Now through March 31st you can pick up Half-Life: Alyx on sale at a 40% discount in celebration of the game’s one year anniversary.

Half-Life: Alyx is clearly one of the best VR games released thus far, and if you’ve somehow avoided playing it up to this point, here’s one more reason to give it a look: the game is currently on sale for its best price yet: a 40% discount, bringing it to $35. The greatest discount the game had seen previously was 25%.

The big sale comes on the one year anniversary of Half-Life: Alyx’s release, which very closely mirrors the onset of the Coronavirus in the US (where developer Valve is located), and which nearly delayed the release of the game.

Since its release, Alyx has seen universal acclaim, leading it to become Steam’s best and most rated VR game to date.

Also since launch, the game has been updated with hours of in-game developer commentary and modding tools which has allowed the game’s community to create additional content and tweaks.

Speaking of mods, games journalist Craig Pearson rounded up a bunch of his favorites for the occasion. Check out his full breakdown here, or catch the shortlist below for some Alyx mods you don’t want to miss:

Tweaks
New levels & campaigns
Newsletter graphic

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.


Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."

  • Is there still people that have not bought it yet?

    • Bonnie Rogers

      Get $192 per h from Google~a1316~ Yes this can be best since I simply got my initial payroll check of $24413 and this was just of a one week…I have aslo purchased my good BMW M5 right after this payment…~a1316~ it is really best job I have even had and you will not for~give yourself if you do not check it >>>> https://trimurl.co/oxMwJZ ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤.

    • Andrew Jakobs

      Yep… I’ve got way too many (VR) games still to play, so I’ll wait until it’s even a lower price or if I’m really through all the interesting VR games I have.
      Also still haven’t even played Half life 1 and 2, also in my library.

    • Behram Patel

      Guilty.
      Embarrassingly I had the wrong perception that you needed an Index (I got a pro)

      Will buy.
      Cheers

    • casedistorted

      I’m so pissed I missed this sale. I just got a CV1 Rift a week after Alyx went on sale so now I don’t want to buy the game at full price $60 since I just spent a bunch of money. I’m also refunding Boneworks because it makes me VR sick like crazy. Would love to play Alyx but this sale should have gone on for way longer.

  • If that’s the price after a 40% discount then this game is too expensive imo. I don’t remember it being so expensive when I bought it, and I did so without any discounts (so it would have been like $60 or whatever, going by the current discount price), but maybe I’m just not remembering clearly. Regardless, I think it should cost around $40 normally, and then come down even cheaper in any sales. It’s digital only, so there’s literally zero costs on packaging and instruction manuals and shipping and the like. $40 is more than enough to make Valve a whole load of profit.

    • asdf

      what dog poop are you smoking?

    • Andrew Jakobs

      Well, actually, you’re right. They also don’t have to give 30% of the sale to Valve, because they are Valve. Personally I’ll wait until it’s certainly below 20 euro’s, I’ve got more than enough other games to play.

      • Mick Cordero

        Developing a game like Alyx is a massive endeavor for a huge team of people and takes years.

        This is a good deal – if you haven’t played it yet, you’re missing out on the best VR game made to date. Period.

        • Andrew Jakobs

          I understand it costs a lot of money, but you have to consider a lot of people not having a lot of money so they have to make choices (apart from getting it illegally), so if they already have a lot of games in their library and not having played them, people tend to wait and play the ones they already have.
          And if I buy it on a later date I don’t miss out as I just play it much later. Like I said, I still haven’t played Half Life yet, and I own it on the PC for quite some years already, and I even have the PS3 orange box which I also haven’t played yet. And for me, I still have A LOT of VR games which I also haven’t played yet.

          I get Alyx is one of the best VR games of the moment. But I don’t feel sorry for Valve not getting the full price, they already get more than enough money through their Steam platform (and therefor also my money with every game I buy through Steam) for supporting their own inhouse games. And eventually they’ll get my money directly for Alyx, just not fullprice..

          • casedistorted

            Oh yeah, Valve gets billions through Steam I would guess. 30% of EVERY sale on the platform is ridiculous, so I don’t feel bad if they are getting less than full price for Alyx. $60 is a lot for a game that you might only play through once.

        • casedistorted

          I would have bought it on sale when there was the sale.. but I bought my Rift CV1 just a week after the sale ended and didn’t even know about it. Maybe if they had the sale going until the 1st of April or something, but you know valve.

    • Caven

      It’s a VR-only AAA title. Unlike converted games like Skyrim and Fallout 4, Half-Life: Alyx doesn’t have the benefit of the huge flat-screen gaming market for the majority of its revenue, so I’d argue against there being a “whole load of profit” to make. An unwillingness to spend full price on a AAA videogame only sends the message to Valve and other companies that it’s not worth bothering to make such games.

      • I’m pretty sure at this point that it’s made a huge profit.

        • mirak

          The game is developed since like 5 years and they had probably 50 people working on it, so it’s not even a given they did any short term profit with it.

          However more and more people will buy headsets, so in the long run it migth sale more than fifty time what it sold already.

          • In every way possible, I personally think the game has achieved everything it would ever have hoped to achieve, from turning a profit to being basically the best VR game to date and receiving critical acclaim and awards aplenty across the board. I think from here on out it’s just going to make even more profit and probably gain a few more awards too. And even if the profit ain’t huge yet, or even if it hasn’t quite made a profit yet and is just coming up on turning a profit, it will happen eventually without any doubt. So, yeah, I think it’s all positive news on the Half-Life: Alyx front.

      • casedistorted

        Thing is the game is made by Valve, so there’s no 30% cut they’re getting taken out like they do every other developer on the Steam platform.. all that $60 for them is going straight to Valve.

    • casedistorted

      I agree with him. I get that it costs a lot to make a new VR game with innovative technologies, and you also get Alyx free with the Index, but since I bought a Rift CV1 I don’t want to spend another $60 on just one VR game that has only one playthrough.

  • sebrk

    BEST. GAME. EVER.