Valve Software officially announced Half-Life: Alyx , a new Half-Life VR game and the first Half-Life title in 12 years. Valve says it will fully reveal details for the game later this week, but new details have already emerged about its possible gameplay mechanics and setting.

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Ars Technica published a report with new details about Half-Life: Alyx. According to their sources, Half-Life: Alyx will be a prequel that takes place between Half-Life 1 and Half-Life 2. As the title implies, Half-Life: Alyx will put players literally in the shoes of Alyx Vance, Gordon Freeman’s partner introduced in Half-Life 2.One of the core mechanics from Half-Life 2, the physics-based Gravity Gun, will make a return in Half-Life: Alyx, sort of. Instead of a gun, there will be a new mechanic called “Grabbity Gloves” which sources describe as something similar to "magnet gloves." Like the Gravity Gun, the Grabbity Gloves will allow players to attract far away objects, and interact with in-game objects that behave according to realistic physics.Valve is reportedly interested in showing off the power of its Valve Index "knuckles" controllers with Half-Life: Alyx. A lot of effort has been put into making almost every in-game object interactive, and behave realistically. However, Ars is reporting that attempts to put another iconic Half-Life weapon into the game, the crowbar, have been less successful.Finally, Half-Life: Alyx will be the first game built in the Source 2 engine, the successor to Valve’s Source engine which powered games like Portal and the original Half-Life games.Half-Life: Alyx has been in development for years. It was one of the three unnamed VR games that Valve openly talked about since as far back as 2017 . Valve will unveil Half-Life: Alyx this Thursday, November 22 at 10 am PT/1 pm ET, so check back on IGN for more details then.

Matt Kim is a reporter for IGN. You can reach him on Twitter.