Talk:Choreo Era

Summary

After almost two years in development, Half-Life: Alyx was starting to shape up. As it grew out of prototyping phases, it needed a writer to tie the locations and characters of the game together. The sole story writer was Rob Yescombe, whom Valve hired in December of 2017, as the original writers of Half-Life 2 left the company one year earlier.

The Choreo Era is the most recognizable period of Half-Life: Alyx's development, and tells the tale of the "Old Story" of Half-Life: Alyx. During this Era, the developers heavily expanded upon ideas and plot elements which arose prior during development, as well as adding new ones. This Era began in December of 2017 and ended on January 7th, 2019, after Robin Walker, the head of development, held a meeting amongst developers to discuss the state of the game after the company-wide holiday playtest.

The scope of this Era was larger than that of any other part of development. This required the significant expansion of development team, which allowed for creation of the largest number of assets, unmatched by any other Era. The game had the largest team at Valve during that time — around 80 developers working on the game.

At the end of December 2018 Valve developers began a company-wide playtest. The game was playable from start to finish, had chapter preview images, chapter titles, own soundtrack, and lip-syncing implemented.

Choreo (short for Choreography) scenes are animated scripted story sequences in source games. This era of Half-Life: Alyx's development heavily utilized these, hence the "Choreo" naming of this Era.

All information surrounding this era is pieced together using following resources:

• The readonly .bin file, which references almost all of the assets made during this time of development;
• The Final Hours of Half-Life: Alyx;
• Information shared by developers;
• Tyler McVicker's stream of an early build of Half-Life: Alyx and various files inside the build that he shared with the public;
• Strings of code and assets Valve developers left in other games;
• The game files.

Features

At the time of the company-wide playtest the game had many features such as...

I could see the greatness in there, even if the animation system needed work, and we needed a full art pass on the game.

— Joe van den Heuvel

Movement

The only movement method is teleportation. Specific activities such as climbing ladders, climbing through windows, and crouching are implemented by aiming your teleportation point to the area where this specific action needs to be performed, wait until the window's outer circle fills fully, and then teleporting.

• 

  The player choosing where they want to teleport to.

• 

  Teleportation indicators for crouching, climbing inside a window, and climbing a ladder.

• 

  Ditto, in action.

Sounds

Old
New

Soundtrack

The soundtrack was composed by Mike Morasky, who joined the team in April 2016. The music is made up of separate audio files that are dynamically pieced and mixed together in-game. Apparently, the game featured music for every chapter. However, only the existence of 4 tracks has been confirmed so far. They are listed below.

Music.IntroDreamTitleCrawl

This track was supposed to play after the end of the Dream sequence, when the title of the game was revealed.
Music.IntroDreamTitleCrawl =

   {
       type = "hlvr_start_multi_simple"
       soundevent_01 = "music.a1_intro_world_titlecrawl"
       soundevent_02 = "music.a1_intro_world_reveal"
       use_01 = 1.000000
       use_02 = 1
       use_03 = 0.000000
       use_04 = 0.000000
   }

Music.IntroWorldBaseLp_01

This track was supposed to play when the player was exploring City 17.
"a1_intro_m1"
{
"playsoundscape"
{
"name" "a1_intro_ext1"
"volume" "1"
}
"playevent"
{
"event" "Music.IntroWorldBaseLp_01"
"position" "random"
}
}

Music.IntroHahnRand

This track was supposed to play when the player was introduced to Hahn.
"a1_intro_int_hahn"
{
"playsoundscape"
{
"name" "distant_construction_int"
"volume" "0.6"
}
"playsoundscape"
{
"name" "distant_hl_activity_int"
"volume" "1.0"
}
"playevent"
{
"event" "A1Intro.GarageLp"
"position" "random"
}
"playevent"
{
"event" "Music.IntroHahnRand"
"position" "random"
}
}

C17 Infestation

Inside sounds/music/places/c17/ there are several sound files for an unused soundtrack named hlvr_c17_infestation. Judging by the name, it appears as if this track was supposed to play when the player was exploring run-down, Xen-infested parts of City 17.

Lip Sync

Lip-syncing.

Lip synchronization has been implemented to add more realism to face-to-face interactions.

Equipment

The Combine Printer is used to obtain weapon upgrades. It uses Resin as its building material. Resin can be found throughout the game.

• 

  Combine Printer is used to upgrade weapons.

• 

  Pucks of Resin.

Gravity Gloves

• 

  The Gravity Gloves.

• 

  Ditto.

Pistol

Reflex Sight

Adds a reflex sight to help with aiming.

Burst Fire

Adds a toggle which switches between semi-automatic and burst-fire shooting.

Bullet Hopper/Bullet Reservoir

Adds a capacity of 10 rounds in a magazine on the right side of the pistol which automatically loads rounds into itself and chambers them in order. Permits 20 rounds, 10 in the regular magazine, 10 in the self-loading side magazine.

Laser Sight

Adds a laser sight to help with aiming

• 

  Seen in playtest footage.

• 

  Magazine.

• 

  Ditto, other side.

Shotgun

Railshot

The Railshot, also referred to as Tau Cannon, Gauss Gun, Altfire, or Charger in the files, is an upgrade for the shotgun that can be installed using the printer. After acquiring this upgrade, you will have a Tau Cannon attached to your shotgun. The Tau Cannon, when charged up, fires very narrow hot particle beams over long distances, making your shotgun more viable during long-range gun fights. You must wait for the Tau cannon to charge before firing each shot and aim very accurately, as the particle beams are very narrow. <add video showcasing .vpcf files>

• 

  The charger_upgrade_attach attachment.

Speedloader

The Speedloader adds an automatic loader to the side of the weapon, which allows you to reload the shotgun much faster.

Grenade Launcher

The Grenade Launcher allows for a Combine grenade or Xen Grenade to be attached to the front of the gun, and also launching from the gun to instantly detonate on impact.

SMG

Stun Grenade Clips

This upgrade allows you to launch stun grenades from your SMG. When a grenade hits the target, an electric sphere will be created. Each enemy caught in this electric sphere will be affected differently. For example, a headcrab will fall on their back and be stunned for about 5 seconds. If the player will be inside the electric sphere, they will lose a little bit of health and be stunned for 5 seconds.

Multi-Tool

• 

  Multi-Tool.

• 

  Multi-Tool Interact Point.

• 

  Seen in playtest footage.

Flashlight

• 

  Flashlight.

Xen Grenade

• 

  Concept art.

Placeable Ladder

Placeable ladders can be used by the player to solve puzzle. The ladder is placed inside their wrist pocket inventory. maps/prefabs/puzzles/ladder_placeable.vmap

It's the end of July 2018, and today, on a hot Seattle summer afternoon, a group of external testers is secretly playing through the lastest build of Half-Life: Alyx on the 14th floor, just off the main lobby.
On this summer afternoon, one tester is particularly crafty. At the time, Alyx featured deployable ladders that a player could move around a level to solve puzzles. But Valve didn't account for this enterprising tester who puts the ladder into their wrist pocket inventory and takes it along to the next level. There, they smartly deploy the ladder and scale a fence, altogether skipping a firefight against the Combine.

— The Final Hours of Half-Life: Alyx

• 

  Placeable Ladder.

Setting

A piece of concept art showcasing distressed apartment buildings of City 17.

With the game set after the Seven Hour War, the overall tone of Yescombe's initial narrative was darker and more somber than previous Half-Life games. Initial levels featured Vorts being rounded up by Combine soldiers and paraded in front of citizens as roadkill, citizens of City 17 nervously shuddering in food ration lines, and a particularly squalid part of City 17 overrun with Xen alien debris. Gone were the bumbling scientists of Black Mesa. In their place were Combine henchmen who ruled over the destitute streets of City 17 with fear and force.

— The Final Hours of Half-Life: Alyx

City 17 appeared in a much worse state compared to Half-Life 2. A lot of areas were overrun by flora and fauna of Xen. Such areas were blocked off by Combine walls or simple fences and were often raided by Combine soldiers in search of vortigaunts. The Combine uses civil workers and combine soldiers equipped with flamethrowers to burn the Xen infestation out.

city 17 stuff combine soldiers combine workers

Backstory

After the events of Half-Life 1 the Combine invades the Earth. Wallace Breen negotiates humanity's surrender and becomes the Earth's administator.

• 

  The model of Wallace Breen.

• 

  Close-up.

• 

  Breen seen in an incomplete version of anti-science.webm SFM video.

The story revolves around the Vault, a prison where the G-Man is being held. The prison was built inside the Quarantine Zone on the outskirts of City 17. To keep the G-Man inside, the Vault requires constant stream of Vortigaunt's power.

The Combine has numerous substasions placed throughout the Quarantine Zone to extract the power of the Vortigaunts and transport it to the Vault. The task of capturing feral Vortigaunts is carried out by a special Combine class — Combine Captains, they have a distinct appeareance, their pauldrons feature a yellow insignia of the Vortigaunt's head. When paired with other soldiers, the Captain acts as the leader of the group, coordinating actions of every other class — Grunts, 'Heavy' soldiers, Suppressors, and Recons.

The Combine uses propaganda to subjagate citizens of City 17 blah blah blah

The main character of the story, Eli Vance, is kept inside his "manor" and is forced to record propaganda videos to subjagate humanity even further. His captor is Hahn, one of the Combine's henchmen, described to have her brain sucked out and replaced by the Combine. She is the main antagonist.

• 

  Hahn.

• 

  Ditto, concept art.

Alyx Vance, the main protagonist, hates to see her father sold out to the Combine and therefore her relationship with him is rough. She lives on the upmost floor of City 17's apartment building near Eli's manor. She appears to be highly respected by the citizens and the Combine workers.
Jozef is a family friend of the Vance family. Despite Eli's best efforts, Alyx often sneaks out of her hideout to meet Jozef. Jozef lives inside a small apartment that has a secret passage to his makeshift lab. His lab is located inside "Brassbound", one of many rundown sections of City 17. Jozef is pretty skilled when it comes to Combine technology. His skills and contents of his lab suggest that he might be a Combine worker. He has access to 6 cameras around City 17 and 2 inside the Quarantine Zone, one of which is placed near Gary's hideout.

• 

  Jozef. A yellow armband printed with the Russian word "ИНТЕНДАНТ" ("INTENDANT", roughly translates to "quartermaster") can be seen on his left arm.

?Did gary even have a name at that time? Another relevant character is Gary. Gary is an injured vortigaunt who escaped the Combine's captivity and lives inside the quarantine zone. Gary sends Alyx messages about the Vault and the G-Man through her dreams. One of these dreams occurs at the very beginning of the game, which appears to be the single main motivator of Alyx's actions of pursuing the Vault.

• 

  The Vort.

Enemies

Xen

Classic Headcrab

• 

  The model.

Poison Headcrab

• 

  The model.

Bloater

• 

  Concept art.

Combine

Metropolice

Metrocops are the Combine's police force used across livable parts of City 17.

• 

  Multi-Tool.

Combine soldier

Both the model from Half-Life 2 and the high-quality model from The Shooter were used on a few storyline maps.

• 

  The model from Half-Life 2.

Workers

Male

• Bob
• Hans
• Kondo
• Aleks

Female

• Fitz
• Galena

• 

  The default model.

Citizens

• franky, garden cits, ?michael?, linda, etc
• a billion of different maps

Plot

Prologue/Chapter 0

Soundscape	Name	Description
	a1_intro_citadel_reveal	This soundscape was supposed to play during the reveal of the Citadel after the Dream sequence. Calming sound of gentle breeze blowing interrupted by loud noise of the under-construction Citadel. Metrocops chattering on the streets below and the Overwatch making public announcement via loudspeakers. Construction noise and the sounds of Construction Striders can be heard in the distance.
	a1_intro_ext_rooftop	This soundscape was supposed to play on the rooftops near Eli's Manor. Sound of stronger breeze blowing interrupted by loud noise of the under-construction Citadel. Metrocops chattering and the Overwatch making public announcement via loudspeakers. Construction noise and the sounds of Construction Striders can be heard in the distance.
	a1_intro_int1	This soundscape was supposed to play inside Eli's Manor. Apart from usual sounds, toned down sounds of Dropships passing nearby and Construction Striders walking in the distance can be heard.
	a1_intro_ext1	This soundscape was supposed to play during the player's exploration of City 17. Calming sound of gentle breeze blowing interrupted by loud noise of the under-construction Citadel. Metrocops chattering and the Overwatch making public announcement via loudspeakers. Construction noise and the sounds of Construction Striders can be heard in the distance.

The Dream

• the respirator
• the g-man room exploding
• the title of the game appears
• Music.IntroDreamTitleCrawl
• maps/a1_intro_world/chapter_title.vmap

Alyx's Hideout

• citadel vista
• portal inhibitor
• talk with eli

Laundry room

• uncle xen walk'n'talk ?? not too much left in the files
• the bakery
• the bicyclists

• 

  The laundromat.

Eli's Manor

• the sfm scene

Greater City 17

• lots of stuff

• 

  The fire station.

• 

  The fire truck.

• 

  Ditto.

• 

  Ditto.

Chapter 1

Soundscape	Name	Description
	a1_intro_02_main	This soundscape was supposed to play at the start of Chapter 2, at Brassbound, the area where Jozef's hideout is located. Noises made by a small and a big rooms can be heard nearby. Metrocops chattering in the distance and the Overwatch making public announcement via loudspeakers. Construction noise and the sounds of Construction Striders can be heard in the distance. The noise of the under-construction Citadel can still be heard.
	a1_lab_ext	This soundscape was supposed to play at the trainyard behind Jozef's hideout. The sounds of shaking chainlink fence and trains passing by can be heard.

Jozef's Hideout/Brassbound

• maps/prefabs/chapter_titles/chapter_title_01.vmap
• a citizen digging through a trash can.
• workers evicting citizens
• the propaganda screen and wires

the lab

• cactus
• music
• autocannon from ep2
• disassembled scanner
• gravity gloves
• propaganda posters
• the train

Chapter 2

Quarantine entrance

Chapter 2

• maps/prefabs/chapter_titles/chapter_title_02.vmap
• maps/personal/jasonb/a2_quarantine_entrance_jb_xenpass.vmap
• maps/personal/jim/a2_quarantine_entrance_test.vmap
• propaganda 01
• skybox new vs old

• 

  The skybox.

Chapter 3

Vort hideout

• maps/prefabs/chapter_titles/chapter_title_03.vmap
• maps/personal/a2_hideout_revision.vmap
• maps/personal/jim/a2_hideout_revision.vmap

• 

  The Vort.

• 

  The skybox.

Headcrabs Tunnel

Flashlight, shotgun??

• 

  The skybox.

Chapter 4

Metro station

Chapter 4

• maps/prefabs/chapter_titles/chapter_title_04.vmap

Chapter 5

Hotel

• maps/prefabs/chapter_titles/chapter_title_05.vmap
• maps/personal/robbr/a3_hotel_lobby_basement_vertex_test.vmap
• the substation stuff
• propaganda 02 (combine recon is referenced)

• 

  Concept art for the Xen reviver plant.

• 

  Concept art of the lounge. The piano can be seen.

• 

  The lounge seen on the preview image of Chapter 5.

• 

  Concept art of a corridor.

• 
• 
• 
• 

Street+Tenements

• Tripmines?

Chapter 6

Processing Plant

• maps/prefabs/chapter_titles/chapter_title_06.vmap
• Worker Aleks and his shotgun. shotgun_intro.vmap
• The construction site puzzle+battle with a grunt and an ordinal
• propaganda 03?

• 

  The construction site near the Distillery.

• 

  The skybox.

• 

  Ditto, full view.

Chapter 7

Distillery

• maps/prefabs/chapter_titles/chapter_title_07.vmap
• maps/prefabs/entities/blind_zombie_freight_elevator.vmap
• maps/personal/brame/distillery_test01.vmap
• maps/personal/brame/distillery_test02.vmap
• A lot of stuff
• portals??
• The fight between the blind zombie and antlions.

PlayerDamage.BZ_Tentacle =

   {
       type = "src1_2d"
       volume = 1.000000
       mixgroup = "Player"
       vsnd_files = 
       [
           "sounds/player/damage/claw_01.vsnd",
           "sounds/player/damage/claw_02.vsnd",
           "sounds/player/damage/claw_03.vsnd",
       ]
   }

• 

  The skybox seen from the courtyard.

• 

  Ditto.

• 

  Ditto, full view.

• 

  Concept art of the Blind Zombie.

• 

  The sculpt of the Blind Zombie.

Chapter 8

Soundscape	Name	Description
	a4_c17_antlions_start	This soundscape was supposed to play at the start of Chapter 8. Water dripping and rubble falling nearby along with various squeaks and creeks echoing. Creepy low tone sounds are constantly repeating.
	a4_c17_antlions_spillway_ext	This soundscape was supposed to play near some spillway. Despite a calming gentle breeze, the noises of Antlions are interrupting the calm atmosphere.
	a4_c17_antlions_int_ext_transition	This soundscape was supposed to play between the start of the level and the spillway. A mix of soundscapes descripted above.
	a4_c17_ext_base	This soundscape was supposed to play at outdoor locations of the level. Industrial noise muffled by the blowing wind. Falling rubble can be heard nearby.
	a4_c17_antlions_ext_city	This soundscape was supposed to play at outdoor locations of the level. Industrial noise muffled by the blowing wind. Falling rubble and Antlion noises can be heard nearby.
	a4_c17_antlions_main_02	The second version of the main soundscape, since the first one was rewritten to be used in the final version of the level. This soundscape was supposed to play at a location with 2 different rooms: a big room leading outdoors and a small room infested with Xen creatures.

Antlion tunnels

• maps/prefabs/chapter_titles/chapter_title_08.vmap
• maps/personal/jim/a4_c17_antlions.vmap
  • maps/personal/jasonb/a4_c17_antlions_intro_jbxenpass_v3.vmap
  • maps/personal/jasonb/a4_c17_antlions_intro_jbxenpass_v3_deadblendtest001.vmap
• maps/personal/jim/a4_c17_antlions_2.vmap
  • maps/personal/bradk/c17/zoo_c17_testmap_alley.vmap
  • maps/personal/jasonb/a4_c17_antlions_courtyard_jbartpass.vmap
• Antlions jumping out of xen portals
  • maps/personal/bradk/c17/zoo_c17_antlion_portals.vmap
  • maps/prefabs/entities/xen_portal_vehicle.vmap
  • maps/prefabs/entities/xen_portal_antlion_combine_fight.vmap
• combine building eater ?

• 

  The skybox.

Parking garage

The parking garage located directly under the Vault, the final location before meeting the G-Man. Combine soldiers stationed here are having trouble dealing with antlions.

• Eli's final message
• Strider pinned down by elevator
• hl2 cars
• xen tentacle
• antlion eggs
• fuse holder puzzle
• combine soldiers:
• combine grunt
• combine captain
• combine recon
• combine heavy
• hl2 combine soldier

Leftovers

A trigger_once can be found on the final verison of the map, right above the hole in the floor. This trigger_once calls for the prefab_eli_screen entity. This suggests that the player was meant to see Eli's last message in this area.

• 

Chapter 9

The Vault

• maps/prefabs/chapter_titles/chapter_title_09.vmap
• maps
  • maps/a5_vault/manor_ending.vmap
  • maps/a5_vault/manor_ending_choreo.vmap
  • maps/a5_vault/refuge.vmap
  • maps/a5_vault/hideout.vmap
  • maps/a5_vault/jozef.vmap
  • maps/a5_vault/lobby.vmap
  • maps/a5_vault/innervault.vmap ?
  • maps/a5_vault/outervault.vmap ?
• teleporting to different locations such as Alyx's hideout, Jozef's hideout, Gary's hideout, Eli's manor.
• kill 2 combine soldiers, destroy a combine scanner, kill Hahn, give Eli a card from G-Man. The End.

Aftermath

Throughout the summer and fall of 2018, the development team began testing the game in more depth with the hopes of getting it ready to ship in the first half of 2019 alongside the Valve Index headset. When December rolled around, the team prepared for the first company-wide playtest. When the holiday season started, every employee took home an in-development Index headset and had to submit their feedback on Half-Life: Alyx across four core pillars of the game: story, gameplay, aesthetics, and performance. Gameplay, aesthetics, and performance received high praises, but the story received negative feedback. Playtesters scored the story at lowest level of any game in Valve history.

The story ended up feeling a lot like a Zack Snyder DC film versus a Marvel movie. It was dark, serious, and laborious.

— Mike Morasky

I am so lonely playing this game.

— Matt Scott

They hired a writer [Rob Yescombe] at Valve, and he was working on story, and they had a whole game based around this story. I mean, it wasn't finished, but it was finished enough that you could play it. They started playtesting it with the whole company and the feedback was: "You know, all of this is great, but doesn't seem like the story is working".

— Erik Wolpaw

We all had pretty strong feelings about the story. Getting that feedback from the rest of the company was validating.

— Corey Peters

It was hard to feel confident about where the game was headed after the company-wide playtest results.

— Jason Mitchell

A lot of the story was loaded into the first two levels of the game back then.

— Bram Eulers

Half-Life had always been a little tongue-in-cheek with action moments offset by Star Wars-style humor. But Alyx was downright bleak, with themes of horror, dread, and torture, and long stretches of no narrative at all.

— The Final Hours of Half-Life: Alyx

The negative feedback came at a rough time for Valve. A month earlier, in November of 2018, Valve released Artifact, a card game set in Dota universe. The game received major backlash, many people were blaming Valve for releasing such a mediocre game instead of Episode 3 or Half-Life 3. It became obvious that if Valve was to release Half-Life: Alyx in its current state, it might not be received well.

Developers feared that after almost 3 years of work Half-Life: Alyx will not leave the Valve office, sharing the fate of many other projects.

On January 7, 2019 Robin Walker and Greg Coomer have convoked the entire Half-Life: Alyx team to discuss the state of the game and the results of the playtest.

Standing in front of the 80-person-strong group, Walker realizes how the project had grown from its roots as a 4-person prototype in February 2016. Alyx is now the largest team in the history of Valve — a risky proposition for a VR-only game that carrier the added weight of being the first Half-Life in over a decade.

Addressing the room, Walker says the response to the playtest has been incredible overall: the sense of immersion in City 17 is off the charts, as is the fun of the minute to minute gameplay. But there are problems, he says. Namely, the story and narrative just aren't working — and the company wide-playtest confrimed as much.

"We're going to ask these three guys to figure it out for us," Walker says, as he gestures over to writers Erik Wolpaw and Jay Pinkerton, known as two-thirds of the iconic writing trio on Portal 2, and Sean Vanaman, a writer who joined Valve in the Spring of 2018 when it acquired his company, Campo Santo.

— The Final Hours of Half-Life: Alyx

After this meeting it became clear that Valve will not cancel the game, but change major aspects of it. The game enters a new phase of development.

Sources

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HLA - Eras

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