Looks like this game's focus is going to be on the player, rather than the game world itself.
Where HL1/2 were focused on making the objects, enemies, and places you interacted with feel like real life. HL:A will be focused on the character you control, giving you complete autonomy with finger capture and motion control.
Valve is pushing forward gaming with Half Life once again
Given the accuracy (or lack of it) of individual finger movements on the Valve Index controller, it's not going to be anything more than a gimmick. The tech looks impressive in a demo, but our hands are used to manipulating things with a much finer touch than the Index controller allows so it doesn't translate very well to games.
it's not going to be anything more than a gimmick.
Not sure if I share this sentiment, I read elsewhere Valve is treating this as their next "flagship" release, a true first class VR game (hopefully not just some 30 minute "experience" that ends right as it's getting good). It this were literally any other game studio I'd have an eyebrow raised right now, but when Valve puts their full muscle and creative energy behind something as a flagship, lead-off hitter, they've yet to disappoint.
> When Valve puts their full muscle and creative energy behind something as a flagship, lead-off hitter, they've yet to disappoint.
Genuine question: when would you say is the last time they did that? I don't really think of Dota 2 or CS:GO or whatever to be "flagships." I'd have to go back to, Portal 2, I guess, but I'm not sure even that I would call a "flagship," just a really good game. Certainly the Orange Box as a whole... but that was 12 years ago. Even Portal 2 is 8 years ago.
A great deal of CS:GO (minus the Source engine) was developed by another studio with, admittedly, a lot of collaboration and investment from Valve, so in this case when I think "flagship" for a game studio it's referring to a game built by employees and developers of the studio as a first-party.
At least, in my initial comment, that's the intention I had in mind.
They described Artifact as "the Half-Life 2 of card games", and it was supposed to set the standard for digital card games, but it ended up being an embarrasing disaster of a game.
Have you used the Valve Index controllers? Because I own a full Valve Index kit, and while the headset is great the controllers do not remotely live up to the hype. The entire finger tracking technology is not accurate enough to give the kind of control people expect with their fingers. They would literally have been better off with an analog button for each finger.
I can't help but disagree here. Hand movements and interactions with the world of VR today are like having cinderblocks for hands. The nuanced control that this is going give will be huge IMO
I agree that fine motor control would be awesome, but the Valve Index controllers do not measure finger movement with the degree of control that would keep it from frustrating the hell out of people.
The tracking is basically "finger open or closed" and even then it's not terribly accurate. It frequently won't pick up fingers next to each other correctly -- if I point at something with my index finger, it picks out the middle finger as extending as well (even if it didn't). The way they track the thumb movement in particular does not feel remotely natural; it feels like you have to press an awkwardly-placed "close thumb" button rather than just making a fist.
The Valve Index's finger tracking is a gimmick in its current implementation. I really don't think we'll be able to get accurate motor control without a glove.
Where HL1/2 were focused on making the objects, enemies, and places you interacted with feel like real life. HL:A will be focused on the character you control, giving you complete autonomy with finger capture and motion control.
Valve is pushing forward gaming with Half Life once again