alyx kills another zombie and moves into a side room; it is here that we see more interactions with items. Alyx picks up a construction helmet, a magazine, and other items simply by pointing at them and letting them fly to her, saving the player from having to walk all the way over to them.
After gearing up, we get to see some kind of weapon attachment station. The following attachments are shown for the pistol:
- Reflex Sight (Cost: 10)
- Bullet Reservoir (Cost: 15)
- Burst Fire (Cost: 15)
- Laser Sight (Cost: 20)
It's not entirely clear how you will pay the "cost" for these items, though.
Next, this first of three Half-Life: Alyx gameplay trailers shows our heroine finding some kind of bug in a jar. This is where the dark secret of health packs are revealed. That glowing green goo you've healed up with countless times is made from crushing bugs into a liquid that somehow heals people.
Alyx moves on from there, fighting multiple zombies at once. A tense moment erupts as she is being chased and has to open sliding doors with her hands, just barely making it inside in time. That's where this first trailer ends.
Half-Life: Alyx Gameplay Trailers — Perplexing Puzzles and Cooking with Alyx
The second trailer opens with Alyx hacking a door by solving a puzzle. The puzzle shows a bunch of circles within a sphere. Each circle has a symbol, and the player has to draw lines from one matching symbol to another in a sort of memory game to get the door open.
After Alyx clears the door, she walks up to a hole and sees some zombies below. She cooks off a grenade and drops it straight down the hole, sarcastically stating, "Look out!" as it falls into the pit and explodes.
Alyx grabs some kind of alien doodad from a tentacle creature and then moves through an area that is overrun with alien biology. She later encounters some kind of device on a wall that requires an object to be inserted into it. After recovering the device from a barnacle, it's revealed that this was some kind of power unit which activates an elevator. Alyx gets into the elevator and begins heading upwards as a klaxon sounds. This second trailer ends here.
Half-Life: Alyx Gameplay Trailers — Movement and Action-Packed Gunplay
The final trailer is all about that action, baby. It opens with Alyx teleporting near some concrete blocks for cover. She carefully takes aim at a Combine soldier and shoots him somewhere that causes him to burst into flames. From there, the combat picks up and Alyx carefully makes use of cover to avoid incoming fire. At one point,s he grabs onto a car door handle and pulls it front of her for protection.
Alyx has to dip into a porta-potty to get some cover and discovers a grenade within. She cooks off the grenade and tosses it a heavily-armed Combine soldier, subsequently switching to another gun to reload it.
Aside from the gameplay, Alyx is also shown moving in multiple different ways. Those of you with decent room-scale VR setups can move short distances and have it reflected in the game world. Moving over longer distances will likely require the use of the game's teleportation feature. A Steam Community announcement notes that players can use "Teleport, Shift, and Continuous" movement pretty much interchangeably, all of which are demonstrated in these three trailers.
The trailer continues with more combat before closing out with Alyx dropping a couple more approaching Combine soldiers.
Bonus Half-Life: Alyx SteamVR Home Content Coming March 4
Aside from these awesome Half-Life: Alyx gameplay trailers, an announcement on the game's Steam Community page notes that bonus content is being rolled out for the lucky few of you who own Valve Index hardware. If you do, you'll be able to experience some of the game's locations as SteamVR Home environments.
You'll be able to play Half-Life: Alyx when it launches for VR on Steam on March 23, 2020. You can pre-purchase it for $53.99 or your regional equivalent, a 10% discount off of its normal price. You can also score a free copy by purchasing select Valve Index hardware, although the coronavirus gaming crisis is holding up manufacturing for now so you'll have a bit of a wait on that.
What do you think of these new Half-Life: Alyx gameplay trailers? Are you going to play this game when it launches or are you going to wait? Let us know in the comments below!
