Is Half Life: Alyx Coming To PSVR2?

Having purchased a PSVR on launch day, one of the major things it was missing was system selling software. That’s not to say I didn’t have a great time with it because I did, there were some truly excellent experiences and games on it. However, I find myself on the fence for PSVR2, mostly due to its lack of compelling software at launch.

There has only been one VR game where I felt like I missed out and that was Half Life Alyx. It made sense why it didn’t come to PSVR due to its technical limitations both in its horsepower but also in the move controllers. It would have watered down the experience to the point that it likely would have damaged the Half Life brand more than help it.

Now that PSVR2 is more than capable in terms of power and that Half Life Alyx was released in March 2020, it would at least make sense on paper for it to come to the PSVR2, but is there any weight to it.

First, it released at the start of 2020 meaning that anyone who likely would have purchased a Valve Index VR headset due to Half Life Alyx would have done so by now. You can also play Half Life Alyx on just about any other PC based VR headset like the Vive, Odyssey and the Rift, meaning that Valve is open to other platforms. Finally, Valve does have a history of porting their games to consoles dating back to games like Half Life, Team Fortress and even Counter Strike to more recent ports including the Portal Companion Collection that was released on the Switch at the end of 2022.

Back in 2020, Robin Walker, one of the lead designers of Half Life Alyx was asked about the game coming to a non VR platform where he said “not if but when” when referring to the modding community. He continued on saying “the game just wouldn’t be much fun…It will clearly demonstrate why we did this in VR”

Back in October of 2022, a site called The Leak reported that after some long negations, Sony was able to purchase the rights to publish it in 2023. However this site doesn’t have a track record to gauge the accuracy of this.

There is nothing confirmed by Sony or Valve about this happening but with the speculation, combined with its release date, it’s availability on many other platforms and now the increased power of the PSVR2, it would seem to a question of not if but when.