Today, Valve has released on Steam two special environments for SteamVR Home that let you visit two places where Half-Life: Alyx will take place. I’ve visited them and I loved every second of those moments!
If you have purchased a Valve Index, Valve not only lets you play Half-Life: Alyx for free, but also gives you some special goodies. Among them, there are two Half-Life: Alyx environments:
- Half-Life: Alyx – City 17 Alleyway, that lets you “wander the side streets of City 17, the home of Alyx and her father Eli in Half-Life: Alyx.”
- Half-Life: Alyx – Russell’s Lab, that gives you “a glimpse inside Russell’s lab from Half-Life: Alyx.”
You can download both of them from Steam, or from the Steam website from these links: City 17, Russell’s Lab. Remember that they both require Half-Life: Alyx asset pack, that you can find here. In total, it is around 1GB of data to download. If you haven’t purchased an Index, you can still explore these environments: you have to look for online SteamVR Home rooms. There are other players that are exploring them and set up a public session for everyone to join!
For both environments, Valve clarifies that they don’t represent the final aspect and interactivity of the game, but they are just previews for fans that run on the SteamVR Home engine. Anyway, they can give you a glimpse of how the game will be.
Half-Life: Alyx – City 17 Alleyway
Half-Life: Alyx – City 17 Alleyway makes you wander around three courtyards in the City 17. You have never the possibility to wander in the streets and your movements are always limited, but it’s very nice the same since you can get the vibes of the environment.
You can see a video of me exploring all the environment, also trying to access some non-walkable areas for some extras, in this video below:
To me enter there was like love at first sight. Look in the video how the graphical quality is very high, and also how there is a big attention to details. The creepy music, united with all the Russian writings and the desert city are able to provide those dark vibes for which Half-Life is famous. It’s just fantastic.
There is not much interactivity in this scene, and also going into non-walkable zones just made me see the streets of City 17. I also noticed that the scene is a combination of a 3D model and a 360 dome for the sky and the very distant objects.
Half-Life: Alyx – Russell’s Lab
Half-Life: Alyx – Russell’s Lab is instead an indoor scene. You start in a little room with a TV and some cups to drink some tea. The music is more relaxing than the one in the city, but the visuals and the music together still convey a sense of anxiety.
When I was thinking “Is this all?”, I noticed a blinking red light, I pressed it and the secret laboratory unveiled to me. Enjoy it in this video!
I liked this environment much more. First of all, it has more objects offering interactions: I as able to pick many objects in my hands and examine them: cups, matches, videocassettes, etc… For this reason, it felt more real, more immersive.
Then, it has more objects, more details, all depicted with great graphical quality. And here you can notice the attention to details that Valve has always had: for instance in the labs there are some old-school PC graphics card and they really look like graphics cards from the 90s, with all the writing on the chips, the right ports (VGA, etc…), and all these fantastic details that convey realism. Even when you enter the lab place (that is not walkable), you can go in a remote area and notice a post it with written on it a password: “Lazl0”. It was not necessary to be that precise on every object, but Valve cared even about these little useless things. This makes us understand that even Alyx will be so good, so refined.
And I have also to tell you that this scene has some nice easter eggs. In the fridge, among various food, there is a headcrab, with the “DO NOT EAT” writing on it. Unluckily, you can’t take it.
Then if using room scale, you keep moving forward, you can enter the part of the lab where Russell is experimenting with the Grabbity Gloves, the special gloves that you will wear throughout the game. And you can get really close to a first non-functioning version of them. It is so exciting. But to wear them, you have still to wait 18 days 🙁
After having been in these environments, I’m even more excited for Half-Life: Alyx than before! They were carefully made and communicated to me the typical Half-Life: Alyx vibes. The Grabbity Gloves were so close, so far, and I can’t wait to wear them on the 23rd!
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