Half-Life: Alyx will launch March 23rd 2020

Via a tweet, Valve has announced that Half-Life: Alyx will be released on March 23rd 2020.

The game has been available for pre-order for a number of weeks now, but it's reassuring to know that a set release date has been announced, even more so given it's only about 5 weeks away. 

We still don't know a huge amount about the game, other than it's set between the events of Half-Life 1 and Half-Life 2 and follows an "impossible fight" against the Combine. You play Alyx Vance, who needs to solve a series of puzzles alongside being pretty handy with a gun to succeed. Oh, and it's a VR-based game. It's that crucial detail that makes Half-Life: Alyx an intriguing proposition and possibly one that may make some players nervous. 

Having said that, the Valve Index VR headset has been sold out since its announcement so we're guessing this is the time for many players to jump on board the VR hype train. That's rather unfortunate as current owners of the headset would get Half-Life: Alyx for free. Everyone else should expect to pay £41.84 for it at its 'sale' price of 10 percent off. Valve has suggested that it'll provide more information on upcoming Valve Index stock though so we're hopeful that more headsets will become available at a later date. Presumably, before Half-Life: Alyx launches. 

For now, Valve has released a few new screenshots of the game via Twitter. 

It's worth noting that the minimum system specs of the game consist of an Intel Core i5-7500 or Ryzen 5 1600, 12GB RAM and a GTX 1060/RX 580 or above. This may be the time to consider an upgrade if not, providing you like the sound of VR gaming, that is. 

For everyone else, don't forget that the Half-Life series is now free to play on Steam until Alyx launches so this is the ideal opportunity to dive into one of the classics, if you don't already own them. 

No doubt more details surrounding Half-Life: Alyx will be released nearer to launch. We'll be sure to keep an eye on things.