Month: April 2020

Thoughts on Half-Life: Alyx and the narrative future of Half-Life

This was something I wrote on sabbatical in April 2020 about Half Life: Alyx, which I’d just played and loved, because I wanted to try writing something long-form about a game (or anything non-work-related). More importantly I wanted to think about some narrative and design decisions Valve made. I didn’t and still don’t know what I’m doing. It’s probably shit and wrong. But everyone has to start somewhere. Spoilers throughout, obviously.

Tl;dr of wot I think:

  • Alyx Vance is a stronger and more interesting character than Gordon Freeman given both her talkiness but also her character development. HL3 should have a talking Gordon Freeman (but won’t). 
  • Gordon Freeman isn’t going through a hero’s journey (he can’t) but Alyx Vance is (but it’s only partway through).
  • In the end, Alyx Vance will be more important than Gordon Freeman to the narrative future of Half-Life. Her story provides signposts to what could happen next (like the death of Eli or even Gordon, Alyx being betrayed, confrontation with the G-Man). Gordon will still be very important of course.
  • Alyx shows how Valve has built on character progression over its games from Dr Kleiner to Eli to GLaDOS to Alyx.
  • Alyx is a strong example of environmental storytelling but Valve seems to be relying less on that over time.
  • I had a bunch of presumptuous thoughts picking into what’s interesting in the wider Half-Life story. Example: is the G-Man as a god (or, what Rick and Morty shines on Half-Life: Alyx). Also, some ideas for improvement/elaboration.
  • I have some plausible suggestions for where the Half-Life story could (will?) go next.
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Hello

I’ve been thinking for a while now, well over a year, about writing a blog again. The first one, which started me in the games industry, was/is www.gamerlaw.co.uk (it’s not maintained, it’s horrible but it still exists), on the subject of games law and business.

Context for those who don’t know me: I work in the games and tech industries, my background is as a lawyer, though these days I do as much business/finance/operations stuff for games businesses as law if not more.

This is going to be a blog to explore other things that interest me. I want to learn more about games, story and creativity. To think about why I enjoy (or don’t) creative works, to get back to some of the stuff I used to do when I was younger, but apply what I’ve learned since and will learn from this blog. Occasionally that will shade into business stuff no doubt. Not law/politics/policy here. I will no doubt do things badly, but I hope to learn from it. All feedback gratefully received (I’m not bothering with comments or email etc – people who know me can reach me, everyone else can try Twitter).