The long-awaited VR mod for Half-Life 2 (2004) is obtainable totally free in beta beginning at this time, bringing to the enduring Valve title a near-native stage of VR immersion we’ve been ready for.
In case you didn’t catch our latest VR Modding Month-to-month article, right here’s the lowdown: improvement on a VR mod for HL2 started practically 10 years in the past, though because of work/life/all the pieces the lead developer needed to sideline work on the mod after transferring to Rockstar Video games.
Final 12 months although, modder Cabalistic joined Wormslayer and the remainder of the Supply VR staff to lastly carry Half-Life 2 in its entirety to VR. Right now, it launches on Steam in early entry totally free. Granted, you’ll want a duplicate of the sport to play, however you will get that in numerous bundles at a really cheap worth.
Right here’s a full record of options coming at launch, taken from the mod’s Steam web page:
- Full room-scale VR with tracked movement controls. Bodily stroll round, choose up objects and climb ladders the way in which that solely Digital Actuality permits
- Intuitive and sensible weapon interactions, with fast and straightforward weapon switching by way of a radial menu, ammo storage over your shoulder, useful iron-sights, two-handed weapons, and handbook reloading
- Management choices together with; full left-handed help, a laser sight, and arcade fashion “fast reload”
- Consolation options like movement vignette and third individual car digital camera. (Notice: there may be at the moment no teleport motion possibility)
- Playable on any VR headset which is supported by SteamVR
The staff additionally has a roadmap so gamers can hold tabs on new options and bug fixes too. Right here’s a style of what the staff has in retailer:
Whereas we actually can’t “remaster” HL2 to appear like a sport developed in 2022, we’re engaged on overhauling property and textures by a mix of AI upscaling and handbook touches to present them that further little bit of element and sharpness beneath the VR headset that’s lacking from the unique. All updates are supposed to remain devoted to the unique. Moreover, all maps within the sport will get a facelift and are being improved with up to date lighting, extra particulars and bug fixes along with VR-centric changes like clean stairs.
We’ll be following alongside when the mod drops later at this time. On the time of this writing there’s solely three hours left till we are able to bounce in, which simply gained’t come quick sufficient. Once more, you may obtain the mod totally free on Steam right here.