In a nutshell: The bad news? This is not Half-Life 3. The good news? It's still a full game that's about as long as Half-Life 2 and you won't have to have Valve's own VR hardware to play it (but you will need some sort of VR headset).

Valve earlier this week confirmed the existence of a new Half-Life game. The developer described Half-Life: Alyx as its flagship VR title and promised to unveil it to the world on Thursday. Right on schedule, Valve dropped the official announcement trailer on YouTube for all to enjoy.

Set between the events of Half-Life and Half-Life 2, you'll play as Alyx Vance - humanity's only chance for survival against a dangerous alien race known as the Combine.

Valve said the experience has been built from the ground up for VR and "features all of the hallmarks of a classic Half-Life game: world exploration, puzzle solving, visceral combat and an intricately woven story that connects it all with the characters iconic to the Half-Life universe."

At a minimum, you'll need a Windows 10 PC running at least an Intel Core i5-7500 / AMD Ryzen 5 1600 CPU, 12GB of RAM and an Nvidia GTX 1060 / AMD Radeon RX 580 - 6GB VRAM GPU. Recommended system specs haven't yet been revealed.

The gameplay shown in the trailer looks incredibly smooth and best yet, you'll be able to play using a wide variety of VR hardware including the HTC Vive, Windows Mixed Reality headsets, an Oculus Rift, an Oculus Quest with PC and Link Cable and of course, the Valve Index.

Half-Life: Alyx carries a tentative launch date of March 2020 and is available to pre-purchase from today priced at $53.99.