When using the gravity gloves, objects come toward you in a smooth arc so they're easy to catch. There's plenty of behind-the-scenes magic in Half-Life: Alyx that smooths out every interaction you have in the game, according to Davis. And so it's really satisfying to see it become a natural extension of your physical movements." They're just doing it because that's what you do as you move through this world. And before they know it, they're not even thinking about the fact that they're pulling objects to them. But then pretty quickly as they play, it becomes more and more second nature. "They start off and they work at it, and they're clearly thinking about it as they perform the action. "It's fun watching people play the game," Davis said. In that same vein, the Alyx team also avoided adding any buttons or switches to make the gloves work, as that's the "least VR thing you can do." Instead, the company wanted you to always have them on, so you could use them naturally. Valve didn't want to make the gravity gloves a separate weapon like the gravity gun, according to Davis. And it was a mix of saying, 'Oh, we have this sort of gravity gun feel,' and 'we have a really great mechanic that makes it easier to play a game in VR.'" "And one of the first things we discovered is being able to get to an object from a distance, without having to always go right up to it, is great in VR, because movement is sort of one of the highest friction areas of the experience. we're definitely exploring everything from the franchise to see how it works in VR," said Valve developer Kerry Davis. "We felt that the gravity gun was such an iconic part of Half-Life 2. It's a bit complex at first, but several hours into the game it practically becomes second nature. You just point your finger, flick your wrist and catch the item as it's flying toward you. Enter the gravity gloves, which let you reach out and grab small objects in the environment. But for it to truly stand out, it had to bring something new to the table. Half-Life: Alyx builds atop the VR gameplay innovation we've seen from Valve and other developers over the past four years. But VR? Now, that's an interesting challenge. As co-founder Gabe Newell told IGN, the company didn't want to spit out another sequel to increase quarterly sales figures. But after exploring ways to follow up on the cliffhanger ending of Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Valve simply chose to do. The first title was a landmark achievement in unstructured narrative while Half-Life 2 and its episodes focused on physics and lighting in bold new ways. "So based on the strength of that demo, and the interest that that revived in the company - because everybody's very fond of Half-Life at Valve - it wasn't a difficult sell."Īs a series that's practically synonymous with gaming innovation, it also made plenty of sense for Valve to use Half-Life as its lens for exploring VR. "With that demo, we realized that the Half-Life mechanics translated pretty well to VR, and in many cases they became even more compelling than we remembered," Casali said. Then the company built a 20-minute VR demo using assets from Half-Life 2, and everything clicked. Valve also excluded multiplayer games right off the bat, since there weren't nearly enough VR owners to make that worthwhile. But the teleportation mechanics would have been difficult to bring into VR without making players queasy. Portal also seemed like a good fit, especially since The Lab takes place within its universe. Surprisingly, Casali said the company didn't immediately jump to Half-Life as the ideal series to bring to VR. You can disable notifications at any time in your settings menu.
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