Today Valve released the official Half-Life: Alyx soundtrack on Steam today. You might think it's a joke, but it's not: the first chapter, titled "Entanglement," contains nine tracks in 320K MP3 and FLAC formats, alternating between "abstract environments, emotional soundscapes, and direct action-oriented cues, industrial, The 10 tracks will feature "electronic, experimental, and orchestral cinematic works.

"Today we are releasing the first chapter; Entanglement contains nine tracks in both MP3 (320K) and FLAC formats. Steam will be releasing the soundtrack for all 11 chapters over the next few months. When you purchase the soundtrack, it will be updated with each release and new chapters will be automatically added to your Steam library."

Here's the obvious joke: I look forward to hearing Chapter 2 in a few weeks and then hearing rumors about why Chapter 3 never materialized all these years later. But we must also acknowledge Half-Life: there is already music that Alyx will actually release and that will eventually make up the soundtrack."

Half-Life: Alyx's soundtrack is available on Steam for $10/£7/€8 and streaming on Spotify. An interesting blend: "Construction Slider" is 26 seconds of sustained chords, while "Coetaneous Entanglement" is eight and a half minutes of ambient sounds, industrial buzzing, and occasional rhythmic fragments. Thirty Seven After Six, a slow, short piano piece, is the most orthodox of the bunch, but still far from danceable.

None of this is meant to be a complaint: game soundtracks are often a mix of different styles and genres; the first chapter of Half-Life: Alyx's soundtrack runs a little over 21 minutes, and if this spans all 11 chapters... Well, that's quite a few minutes, and even soundtrack enthusiasts who don't own a VR headset can get their hands on this one: Valve changed the way it sells game music on Steam earlier this year, so you no longer need to own the game to purchase the soundtrack.