All Half-Life: Alyx Weapons and Upgrades
If you’re wondering what amazing weapons you’ll get to enjoy in Half-Life: Alyx, or are wondering which weapon upgrades are worth it, then you’ve come to the right place. This complete list of all Half-Life: Alyx weapons and upgrades has every weapon in the game as well as every upgrade that you can get for them. So while you explore City 17 in Half Life Alyx you’ll know exactly what to spend your Resin on.
Table of Contents:
Half-Life: Alyx Weapons - The Pistol
The Pistol is the first weapon that you get in Half-Life: Alyx. Russel gives it to you at the beginning of the game by throwing it over to you after assuring it isn’t loaded, but hilariously misses and hits the roof of a car. This makes the pistol go off… apparently it was loaded.
Old Reliable
The Pistol is an all around great weapon in Half-Life: Alyx. Ammunition for it is plentiful throughout the game, and while it doesn’t offer the greatest firepower it is accurate and has very manageable recoil, so it’s not hard to control when firing quickly. Since all of the combat in Half Life: Alyx takes place in pretty close quarters, you can reliably hit enemies at whatever range you encounter them at. Though you’ll still start to miss if you don’t aim your shots and pace yourself. Firing too rapidly will affect accuracy.
The main downsides of the pistol are its low damage output and low magazine capacity. Since you can’t fire it as quickly as possible and expect to hit at any range further than point blank, you’ll find yourself not getting a lot of bullets into your target due to having to aim and pace your shots. So when compared to other weapons in Half-Life: Alyx, you won’t get the greatest damage output from the pistol.
Pistol Upgrades are pretty great
The pistol will also run out of bullets quickly, as each magazine doesn’t hold many. This is especially true when you’re facing enemies that can take a lot of hits before going down. Luckily there are upgrades to help with both the damage and ammo capacity problems.
Half-Life: Alyx Upgrades - The Pistol
Reflex Sight - A very useful upgrade at only 10 Resin if you don’t like the default pistol sights. The Reflex Sight upgrade also highlights weak points on enemies, and so helps even more when you’re having trouble seeing what you’re aiming at.
Burst Fire Mode - This pistol upgrade costs 20 Resin and lets you switch between single shot and a burst fire mode that fires 3 shots at once. This dramatically increases the damage output of the pistol by letting you get out three accurate rounds at once.
Bullet Reservoir - A pricey pistol upgrade at 30 resin, but definitely the best way to solve the ammunition storage problems that the pistol has. Now you can store an extra 10 bullets inside of the pistol, which will be automatically taken out of the loaded magazine if the reservoir isn’t full.
Laser Sight - A costly laser pointer upgrade at 35 resin, but makes aiming without looking down the pistol’s sights very easy. Whatever the laser is pointing at is what you hit!
Half-Life: Alyx Weapons - The Shotgun
The Shotgun is the second weapon you acquire in Half Life: Alyx. While exploring the quarantine zone you’ll find it hanging above a deadly pit from the claw of an expired headcrab zombie. You have to retrieve it quickly by turning a nearby wheel to winch the old zombie down and then stop the wheel with a piece of pipe. All this while still living zombies are breaking through the walls to get at you! This was definitely a very intense way to introduce a new weapon to Half Life: Alyx.
Blasting a headcrab
As you might expect the shotgun works very well at close ranges. Out of all Half Life Alyx weapons, it definitely has the highest damage output when used up close. It even feels devastating. Each shot you fire with the shotgun is very punchy and impactful, though the recoil is tremendous, so don’t fire it too quickly. Luckily since each shot is so powerful that you generally won’t have to fire it more than once or twice to clear the area in front of you.
Blasting an antlion
The downside is that shotgun ammunition is pretty scarce compared to ammo for the other weapons. This is probably overall a good thing, because otherwise it would be so easy to rely on the shotgun to punch your way through most enemies with a single shot. Still, it does mean that the shotgun functions more as a powerful panic button than a regular part of your arsenal in Half-Life: Alyx. When you start to run low on shells for it you’ll naturally use it a little more sparingly whenever you’re surrounded by enemies at close range, or need to deal a lot of damage quickly.
The only downside to the shotgun is that it is only effective at very close ranges, so don’t try blasting anything that’s more than a few feet in front of you, or you won’t deal a lot of damage and waste your shells.
Luckily upgrades give the Shotgun a lot more utility than just a “get out of a life threatening situation free” card.
Half-Life: Alyx Upgrades - The Shotgun
Laser Sight - A 10 Resin laser sight upgrade. Just like the laser sight on the pistol, you’ll hit whatever the laser is shining on. Dubiously useful since the shotgun is only accurate at very close ranges. Aiming isn’t often a problem.
Double Shot - For 25 Resin you can fire two shells at once out of your shotgun with this upgrade, just like in Half-Life 2 and Half-Life! So if you really want to make sure whatever you’re aiming at goes down, you can always make sure you take it down in a single shot. Generally this is overkill, but can still come in handy.
Autoloader - At the cost of 30 Resin you can install an autoloader upgrade on your shotgun which lets you load even more shells into the shotgun before needing to reload, like the Bullet Reservoir for the pistol. Very useful if you tend to miss a lot with the shotgun and need to know you’ll have as many shells as you might need in any given situation.
Grenade Launcher - While this is an expensive upgrade at 40 resin, it is definitely the best Half-Life: Alyx shotgun upgrade. With this you can attach a grenade to the front of the shotgun and arm it by pulling a handguard on the front, then firing the shotgun will launch the grenade far and accurately. This upgrade adds a ton of utility to the shotgun, and makes your shotgun a lot more useful, even when you’re out of shells for it. Best of all this lets you hold another grenade on you, since it will stay attached to the shotgun. So basically another free storage slot!
Half-Life: Alyx Weapons - The Combine SMG
The Combine SMG is the third and final weapon that you will acquire in your Half Life: Alyx journey. You’ll find it in the basement of the North Star Hotel, right past a gauntlet of black headcrabs. Most Combine SMGs are DNA encoded to only be useable by their intended soldier. However the one that you find in Half-Life: Alyx, is still in the box and not yet programmed. Definitely a fantastic find!
An Upgraded Combine SMG
The Combine SMG is a powerful third addition to your arsenal. Just like the pistol it is effective at any range you will encounter enemies, but unlike the pistol it has a sizeable magazine and high rate of fire. The Combine SMG can down enemies quickly. This is also because it has the lowest recoil out of all Half Life Alyx weapons.
You can reliably fire fully automatic with the Combine SMG and hit your target every time as long as you keep your aim steady. This means that you can do a lot of damage quickly with the SMG at all ranges. You’ll also be finding decent amounts of ammunition for the Combine SMG after you get it (and even a little before).
Firing an SMG with the Reflex Sight Upgrade
The only downside is that the Combine SMG is a little cumbersome to reload, and if you try to solely rely on it you will run out of ammo. Also the iron sights that comes with it aren’t the easiest to aim with and can make it hard to hit your first few shots before you follow the tracers and get on target. Still, as always, there are upgrades to help with that.
Half-Life: Alyx Upgrades - The Combine SMG
Reflex Sight - For 15 Resin you can install a reflex sight on your Combine SMG. This sight upgrade operates a lot like the pistol reflex sight and highlights weak points on enemies. Since the iron sights on the SMG aren’t very good, this upgrade is very worth it.
Laser Sight - If you’d rather skip the Reflex sight upgrade you could go for the Laser Sight upgrade for 25 Resin instead. Just like the laser sights on the pistol and shotgun, whatever the laser is pointing at is what you’ll hit. Great for firing from the hip.
Extended Magazine - If you’re tired of reloading the Combine SMG in combat, then with 30 resin you can add an extended magazine upgrade to it! this functions like the pistol reservoir and shotgun autoloader in that it holds extra ammunition, and automatically loads it as the weapon runs dry. Make sure to keep your extended magazine topped up in between fights though.
Half-Life: Alyx Weapons - Grenades
For the final entry into Half-Life: Alyx weapons, you’ll find grenades. Grenades come into two varieties, the mechanical combine grenades, and the biological Xen grenades. Combine Grenades can be found scattered around like any other sort of ammunition or consumable item. While Xen grenades spawn out of the mouths of stalk-like creatures in Xen infested areas. It takes a little practice, but if you’re fast enough you can swipe the grenade out of their mouths before they pull away from you.
Launching a grenade from the shotgun
Both grenades are very effective, and both can dispatch a room full of enemies when they detonate. Just hold it, press the activation button (check your settings for which one, it is controller dependent) and throw it quickly. A Grenade can even be launched with a shotgun upgrade. Oh, and Xen grenades also infinitely spawn out of the creatures who create them, so whenever you’re near one go nuts!
There you go, all weapons and upgrades in Half Life Alyx. Hope you enjoyed and have a better idea of what’s worth your resin and what isn’t. As always, have fun in Half-Life: Alyx’s City 17!
