Half-Life Alyx Campaign Now Fully Playable in Non-VR Through The Half-Life Alyx NoVR Mod

The team behind the Half-Life Alyx NoVR mod has succeeded in making the entire campaign of the VR game playable without VR.

Yes, you heard that right. Alyx is of course meant as a VR-only experience, and as such the gameplay mechanics have been completely centered around VR, complete with the iconic Gravity Gloves, and more. Ever since the release of Half-Life Alyx in 2020, various modders have been working on ways to play Valve's VR title without the need for a VR headset.

One of the easiest ways to play Alyx in non-VR might be the Half-Life Alyx NoVR mod from 'The “GB_2 Development Team'. Over the past year, the team has been working hard to make optimize the game to be played in a non-VR style, and some hours ago, the team released its third mod update which allows the game's campaign to be played from start to finish. Currently, this is still an early-access release, but the team has promised that a full release is planned to be released in the near future.

Today's update is the biggest one to date for this project and includes updates to the Gravity Gloves, which can now grab any object from afar. Also new with this update are various stability fixes, additional support for other mods, and the addition of more achievements. In addition, wooden planks in the game can now be broken off doors and doorways by pressing the "E" button. The movement speed in Alyx has been lowered, and proper footstep sounds have been added. Another nice addition included with this latest update are fully functional combine fabricators.

As for weapon upgrades, a total of three upgrades can now be selected for all 3 weapons.

We've included a video of this mod in action below. We do have to mention that this 46-minute-long video does contain spoilers for those who haven't played Alyx just yet.

There's a lot more information about this mod to be found in the Half-Life Alyx NoVR FAQ that the team created. This document contains information about how to install and use the mod. Also, it contains a list of known issues, workarounds, and bugs.

According to the team, there's still plenty of work to be done for the first 1.0 full release of the NoVR mod, and the list of changes and additions coming throughout this year includes more achievements, animations, further weapon upgrades, updated environment interaction, changes to the HUD, and more.

The Half-Life Alyx NoVR mod can be downloaded via ModDB right here.

Written by Aernout van de Velde