A lot of people are working on Half-Life: Alyx.
Valve’s new VR game, its first set in the Half-Life universe in over a decade, has “around 80 people” working on it. The studio itself confirmed as much during today’s Ask Me Anything session on Reddit. Not only that, but this makes it the “largest single team” the company has ever had working on a game. Yup, even more than Half-Life 2 or Portal 2.
“Right now it’s around 80 people,” the company said, “which puts it as the largest single team we’ve ever had at Valve.”
In another post, the company confirmed that some people working on Alyx even worked on the original Half-Life back in the 1990’s.
This is a significant investment for any game, let alone for the fledgling VR market where team sizes are usually much smaller. Though we don’t know exact figures, it’s thought that the install base of PC VR headsets is quite small making it hard for big companies to justify pouring millions of dollars into massive projects that might not see a return.
Of course, Valve isn’t just selling a new game with Half-Life: Alyx. The company also wants to use the game as a vehicle to drive sales of its Valve Index SteamVR headset, which comes with a free copy of Alyx. That said, pretty much any PC VR headset will be able to play Alyx, so its work will hopefully help drive the entire industry forward, too.
Elsewhere, Valve reaffirmed that Alyx is still on track for a release in March, provided there aren’t any last-minute hiccups. In fact the game is pretty much, in Valve’s words, done save for a few final tweaks.
Excited for Half-Life: Alyx? Let us know in the comments below! And don’t forget to follow our recent coverage of the game, too.
