As of final week, a long-held dream of enjoying Valve’s landmark 2004 shooter Half-Life 2 in digital actuality has lastly come to fruition. The journey started practically 10 years in the past, when a person named Nathan Andrews managed to hack collectively a functioning model of the all-time traditional in VR. This was earlier than any Vives, Indexes, Quests, or Oculi. With a primitive Sony HMZ-T1 and specialised motion-tracking gear, Andrews risked a resonance cascade state of affairs to splice collectively a working basis for a full Half-Life 2 VR mod. Over the following decade, dozens of volunteers would contribute to the off-then-on-again undertaking, all in hopes of sooner or later bashing enemies with a crowbar in semi-lifelike digital actuality.
And now Half Life 2: VR Mod is able to play, because of the arduous work of the Supply VR Mod Workforce and their free, open beta accessible on Steam. There’s extra work to be accomplished for certain—a public roadmap reveals what’s to return—however all the principal marketing campaign is already up and working, and fairly surreal to expertise. Sharp corners and all, Half-Life 2: VR Mod is nicely price trying out proper now for those who can.
The variations are fairly quick. The G-Man’s opening scene grants a complete different sense of scale since you’ve got lively depth notion. Photos flash and seem inside him as absolutely realized 3D areas, which you’ll truly peer inside and see with larger depth and dimension. This new presentation grants extra weight to the entire scene.
As a online game graphics expertise in VR, it’s tremendous cool. Your eyes can monitor flying particles and exploding barrels with the convenience and velocity of simply turning your head. The violence and practical physics of Half-Life 2 are not simply simulations showing on a display in entrance of you; they’re occurring in a 3D area you’re feeling a way of presence and dimension in. All of it feels so pure that it’s straightforward to overlook that is the tip results of a decade of hacked tech created by enthusiastic followers.
And whereas there’s nonetheless extra work to be accomplished on the weapons, it’s a thrill to have the ability to nearly maintain, look at, and combat with these traditional online game armaments. Smashing the aggressive, flying manhacks with a crowbar in VR is so obscenely enjoyable that I desire a mini spin-off mod of this alone. And my Fitbit tells me I’m incomes “Zone Minutes” by whacking this stuff. The 9mm pistol feels enjoyable to intention and shoot (and sure, I’m solely aiming with one hand). Extra trendy VR video games are inclined to have smoother reload mechanics, so this mod’s really feel a bit clunky typically, however the motion stays simply as hectic and enjoyable.
In a means it seems like Half-Life 2 was all the time imagined to be this fashion. It is extremely straightforward to lose your self on this mod, each as a VR expertise and a Half-Life one. It simply pushes previous the standing of “tech demo” or “mod,” feeling prefer it’s shaping as much as be a strong VR sport in its personal proper.
The Half-Life 2: VR Mod undertaking is at the moment being labored on by customers from the Flatscreen to VR Discord server, led by WormSlayer, whose involvement goes again to the earliest days of the undertaking. Again then, WormSlayer caught sight of Andrews’ early prototypes and provided his skills, beginning with work on the gun fashions.
WormSlayer’s description of the mod’s early days appears like one thing you’d must slap collectively to outlive Metropolis 17 itself. The assemblage of tech included a “Sony head-mounted TV, a gun controller for a console, and knowledgeable 3D monitoring system [Andrews] had entry to,” WormSlayer advised Kotaku. That headset in query was the Sony HMZ-T1, which sported “an eye-watering decision of 640×720 per eye, and a 45-degree discipline of view,” WormSlayer mentioned. That headset can be left behind in favor of the Oculus DK1, the primary {hardware} the just-incorporated Oculus (now Meta) ever launched. You’ll be able to see footage from these early days in a 2013 YouTube video.
As such an early client VR experiment, the undertaking was destined for some roadbumps as new tech hit the scene, shortly growing old out current requirements. “Valve and Oculus each deserted the concept of treating a VR headset as simply one other monitor,” WormSlayer mentioned. “This was a sound concept for a lot of causes, however it successfully broke VR help in Half-Life 2.”
After that swap up, the group gave up for some time. Andrews retired from the undertaking totally. Keen VR group members, nonetheless, persuaded WormSlayer to rethink dropping all of it collectively. “[They] have been assured they may hack OpenVR help into the outdated undertaking,” WormSlayer mentioned. And so the undertaking sparked to life once more, making nice progress earlier than as soon as once more resuming its slumber as important contributors moved on.
Fortunately, the nascent Half-Life 2: VR Mod would certainly see a second resurgence when the Flatscreen to VR group mustered up a brand new group. Now that the general public beta is out and playable, they’re focusing their efforts on bringing the undertaking to a completely polished and finalized state.
As playable and enjoyable as it’s proper now, Half-Life 2: VR Mod nonetheless has some points, primarily concerning efficiency. “The outdated engine may be very single-threaded and solely helps DirectX 9, so even with our hacked-together DXVK implementation, we’ve been preventing to hit FPS targets in some locations,” WormSlayer mentioned. Whereas I’ve but to get to a number of the extra chaotic scenes of the sport’s latter half, I’ve discovered efficiency to this point to be fairly good. Provided that there’s no teleport-style motion possibility, nonetheless, this mod is likely to be powerful on the abdomen for those who’re new to VR.
In the end, the physics and tech of Half-Life 2 are nonetheless a pleasure to play with 18 years later. VR solely amplifies the physicality of its world, with the power to nearly decide up and manipulate objects. Half-Life 2: VR Mod isn’t any Half-Life: Alyx by way of the sheer quantity of interactable objects, however it suits in nicely as a VR-worthy prequel. And with the addition of the crowbar and a head-mounted flashlight, it has quite a lot of options and comforts of its personal. Having the ability to nearly manipulate objects on the earth is a refreshing solution to revisit lots of the sport’s puzzles.
Probably the most shocking factor for me, nonetheless, was how this expertise is affecting my notion of the sport’s characters, particularly the silent protagonist himself.
Gordon Freeman is a quiet man even when he’s frantically destroying shit. However even simply with the ability to nod at an NPC marks a 100% improve in inter-character interplay. Taking part in Half-Life 2 and with the ability to wave at Dr. Kleiner as he shouts with pleasure upon seeing you makes me surprise: Is Gordon Freeman even a waver? Does he give a thumbs as much as point out he understands? Does he shake or nod his head when folks speak to him? How have I by no means considered this for all these years?
NPCs additionally take a look at you at eye degree in a really eerie means. This sense exists in different, extra trendy VR video games, however it’s shocking to search out it so current in a sport from 2004. The simplicity of the fashions, with light head animations and eyes that give a touch of character and consciousness, simply barely inches the sport out of the uncanny valley into one thing that begins to really feel practical.
I’m not saying nodding, gesturing, and searching folks within the eyes are the recent options you record on the again of the field (that’s saved for viciously beating the shit out of metallic manhacks with a crowbar and seeing this traditional sport in true 3D), however it certain does change the tone of Half-Life 2. One nitpick right here: It’s a disgrace you possibly can’t see your palms whereas piloting the airboat. Not solely did my eyes by no means depart the G-Man as I blazed previous him in my escape from the Mix, I might’ve beloved to stare and level useless at him, as if to say “I see you motherfucker. I see you.”
I’m trying ahead to enjoying by the remainder of Half-Life 2: VR Mod, recognizing the distinctive adjustments the brand new format provides and conjures up. There’s nonetheless work to be accomplished by WormSlayer and the group, together with extra enhancements to the weapons, tweaks to make the sport a bit simpler for folk susceptible to movement illness, and even some AI-upscaled textures to present the extra aged points of the graphics a little bit of a facelift. These adjustments shall be very welcome, however for now this primary playable model makes for an effective way to leap again into this traditional sport. In the event you like Half-Life and personal a PCVR headset, you need to obtain this yesterday.
