Mod guide Half-Life: Alyx
How to Play Gunman Contracts in Half-Life: Alyx, and the Stand Alone Game
Last updated: October 27, 2026
A living guide. For the developer's road from Workshop mod to Steam game, see our September 1 piece.
Gunman Contracts is a free two-chapter story mod for Half-Life: Alyx by ANB_Seth, a solo developer in Germany: shootouts on Alyx's engine, played as Workshop addons. Chapter 1, The Extraction, and Chapter 2, Art of War, have 314,023 and 244,725 lifetime Workshop subscriptions, and both hold five-star ratings. You need Half-Life: Alyx, which lists at $59.99, and a PC VR headset. The developer has since built Gunman Contracts - Stand Alone, a separate $24.99 Early Access game made from scratch that does not need Alyx.
| Gunman Contracts | |
|---|---|
| Price | Free. You need Half-Life: Alyx ($59.99) |
| Made by | ANB_Seth, a solo developer, not Valve |
| Chapters | Chapter 1, The Extraction (636 MB), and Chapter 2, Art of War (1.34 GB) |
| Released | September 12, 2021 and January 24, 2022. Both last updated March 23, 2022 |
| Difficulty | Story, Easy, Normal and Hard. On Story, enemy fire will not kill you |
| Ratings | Five stars on the Workshop for both, from 4,916 and 3,292 ratings |
| Stand Alone game | $24.99 in Early Access since September 10, 2026. Does not need Alyx |
The mod at a glance, checked October 27, 2026.
What you need
Half-Life: Alyx on your own Steam account, a PC VR headset and the PC to run it. The Alyx store page asks for at least a Core i5-7500 or Ryzen 5 1600, 12 GB of memory and a GeForce GTX 1060 or Radeon RX 580 with 6 GB. You do not need Alyx's Workshop Tools. Valve's own documentation says that if you only want to play other people's Workshop content, you just subscribe and "It'll show up in your menu in-game ready to play."
How to install it, step by step
Tick steps off as you go. Your progress stays on this device, so you can follow along on your phone at the PC.
- Own Half-Life: Alyx. Half-Life: Alyx has to be in your own Steam library. It is the only thing you buy; both chapters are free.
- Subscribe to Chapter 1. Open The Extraction on the Steam Workshop and press Subscribe. Steam downloads it, about 636 MB, in the background.
- Subscribe to Chapter 2. Do the same for Art of War, about 1.34 GB. The two chapters are one story, so play them in order.
- Turn off your other Alyx mods. The author's advice is to disable every other mod before playing this one, his own included, and to enable one chapter at a time.
- Enable the chapter in Addons. Start Half-Life: Alyx in VR, open Addons from the main menu and enable Chapter 1. You do not need the Workshop Tools to play.
- Start it from New Game. Choose New Game, then switch the tabs at the top from the main campaign to Addon maps and pick the chapter.
- Disable it when you are done. The mod changes Alyx's difficulty settings files, so turn both chapters off in Addons before you go back to the main campaign or another mod.
Both chapters come from the Steam Workshop and nowhere else. The author's Workshop pages also point to a community install video that walks through the same steps and left-handed setup.
Saves, difficulty and what to expect
There are four difficulty modes, Story, Easy, Normal and Hard, and on Story the author says enemy fire "wont kill you at all". Finishing the firing range is optional. Both chapters were last updated in March 2022, so expect a few rough edges, and their Workshop pages still carry an old banner promising the Stand Alone game for early 2024. It arrived in September 2026.
How to play any Half-Life: Alyx mod
The same steps work for every campaign on the Alyx Workshop. Subscribe on the Workshop page, start Alyx in VR, enable the addon in the Addons menu, then start a New Game and switch the tabs at the top from the main campaign to Addon maps, which is how Valve's addon documentation describes it. If you own the Workshop Tools, pressing Play first asks whether to run Alyx in VR or open the tools; choose VR. Run one campaign mod at a time, and turn mods off before you return to Valve's campaign. Alyx itself just gained foveated rendering on PC, which we covered this week.
If something breaks
| Problem | Fix |
|---|---|
| Your pistol is missing, or things act strangely | Update Half-Life: Alyx and disable every other mod |
| Still broken after that | Verify the game files in Steam, then unsubscribe from the chapter and subscribe again |
| The game crashes when you load a save | Saves inside a map crash on load. Restart from the map's own autosave |
| Textures look wrong | Enable only one chapter at a time |
| The final wave seems stuck | Wait. A failsafe pushes the game forward after 30 seconds |
| Valve's campaign behaves oddly afterwards | The mod changes Alyx's difficulty files. Disable both chapters |
| It clashes with another mod, such as Merciless | They do not work together. Disable the other mod |
Common problems and fixes, from the author's notes and replies on the Workshop.
The author put it plainly in a Workshop thread: "You should always disable all other mods before playing this one (or any mod really), incl. other mods from me." The full change notes are on Chapter 1's change log, and the developer posts on his YouTube channel.
The Stand Alone game
Gunman Contracts - Stand Alone is a separate game, not a bigger mod. Its developer wrote in 2023 that it is "developed all new from the ground up in the unity engine and has no ties to Alyx, Source2 or my mods" (Workshop thread). It launched in Early Access on September 10, 2026 at $24.99, published by 2080 Games, and plays both in VR and flat. The VR mode asks for an Intel Core i7-12700, a GeForce RTX 3060 and 16 GB of memory through OpenXR on Windows. Valve rates the flat version Verified on Steam Deck; it has no Steam Frame rating. On October 27 its Steam reviews were Mostly Positive, 77 percent of 1,697. We covered its launch plans in August.
Version history
- Sep 12, 2021 Chapter 1, The Extraction, goes up on the Alyx Workshop.
- Jan 24, 2022 Chapter 2, Art of War, follows.
- Mar 23, 2022 The last update to both chapters. Chapter 1's 1.21 notes say the two can now be enabled together without texture errors.
- Sep 10, 2026 Gunman Contracts - Stand Alone launches in Early Access on Steam at $24.99.
- Sep 21, 2026 Stand Alone 0.3.1.0: chest-bump reloads for rifles and shotguns, a toggle grip option, a fix for hands getting stuck in VR, and leaderboard cheat fixes.
- Oct 2, 2026 Stand Alone 0.3.1.1: save backups synced to Steam, a button to recover lost weapons, teleport fixes and shotgun haptics.
More VR mods we have set up
Every mod we have covered, with the steps and a difficulty rating for each, is on our best VR mods page.
- Mod guideHalf-Life 2 in VR
- Mod guideDiablo II: Resurrected in VR
- Mod guideTitanfall 2 in VR
- Mod guideAstro Bot Rescue Mission on Quest 3
Frequently asked questions
Do I need Half-Life: Alyx to play Gunman Contracts?
For the two free chapters, yes: they are Half-Life: Alyx Workshop addons and run inside Alyx, which lists at $59.99. The $24.99 Gunman Contracts - Stand Alone does not need Alyx. Its developer says it was built from the ground up in Unity with no ties to Alyx or the mods.
How do I start Gunman Contracts after subscribing?
Launch Half-Life: Alyx in VR, open Addons and enable the chapter you want, then choose New Game and switch the tabs at the top from the main campaign to Addon maps. That is Valve's documented way to play any Alyx addon.
Can I save in the middle of a Gunman Contracts mission?
Not reliably. The author's notes say saves made inside a map crash the game when loaded, while the automatic save at the start of each map works. Plan to finish a map in one sitting.
Can both chapters be enabled at the same time?
The March 2022 change notes say yes, without texture errors, but both Workshop descriptions still tell you to disable the other chapter. Enabling one at a time is the safe choice.
My pistol is missing or the mod is acting strangely. What do I do?
The author's fixes, in order: update Half-Life: Alyx, disable every other mod, verify the game files in Steam, then unsubscribe and subscribe to the chapter again.
Does Gunman Contracts work on the Steam Frame or Steam Deck?
The free chapters are Alyx addons, so they go wherever your copy of Half-Life: Alyx runs on a PC; we have not confirmed whether they work in Alyx's standalone Steam Frame version. For the Stand Alone game, Valve rates the flat version Verified on Steam Deck, but there is no Steam Frame rating for it, and its VR mode needs OpenXR on a Windows PC.
Does it work with other Alyx mods?
No. The author says to disable all other mods before playing, and the mod changes Alyx's difficulty files, so turn it off again before playing anything else.