Half-Life: Alyx

What to Know

Critics Recommend

Average Score

Total Reviews: 60

Play It

Half-Life: Alyx combines old friends, new enemies, and an exciting story to set the gold standard for all future VR titles. A tremendous experience and an incredible technical achievement.

Play It

Critics Recommend

Critic Reviews: 60

Critics Consensus

# Reviews: 60

Half-Life: Alyx combines old friends, new enemies, and an exciting story to set the gold standard for all future VR titles. A tremendous experience and an incredible technical achievement.

Where to Play

** VSG may earn a commission for purchases using our links. Learn more.

Rate and Review

What did you think of Half-Life: Alyx?

Player Reviews0 Votes

Awards & Recognition

Critic Reviews for Half-Life: Alyx

Critic Reviews

Score Distribution

60

Reviews

Average Score - 93/100

93%

Ranges

10/10

Dan Stapleton (IGN)

Half-Life: Alyx has set a new bar for VR in interactivity, detail, and level design, showing what can happen when a world-class developer goes all-in on the new frontier of technology.

March 23, 2020 |

Full Review

With old friends, new enemies, and an exciting story, revisiting City 17 in VR is a thrill in Half-Life: Alyx.

March 23, 2020 |

Full Review

92/100

Christopher Livingston (PC Gamer)

Recommended

Nathan Grayson (Kotaku)

Half-Life: Alyx reaches some astoundingly high heights while also managing to be both too ambitious and too conservative for its own good.

March 23, 2020 |

Full Review

Dan Stapleton (IGN)

10/10 - (Read Review)

Half-Life: Alyx has set a new bar for VR in interactivity, detail, and level design, showing what can happen when a world-class developer goes all-in on the new frontier of technology.

Christopher Livingston (PC Gamer)

92/100 - (Read Review)

With old friends, new enemies, and an exciting story, revisiting City 17 in VR is a thrill in Half-Life: Alyx.

Nathan Grayson (Kotaku)

Recommended - (Read Review)

Half-Life: Alyx reaches some astoundingly high heights while also managing to be both too ambitious and too conservative for its own good.

**Read all 60 critic reviews on the desktop version of VSG.

Read the Reviews (60 total)

Outlet	Author	Score	Date	Quote	Read
3DNews	Александр Бабулин	8 / 10	04-04-2020	Simply the best VR-game for now. But nothing more than that.	Read review
ACG	Jeremy Penter	Recommended	03-23-2020	Video Review	Read review
Ars Technica	Sam Machkovech	Recommended	03-23-2020	The masses may not rush out to buy a VR set to play Half-Life: Alyx. But anyone who loves video games should look at this game as a next logical step in the possibilities of dramatic, interactive storytelling. Bravo, Valve. Bravo.	Read review
Attack of the Fanboy	Brandon Adams	5 / 5 stars	03-25-2020	All future VR games will look to Half Life: Alyx as the gold standard hereon, and thanks to its absolute excellence in design and presentation we are all the better for it. Virtual reality will never be the same, nor will Half Life after Alyx’s jaw-dropping conclusion.	Read review
AusGamers	Steve Farrelly	6 / 10	04-01-2020	The	Read review
CGMagazine	Clement Goh	10 / 10	03-25-2020	Genre-bending and hauntingly mesmerizing, Half-Life Alyx brings the series as it should have always been experienced while doing the impossible: surpassing Half Life 2.	Read review
Checkpoint Gaming	Bree Swaine	9 / 10	03-26-2020	Half-Life: Alyx is the perfect example of the best Virtual Reality can be. After years of what felt like nothing more than tech demos or ports, this game has arrived to show everyone how it’s done.	Read review
COGconnected	Paul Sullivan	97 / 100	04-07-2020	It’s the best VR game yet, and maybe, just maybe, the best in the Half Life franchise.	Read review
Daily Star	Jason Coles	5 / 5 stars	03-29-2020	It’s equal parts enchanting and terrifying, and it’s sure to be one of the turning points in VR for many of us.	Read review
Destructoid	Chris Carter, Brett Makedonski	9 / 10	03-23-2020	Half-Life: Alyx is an accomplishment no matter which way you spin it.	Read review
DualShockers	Ryan Meitzler	10 / 10	03-23-2020	Through the lens of VR, Half-Life: Alyx is an amazing experience that blends action and storytelling with a profound level of immersion.	Read review
Easy Allies	Ben Moore	5 / 5 stars	04-08-2020	Half-Life: Alyx is a masterful marriage of technology, design, and storytelling.	Read review
Eurogamer	Christian Donlan	Recommended	03-23-2020	City 17 provides the setting for a VR adventure filled with brilliant detailing.	Read review
Everyeye.it	Giuseppe Arace	9.3 / 10	03-25-2020	Half-Life: Alyx is the new benchmark for future VR products. More generally, it is a magnificent game, the worthy heir of an immortal saga: an adventure that has nothing to envy to those episodes that have contributed to mark the history of gaming.	Read review
Expansive	Jay Jones	Recommended	03-28-2020	Put in plain terms, if Beat Saber put VR on the map, then Half Life Alyx is the reason you chart a course. It’s everything VR has needed and the return to a classic franchise we’ve been waiting for.	Read review
Game Debate	Chad Norton	8 / 10	04-03-2020	Half-Life: Alyx is a tremendous VR experience that should absolutely set the standard of quality for all VR games to come. But the lack of replayability value, and the scale factor of enjoyment dependent on your hardware and room size, holds Alyx back from being a truly astonishing game. Is it worth it alone to buy a headset for? I’m not sure, that depends on how big of a Half-Life fan you are. But I can say that there are tonnes of other VR games available that are worth buying a headset for already, and Half-Life Alyx will still be a significant entry in that list of games.	Read review
Game Informer	Leo Vader	9 / 10	03-23-2020	The dense campaign never lets up with surprising reveals, new enemies, and witty dialogue to carry you through the exciting journey	Read review
Gameblog	VRSinge	10 / 10	03-28-2020	Half-Life: Alyx is truly the new standard bearer for virtual reality. This is a major, not to say revolutionary, title, as was Half-Life and Half-Life 2 in their time. For more than 10 hours of play, we live the horrifying, supernatural and science fiction adventures of Alyx, as if we were there. A Masterpiece !	Read review
Gamefa	Amirmehdi Namjoo	10 / 10	03-27-2020	Before the release of Half-Life: Alyx, series’ fans were worried that it might not live up to the expectations. But now, we can say Half-Life: Alyx is a great Half-Life game and a perfect VR experience too. Level Design, VR interactions, story-telling, art design, and all other aspects of the game are at a very high-quality level. Every gamer that has access to VR headsets must play this masterpiece.	Read review
GameMAG	GameMAG	9 / 10	03-23-2020	If you were worried about the quality, you can calmly exhale	Read review
Gamersky	不倒翁蜀黍	9.5 / 10	03-29-2020	Half-Life: Alyx has shown the great potential of VR and set a very high standard for the whole industry. It’s definitely a must-buy game for VR gamers.	Read review
GamesBeat	Mike Minotti	80 / 100	03-23-2020	But judged on its merits as a VR game, it excels. If you’re looking for something to wow you with what the technology can do, this will get that job done.	Read review
GameSkinny	Gabriel Moss	10 / 10	04-02-2020	While the “VR-only” part may alienate many current PC gamers, it’s a triumph that a VR title as excellent as Alyx exists at all.	Read review
GameSpot	Michael Higham	9 / 10	03-23-2020	Half-Life: Alyx is a tremendous VR experience that captures and elevates what makes the series special.	Read review
GamesRadar+	Rachel Weber	4.5 / 5 stars	03-23-2020	Not just a Half-Life game, but an invitation to live in its world.	Read review
Gaming Nexus	John Yan	9.5 / 10	04-06-2020	I had such an incredible time going back into the Half-Life universe, and in VR. It’s	Read review
GamingBolt	Rashid Sayed	9 / 10	03-24-2020	Half-Life: Alyx is a triumph for VR games and sets the benchmark for other developers to follow suit.	Read review
GBAtemp	Tom Bond	9 / 10	03-27-2020	If you were waiting for that one “killer game” before you wanted to dip into the VR scene, this is it. If you already have a PC VR headset, you absolutely must own this game. Half-Life: Alyx is easily one of the best VR games I’ve ever played, easily beating out my previous favorite Beat Saber, and every Half-Life fan should experience the game in one way or another.	Read review
God is a Geek	Adam Cook	9.5 / 10	04-03-2020	An incredible, best-in-class achievement that could only be done in VR, with excellent voice acting, sublime visuals and audio and, yes, a truly Half-Life story.	Read review
GRYOnline.pl	Szymon Liebert	9.5 / 10	03-27-2020	With Half-Life: Alyx, Valve has proved once again that they are the best. After a few underwhelming projects like Artifact or Dota Underlords, the developers went back to their roots and created a superb single-player game. Alyx has a great storyline with fun characters and offers unique gameplay utilizing a technology capable of delivering a new experience. This VR title is a true revelation.	Read review
Guardian	Rick Lane	5 / 5 stars	03-25-2020	The classic shooter series gains a thrilling new perspective, thanks to VR tech that works symbiotically with the narrative	Read review
Hardcore Gamer	James Cunningham	4.5 / 5 stars	04-15-2020	Alyx is a trooper throughout the entire adventure, and while she can get freaked out by the places she needs to go, she never stops moving forward.	Read review
Hobby Consolas	Alejandro Alcolea Huertos	95 / 100	04-15-2020	Half Life Alyx is the game that VR needed. The story is good, technically it’s delicious piece of cake and the gameplay is Half Life at its best. We need a powerful PC and the VR helmet, but it’s worth it.	Read review
IGN	Dan Stapleton	10 / 10	03-24-2020	Half-Life: Alyx has set a new bar for VR in interactivity, detail, and level design, showing what can happen when a world-class developer goes all-in on the new frontier of technology.	Read review
IGN Italy	Fabio Bortolotti	9.3 / 10	03-23-2020	Half-Life: Alyx is an incredible demonstration of what can be done with virtual reality. Nobody, so far, has put the amount of resources and research that Valve did. This might not be the killer application VR needs, but it’s an excellent game, worthy of the main series of Half-Life.	Read review
IGN Spain	IGN Spain	9.5 / 10	03-23-2020	Half-Life: Alyx is the new bar for Virtual Reality. Valve has made a game so realistic, immersive and detailed that we can consider it a main iteration of Half-Life. Only its story, something fair in what it contributes to the saga make it not have a perfect score.	Read review
INDIANTVCZ	Patrik Strnad	10 / 10	03-30-2020	Half-Life: Alyx is one of the pinnacles of what VR has to offer right now. Every aspect of the game is carefully crafted to be comfortable and fun for both newcomers and VR elitists.	Read review
Kotaku	Nathan Grayson	Recommended	03-23-2020	Half-Life: Alyx reaches some astoundingly high heights while also managing to be both too ambitious and too conservative for its own good.	Read review
Metro GameCentral	Metro GameCentral	8 / 10	03-24-2020	An incredible technical achievement but one that is surprisingly short of genuinely new ideas, and often struggles to get the balance right between VR showpiece and satisfying gameplay experience.	Read review
PC Gamer	Christopher Livingston	92 / 100	03-23-2020	With old friends, new enemies, and an exciting story, revisiting City 17 in VR is a thrill in Half-Life: Alyx.	Read review
PC Invasion	PC Invasion	9 / 10	03-24-2020	Half-Life: Alyx sets a new high standard for VR games, both in technical terms and gameplay itself. Visually impressive and customizable for accessibility, Alyx’s 20-hour campaign strikes an enjoyable balance between action, horror, puzzle-solving, and humor. VR gamers shouldn’t miss this one.	Read review
PCGamesN	Dustin Bailey	9 / 10	03-23-2020	Confidently serves as both a vindication for the magic VR can bring to gaming, and a satisfying new entry in the beloved Half-Life series.Dustin Bailey	Read review
Polygon	Ben Kuchera	Recommended	03-23-2020	Valve has succeeded at just about every goal it must have had for this project. The only thing left is whether hardcore fans will be willing to buy, and use, a virtual reality headset in order to learn what happens next in the world of Half-Life.	Read review
Press Start	Brodie Gibbons	9.5 / 10	03-29-2020	I’d declare Half-Life: Alyx the new age of the first-person shooter, if the uptake of virtual reality had been a little more promising so far. It is a cut above everything I’ve ever played within a headset and it’s a brave, risky step for a long-dormant series to take. It takes a special team to withhold for thirteen years and deliver on an impossible hype and yet Half-Life: Alyx was worth every one of those 4,548 days.	Read review
pressakey.com	Tobias Heinen	Recommended	04-14-2020	Half-Life: Alyx is not just a prequel. We are dealing with a tangible, independent entry into the franchise. It’s a shame that not every fan can experience this story for themselves, because Valve did such an incredible job in the final that I couldn’t stop being amazed. I don’t want to give too much away either, because this, this is something big. End Episode Two big, to stay in the familiar terminology.	Read review
Rock, Paper, Shotgun	Graham Smith	Recommended	03-23-2020	I hope I don’t have to wait for brain-computer interfaces to exist before the series returns again, because despite a handful of complaints, I still think Valve make the best first-person shooters around.	Read review
SECTOR.sk	Peter Dragula	9.5 / 10	03-30-2020	Return to City 17 in VR is grandiose. Half Life is still alive and now it looks even more like real.	Read review
Shacknews	Asif Khan	9 / 10	03-23-2020	Valve has showcased a clear way for developers to create a high quality AAA experience built for VR that still hits all the marks of a traditional PC game.	Read review
SpazioGames	Daniele Spelta	9 / 10	03-28-2020	Half-Life: Alyx is a true Half-Life, a real game that lives inside our VR system and expands the dimension made by a videogame.	Read review
TechRaptor	Himpe Kenny	8.5 / 10	03-28-2020	Half-life: Alyx falls short on accounts of length and issues with the platform, but manages it strengths well enough to be a game that can push the platform further and set a new standard.	Read review
Telegraph	Dan Silver	5 / 5 stars	03-27-2020	The hysteria generated by last year’s surprise announcement heralding the return of the genre-defining but long-presumed killed-in-action shooter series Half-Life was quickly tempered by news it would do so exclusively in virtual reality.	Read review
The Angry Joe Show	Joe Vargas	9 / 10	03-23-2020	Video Review	Read review
The Games Machine	Mario Baccigalupi	9.8 / 10	03-28-2020	Valve selects the best features of VR action games and takes them to another level. Half-Life: Alyx is not innovative in choosing what is needed for the perfect virtual reality experience – between interactivity of the environment, gestural use of firearms or environmental puzzles – but it is in putting together everything in the style of Half-Life. The kind of first person game that made the series famous, and forever changed the action adventure into a “before and after Gordon Freeman”, returns to linear origins without genres contamination, becoming an immersive sim only for what falls within our view, or what we can physically accomplish in a crazy City 17. Masterful.	Read review
The Outerhaven Productions	Conner B	4.5 / 5 stars	03-26-2020	Prepare for the experience of your life in the best VR game yet from legendary Developers Valve. Valve have taken all their innovative ideas that they’ve kept bottle up for years and finally unleashed them unto the world.	Read review
Unboxholics	Σάκης Καρπάς	Recommended	04-26-2020	Half-Life: Alyx is another Half-Life and from this, draw your own conclusions…	Read review
USgamer	Mathew Olson	4.5 / 5 stars	03-23-2020	Half-Life: Alyx is billed as a VR return to the series, and that’s exactly what it delivers. It does what Half-Life has historically done well, and without the clouding of nostalgia or unhelpful notions of what constitutes “revolutionary” design, it ranks alongside Half-Life 2.	Read review
VG247	Kirk McKeand	Recommended	03-23-2020	It turns out Valve just needed new tech. It just needed VR. And it’s what I needed, too.	Read review
WayTooManyGames	Jordan Hawes	9.5 / 10	05-27-2020	It’s refreshing to have a game that focuses on telling a full fledged story experience on a platform that is mostly stretching its legs with gameplay tech demos. It just so happens that this full fledged story is also a Half-Life game that also lives up to its predecessors and ties in nicely with them.	Read review

** Learn more about how to become a MetaMeter-approved Critic.

Game Info

Game Description / Storyline:

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. Set between the events of Half-Life and Half-Life 2, Alyx Vance and her father Eli mount an early resistance to the Combine’s brutal occupation of Earth.

RELEASE DATES:

DEVELOPER(S):

PUBLISHER(S):

GENRES:

SERIES/FRANCHISE:

GAME MODES:

GAME ENGINE:

DLC:

BUNDLED IN:

DIRECTOR(S):

PRODUCER(S):

DESIGNER(S):

PROGRAMMER(S):

ARTIST(S):

WRITER(S):

COMPOSER(S):

LINKS:

AGE RATING:

Detailed Information

GAME MODES:

GAME ENGINE:

DLC:

BUNDLED IN:

DIRECTOR(S):

PRODUCER(S):

DESIGNER(S):

PROGRAMMER(S):

ARTIST(S):

WRITER(S):

COMPOSER(S):

Developed by Valve Corporation. All titles, content, brand names, trademarks, logos, artwork, and associated imagery are trademarks and/or copyright material of their respective owners. © All rights reserved.