Valve knows that people want a VR-less Half-Life Alyx mod experience and though they warned that it won’t turn out the way fans want because the immersion is a vital part of the story, the publisher did mention that they are at peace knowing that these mods will come. That day is now available because there is now a VR-less Half-Life Alyx mod available to those that don’t mind a few design bumps along the way. 

Playing Half-Life Alyx With No VR

The Half-Life Alyx No VR mod is available now, for free, for PC players thanks to GitHub. The creator mentions in their description for this mod that players will need to have SteamVR and TrueOpenVR installed and from there, they will need to open up the SteamVR state window. From there, players will go to the Setup Room option, then the Small Room option, then Calibrate, and then set the ration to 170cm. The modder also mentions that players must add launch options. 

In regards to the Steam files, they also mention that players will need to go to the game’s properties and interact with the launch options to enter the following code: 

• +vr_gg_gestture_pull 0
• For a shortcut: in Shortcut Properties add C:\Games\Half-Life Aly\bin\win64\hlvr.exe and then: +vr_gg_gesture_pull 0 

There are a few more steps players must go through before experiencing Half Life Alyx without VR, but you can learn all about that – as well as how to download the mod – right here through GitHub.

But just because there are mods doesn’t mean that these mods will accomplish what fans want it to. In fact, Alyx programmer Robin Walker recently opened up about the desire for a VR-less Half-Life Alyx experience and how he thinks the reception will go: “As a result, what I’m confident will happen is that when people get that butchered version, and they’ll have lost all the things that we’ll have got from moving to VR, they will then understand very clearly why we made that choice,” he told fans in a recent interview. “There’s a part of me that’s eager for people to be able to have that experience and realise, oh, now I get it. Now I see everything we lost in that transition back to non-VR and I understand why they did it.”

Luckily, most mod fans are no stranger to weird configuration bugs and tampered expectations so if someone was truly, truly hungry for Half-Life Alyx, the issues raised may not be that big of a concern for fans. That being said, for new modders it’s important to realize that this was not how the game was created and therefore it won’t be the same experience that VR players have. Please keep that in mind before dropping those game reviews. 

With VR or without VR, Half Life Alyx is available now exclusively through Steam on PC. Thoughts on the mod takes and Valve’s decision for the future of the franchise? Hit us up over on Twitter @PrimaGames!