Half-Life: Alyx

Half-Life: Alyx is Valve’s VR return to the Half-Life series. It’s the story of an impossible fight against a vicious alien race known as the Combine, set between the events of Half-Life and Half-Life 2. Playing as Alyx Vance, you are humanity’s only chance for survival.

Verdict

Verdict coming soon: the jury is still reading

Buy, Wait, and Skip land in the next pass. Nothing on this card can be bought.

Player sentiment

Player sentiment is from Steam (PC) reviews.

All time

98.3%

105,596 reviews

12 months

97.2%

7,222 reviews

90 days

96.9%

1,465 reviews

30 days

96.3%

520 reviews

Stable-0.6 pts versus the previous 90 days

Review history

Bars are review volume. The line is the positive percentage. Periods under 10 reviews are faded.

What players are saying

Positive

[u]What Infinite Budget And Expertise Does To You[/u]
19h 1m played at review · 21 Sept 2026
Still the greatest VR game of all time. That's both incredible and sad... But everyone should try Alyx once.
27h 12m played at review · 15 Sept 2026
Best game for VR ever made. Do not play if you havent played all other VR Games, after this game every other VR game is boring slop. Masterpiece of Art
16h 57m played at review · 15 Sept 2026
[code]Casual playthrough ~15 hours No spoilers in this review! Played on my Meta Quest 2 [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45534557/]@MatureContent[/url][/code] ─────────────────────────── When we can expect this quality from all VR games, VR will truly be great. Half-Life Alyx has held the title as the best VR game ever since its release six years ago, and it is with very good reason. This game has run pretty much flawlessly since I first launched it, with no changes or recalibration needed. It just runs absolutely perfect out of the box, with perfect arm length, character height and FOV, and with all binds on my Meta Quest 2 controllers feeling good and intuitive. I also experienced high fps throughout my entire playthrough and the only issues I did encounter were a few SteamVR crashes, but it might be totally unrelated to the game itself. The story follows Alyx in her own standalone solo adventure, helping out the resistance against the Combine. I won't mention anything else relating to the story or the missions themselves in this review, as I think this game is best enjoyed going in totally blind. This game was quite a lot longer than I thought it would be and it actually surprised me since this isn't just a beautiful VR game, it is also quite complex in its mechanics. One thing I absolutely love is how they implemented the gravity gloves with the snap drag mechanics to fling objects closer to the player. It is a genius way to minimize movement while also making the gameplay more fun. I also really liked the holographic interfaces on the different interactable consoles and with the wires through the walls, it is a super cool idea that is executed well. Same goes for the weapon upgrades available and the flashlight on the gloves which was pretty terrifying to navigate by in the dark levels. I really hope we will see another new VR title from Valve in the future, especially now with the arrival of the Steam Frame. Maybe something new in the Portal universe or with Left 4 Dead. I would love to see what other unique experiences they could put together. ─────────────────────────── [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45534557/]Help me out by following my Curator, I’d really appreciate it!![/url]
15h 55m played at review · 1 Oct 2026

Negative

This review is just for the technical state of the game. Game itself, is amazing. I love the gunplay, exploration, puzzles, physics and everything. Out of 6 hours, I played this game at the most I had 20-30 mins of mediocre gameplay. I need to be very clear about that. I am enjoying game very much and I will definitely finish it. Technical state of the game is terrible. You can see my system in the attachment. For some reason maybe it's about saving and loading maybe it's something else but after a certain amount of time. Game's performance starts to degrade. This has nothing to with the moment to moment action. Same level, same graphics and for example if I spent 5-10 minutes more there, game starts to get noticeably slower. Restart the game and everything is fine. Imagine how crappy that feels ? You are playing this game and for every about 45 mins to an hour, you are forced to take breaks. Your immersion breaks, in a VR game, that's one of the key features. So get the game, give it a 2 hour try and if you notice the performance issues I do. Maybe it's better to refund. Edit:Finished the game, it even happened during the final cutscenes, animations slowed down, lip synching completey gone, voices being played back at normal speed, animations were about 1-2 seconds behind it, it ruined the whole thing.
11h 30m played at review · 12 Sept 2026
[h2]This game is super fun but it runs horribly.[/h2] I've played through the first four chapters and so far its really fun, but if you stay in one area for more than 5 minutes then it starts lagging really badly. After a bit it becomes so choppy that I can't even play. Even trying to close the game become an impossible task. I love this game but I find myself playing it less and less because I don't want to deal with its whole mess. I thought it might be my computer because I don't have the highest end computer but I am over the minimum requirements and it seems others have this issue as well. 9/10 gameplay 10/10 immersion 0/10 optimization
13h 9m played at review · 29 Sept 2026
immersive game but the reload mechanics are sometimes broken. Half the time when the clip goes into the gun the gun can shoot but half the time it can't which is incredibly frustrating in the middle of a fight. Very immersive environment but the combat makes me just not want to play, it's so broken.
1h 9m played at review · 30 Sept 2026
All these updates and it still wont run on Pimax. Everything but this works on pimax
10h 42m played at review · 18 Sept 2026