Modder Has Taken Up Getting Half Life: Alyx Working in VR on Steam Deck

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There have been a multitude of fantastic projects I have seen created for the Steam Deck, but this one is peculiar. Half Life: Alyx is Valve's newest Half Life game and it is exclusively played in VR, making it not Deck compatible. Luckily, there have been some great projects to make it playable, like Half Life: Alyx NoVR project, which makes the game playable without VR, but for some, VR is what made it such a special experience. Well, one member of the community feels this way and is going to be getting the VR version working on the Deck!

On the Steam Deck Subreddit, KingVulpes105 announced that he will be working on getting the game's VR version running on the Deck and optimizing it as best as possible! We reached out to them and was able to ask a couple of questions regarding the project, how they will do it, and why:

Me (SteamDeckHQ):

So there have been other Half Life Alyx projects that are working on the Steam Deck, like novr. What sets your project apart?

KingVulpes105:

I'm going to be targeting VR instead of non VR since one of the key elements of Half Life Alyx is interaction.

With the Steam Deck not being suited or built for VR, why do you feel Half Life Alyx may be able to not only run, but run well enough for VR?

The Steam Deck is very capable being able to outperform a PS4 in most cases and what made me decide to target VR was I got another VR title FNAF Help Wanted to run on Steam Deck at playable framerates through tweaking and I saw ta video of Half Life Alyx running on Intel HD integrated graphics which made me believe that Steam Deck could pull it off.

Do you have any ideas on how you will tweak and get it optimized and running well? Have you tested it yourself to see how possible it will be?

I do have a few ideas such as accessing the console, disabling spectator Windows through commands and customizing the video settings. I have not started testing due to some delays with a Hurricane in my state but I will be starting today which led me to make the announcement.

Please stay safe above all else. How do you plan to update the community as the project progresses?

I'll post some early footage/screenshots as development goes on up until the final version and a trailer release.

How long do you think it will take to complete the project?

Hard to say, because I'm working on other projects as well at the same time. But if I had to give an estimate, I'd say 1-2 months. Though I'll most likely look for Beta testers as well for 2nd opinions.

Do you have any other VR games you want to work on like this and get it running on Steam Deck?

Yes, I would like to try and get games like Walking Dead Saints and Sinners and The upcoming Metro VR game working on Deck.

Do you have any other projects that you have worked on and released?

Three finished projects I've worked on is Portal RTX for Steam Deck, Portal RTX for AMD and Quake 2 RTX Steam Deck optimizations.

What was it that got you to switch over to a VR project after doing Raytracing ones?

Well I actually got into Raytracing mods because I wanted to show off the Steam Deck's untapped power. So essentially I'm doing it for the same reasons.

Overall, I love the idea behind the project and KingVulpes reasoning behind it. Wanting to bring out the Deck's untapped power and finding unique ways of doing it is commendable, and I am excited to see how well this could work. I have my Valve Index and Meta Quest 3 ready to find out for myself!

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