Home » Guides » Here’s how to play Half-life Alyx without VR
half life alyx header
Guides

Here’s how to play Half-life Alyx without VR

Half-Life Alyx is available now and playable only in VR… well, until now. A clever monkey has come up with a way to play Half-Life Alyx without VR and this guide will show you how it’s done.

As discovered by Valve News Network’s Tyler McVicker, you can play Alyx with a keyboard and mouse quite easily.

There’s one step to do this, and one step only — in the game’s console, type vr_enable_fake_vr_test. That’s it; the noVR option works inside Alyx and allows those of us without a pricey headset the chance to play through the new Half-Life prequel. Exciting, right?

Half-Life: Alyx is available now on Windows PC via Valve Index, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and Windows Mixed Reality. Or you know, just Steam without a VR headset now.


This article may contain affiliate links, meaning we could earn a small commission if you click-through and make a purchase. Stevivor is an independent outlet and our journalism is in no way influenced by any advertiser or commercial initiative.

About the author

Steve Wright

Steve's the owner and Editor-in-Chief of Stevivor.com, the country’s leading independent video games outlet. Steve arrived in Australia back in 2001 on what was meant to be a three-month working holiday before deciding to emigrate and, eventually, becoming a citizen.

Stevivor is a combination of ‘Steve’ and ‘Survivor’, which made more sense back in 2001 when Jeff Probst was up in Queensland. The site started as Steve’s travel blog before transitioning over into video games.

Aside from video games, Steve has interests in hockey and Star Trek, playing the former and helping to cover video games about the latter on TrekMovie.com. By day, Steve works as the communications manager of the peak body representing Victorians as they age.