I strapped into the headset expecting another early-access tech demo with delusions of grandeur. Instead I walked into a dim safehouse, reached up to a wall of rifles, and felt the specific weight of picking my tool for the job. That’s the moment Gunman Contracts earns its keep: it’s a hitman fantasy built for VR first, not a flat shooter that remembered headsets exist at the last minute.
What you’re actually getting
Gunman Contracts - Stand Alone isn’t a mod, an injection profile, or a flat game with a VR toggle bolted on after launch. It was built from the ground up in Unreal Engine for both VR and non-VR at the same time, and the VR side is real OpenXR with full tracked controller support. You launch it on Steam with a headset connected and VR mode switches on by itself — no config files, no third-party framework, no “hope the profile actually works this time” gamble. Standing or sitting, your call.
The developer, ANB_Seth, cut his teeth on two popular Half-Life: Alyx workshop mods under the same name. Those are separate products now — historical roots, not the game you’re buying. The standalone is the real deal: native, supported, and tracked-controller all the way down.
How the night goes
The loop is contract work. Three connected story contracts at launch — a safehouse hit, a harbor warehouse district, a mobster restaurant — each a self-contained job with its own layout and pressure. You’re not clearing waves toward a cutscene; you’re walking into a space, reading it, and deciding how the night ends. Both standing and sitting are supported, so you can run it however your space works.
Weapons are the heart of it. Eighteen-plus guns, each with per-weapon attachments you fit at the bench, plus a compound bow and knives for the quiet approach. I spent longer than I’ll admit at the gun wall just swapping optics and grips, and that’s before I fired a shot. The Hive — your home base — has a gun range to test loads and a holographic combat area to rehearse. It’s a hangout that doubles as a loadout screen, and in VR that lands differently than a flat menu you click through.
Shooting uses the controllers like the tools they represent. Aim, fire, reload, swap — the tracked hands mean the gun is where your hands are, not a reticle you nudge with a stick. There’s a custom music feature: drop MP3s into the gunman’s in-game smartphone and the job scores to your own playlist. Small touch, big vibe. It’s the kind of detail a solo dev who clearly loves the genre throws in because he’d want it himself.
Challenge modes pull the action tighter: Takedown Mode drops you against up to thirty enemies across five maps, Last Stand throws endless waves with a bomb-disarm twist. Leaderboards split VR and non-VR, so your pistol-only restaurant run gets ranked against other headset players, not flat-mode tourists. Twenty-seven achievements and unlockable cheats round it out. There’s even a low-violence mode that strips most of the blood while keeping the action intact — a rare “let me show this to a friend who hates gore” switch.
What’s genuinely good
The headline is that this is native VR with presence. You’re inside the contract, handling real hardware, not watching a gun float at screen-center. The weapon depth — attachments, bow, knives, the bench, the range — gives the action a reason to exist beyond “shoot the men.” The Hive makes the game feel like a place, not a launcher. And the structure respects your time: short, punchy contracts you can finish in a session, then challenge modes when you want the pressure cranked.
The developer’s pedigree shows. Someone who built popular VR mods inside Half-Life: Alyx already knows what makes tracked controllers feel right, and that instinct is baked into the standalone. The VR support isn’t a checkbox the store page demanded — it’s the foundation.
Where it shows its seams
It’s Early Access, and it reads that way. Three story contracts is a thin campaign by design — the studio plans three more free missions toward version 1.0, but right now the narrative is a teaser, not a saga. A solo developer building an Unreal Engine shooter from scratch means rough edges: expect the occasional jank, AI that won’t out-think a veteran, and polish gaps a bigger team would’ve sanded. You’re backing a vision here, not buying a finished monument.
Reach is PC VR only — Windows on Steam, OpenXR. No standalone headset build, no console version. That’s simply where the game lives, not a knock on what’s in the headset; if you’ve got a PC VR setup, you’re the exact audience. I’d love to see it travel further down the line, but the experience itself doesn’t suffer for it today.
The take
Gunman Contracts is the rare Early Access action VR title that feels finished enough to enjoy now and promising enough to keep watching. The contracts are short, but the gunplay, the arsenal, and The Hive make the loop stick. If you want a deep story campaign, wait for the free missions. If you want to stand in a safehouse, build a rifle, and run a job to your own soundtrack tonight, this is an easy yes.