The Half-Life: Alyx NoVR mod is complete--at least in terms of allowing players to get through every chapter without needing cheats or other workarounds. Work on the mod will continue until Half-Life: Alyx has all the features you'd expect from a non-VR title, such as hand animations, a non-VR UI, and HUD.We found out about Half-Life: Alyx NoVR near the end of March when the mod team had just completed up to the end of Chapter 7. The mod isn't intended as a substitute for the full VR experience, which remains one of the best games playable in virtual, but more like a replacement for those who have motion sickness, visual problems, or other conditions that prevent them from playing Half-Life: Alyx in VR.Related: The Apple Mixed Reality Headset Is DoomedHalf-Life: Alyx NoVR's script update six gave the mod fully implemented Gravity Gloves, which allow the player to interact with various objects using the "E" key. Interactions with basically everything in the game, from doorways, to windows, to bottles, can now be accomplished by hitting "E", no workarounds are needed.

Unlike the VR version of Alyx, where the player's hands are modeled and shown to be grasping objects, the mod doesn't have animations added just yet, making the whole thing feel a lot like the original Half-Life. There are plans to add hand animations, which you can read about on the development roadmap.

In addition to the Gravity Gloves and making every chapter playable, Alyx NoVR also lets the player unlock 33 of the 42 Steam achievements. Nine are currently unable to be unlocked due to how the Gravity Gloves were implemented. Those achievements include:

  • Dead Giveaway - Loot a corpse
  • Up in Arms - Install your first pistol upgrade
  • Freshly Squeezed - Test your grip on a headcrab heart
  • Zombie with a Shotgun - Collect the shotgun
  • Deadliest Catch - Use the gravity gloves to intercept an incoming enemy grenade in mid-flight
  • Combine Harvester - Use the gravity gloves to loot an item off a living Combine soldier
  • Safe Trip - Use the multitool to hack a trip mine
  • Hold Your Liquor - Catch a bottle falling out of a cupboard before it breaks and alerts Jeff
  • Gnome Vault of My Own - Bring a garden gnome with you to the Vault

To install Half-Life: Alyx NoVR, just head to the ModDB page for the download and then extract the file. Then, drag the mod's "game" folder into Half-Life: Alyx's installation directory, replacing the older "game" folder with the new one. Then head to Steam's launch options for Half-Life: Alux and add "-novr" and "-vsync." More details are available on the ModDB page.

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