Lynch showed off a number of strings containing the following snippets: \u2018AccountHardwarePromotions\u2019, \u2018HLAlyxPromoButtons\u2019, and \u2018Frame Alyx Promo\u2019 among others, suggesting the $60 game will be bundled with Steam Frame as a part of a special promotion.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/brad-lynch-hla-frame.jpg\")
Courtesy Brad Lynch<\/p>\n
Notably, Valve also gave away Half-Life: Alyx to those who purchased its PC VR headset Valve Index, which launched nearly a year before the game was released. That deal is still good even today, provided the headset isn\u2019t out of stock<\/a>.<\/p>\n Now, six years since release, Half-Life: Alyx is still largely considered the benchmark for \u2018AAA\u2019 VR gaming, garnering a rare [10\/10] review<\/a> from Road to VR in addition to winning PC VR Game of the Year<\/a> in 2020 among many other industry accolades.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also spawned a number of mods, including arguably the most comprehensive to date: Gunman Contracts. Notably, the original creator of the free Gunman Contracts mod ANB_Seth went on to create the full-fledged VR game called Gunman Contracts \u2013 Stand Alone<\/a>, slated to release on September 10th.<\/p>\n My Take<\/p>\n Valve said late last year it wasn\u2019t developing any new first-party content for Steam Frame<\/a>, which is a real shame. Steam Frame is probably going to be pretty expensive though, largely in part thanks to the storage\/RAM\/SoC crisis, making a software giveaway likely the only thing Valve can do to lessen the blow.<\/p>\n It raises the question though: is Valve really just giving away a PC VR game to Steam Frame users, who may or may not own a PC capable of playing it? It\u2019s true Valve considers Steam Frame a PC-streaming headset first and a standalone platform second, although the company has made a point of certifying over 100 PC VR and flatscreen titles<\/a> to work in standalone mode on day one, including the company\u2019s own flatscreen hit Portal 2.<\/p>\n That said, you won\u2019t find Half-Life: Alyx on that \u2018certified standalone\u2019 list, simply because it\u2019s just too compute intensive to run on modern mobile chipsets in its current state. But I wouldn\u2019t lose hope entirely. There\u2019s been chatter of Valve experimenting with Half-Life: Alyx running in standalone mode. <\/p>\n