You can play Half-Life Alyx without a VR headset using the NoVR mod. With this mod, the game will play like a traditional Half-Life game, allowing you to enjoy the story without requiring additional hardware. Of course, since the game was designed around VR, some of the gameplay will be lost in translation, but you can complete it from start to finish and even earn most of the achievements in 2D.
How to use the Half-Life Alyx NoVR mod to play the game without a VR headset
To play Half-Life Alyx without a VR headset, you need to install the NoVR mod. To do so:
- Open a browser and head to the mod’s GitHub page.
- Click on the green “Code” button in the upper right portion of the page.
- In the popup, select “Download ZIP.”
- Extract the downloaded file into a temporary folder.
- Copy the “game” folder into the Half-Life Alyx root folder, overwriting any files as needed.
- In your Steam Library, right-click on the entry for Half-Life Alyx and access the game’s Properties.
- Under the General tab, paste the following into Launch Options:
-novr -vsync.
Now, you can launch the game and play it in 2D. For information on how to change the game’s resolution and what the keybinds are, check out the official FAQ document from the mod team.
