You can now play Half-Life: Alyx from start to finish without a VR headset

[Cal Jeffrey]

Meh, we can't be bothered: In 2007, Valve released Half-Life 2: Episode 2. The second act of the announced three-part episodic adventure ended with a massive cliffhanger, which Valve never resolved. Many considered it a slap in the face to fans that still brings up bitter feelings when mentioned in forums.

Although Valve clearly has no intentions of revisiting the Half-Life 2 story to tie up loose ends, it finally at least tossed fans a bone after a 13-year hiatus when it released Half-Life: Alyx in 2020. Make no mistake; the game is an excellent entry in the long-neglected series – so long as you own a capable VR rig.

The fact that Alyx shipped without a non-VR mode was a thorn in the side of many who love the franchise but have no desire to play VR games. Of course, Valve's response to such complaints was the same tone-deaf silence it has always had since those Episode 2 days of 2007 and beyond.

Fortunately, Valve has never had any problems with players modding the heck out of its IPs. With this in mind, a small group of modders called "GB_2 Development Team," or just GB2 for short, set out to make a non-VR version of Half-Life: Alyx.

The project, dubbed "Half-Life: Alyx No VR," has been in production for the last two years and went into Early Access on March 28. It was missing some key features and a few chapters of the story. However, an update GB2 launched over the Easter weekend brought the game to a fully playable state from beginning to end.

Other features that came with the update include functioning gravity gloves, fabricators, and more. The team also got 33 of the 42 Steam achievements working. It says that the last nine refuse to trigger because of the workarounds it had to use to get the gravity gloves and other features functioning. It has not given up on adding those last few achievements but needs more time to figure out how to work around the workarounds.

Although it is not the only non-VR mod available, it does appear to be one of the easiest to implement. Others can require specialized drivers and some fiddling to get to work. The developers claim that one only needs to copy and paste the No VR mod folders into Half-Life: Alyx's install location. Yep. That is all. We haven't gotten a chance to try it, but if you have, let us know what you think about it in the comments. You can download the files from Mod DB.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/98263-you-can-now-play-half-life-alyx-start.html

 

[Kotters]

There's really no point to playing it flat. Just watch a playthrough, you'll have a better experience.

 

[Athlonite]

Meh Valve lost me when they left me hanging I'll not buy another of their games just to have the same **** happen twice
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

 

[scavengerspc]

We can, but it doesn't mean we should. If you have a headset and haven't played it yet, play it VR.

 

[Puiu]

VR is definitely the way to play this title

 

[trgz]

HL:A was the first VR title to actually have me standing up to play (sometimes for hours) - very few VR shooters/adventures feel as right as it does. That said, a 'flat' experience is intriguing.

 

[PurpleYoda]

I wish I could play this in VR but at that point it would have to be their VR headset and I do not have £1k laying around so I think this is great. Valve will still make money off of me but I will play it the same way as previous titles which is ok by me. Thx for the news!

 

[Burty117]

Would be cool if Valve ported it to the PS5.

 

[scavengerspc]

I wish I could play this in VR but at that point it would have to be their VR headset and I do not have £1k laying around so I think this is great. Valve will still make money off of me but I will play it the same way as previous titles which is ok by me. Thx for the news!

I still use my 5-year-old Samsung HMD Odyssey+ and it played HL Alex perfectly.

 

[MakeMSGreatAgain]

Not having a desire to play VR is only one reason... some CAN'T play VR for health reasons, or because they can't afford the faster-ish gaming rig to handle it. Granted, a gaming rig that can play newer games can likely play VR as well without issue, as VR games tend to be intentionally less graphically demanding. While I personally love VR and have been playing it since 2019, I respect those who don't or can't love it. I really don't understand why Valve, in a lot a ways, shot off most of their toes on their feet here by not giving; a what I assume is a much higher percentage of HL fans who have absolutely paid for the non-VR version of the game.

I understand and even agree with Valve's frankly pathetic response, but I don't think it is acceptable or even advantageous to ignore (I'm guessing) 90% of your customer base - it just makes no sense from a business perspective. Also while I understand the hate on Valve because of this, I think you should still have some respect for them because they are allowing and even encouraging a modding community on their games - and that is something we don't see often. I'm blown away that modders have made this a non-VR game, and I'm blown away modders have made old HL-2 VR capable. That is just freaking sweet and I love both Valve and the modders for allowing and making it happen.

THIS is the open, freedom based tech world we want to live in - and if Valve had at a minimum, just changed their wording to not be so snobbish about the superior immersive-ness of VR, and just said something like "hey we really want to focus on VR as it has become our passion. We simply don't have the labor and funding available to make both a VR and non-VR game. We want our customers to enjoy VR Alyx if they can, but at the same time support and encourage the modding community to make a non-VR version of our game." - then everyone would have been much, much happier I think.

 

[MakeMSGreatAgain]

I still use my 5-year-old Samsung HMD Odyssey+ and it played HL Alex perfectly.

I played it on my Oculus Rift... also about 5-6 years old. It was an excellent experience and it is definitely replayable.

 

[MakeMSGreatAgain]

To those who think they can't afford VR... if you have a nVidia 1080 or newer card you can probably get into it for cheap. You can get some older VR headsets for $300 or less, especially used (You can find Oculus Rift's on ebay for $150). Hell I played VR on a nVidia 780GTX for a year before I upgraded to a 2060, and I was able to play a lot of stuff just fine. AND I'm still on a 10 year old Intel i7 4770K, have had no problems at all with VR games. The only games I can't do are like the new MS Flight Sim, but I can't do that well in 1080p monitor either.