Now your VR headset is beer goggles
Half-Life: Alyxis full of a million tiny little touches that make it a splendidly neat VR game. You can wear a bucket on your head and it protects you from Barnacles. There’s afully-functioning pianoin a hotel lobby. It’s all a bunch of stuff that’s easy to miss but makes this world feel authentic.
Valve just released a newHalf-Life: Alyxupdate that comes with an especially important innovation: Booze convincingly sloshes around inside bottles. Visual effects developer Matthew Wilde took to Twitter to show off his pet project, saying that he spent a lot of the past two months at home working on “boozy liquid shader.” Here it is in action:
Spent a good chunk of lock-down doing this important work. Boozy liquid shader, now available in the latest update for Half-Life: Alyxpic.twitter.com/Iw9h98pmEg
— Matthew Wilde (@skilful)June 07, 2025
Necessary? Nope. Extremely cool? Yep, definitely.
Considering thatHalf-Life: Alyxhas a whole chapter that takes place in a vodka distillery, this new shader should be noticed by most everyone who returns to City 17. Previously, bottles just had a cloudy look to them, like you could tell they were full but without ever actually seeing the liquid. Don’t get too distracted by this new alcoholic aesthetic; that asshole Jeff will find you if you’re not willing to break a few bottles.
