Half-Life: Alyx

Half-Life: Alyx is a 2020 virtual reality first-person shooter developed and published by Valve Software. The highly anticipated continuation of the acclaimed Half-Life series, Half-Life: Alyx was designed to be the flagship title for Valve's own VR headset, the Index. 
Set five years before the events of Half-Life 2, players control 19-year-old Alyx Vance, a member of the fledging resistance force against the interdimensional Combine Empire that have occupied Earth. Operating in City 17 somewhere in Eastern Europe, Alyx and her allies discover that the Combine are hiding something mysterious and very powerful within the city, sending Alyx on a journey to find a weapon that could tip the scales in the battle for Earth. 
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==Para-Ordnance LDA==
A modified Para-Ordnance LDA appears as the first firearm obtainable; due to the nature of the game, it has no direct name, though the weapon's markings indicate that the pistol is a "Le Clarion" (French for "The Bugle") manufactured by "Gantrty Mfg. Co." as part of "Series AA Europa". By default, it is fitted with a muzzle brake, as well as a set of aftermarket illuminated sights, and grips similar to those of a Kimber Warrior with an electronic ammo counter in the left panel. The LDA has four upgrades (a reflex sight, a conversion from semi-auto to a selectable 3-round burst mode, a "bullet reservoir" that doubles the capacity from 10 rounds to 20 with a strange device mounted to the right side that loads itself by rounds out of a loaded magazine through the ejection port, and a laser sight); these upgrades ultimately make it resemble (and, lore-wise, presumably making it into) Alyx Vance's pistol from Half-Life 2. One of the bonuses included with a pre-order of Alyx was a set of alternate weapon skins; the LDA's consisted of a blued finish with wooden grips.
==Generic Revolver==
A sign seen at the beginning of Chapter 4 displays several items that are prohibited on the now-abandoned subway system, with a silhouette of a somewhat generic, vaguely S&W-ish revolver among them. It should be noted that signs explictly forbidding firearms are seldom seen in European metro systems.
=="RATEL" Shotgun==
The second weapon Alyx can acquire, the game's shotgun is a fictitious design vaguely reminiscent of the Techno Arms MAG-7, with an AK-esque receiver and a Franchi SPAS-12-esque barrel, magazine tube, and set of iron sights. It is semi-automatic, with a capacity of 6+1 12-gauge shells; it is reloaded by breaking open the receiver and loading shells directly into the magazine tube, in a manner possibly inspired by the Cosmi Lusso, albeit with a traditional underbarrel magazine tube instead of one in the stock. It is marked with the logo of the fictitious "RATEL" brand, and features markings implying Combine ownership (which lines up with it being taken from a dead Combine worker); accordingly, Combine Chargers carry a modified version, with a longer barrel and magazine tube, a heat shield, no stock or trigger guard, and a variety of large, bulky modifications to the front end, including what appears to be a drum magazine of some sort.
Like the LDA, the Shotgun features an alternate pre-order bonus skin, in this case a cleaner satin-nickel finish with a textured black pistol grip; also like the LDA, it features 4 optional upgrades - a laser sight (which blocks the irons, and projects a circle that shows the size of the weapon's spread), a "Double Shot" upgrade that gives it a SPAS-12's heat shield and a set of indicator lights, somehow allowing the weapon to fire two shots in rapid succession (in a manner reminiscent of the "fire both barrels" option from the prior games' actual SPAS-12s, though the two rounds are fired neither simultaneously nor in a quick burst - the mechanical delay between the first and second shots is simply cut down to almost nothing), an "Autoloader" that holds 6 extra shells on the side of the weapon, and automatically loads them into the magazine tube whenever it is opened, and a grenade launcher that fires entire hand grenades (somehow converting them from timer-based to impact-based detonation; oddly, though the manner in which they are fired suggests that this is supposed to work like a bullet-trap rifle grenade launcher, firing grenades neither consumes nor requires shotgun shells).
=="Pulse SMG"==
The third and final weapon Alyx acquires (aside from hand grenades) is the "Pulse SMG"; it doesn't appear to be based on anything real, and is seemingly meant as a smaller (and earlier) version of the Combine "Pulse Rifle" seen in Half-Life 2. Like that weapon, it is loaded with small "plugs" which each constitute 30 shots' worth of ammunition/power; however, its behavior is somewhere between a conventional firearm and an energy weapon (with sounds and visual effects similar to both), unlike the clearly-meant-as-a-firearm Pulse Rifle. As with HL:A's other weapons, it lacks a stock or forend, and is thus held like a pistol; Combine soldiers, however, hold it by the barrel shroud instead.
The weapon has 3 upgrades: a "Reflex Sight" (which is, like the LDA's, entirely holographic), a laser sight, and an "Extended Magazine"; the latter makes the weapon behave a bit more like its HL2 counterpart, with 3 "plugs" held in reserve (in addition to the one in the "chamber") and loaded automatically when the current one runs dry. Combine-wielded Pulse SMGs all feature this upgrade, though none ever feature any others. Interestingly, this upgrade also adds what appears to be a second barrel below the first; the fact that this component is missing from the extended-magged SMGs used by Combine troops, coupled with the fact that the SMG only has 3 upgrades instead of the other guns' 4, and the fact that HL2's Pulse Rifle had a similar second barrel that fired Dark Energy Orbs, all suggest that a similar launcher was planned as an upgrade for the SMG, but later cut for unknown reasons.
==="Pulse Rifle"===
Combine Soldiers use a larger, rifle-configured variant of the SMG, essentially identical to the "Overwatch Standard-Issue Pulse Rifle" from Half-Life 2; no player-usable counterpart is available.
==Suppressor Machine Gun==
Combine Suppressors wield a fictional machine gun with no player-usable counterpart; it is held similarly to the modified M134 Minigun seen in Predator, with a Lewis Gun-based barrel shroud and a large carrying handle vaguely reminiscent of the CETME Ameli. Interestingly, while the sound effects and noticeable pause before firing suggest a Gatling-type design (the weapon often being referred to as the "Pulse Minigun"), it seemingly has only one barrel, implying that the "spin-up" is actually some form of energy-related mechanic.
==Grenade==
The game's hand grenades are a completely fictitious design, bearing more resemblance to a tape measure than any sort of grenade; instead of a conventional pin or pull-cord, they are activated with a push of a button. Like the Mark 3-based "M83" grenades in HL2, they feature a flashing red LED and a beeping speaker that activate when the grenade is armed; the blinking and beeping gradually speed up as the grenade's fuse burns down.
==Mark 19 Grenade Launcher==
The Strider battle at the end of "Breaking and Entering" is finished via a large Combine-manufactured repeating cannon; this appears to be more or less an oversized Mk 19 Grenade Launcher with some Combine embellishments. Unlike the actual Mark 19, the Combine weapon is manually-operated; running the charging handle cycles the action, and fires a shot whenever said action is closed.
Category:Video Game
Category:First-Person Shooter
Category:Science-Fiction
Category:Zombie
Category:VR