Valve has shared three new videos featuring Half-Life: Alyx gameplay. Totalling about 10 minutes of in-game footage, the purpose of the clips appears to be to demonstrate three different motion modes available to players. I've embedded the videos within the article below for your convenience but in brief, and according to the YouTube descriptive texts, the videos show the following:
- Gameplay Video 1 demonstrates the Teleportation locomotion style
- Gameplay Video 2 demonstrates the Continuous locomotion style
- Gameplay Video 3 demonstrates the Shift locomotion style
Above you can see a player using the Teleportation style of movement. Using the controllers you essentially pick a spot in your viewpoint and teleport there in an instant. This could be one way to move from the proverbial frying pan into the fire but is just one of the three solutions available for getting around the game environment in your VR HMD.
Continuous movement is one of the most common movement styles in VR, as it mimics trudging reality but it is obviously slower than the Teleportation mode. It is probably the natural mode for when there is a lot of things to do in a confined area - however, using this mode extensively is more likely to induce motion sickness.
Lastly, Shift mode is a kind of hybrid between the other two modes. You choose a location objective and then your character rapidly moves there without fade out/in. This third video highlights Shift mode in use in an intense fire fight - moving from cover to cover. Interestingly we see Alyx open a disused car door for cover in this scene.
Throughout the series of videos we see that Alyx's gloves seem to offer a 'magnetic' capability. You will see the character reach out for an item and it will be attracted to the grasping hand and then become usable. This kind of experience tweak minimises laborious actions so you can concentrate on the fun, adventure, and thrills.
Half-Life: Alyx is scheduled for release on Monday, 23rd March and is compatible with a variety of PC VR headsets, not just the Valve Index.