The BAFTA Games Awards, one of the bigger dates on the videogame award ceremony calendar, has nominated Valve’s Half-Life: Alyx in its Best Game category.
The VR-exclusive shooter, which released almost a year ago in late March 2020, is up against five traditional games, including Nintendo’s Animal Crossing, Supergiant’s Hades and three Sony-publish titles including The Last Of Us Part II, Ghosts of Tsushima and Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Alyx is also nominated for Game Direction, Audio Achievement and Artistic Achievement. The PSVR-compatible Dreams is also up for Art, British Game, Family Game, Game Beyond Entertainment and Technical Achievement.
It’s the second time since the launch of consumer VR in 2016 that BATFA has nominated a VR-exclusive title in the Best Game category. Astro Bot Rescue Mission made the cut in 2019, ultimately losing out to the God of War reboot. The awards still don’t have a dedicated VR or AR section, however. This year’s ceremony takes place on March 25th.
Alyx marked Valve’s long-awaited return to the Half-Life series, set in-between the events of the first two games and only playable on PC VR headsets. We were big fans of the game ourselves, granting the game our own Game of the Year awards in 2020 and awarding it 5/5 in our review.
“But, for the already-initiated and those susceptible to it,” we said, “Alyx is a triumphant return; a stunningly produced, meticulously refined capping off of the past four years of VR learnings. Its 10+ hours of best-in-class combat, evolving level design and, every so often, moments of truly inventive ideas swiftly establishes it as a new benchmark for the platform.”
