Virtual reality games tend to be a mixed bag when it comes to their requirements. On one hand, their minimums tend to be a lot higher than the average game, because of a mandatory 90+ FPS for comfortable gameplay. But then their visuals don't tend to be quite as high-quality as the average AAA game because those sorts of developers still haven't fully committed to VR just yet. Valve may change that with Half Life: Alyx, but it's not asking too much from gamers.
Half Life: Alyx will require at a minimum, an AMD Ryzen 5 1600, or Intel Core i5-7500 CPU, 12GB of RAM, and at least an Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB, or RX 580 8GB graphics card. There are other GPUs that will suffice, but you'll need at least 6GB of video memory to get it working right.
Alyx is slightly more strenuous on systems right out of the gate, because it's designed with Valve's Index headset in mind. While Alyx will work well on the HTC Vive, Vive Pro, various Oculus headsets, and more, the Index is arguably the most strenuous. It not only has a higher resolution than the first generation of VR headsets, but it supports a refresh rate of 120Hz. That means that it mandates an even higher FPS of 120, which is a tall order at these sorts of resolutions.
While an argument could be made that Valve is limiting its audience with Alyx by not only creating a VR-only Half Life game, but also making it a demanding one, this could be the flagship virtual reality game that the platform needs to really kick it into mainstream.
Are you excited by Half Life: Alyx? Can you PC stand up to its minimum specs?