Half-Life: Alyx

Half-Life: Alyx

Developers
	Valve Corporation
Engines
	Source 2
Release dates
Windows	March 23, 2020
Linux	May 15, 2020
Reception
Metacritic	93
OpenCritic	92
IGDB	93
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	First-person
Controls	Gestures, Point and select
Genres	Shooter
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	Eastern Europe, Horror, Post-apocalyptic, Sci-fi
Series	Half-Life

Warnings

This game requires a virtual reality headset (see VR support for details).

Half-Life: Alyx is a singleplayer first-person shooter game developed and published by Valve. It is part of the Half-Life series.

The game was released on Steam on March 23, 2020.

General information

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Steam

All versions require Steam DRM.

The game is also bundled with Valve Index (headset only, full set, or just controllers) units indefinitely.

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Use -novid command line argument

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\game\hlvr\cfg\ <path-to-game>\game\hlvr\SAVE\S*\personal.cfg <path-to-game>\game\hlvr\SAVE\s*\personal.cfg
Linux

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\game\hlvr\SAVE\S*\ <path-to-game>\game\hlvr\SAVE\s*\
Linux

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
Steam Cloud		Saves and some settings.

Video

Performance Options

This game requires a virtual reality headset (see VR support for details).

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution
4K Ultra HD
Windowed		See Spectator window resolution.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		Configuration files suggest texture filtering is being used. However, there is no in-game option that allows adjusting this setting.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		No in-game options, and always enabled by default. See Anti-aliasing (AA).
Vertical sync (Vsync)		Forced on, cannot be toggled.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		Frame rate is capped at headset's refresh rate.

Anti-aliasing (AA)

Use launch parameters to adjust anti-aliasing setting.

See Command line arguments. Add -console -vconsole +vr_msaa x, while replacing "x" with the desired MSAA sample count (or "0" to disable MSAA entirely). By default, the game uses 4X MSAA. As an alternative, "+vr_fxaa 1" can be used to enable FXAA (Alongside "+vr_msaa 0") if a cheaper anti-aliasing solution is desired. If the -console and -vconsole launch parameters are already being used, there is no need to add those launch parameters again.

Disable volumetric fog

Use launch parameters to adjust volumetric fog setting.
See Command line arguments. Add -console -vconsole +volume_fog_disable 1 to disable volumetric fog. By default, volumetric fog is enabled, but this tweak can be used to disable it, for the possibility of increased performance. If the -console and -vconsole launch parameters are already being used, there is no need to add those launch parameters again.

Disable dynamic resolution scaling

Use launch parameters to adjust resolution settings.
See Command line arguments. Add -console -vconsole +vr_fidelity_level_auto 0 +vr_fidelity_level 3 to disable dynamic resolution scaling, and set the rendering resolution to the headset's native screen resolution. If the -console and -vconsole launch parameters are already being used, there is no need to add those launch parameters again.

Spectator window resolution

Use launch parameters to adjust the spectator window resolution.

See Command line arguments. Add -w <width> -h <height> to adjust the spectator window resolution, replacing <width> with the horizontal resolution, and <height> with the vertical resolution. This does not affect the internal game resolution, and will crop/scale the in-game view based on the width and height of the window -window can be used alongside this to force the spectator window into windowed mode. -fullscreen can be used to force the spectator window into fullscreen mode. Alternatively, the spectator window can be disabled entirely using -nowindow.

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		Uses SteamVR Input 2.0, which allows specific actions to be bound to buttons. Must be configured in SteamVR - there are no in-game remapping options.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Controller types

Tracked motion controllers
Button/gesture prompts		In-game prompts (such as tutorials) will change based on motion controller type, and the controller binding settings in SteamVR.

Additional information
Haptic feedback

• 

  Accessibility Options

• 

  Spectator Options

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		"Master Volume", "Game", "Combat Music", and "Character Voice".
Surround sound
Subtitles		Includes options for font size, subtitle width, and subtitle speed.
Closed captions		"Subtitles & Closed Captions" under the Subtitles options menu.
Mute on focus lost		Only when SteamVR dashboard is opened.
EAX support		Uses SteamAudio HRTF, DSP, and audio occlusion.
Royalty free audio

• 

  Volume Options

• 

  Subtitles Options

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
Czech
French
German
Hungarian
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Polish
Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian				Fan translation, download.
Spanish
Latin American Spanish
Ukrainian
Vietnamese

VR support

This game requires a virtual reality headset.

Headsets	State	Notes
SteamVR
Oculus VR (LibOVR)		This game might be playable with the SteamVR.
Windows Mixed Reality		This game might be playable with the Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR.

Devices
Tracked motion controllers		See Input for details.
Traditional controller
Keyboard/Mouse

Play area
Seated
Standing
Room-scale

Issues fixed

Subtitles and closed captions not working

Subtitles and closed captions will not be displayed when the selected Steam client language is not supported by the game.

Change Steam language to a supported one
Change Steam client's language to one supported by the game, e.g. English.

Copy subtitle file and rename it to match the Steam client's selected language

Navigate to <path-to-game>\game\hlvr\resource\subtitles\ Copy desired language for subtitles e.g. closecaption_english.dat, copy it into same folder and rename it into the Steam client language, e.g. closecaption_finnish.dat if the Steam client language is in Finnish. Navigate to <path-to-game>\game\hlvr\webui\localization\ Repeat the process, copy e.g. hlvr_english.json and rename copy to e.g. hlvr_finnish.json

Right eye rendering problems on wide FOV headsets such as Pimax

Disable culling and multiview instancing through launch options
See Command line arguments. Add -console -vconsole +sc_no_cull 1 +vr_multiview_instancing 0 +vr_shadow_map_culling 0 +volume_fog_enable_stereo 0. If shadow culling still occurs with the right eye, it may be necessary to pause the game, open the console (by pressing the tilde (~) key), and enter the vr_shadow_map_culling 0 command every time a new map starts or when a save slot is loaded.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	11
Vulkan

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows
Linux

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Audio	Steam Audio
Interface	Qt
Input	SDL

Enabling the console

Command line
See Command line arguments. Add -console -vconsole. Open the console by pressing ~. Using -vconsole will enable Valve's VConsole as opposed to the command console present in Source Engine games. To enable the older command console, just use -console.

Change size of spectator window HUD

Use the +hlvr_spectator_hud_size xx command line argument, replacing xx with the desired value.
By default, this value is set to 100. The scale can be set anywhere between 50 and 150 Setting the value to 0 disables the spectator HUD.

Change FOV (zoom) of spectator window

Use the +vr_companion_window_zoom_level xx command line argument, replacing xx with the desired value.

By default, this value is set to either 1.2 or 1.4 depending on the "Zoom" value in Spectator menu. However if higher FOV is desired, this can be further decreased. Setting value too low may result in artifacts at the edges of the screen. Thus the recommended value would be between 1.05 and 1.2. Changing this value below 1.4 may result in spectator smoothing being disabled, because it works via post-processing using that extra frame data to stabilize roll.

Change movement speed

Increase or decrease continuous movement speed. For example, to increase, use the +hlvr_continuous_normal_speed 200 +hlvr_continuous_combat_speed 200 command line arguments
Notes hlvr_continuous_normal_speed is the standard movement speed when using continuous movement. hlvr_continuous_combat_speed is the movement speed during combat when using continuous movement.

Disable weapon muzzle flashes

Use the +muzzleflash_light 0 +r_muzzleflashbrightness 0 command line arguments
This may be useful when the flickering light option is disabled and when the light sensitivity option is enabled, to further reduce the amount of flashing/flickering lights.

Running without VR

Use the NoVR mod

System requirements

Windows

Linux

Windows
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	10
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core i5-7500 AMD Ryzen 5 1600
System memory (RAM)	12 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 AMD Radeon RX 580 6 GB of VRAM

A 64-bit operating system is required.

Official system requirements require Windows 10 and later, however, the game can be played on Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1, with some minor performance issues (caused by outdated graphics stack [WDDM]) and vary by PCs.

Total size after installation was nearly 71 GB since June 2022.