Last week, Half-Life: Alyx was unveiled as Valve's next major Half-Life release. This prequel to Half-Life 2 was rumored and then revealed in a trailer to be a VR exclusive game. While most people don't know what to expect from Half-Life: Alyx, one thing is startlingly clear. This is not Half-Life 3, and many fans are disappointed by that fact alone.

Half-Life 3 was, for many years, the most anticipated gaming sequel of all time. It was only in recent years, following a Half-Life 2 Episode 3 plot summary by Marc Laidlaw, that the fervor finally started to die down as fans released that the possibility of a third Half-Life game was a shot in the dark. Now that there is a new Half-Life game coming out for the first time since 2007, what is the new fate of Half-Life 3?

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Both Half-Life and its sequel were groundbreaking first person shooters. In an era of Doom and arena shooters, the first Half-Life placed a focus on narrative, on taking it slow to let players get a feel for the space they were inhabiting. In 1998, it was a game that showed that shooters could be atmospheric, deliberately paced experiences. Half-Life 2 topped this in 2004, giving players new characters to latch on to and introducing complex, physics based gameplay. These mechanics would dissipate throughout the industry, impacting player expectations for in-game physics for the rest of time.

The announcement of Half-Life: Alyx is a disappointment if taken at face value. The game will not be continuing on the story after the gigantic cliffhanger that Episode 2 left behind to let the mystery stew in people's minds for the past 13 years. The likelihood of Half-Life 3 is now questionable. In a teaser for Geoff Keighley's The Final Hours of Half-Life: Alyx, his decades running series interviewing Valve, some developers discussed the pressure and expectations for a new Half-Life. 

"Back in 2016, Half-Life 3 was a terrifyingly daunting prospect," veteran Valve developer Robin Walker told Keighley. "To some extent, VR was a way we could fool ourselves into thinking we had a way we could do this. In some ways, VR became this thing we could wrap everything around."

This is both encouraging and discouraging news to Half-Life fans. It obviously indicates that Half-Life 3 is not a project that will be taken on lightly and, in fact, it is one that is maybe too doomed to fail no matter what it ends up being. The safer route will always be to continue making Half-Life, but to never put the pressure on a single team to make Half-Life 3. This also means that Valve is taking the Half-Life legacy seriously. This means that Alyx could be a truly innovative VR title that pushes the medium forward the way previous games in the franchise did.

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It is known that Half-Life: Alyx will be a full 15 hour game with a linear progression and characters in the vein of the older titles in the series. The trailer shows off some interesting interactions that are only possible in the virtual reality space. Tying different creative VR ideas into a cohesive narrative experience is what Alyx is looking to achieve. This sounds a lot like what the original two games did; they show off and push technology forward while still creating a cohesive atmospheric experience. This game has the potential to be as monumental as previous Half-Life games by being the first work to show players what VR can really do for gaming.

Half-Life: Alyx could end up being a seriously revolutionary game, but it still wouldn't be what fans want from Half-Life 3. They want to see the story wrapped up, or at very least taken to its next point of interest. They want to know what happened to Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance; who will they be playing as in the next game? Half-Life 3 might never surface, but the franchise is not totally doomed. There is still reason to be hopeful for future titles to take the story to new places and expand on the world decades of games and expansions have worked to flesh out.

After years of building up Steam, Valve is finally in the market of making video games again. It is not out of the question to expect Valve to throw a bone to the fans it has who don't own VR. In fact, if Alyx is successful, expect more Half-Life games in the future. According to Valve programmer David Speyrer in an interview with The Verge "we’d love to continue pushing forward" if Half-Life: Alyx is well received. It seems that for now the fate of the series rests on the shoulders of Alyx Vance once again.

Half-Life: Alyx will be released for PC VR platforms in March 2020.

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