Black Friday is almost upon us. The unofficial start of the holiday shopping season is only three days away, and as expected,the Black Friday deals are already showing in preparation. These deals, for the most part, apply to games that are already out, but one notable exception isHalf-Life: Alyx, the long-awaited return of theHalf-Lifeseries heading to virtual reality devices next year.
Obviously, fans won’t be able to play the game this holiday season, but they can save a little money in purchasing it this week. Right now,Half-Life: Alyxcan be pre-ordered on Steamfor a reduced price of $53.99, a 10% discount from its usual $59.99 price tag. While that might not sound like one of the better Black Friday deals for PC games, any discount will be welcome, especially for those who are looking forward to the game but have yet to invest in a VR headset.
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But for those fans specifically, there is a way to get the game for even less. According to its Steam page, Valve will be giving awayHalf-Life: Alyxfor free to owners of its Index VR headset, along with alternate gun skins andHalf-Life-themed content for SteamVR andCounter-Strike: Global Offensive. Definitely an option for anyone planning to hop onto the VR bandwagon to consider, but it’s worth noting thatthe Valve Index is one of the more expensive VR options out there, with the headset alone costing $500 and the full set coming in a hefty $999.
Another factor that will likely limit the number of fans who’ll be able to play the game isHalf-Life: Alyx’s beefy system requirements. As the Steam page points out, the game will require, at the very least, an Intel Core i5-7500 or a Ryzen 5 1600 processor, an NVidia GeForce GTX 1060 or 6GB VRAM Radeon RX 580 graphics card, and 12 GB of RAM just to run. Those aren’t small specifications. A solid gaming PC will be necessary to play the game, and those don’t come cheap even on Black Friday.
That may be frustrating news to hear, but it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, given what Valve has been revealing this past week.Half-Life: Alyxis being designed as a full-blown showcase of VR’s potential, with a full-length campaign where players will be able to engage in a deep amount of combat, puzzle, and environmental interactions using their virtual hands. What’s more, Valve will release a tool-set for its new Source 2 engine alongside the game that will let players create and share new VR levels. It’s a small wonder then that the technical requirements will be so high.
Half-Life: Alyxwill be released for VR in March 2020.
MORE:Valve Would Like to Make More Half-Life if VR Game is a Success
