An interactive gamified “docu-book” by the name of Half-Life: Alyx - Final Hours written by veteran video games journalist Geoff Keighley was released on Steam on Thursday.

Around the time of Valve’s official announcement of Half-Life: Alyx in November of last year, Keighley released a 20-minute video which included his own announcement that he’d be releasing a Final Hours documentary in 2020. The documentary, much like the ones he wrote for the original Half-Life and its sequel, would give us behind-the-scenes insight into the goings-on at Valve in the years leading up to Alyx’s release.

The video he aired in November gave us a taste of the kind of content the final documentary would include. Then, a day before the release of the Final Hours Steam app, Keighley got fans fired up on Twitter with another tiny taste of the “ambitious and audacious project [which had] completely consumed the past 6 months of [his] life.” And now, we can finally have a look-see for ourselves.

Fans immediately pounced and a steady stream of positive feedback has since started flowing through the community.

The app (which, unlike the game itself, doesn’t need any kind of VR gear to operate) promises interactive puzzles inspired by Alyx which unlock never-before-seen concept art and images, insight into Valve’s cancelled games and unreleased projects, a 3D tour of the Valve office and development area for Alyx. and an exclusive interview with Rhys Darby (the voice actor for Russel in the game).

There’s also another neat little feature included in the app - a head crab sound mixer. According to Keighley, you can “use the component sounds from Valve’s Roland Shaw (like dogs, meerkats, badgers and more) to build [your] own head crab cry.”

In sum, the documentary is a 25,000 word multimedia experience that “gives readers an unprecedented and unvarnished look at the past decade inside Valve.” It certainly seems like a pretty solid investment for any fan of the franchise and/or its most recent VR-exclusive masterpiece. So if you fall into either of those categories, you can go ahead and buy it on Steam right now (for a nice modest price, too.)

Source: Game Rant