VR, though, is a different story. That absolutely limits the market. That being said, I'd wager that a majority of people who play VR games on PC will likely buy this game, as it's probably the first true AAA title developed specifically for VR.

I assume you're referring to the Quest? Is that a statement based on your experience playing games on it, or what you assume they'll be like?

I view it less like mobile games, and more like games put our for the Gameboy. Specifically tailored to achieve good and consistent gameplay based on the target platform. This is partially because Oculus is being very demanding in what they'll accept for their store, to the point that there's actually not a huge catalog, but each item seems to work very well.

Along the lines of the Gameboy comparison, there's been a few stories now of developers taking a game people thought couldn't make it to the Quest and optimizing enough for the platform that it performs well. There's something to be said for consistent hardware.

The price and inherent limitations (such as motion sickness) of VR are going to ensure that it doesn't hit mainstream, at least for the time being

(The price of the Index definitely doesn't make it mainstream though. Just trying to get a sense of this issue)

On the other hand, any game where your movement in the game world doesn't match the real world is a quick path to sickness. Any racing or flying game makes me ill, and I've been playing VR for over 2 years.

On modern hardware, motion sickness is only really an issue in VR games which move your head around in-game in ways which don't match how you're moving in real life. Teleport and physical movement don't cause issues for most people.

This is going to expand the market vastly because it will make it much cheaper to develop quality VR games. In a couple of years, I predict the average purchase of this game will be to play the mods rather than the core game.

Valve bought the developers and got them to create Team Fortress Classic the goldsrc engine (which started out as the Quake engine).

And let's not forget Garry's Mod either. VR physics sandbox in the HL:Alyx engine? That's going places.

Personally, being the frugal sort, I'll wait until it is on special. By which time I'll have upgraded my headset to one I can wear for more than 30 mins without it becoming an irritation.

I do wonder if the demographic is bang on the money, with a large number of headsets in the hands of people in their late 30s and 40s who remember the original Half-Life. I had originally thought Valve would first reissue the Half-Life and Portal games for VR, or even reboot Half-Life.

I played video games in my teens, including the HL series. I stopped playing video games roughly five years ago. I will be building a computer to play this game.

Peers my age are also very excited for this. Not just because it's a new Half Life game, but because it's the VR game we have been waiting for since the VR craze started.

With the VR tools they're releasing, I (and everyone I've talked to about this) expect Garry's Mod 2: VR to come out of this.

Also 24 years old, also planning to build a PC that's VR ready. I probably won't splurge $1000 for the Valve index, but I might buy their controllers + Oculus (which by the way also gets you Half-Life: Alyx for free).

There are games that I also really like, so I think I understand the drive, but I won't put myself into debt for entertainment. I'd rather wait a year or two for prices to fall.

You really have to have been either a firsthand or secondhand part of that culture to appreciate Star Wars and similar IPs. Even if you didn't watch it when it was released, you probably heard everyone from your dad to SNL discuss it.

If that wasn't your experience growing up, I doubt you'll care much for it as an adult now

Compare the overseas gross of the recent Star Wars releases against a globally popular franchise like the MCU or Fast and the Furious. Despite the massive press and marketing push, Episode VIII was outgrossed by Fate of the Furious internationally by nearly $300M. Endgame outgrossed Episode VIII internationally by $1.2B.

If a crappy Vin Diesel starring franchise that's barely two decades old can outsell a cultural touchstone like Star Wars, it's not wrong to say that Star Wars isn't a big thing outside America

Why oh why would you need to play prequels to enjoy a game?

Half-Life is a series where you have guns and you kill shit in an inherently interesting setting: earth invasion. Getting dropped in medias res without knowing 100% of what is going on is just an ancient trope of story-telling.

Look how much people enjoy the latest Doom game. You don't need to have played the original to grasp the idea of demons pouring into earth through some sort of interdimensional gate. You aim and you shoot them.

The original Doom games intentionally had almost no story. The new Doom was a complete reboot so even if the old ones had a story it wouldn't matter at all. HL:Alyx is a continuation of the story that falls between 1 and 2.

It's certainly a trope. But is it ancient? I'm trying to think of ancient examples of this but I can't. Are you sure it's not a modern trope?

I'll have you know that this honor goes to the point-and-click adventure game / noir detective story that licensed the "Fables" comic book series, "The Wolf Among Us." It was great, and I may be the only point and click adventure game enthusiast who was also a fan of "Fables."

But seriously, I think that the low spread of VR is the whole point. Valve wants people to buy VR headsets. How do you convince them to do that? Create content that people want that needs a VR headset.

Are they making playing the previous games a requirement? Games can stand on their own, even if they are best enjoyed when you already have some emotional investment.

You need about one sentence to set up the world. Here, the website even does it for us: „Set between the events of Half-Life and Half-Life 2, Alyx Vance and her father Eli mount an early resistance to the Combine’s brutal occupation of Earth.“

I would tack on “aliens” to describe the Combine and then I’m done. Half Life is not exactly complex or subtle in its storytelling. Heck, the main character in the other games never says a word …

Sure, people won’t get all references, but since this is a HL2 prequel (so between 1 and 2) and happens in a completely different part of the world HL1 happens in there isn’t much you have to know.

If this were HL3 proper then you would have more of an argument, but this seems to just play in that alien-oppressed world and that’s just very simple.

I don’t think you have to know anything at all about the Half Life story to understand this game and I think that’s on purpose.

Agreed, but I wasn't arguing it was. It's neither complex nor subtle. It is "story heavy" or rather story-driven, or rather "cinematic". This is a game where the story propels the gameplay. Not saying it's particularly good fiction, just that the fiction matters in the game. Notice how much of what I'm saying applies to Star Wars too, where -- also -- skipping a movie can be done but is not recommended ;)

World building (to create tension and a creepy atmosphere) are much more important and also compact things, much more easily transportable and play a much larger role.

Since there will be hardly any plot-connections you are just not missing much …

They could just as easily take a similar route. And they should, because it's on a different medium.

I mean, I know people who watched the Phantom Menace without having watched the Original Trilogy, but they lost the significance of who was that little boy or why he mattered...

All I can say is that if you haven't tried some of the more unique VR games like Superhot, it's hard to express how amazing this game has the potential to be.

edit: it looks like it's actually already out

What I meant is that I doubt the game will ever make it to the Quest store, and even if it did the current quest hardware has no chance of performing adequately.

But a couple years from now? An all-in-one headset might be able to. It still probably wouldn't be an Oculus one though, as I doubt Valve will put it on a competing store.

I have a very similar situation, with a 10, 8, 5 and 0 year old (yeah I'm a bit more crazy than you). Difference is that I actually do have a bit of spare time.

I also fondly remember all the half-life games, as memory permits of course.

For me this is a different story: The whole VR experience passed me by a bit, until now. By seeing this, my hands are itching to pull out my wallet and pay a crazy amount of money for this toy. The benefit of 40 year olds is that they probably can cough up the money for all this VR stuff.

I'm not sure yet, but there is definitely a strong itch now that I see this.

A new HL game probably also means some cool multiplayer games are coming up. I'm not only thinking about Counter Strike, but also Team Fortress.