The Audio of Half-Life: Alyx from Level with Emily

Half-Life: Alyx is a 2020 virtual reality (VR) first-person shooter developed and published by Valve. It was released for Windows in March 2020 and Linux in May 2020, with support for most PC-compatible VR headsets.

 

In June 2018, we began interviewing five of the people responsible for audio in Half-Life: Alyx from Valve Corporation. Listen to it (here)!

The Audio in Half-Life: Alyx introduces you to each person involved in the creation of sounds in the game, and highlights their individual roles for bringing the game to life.

Mike Morasky

Mike Morasky wrote the music for Half-Life: Alyx.

Roland Shaw

Roland Shaw made audio for the creatures and monsters, and for all of the physics objects like matchboxes and lockers and footsteps.

Dave Feise

Dave Feise did the ambiences, UI sounds, and some of the tools like the Combine fabricator and the hacking puzzles.

Emily Ridgway

Emily Ridgway wrote and processed the dialog from the Combine soldiers, and designed the speakers that float alongside a player’s ears on Valve’s VR Index headset.

Lakulish Antani co-invented Steam Audio, a tool for game developers to make environments and the objects in them react with realistic sound.

All of the source audio for this documentary is available to patrons of Level with Emily. The source audio includes seven interviews with Mike Morasky, four interviews with Roland Shaw, four interviews with Dave Feise, three interviews with Emily Ridgway and three interviews with Lakulish Antani.

Level with Emily Reese would like to thank Mike Morasky for this incredible opportunity and experience, and to Lakulish Antani, Dave Feise, Emily Ridgway, and Roland Shaw for the conversations, and to Valve for allowing it all to happen.
Thank you to Nick Marinelli for transcription, to Nick and Chase Bethea for their feedback, and to producer Sam Keenan.

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