Accessibility in mind, Half-Life: Alyx can be played with a single hand

Valve isn't taking any chances with its first blockbuster VR title, Half-Life: Alyx. In an interview with Tested, Valve's Robin Walker and Greg Coomer discussed several challenges that the team at Valve had overcome to evangelize a stellar feel for all players. Half-Life: Alyx tin can be played entirely with one mitt when the proper option box is checked in the game's settings. Valve had been previously testing the feature toward the end of development and wasn't originally sure that it would be ready for the final build of the game.

Thankfully, for players with disabilities or folks with any other kind of physical issue or preference to use a single hand to play, Valve was able to get this feature finished in time for the March 23, 2022 release of the game. Given the fact that Half-Life: Alyx is a virtual reality game where your concrete hands play a massive part in the gameplay, getting everything working with only a single hand is an impressive feat. Right now, we're non sure how every element of the game is affected since the interview in question avoided any potential spoilers. Given that some guns announced to require 2 hands to reload, information technology's likely Valve will reassign these functions to buttons or other similar mechanics.

One-half-Life: Alyx: Everything yous need to know

This isn't the first time nosotros've seen a major VR developer incorporate significant accessibility features into its games in order to attain a wider audience. Since VR is a more concrete medium than traditional gaming, accessibility options are extremely important to provide the all-time experience for a wide range of people. Many games offer pinnacle adjustments that adapt the scale of game worlds to continue a player'due south acme from affecting gameplay negatively, and many games also provide seated experiences for folks who don't want to regularly motion around. Games like Trounce Saber offering a similar one-handed experience, as well.

Valve has stated that Half-Life: Alyx was designed to be a render to the series, non the end of it, which implies the visitor could be working on future installments for either VR or more traditional platforms. Nosotros've also seen huge improvements in SteamVR leading upward to Half-Life: Alyx's release, and the visitor'south own VR headset, the Valve Index, looks similar it'll finally be back in stock next Monday, March 9.

Half-Life: Alyx releases on March 23, 2022 for the Valve Index, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest, and Windows Mixed Reality.

Half-Life is back!

Half-Life: Alyx cover art.

Half-Life: Alyx

The prequel we never knew

One-half-Life: Alyx is a bold comeback for Valve'due south previously-brackish AAA franchise, described by Valve itself every bit its "flagship VR game."