The much-lauded but barely played VR game, Half-Life Alyx, has had a copy of its current version siloed off – in anticipation of what, though, we don’t know. A new branch called ‘previous_release’ has appeared, which could indicate major changes coming to the most recent Half-Life game.
For those who don’t mess around with Steam branches often, these are different versions of the game. Usually, in my case at least, these are review builds; complete versions of whatever it is I’m playing that I can access before it goes live on the storefront.
This particular branch of Half-Life Alyx looks to be the current one – a stable, fully working version. Why Valve would want to preserve the game as it is right now could indicate changes on the horizon. It’s most likely an update to the engine, or perhaps some under-the-hood tinkering for the upcoming Steam Frame VR headset.
Any major updates to the VR game would likely throw an extra spanner in the works for those running mods, so it makes sense to keep a backup in place just in case these mystery changes decide to mess everything up in the short term. Valve has priors with this sort of thing though, and occasionally, they bear sequel fruit.
Those of a certain age may remember similar, seemingly benign changes made to Portal – minor technical improvements on the face of things. The Portal update was a Trojan Horse, if you will, for an ARG promoting the release of Portal 2. Is it possible this Alyx update is going to shine some light on a sequel? Dare we suggest it might add extra lore for Half-Life 3? Probably not, but hey, it’s Monday, and I need something to keep the energy levels up.
