Half-Life: Alyx

In the end, Half-Life: Alyx is a watershed moment for VR gaming, just like how its predecessors were for the first person shooter genre as a whole. It can be an unbelievably scary game at times, thanks to its level, and enemy design, and eerie music, or it can be an excellent shooter, thanks to its solid combat and decent yet effective customization options.

The format still has its shortcomings and likely always will, but with Half-Life: Alyx, it’s very close to realizing its full potential. If you think back to the first time that you visualized what VR would look like and feel like, then you probably envisioned something very similar to what Half-Life: Alyx has to offer. It’s immersive, exciting, terrifying, and exhilarating – everything that you would hope for a virtually reality game to be.

More than anything, the game is a love letter to Half-Life, and there's a real danger the ending will melt the brain of any hardcore fans into just a pile of happy goo. I won't say more than that, but after everything Alyx and I had been through the ending was just as spectacular as it needed to be to honor our adventure. At one point it was the closest a game has ever got to replicating that feeling of being trapped in a dream, where you're trying to get somewhere but the normal rules don't apply. That will stay with me for a long time.