Not much happened this week. A Star Citizen event was announced, and I guess that's something. There was also that PS1-looking "Cybertruck" that might appear in Cyberpunk 2077. Pretty dumb. I'm struggling to think of anything else noteworthy that happened in PC gaming this week, but I'm sure I'll remember as I go.

Half-Life: Alyx is a full-length game set before Half-Life 2

Valve announced a new Half-Life game, and it's a VR-only prequel starring Alyx, and there's a trailer for it you can watch above. For more, here are a bunch of things we learned about Half-Life: Alyx after talking to Valve. Hopefully we find some bigger news as we go here.

Half-Life: Alyx is just the beginning of Valve's return to the series

After Half-Life: Alyx releases, Valve would "love to continue pushing forward" in the Half-Life universe according to designer David Speyrer. So maybe Half-Life 3 isn't out of the question? Interesting, but let's see if we can find some bigger PC gaming news.

Witness the body horror that allows Rust players to look down and see their legs

Finally! Here's the proper PC gaming news you've been craving.

Nvidia releases a GPU hotfix to address stalling in Red Dead Redemption 2

Red Dead Redemption 2 hasn't had the smoothest PC launch (did anyone think it would?) but Rockstar and Nvidia are steadily improving it. This particular hotfix didn't resolve all of our problems, but hopefully with a bit more ironing it'll be stabler.

Counter-Strike has characters now

They're just cosmetic additions, but it feels weird. Counter-Strike doesn't have characters, it has jerks who AWP me and then say mean things about my family.

Former Arkane bosses launch a new studio, first game will be revealed at The Game Awards

Raphael Colantonio and Julien Roby are making games together again with a new studio called WolfEye. It sounds like they'll continue making the Dishonored-like games they're known for, and we'll see their first game at The Game Awards on December 12.

More things we wrote

Around the office

James and Chris are fighting and there aren't any adults around to stop them. Specifically, they are fighting about arms, and whether or not Alyx should have them in Half-Life: Alyx. Right now, she just has disembodied hands. Chris is on team arms, while James is firmly against the inclusion of arm-shaped things in VR. I don't expect this to be resolved soon.

When not fighting about arms, we've been preparing for deal season, which has kicked off already with some early Black Friday deals. If you're looking to upgrade your PC or build a new one, this weekend marks the beginning of the best time to buy parts, and we'll be sharing the best deals we find.

Aside from getting into an arm-related beef, Chris analyzed the Half-Life: Alyx trailer to try to figure out a few plot details, and what kind of horrible creatures we may encounter—no, please, anything but the sacktick.

Joanna has been testing Google Stadia with predictable, so-so results, and I've been musing about the nature of sequels now that games are meant to be played forever.

That's all for this week. I suggest everyone declare their Team Arms or Team No Arms allegiance before Monday, because Chris and James seem to be building armies now.

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