Half-Life: Alyx Isn't VR's Killer App -- But It's Modding Community Could Be

I was disappointed to see Half-Life: Alyx sales and usage floundering, but reader "seph" makes a very good point about how Valve likely sees its long-term success:

I don't think Valve cares about selling Half-Life: Alyx itself, it's free with every Valve Index purchase and it's being bundled with partners' headsets like Vive's new Cosmos Elite for free.

Half-Life: Alyx is only 10-15 hours of gameplay, it wasn't meant to hold people's attention longer than that is another consideration. The longevity plan seems to be the same as all previous Half-Life games, which is letting the community create more content for it.

Tools have been released for the Source 2 engine to help with modding Alyx along with Hammer, a new level editor built with creating levels for Alyx in mind.

Road to VR reports those tools actually haven't been released yet, but will be soon-ish. And Seph points to the track record of other Valve games, once modders get their hands on the tools:

Time will tell how popular mods and levels for Alyx will increase the longevity of it, but I'd say Half-Life mods have been pretty successful in the past (Black Mesa, Cry of Fear...) and many that started as mods have become full games (Counter-Strike, Portal, Garry's Mod, Stanley Parable...)

I have no delusions that as many hit spin-offs from previous Half-Life releases will come from Alyx's mod community given how small the VR user base still is, but given the success rate of prior Half-Life mods, I'd be surprised if nothing at all comes along to be a pretty popular and supported by Valve even.

All and all we'll have to wait to see if Alyx is a 'killer app'. It would've been a mistake to judge Half-Life 1 or 2's legacy based on a single run of it's standalone story rather than the plethora of mods and full games that resulted from them.

Garry's Mod in particular is a very good analogy -- that physics sandbox game/toy has over 10 million owners. If Alyx spawns something like Garry's Mod for VR, it may just be a killer app for VR after all. 

Image via Road to VR.

Comments

[Cory]

Alyx is the killer game(not an AP) for vr. Its one of the best gaming experiences of all time. ....and I've been gaming since SNES. There was nothing really disappointing about alyx. There are tons of people waiting for their back order headsets, and people saving up to play it.

[Cho]

I agree with the other commenter. What degree makes Alyx not a "killer" VR title? It's been on the top of all steam's sold and experienced charts beating out literally every single other vr game on steam's platform.

[Dranoply]

I returned it. After the novelty of how amazing it looks fades, the usual bleak and empty feeling of VR gameplay creeps in.