Modders have developed a version of Half-Life 2 that works with HTC Vive and Oculus Rift headsets.
The new version includes updated effects, textures, models and maps to make the gamplay more immersive, a UI developed specifically for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, more realistic weapon interactions, including reloading them differently according to the real-life mechanism and motion controller support that means it will work seamlessly with the VR environments. The modding team is also planning to add a whole raft of new features in the near future.
Although there was previously a version available for VR environments, Steam stopped support of it and so fans of the game stopped playing when it went out of date. It meant anyone using a modern VR headset like the HTC Vive were unable to play it at all.
“While Valve had added support for the Rift development kits to their Source engine, as the software that the headsets relied on advanced over time, Valve didn’t update the Source implementation, leading to the present situation which is that the mod can’t be played on anything but old development kit headsets,” Road to VR reported.
Although Half-Life 2: VR is free to download, anyone wishing to play the game will need players to have Half-Life 2, Episode 1&2 installed before they can start playing it.