Half-Life:
Alyx

Half-Life: Alyx (2020) is a narrative shooting game where you fight to weaken the Combine's control over humanity. Play is with a VR headset and involves navigating through an alien-occupied city, shooting enemies, and using physics to solve puzzles. It's an immersive prequel to Half-Life 2's story that lets you experience the world from a first-person, hands-on perspective.

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Set before the second game, you play Alyx Vance, a resistance fighter living in a dystopian future where a brutal alien force called the Combine controls Earth. You navigate City 17 and fight through hordes of alien creatures and heavily armed soldiers. Along the way, you'll join forces with allies to uncover secrets about the Combine’s plans for domination.

Progression is determined by how quickly you clear out the enemies and solve the various physics problems. Each presents challenges, from dodging fire from incoming enemies to manoeuvring objects to create pathways forward. Alongside the hostile environment, enemies get increasingly difficult. However, you gain several new weapons from a shotgun to grenades to take down enemy hideouts.

The result is a prequel that extends the immersion from the screen to VR. As you interact with the world around you, meet new allies and experience the story, it becomes somewhere that feels real and lived in.

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Our examiner, Will Oster, first checked Half-Life: Alyx 4 months ago. It was re-examined by Ellen Robertson and updated 8 weeks ago.