It might have taken its sweet time, but a new instalment in Valve's legendary Half-Life series is finally, officially, almost here. But as the shock starts to wear off, there are questions to be answered - with one of the most frequent ones seemingly being, exactly why is Half-Life: Alyx, after a wait of over a decade, exclusive to VR?
Luckily for everyone, Geoff Keighley is on the case, and posed that very question in a video interview with key members of the Half-Life: Alyx team. And the answer, according to Valve's Dario Casali, is simply that VR controllers and headsets permit a degree of gameplay detail that "we couldn't possibly do with a mouse and keyboard".
One example given by Casali revolves around the sort of interactions possible with a simple door. Sure, you can open it and close it in a more intuitive, immersive fashion in VR, but, Casali suggests, it's the additional interactions around that door - opening it a fraction to peer through the gap and see what's on the other side, firing your weapon through the crack, or even slipping a grenade through onto the floor - that makes for a truly unique sort of experience.
