Gunman Contracts - Stand Alone

The Half-Life: Alyx mod with an 86-page comment thread just became its own game. Out today (September 10, 2026) on Steam Early Access at $24.99 — and unlike the mods it came from, you don't need to own Half-Life: Alyx, or even a VR headset.

The mod that outgrew its host

Quick history, because it explains why people care. Gunman Contracts started life as two free mods for Half-Life: Alyx — Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 — built mostly by one person, Arne Burkert (ANB_Seth). They turned Alyx's slow, deliberate VR shooting into something closer to a John Wick movie: fast movement, akimbo pistols, one-headshot takedowns. The Workshop page for Chapter 1 has run to 86 pages of comments. One from this past August, by a user named Doomkid, puts the demand better than any pitch deck could: "How tf is this not a standalone game?"

Now it is one. Road to VR called the originals some of the most full-featured mods Alyx ever got, and Stand Alone is not a port of them — it's a full rebuild in Unity, with new weapons, new contracts, and the Alyx requirement deleted. Flat-screen support is new too. The Steam page carries a dedicated Non-VR gameplay video and a "NON-VR MODE" badge right on the store screenshots, which is more than most VR-born games bother with.

VR or flat — the specs are honest about the difference

Both modes ship in the same $24.99 purchase, but they don't want the same machine. Steam's requirements page lists the two tracks separately, and the gap is worth reading before you buy:

	Non-VR minimum	VR recommended
CPU	Intel Core i5-7500	Intel Core i7-12700
RAM	12 GB	16 GB
GPU	GTX 1070	RTX 3060
Storage	20 GB	20 GB
Play style	Monitor, mouse & keyboard	OpenXR, standing or seated

That's Windows-only for now — no Mac or Linux build on the store page. Headset side, it's PC VR through OpenXR: any SteamVR-compatible headset counts, and there's no native Quest or PSVR version listed. Quest owners take the usual Link/Virtual Desktop route.

What's actually in the Early Access box

The store page is unusually specific about it, which makes a change from EA pages that promise "a vision." Launch content:

• 3 connected story contracts — a safehouse on the city outskirts, a syndicate-run harbor warehouse district, and a mobster restaurant "with a dark underbelly"
• Takedown mode — up to 30 enemies in one closed area, enemy types and count selectable
• Last Stand — endless waves, disarming bombs between them
• The Hive — the Gunman's home base, with pop-up target courses and holographic combat training
• 18 unlockable weapons with per-weapon attachments, plus a compound bow and knives
• Leaderboards on everything, split into VR and Non-VR brackets so flat players aren't competing against headsets
• Custom music — drop your own mp3s in a folder and the Gunman plays them on his in-game smartphone
• Unlockable cheats and an optional low-violence mode

The mp3 phone is the detail that tells you who made this. It's a completely useless-on-paper feature that some 15-year-old will set their entire contract soundtrack to, and it exists because one developer thought it would be funny. More contracts — at least three, in new locations — are planned as free updates on the way to 1.0.

The Steam Frame saga, briefly

The launch date has its own small story. At the August 2026 VR Games Showcase, 2080 Games announced Stand Alone would release the same day as Valve's then-undated Steam Frame headset — which meant, practically, that the game had no date. On September 1, the developer picked one himself: September 10. A note posted alongside the date (reported by UploadVR) said the plan to sync with Valve changed because they "ultimately decided to choose our own launch timing." The game now launches close to the Frame instead of hostage to it — and it runs on every SteamVR headset from day one, not just the new hardware.

Buy now, or wait?

Give the wait-case its due: it's Early Access from a solo developer, three missions is three missions, and the Steam reception so far is solid rather than stellar — 1,509 reviews at 79%, Steam's "Mostly Positive" band, checked September 28, 2026. If you only play a game once it's finished, wishlist it and check back after a few patches — that's a defensible position, not a cop-out.

The case for buying now is the track record behind it. The free mods this grew out of were polished enough to spawn 86 pages of fan comments and a two-year wait for this release, the developer answers in public, and the EA page lists exactly what exists today instead of hiding behind a roadmap. If you played Chapter 1 & 2 and wanted more of them without booting Alyx, this is that, in a better engine, with flat mode included. At $25 with a planned price increase later, the "get in early" math is real this time.

Skip it for now if you want co-op — it's strictly single-player — or if your GPU sits below that GTX 1070 line and you were counting on flat mode to save you.

FAQ

• Do I need Half-Life: Alyx? No. The mods needed it; Stand Alone doesn't. It's a separate Unity game that installs and runs on its own.
• Can I play on a normal monitor? Yes — there's a full Non-VR mode with its own minimum specs (GTX 1070 / i5-7500 / 12 GB) and its own leaderboard bracket.
• Will the price go up? The developer says yes, as content is added through Early Access toward 1.0.
• Is there a launch discount? No — the Steam API shows full price from day one.
• How many missions are in Early Access? Three story contracts, plus Takedown, Last Stand, and the Hive training base. Three more contracts are planned as free updates.
• Quest or PSVR? No native version on either. PC VR via OpenXR covers SteamVR headsets; Quest owners stream from a PC.

The launch trailer is up on the official ANB_Seth YouTube channel, and the Steam page has the full EA breakdown and both gameplay videos.