Gunman Contracts – Stand Alone unlocks in Steam Early Access today, September 10, 2026. Solo developer Arne Burkert’s Unity rebuild of the Half-Life: Alyx mod ships VR and flat on day one — on a date he chose himself, not Valve’s.
Steam’s store page for app 2421750 still stamped September 10 this morning, with the buy box flipping from Coming Soon into Early Access as the day unlocks. That is the day after Detective VR and Tales Of Glory 4: Ragnarok went live on SteamVR — and twelve days before Valve’s stated summer window for Steam Frame ends on September 22.
The Frame is not on this invoice. At the August VR Games Showcase the pitch was “alongside Steam Frame.” UploadVR and VR.org both tracked the pivot: Burkert later said he still trusts Valve’s summer statement, but picked his own Thursday so the game would sit near any Frame ship date without being stuck to one Valve had not named. We covered that date lock earlier this month. Today is the checkout, not the calendar proxy.
What Early Access puts in your hands
The store page is unusually plain about the day-one build: three full story contracts, two challenge modes (Takedown and Last Stand), an 18-plus weapon wall with attachments, Steam leaderboards split between VR and Non-VR, and the Hive home base for speed courses and holographic drills. Three more story contracts are promised as free updates toward 1.0. The campaign targets The Collectors — a crime syndicate the store copy frames as trafficking and kidnapping — across a city-outskirts safehouse, a harbor warehouse district, and a mob restaurant with something buried underneath.
Road to VR reported Early Access pricing at $25, with the studio saying the price will rise as contracts and features land before 1.0. Steam’s public price overview was still empty while the listing sat in Coming Soon; treat the buy-box number as authoritative once it appears, and the Road to VR figure as the reported launch ask.
Hardware and what this is not
Steam’s requirements put Non-VR on an i5-7500 / GTX 1070 class machine with 12 GB RAM. VR wants roughly an i7-12700 / RTX 3060 with 16 GB, over OpenXR, standing or seated. Twenty gigabytes either way. Categories include Tracked Controller Support and VR Supported alongside full controller and DualShock support — which matches the hybrid pitch.
This is not the Alyx Workshop mod with a price tag. The original Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 still require Half-Life: Alyx and Source 2. Stand Alone is a ground-up Unity project with new weapons and new contracts. Publisher credit on Steam is 2080 Games; development credit is ANB_Seth.
For the rest of today’s Quest and Steam shelf, see our September 10 launches roundup and UploadVR’s Lightkeepers impressions. Buy or wishlist on Steam.
Sources: Steam, Road to VR, VR.org, UploadVR.