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Valve leaks secrets regarding the upcoming episodic trilogy

The three episodes will finally shed light on the world of City 17 and the cataclysmic accident at Black Mesa. "Some stuff that's been a mystery from the beginning will be resolved, so you'll learn a lot about the characters and the history of the world. There's also going to be surprises," confirms Newell, with a sharp glint in his eye.

In another pleasing move, Episode One sees Alyx stay by your side for the entire adventure. Fortunately, though, the developer has moved away from the clumsy team-play command system of Half-Life 2, which made organizing your band of citizen warriors a headache.

"It's the wrong direction to go in - it's like the cutscene of artificial intelligence," adds Newell. "We've developed the AI in Alyx's character enough that you can trust her, and depend on her, during the game. We've reached that point where putting a player into this co-op situation is fun and new, not frustrating and, like, 'I'm doomed now!'"

"Alyx has a really good understanding of what you and her are trying to achieve," points out Walker. "She makes really good tactical decisions. She's aware of what you're up to and she takes a lot of cues from you - if you flip over an Antlion with the grav gun, she's aware that it's causing problems and she'll take it out before anything else."

Ben_Richardson

Ben Richardson is a former Staff Writer for Official PlayStation 2 magazine and a former Content Editor of GamesRadar+. In the years since Ben left GR, he has worked as a columnist, communications officer, charity coach, and podcast host – but we still look back to his news stories from time to time, they are a window into a different era of video games.