Trivia / Half-Life: Alyx

• Canon Marches On: Because of the ending resurrecting Eli Vance and having G-Man remove Alyx at the end of Episode Two, Marc Laidlaw's "Epistle Three" outline of what the plot of Half-Life 2: Episode Three was supposed to be is now totally incompatible with mainline canon, since this revolved around Eli staying dead and Alyx continuing on with Gordon. As a result, it can reasonably be assumed that Half-Life 3s story will be significantly different, as and when it drops.
• Character Outlives Actor: Thanks to the Cosmic Retcon happening at the end of the game, Eli Vance is technically still alive, although the original actor, Robert Guillaume, passed away in 2017, necessitating The Other Darrin.
• Dummied Out: The game includes an unused tripmine weapon that Alyx can place on surfaces, as well as a mostly-functional Fast Headcrab with a new model which was cut for being too "shocking" in VR, and an unused lock-picking puzzle that was cut for being not as well polished as the other mini-games.
• In Memoriam: The credits feature a dedication "For Jake", referring to to Jacob Nicholson, an animator who worked on Half-Life 2 who passed away in 2016.
• Killer App: Half-Life: Alyx alone was a massive push for VR gaming on PC. The game's announcement was enough to make Index and Oculus headsets sell out within the week, then being on backorder for months.
• Pre-Order Bonus: Players who purchased the Valve Index in 2019 were given exclusive skins for the game's weapons. The pistol skin features a wooden grip, the shotgun skin has a silver finish and a black grip, and the SMG is given yellow painted highlights.
• Role Reprise: Michael Shapiro for the G-Man, Tony Todd for the Vortigaunts, and Ellen McLain for the Overwatch Voice. Merle Dandridge very briefly returns as an older Alyx in the ending.
• Refitted for Sequel:
  • The G-Man hiring Alyx and removing Gordon from his employ were in Marc Laidlaw's outline for the unmade Episode Three, but with significantly different circumstances in this entry.
  • The Gravity Gloves are loosely based on a cut concept from Half Life 2: Survivor, the Japan-exclusive arcade version of Half-Life 2.
• Sequel Gap: While it isn't a sequel^note (At least, not until the very end...), there is a 13 year gap between the release of Half-Life 2: Episode Two (October 10th, 2007) and Half-Life: Alyx (March 23rd, 2020.)
• The Other Darrin: Merle Dandridge and Robert Guillaume do not reprise their roles of Alyx Vance and Eli Vance in this game, with Ozioma Akagha and James Moses Black taking their place respectively.^*While Eli had to be recast due to Guillaume's death in 2017, the reason for Alyx being recasted is because Valve wanted a younger voice for her considering the game takes place years before the events of Half-Life 2.
• The Other Marty: Merle Dandridge did actually record dialogue for most of the game, including the ending, but Valve ultimately decided to go with the younger-sounding Ozioma Akagha and replaced the lines.
• Throw It In!: In "Jeff", the mechanic of covering your mouth to prevent Alyx from coughing when walking through clouds of spores was not intended, but added in when the developers noticed playtesters instinctively covering their mouths to try and do so.
• Time-Shifted Actor: Ozioma Akagha plays Alyx, due to Valve wanting to convey that the character was younger.
• Troubled Production: As documented in "The Final Hours of Half Life: Alyx", while the development of Alyx itself went pretty normally by Valve standards, the path required to get there was a nightmare that consumed many more years than anticipated (circa 2011-2016), dubbed internally as "The Wilderness". In short, while the plan was to make a direct continuation of Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Valve themselves deemed the Source engine outdated and in need of upgrading before it could be made, but the ongoing development of the Source 2 engine ended up colliding very poorly with Valve's quasi-internal freelance organizational model, resulting in countless projects outright stopping due to a lack of interest and focus, including multiple iterations of Half-Life 3. It wasn't until they finally got the ball rolling on their pursuit of virtual reality gaming that they were able to amass enough interest in a "Half-Life VR" project, which would eventually snowball over the next several years into Alyx (and even then, the project went through at least three different iterations before reaching the final product).
• Word of God: According to Wolpaw, the vortigaunts at the start of Episode One were bending time the same way the G-Man does in the ending.
• What Could Have Been: It has its own page.

---