Half-Life: Alyx is still a few months away, so that gives us plenty of time to hypothesize until we’re blue in the face about what we’re in store for. Mind you, most Half-Life fans have already been doing that for over a decade anyway.
Half-Life’s plot-line is quite intense and there’s a lot to keep up with. Plus, with that maddening cliff hanger we were left with at the end of Episode 2, we have a ton of questions we hope Alyx will answer. There are also some which we know it will answer, at least judging by what information has officially been released so far. Here are both.
10 We Will Know: How The Resistance Started
According to Valve, Alyx will be set between the first and second Half-Life games. It’ll be following Alyx Vance and her father Eli as they kick into life a “fledgling resistance” movement against the intergalactic, supermassive oppressive force of The Combine. There’s also the mysterious Kiwi guy who appears to be aiding Alyx and co. in this rebellion. He’s still a bit of an enigma at this stage.
With the Half-Life timeline in mind, one can assume Alyx will be set around the year 2010 - a decade after the events of Half-Life 1 and a decade before the events of Half-Life 2. This is also around the time of the 7 Hour War, which the official Half-Life website mentions too. It’ll be interesting to gain more insight into those early days of The Resistance.
9 We Want To Know: How Wallace Breen Became The Combine’s Human Administrator
In Half-Life 2 we see Wallace Breen’s face plastered all over every electronic surface in City 17 and hear his unsettlingly calming voice echoing through its streets. He was the former Administrator at Black Mesa during the Resonance Cascade and the time leading up to it, although he didn’t feature much in the first game.
There’s also not much explanation given in the second game as to how and why he was chosen to be The Combine’s human representative. We know he was appointed Interim Administrator before becoming Earth’s ruler and omnipresent overseer, but why? Seeing that Alyx seems to be set slap-bang between the first two games, we’d like to hear something about old Breen and his rise to power.
8 We Will Know: What The G-Man Wants With Alyx
Well, granted, when it’s The G-Man we’re talking about nothing is ever really certain. Except for the fact that at least he will definitely be in Alyx, according to the goosebump-inducing final seconds of the reveal trailer.
G-Man showed some interest in Alyx during the second game’s installments, but of course, the focus was on Gordon for the most part. We can assume that because G-Man is set to skulk around some more in the next installment which is focused on Alyx instead, that we should be getting some more insight into why he’s taken a shine to her.
7 We Want To Know: Who The G-Man Actually Is
Or perhaps rather, what he is. This has been a point of contention since the first game, and since then all we have is a few facts and a whole lotta conjecture. Some have hypothesized that he is a kind of Nihilanth (just not the giant floaty baby kind seen at the end of Half-Life 1).
Others think he might be a hatched version of one of those gross larval Combine Advisors called the Shu’ulathoi, the supposed master-race behind The Combine empire (they can take on any form once hatched, according one of a string of weird Tweets posted by Marc Laidlaw’s “BreenGrub” account a few years back). It would explain his apparent omniscience and preternatural abilities. Valve, please help us out with this one.
6 We Already Know: Players Can Make Their Own Alyx-ey Levels
If you’re inclined to the modding and level-crafting life then there’s good news afoot. The official Half-Life: Alyx website has already confirmed that there will be a bunch of new tools to allow players to build their own VR-compatible levels and environments via the Source 2 engine.
Valve’s official mapping tool Hammer has reportedly been updated to include all of Alyx’s VR level-building abilities. Creators will also be able to share their projects with the world via the Steam Workshop, as with all previous Valve installments.
5 We Want To Know: How The Gravity Gun Came To Be
We’ve already seen from the reveal trailer that Alyx will be sporting a fancy pair of Grabbity Glove things that appear to be a predecessor to Half-Life 2’s Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator, a.k.a. the Gravity Gun.
Some Behind-the-Scenes trivia mentions that the Gravity Gun has a “granddaddy” that was used to “manipulate hazardous materials in the Combine’s portal reactors,” suggesting said grandaddy operated off Combine technology. But then evidence from the comic Portal 2: Lab Rat suggests the Gravity Gun pre-dates The Combine’s invasion on Earth. So perhaps some clarification on the gun’s origins would do us some good.
4 We’re Almost Certain: Freeman Will Be Mentioned
It’s doubtful that we would actually come face-to-face with Gordon (the idea of seeing him as an external third-person entity seems almost sacrilegious), but surely there will be some allusion to him. Even if it’s just in the form of an Easter egg, like maybe there’ll be a crowbar reference. We can totally see that happening.
At the time when Alyx is presumably going to take place, Freeman is supposed to be in some kind of inter-dimensional stasis evoked by The G-Man, out of which he is only revived at the start of Half-Life 2. We get that this is Alyx’s time to shine, but what’s a Half-Life game without The Free Man?
3 We Want To Know: Will We Get To Play Fetch With Dog Again?
That moment in Half-Life 2 when Alyx blesses us with the Gravity Gun for the first time and we get to play fetch with Dog is one of the most wholesome gaming sequences ever. Dog is just the best, really, so he better make an appearance in Alyx. Imagine interacting with him in VR? No, I’m not crying, there’s just something in my eye.
In the second game, Alyx mentions that she’s been “adding to him” over the years, so maybe we’ll get to see a smaller Dog (a puppy version of Dog? I told you, it’s just something in my eye).
2 We Will Get: Some Closure About The End Of Episode 2
Although Alyx is a prequel to the previous games, there are a few hints given that lead us to believe that maybe fans will still get a bit of closure after Episode 2’s ending. Besides the hopes that any new plot will surely give us more of a complete picture, there’s that moment in the reveal trailer that makes a direct reference to those final moments of Episode 2.
At around a minute and twenty seconds into the trailer, you can hear Eli reciting, verbatim, the same line he says at the end of Episode 2 -“Close your eyes, honey.” Moreover, the Vortigaunt voice-over at around the same time mentions Eli’s “fate.” There has to be something there.
1 We Want To Know: What Really Happened To The Borealis
Another one of Half-Life (and Portal’s) biggest unanswered questions is what really happened to the Borealis - a ship that supposedly vanished off the face of the Earth whilst transporting some shady Aperture Science cargo.
In Episode One, however, it is revealed that the Borealis is still very much on the face of the Earth, just somewhere in the Arctic. We also see The Combine gaining increasingly more interest in this vessel, probably because it is rumored to hold powerful localized teleportation technology that will help them cross-dimensionally transport more of their troops to Earth.
If anything, we hope Alyx will at least allude to this mystery and help ease our weary minds. March 2020 couldn’t come soon enough.
NEXT: “Half-Life VR Controversy: Should Alyx Have Arms?”
