It wouldn’t be Valve if there wasn’t some sort of catch, though. As many predicted, Alyx doesn’t pick up where Episode Two left off. Instead, it’s a Half-Life 2 prequel, which means there’s still no end in sight to the story that Valve was telling between 2004 and 2007.
Like anyone who’s been following this franchise for the better part of two decades now, I’ve gone through all kinds of emotional highs and lows in the last few days. It started with Tuesday’s announcement, which sent me into stupefied excitement at the idea of Valve finally returning to the series. The title, which refers to silent protagonist Gordon Freeman’s sidekick Alyx Vance, indicated this new game would have a different focus — something that is probably warranted after 12 years. Of course, that gave me the sinking feeling that we weren’t going to get the next chapter in the story we’ve been waiting on for so long.
Thursday’s news drop confirmed it and disappointed me on several levels. Besides there being no hints of resolution to the series, prequels often suffer from a lack of stakes — we generally know that, at the end of Alyx Vance’s turn as the main protagonist, she’ll have connected with the newly-reawakened Freeman to help take on the invading Combine alien forces.
But watching that trailer pretty much blew away my lingering doubts. The world looks familiar, but more intricately detailed and terrifying than ever. I had forgotten about the game’s signature headcrab enemies, and the idea of them hurtling towards me in virtual reality is, frankly, quite disconcerting — Half-Life can get pretty freaky even without the immersiveness of VR.
And while the trailer unsurprisingly doesn’t give much away in terms of story, the first comments coming from Valve’s team about the game make me think we’re in for more than just a linear prequel storyline that wraps up just before Half-Life 2 begins. Speaking to The Verge, Valve’s David Speyrer dropped this intriguing tease: “While it does take place before the events of Half-Life 2, we actually recommend that you play through Half-Life 2: Episode 2 before you play Half-Life: Alyx, for reasons that will become clear as you progress.”
Pair that statement with a key line of dialog from the trailer: “Close your eyes, honey!” It’s spoken by Alyx’s father Eli as a headcrab comes flying towards the camera and the shot cuts to black. It works as a dramatic stinger at the climax of the trailer, but there’s more to dissect here. That’s the last thing Eli says before (spoiler alert) being killed by a horrific Combine Advisor at the end of Episode Two, the cliffhanger we’ve all been waiting to move on from. Sure, Valve could just be screwing with obsessive fans like me with this callback — but maybe there’s more. In a game universe with dimensional tears, heroes put into stasis to be awakened years later, and time-bending Vortigaunt aliens, it’s not hard to imagine Valve has a lot more in store for us than a simple, linear prequel. Sure, the company hasn’t had an in-depth, single-player campaign for a long time, but its track record when it does choose to do so is pretty excellent.
