It's been just over a week since Valve announced Half-Life: Alyx (opens in new tab), its long-awaited 'flagship VR game' and while there have been some mixed reactions to the Half-Life prequel, it seems that the hype is real—so much so that 'most packages of Index, Valve’s high-end VR headset released earlier this year, were sold out,' according to a post from RoadtoVR (opens in new tab).
The shortage appears to be mainly affecting most packages on the US and Canadian stores, with the UK currently unaffected (at the time of writing). Half-Life: Alyx will retail at full price but will be free to owners of the Valve Index VR headset, so it's perhaps not surprising that there's a shortage, especially if those on the VR fence have been pushed by Valve's reveal.
While the announcement for Half-Life: Alyx certainly wasn't the Half-Life 3 that a lot of players were hoping for, it's still a pretty big deal and something that Valve is taking seriously, not least because of all the work that's going into it.
"Half-Life: Alyx is the largest game team we've had yet. About a third of the people on the project have worked on previous Half-Life games, some all the way back to the first Half-Life." says Valve designer Greg Coomer.
The VR project didn't start out as a Half-Life game but apparently it seemed to suit the technology Valve was working with. Just don't mention the arms to Chris (opens in new tab) and James (opens in new tab), whatever you do!
