Valve is the developing company behind Half-Life: Alyx, the most anticipated VR game of 2020, and maybe of all time. The company has recently let some comments out about the possibility of bringing the game to other non-Steam VR platforms. The exact comment from the designer Greg Coomer is talking about PS VR and their platform, but it did leave some extra room for speculation.
He exactly said that “We believe Sony’s VR platform has been a huge success for the medium, and we assume that lots of Sony customers would love to experience this new chapter of Half-Life.” He also went on to say that the comply isn’t working on the PlayStation port of the game “because we’re very focused on the initial release”, but that they officially have “not ruled anything out”.
This obviously could mean a lot of things, but one thing is for sure. This isn’t a hard no, and there is room for dreaming from PlayStation and even Quest consumers. This wouldn’t be the first Valve game to show up on other non-Steam platforms. The Orange Box, a collection of games from Valve, was released for both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. With that being said, getting a game from the PC to the console is a lot different than getting a game from the PC VR headsets to the PS VR headsets. They are two different animals with the same intentions.
With these comments, it doesn’t officially rule out the possibility of the game also coming to the Oculus platform. Because the Rift and Rift S are compatible with SteamVR, don’t expect this game to be coming to the Rift Platform Store. Instead, we could possibly see this game for the Oculus Quest. It might not be the full version, as this is going to be a very high-end VR game, but we could very well see a lite version of the reach the Oculus Quest.
If this game does come to Oculus and PlayStation, some may argue it may take possible sales away from the Valve and Steam companies. We think it would actually be the opposite, especially if they only released a lite version of the game. This would spark many people to go out and possibly buy the Valve Index, or any other compatible PC VR headset. This would indeed lead to increased sales for the Steam version of Half-Life: Alyx.
None of this is set in stone, and some is also pure speculation. But if Valve is wanting to expand their audience, this may be the fast and best way to do it. For more VR news and community updates, make sure to check back at VRGear.com.
