As of final week, a long-held dream of taking part in 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 basic 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 situation 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 Crew and their free, open beta out there on Steam. There’s extra work to be achieved for positive—a public roadmap exhibits what’s to come back—however the whole principal marketing campaign is already up and working, and fairly surreal to expertise. Sharp corners and all, Half-Life 2: VR Mod is effectively value trying out proper now should you can.
The variations are fairly quick. The G-Man’s opening scene grants an entire different sense of scale since you have got energetic depth notion. Pictures flash and seem within him as absolutely realized 3D areas, which you’ll really peer within 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 observe flying particles and exploding barrels with the benefit and velocity of simply turning your head. The violence and sensible physics of Half-Life 2 are now not simply simulations showing on a display screen in entrance of you; they’re taking place 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 neglect that is the top results of a decade of hacked tech created by enthusiastic followers.
And whereas there’s nonetheless extra work to be achieved on the weapons, it’s a thrill to have the ability to nearly maintain, study, and combat with these basic online game armaments. Smashing the aggressive, flying manhacks with a crowbar in VR is so obscenely enjoyable that I need a mini spin-off mod of this alone. And my Fitbit tells me I’m incomes “Zone Minutes” by whacking these items. The 9mm pistol feels enjoyable to purpose 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 looks like Half-Life 2 was all the time alleged to be this manner. 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 recreation 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 abilities, beginning with work on the gun fashions.
WormSlayer’s description of the mod’s early days seems like one thing you’d have to 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 informed 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 area of view,” WormSlayer stated. That headset can be left behind in favor of the Oculus DK1, the primary {hardware} the just-incorporated Oculus (now Meta) ever launched. You may 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, rapidly growing old out current requirements. “Valve and Oculus each deserted the concept of treating a VR headset as simply one other monitor,” WormSlayer stated. “This was a sound thought for a lot of causes, nevertheless it successfully broke VR help in Half-Life 2.”
After that change up, the staff gave up for some time. Andrews retired from the undertaking fully. Keen VR group members, nevertheless, persuaded WormSlayer to rethink dropping all of it collectively. “[They] had been assured they might hack OpenVR help into the previous undertaking,” WormSlayer stated. 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 staff. 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 previous engine may be very single-threaded and solely helps DirectX 9, so even with our hacked-together DXVK implementation, we’ve been combating to hit FPS targets in some locations,” WormSlayer stated. Whereas I’ve but to get to among the extra chaotic scenes of the sport’s latter half, I’ve discovered efficiency thus far to be fairly good. Provided that there’s no teleport-style motion possibility, nevertheless, this mod may be robust on the abdomen should you’re new to VR.
Finally, 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 flexibility to nearly choose up and manipulate objects. Half-Life 2: VR Mod is not any Half-Life: Alyx when it comes to the sheer quantity of interactable objects, nevertheless it matches in effectively as a VR-worthy prequel. And with the addition of the crowbar and a head-mounted flashlight, it has various 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 recreation’s puzzles.
Probably the most stunning factor for me, nevertheless, 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% enhance in inter-character interplay. Enjoying Half-Life 2 and with the ability to wave at Dr. Kleiner as he shouts with pleasure upon seeing you makes me marvel: 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 thought of this for all these years?
NPCs additionally have a look at you at eye stage in a really eerie means. This sense exists in different, extra trendy VR video games, nevertheless it’s stunning to search out it so current in a recreation from 2004. The simplicity of the fashions, with mild 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 sensible.
I’m not saying nodding, gesturing, and searching folks within the eyes are the new options you checklist on the again of the field (that’s saved for viciously beating the shit out of steel manhacks with a crowbar and seeing this basic recreation in true 3D), nevertheless it positive does change the tone of Half-Life 2. One nitpick right here: It’s a disgrace you’ll be able to’t see your fingers 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’d’ve cherished to stare and level lifeless at him, as if to say “I see you motherfucker. I see you.”
I’m trying ahead to taking part in by way of the remainder of Half-Life 2: VR Mod, recognizing the distinctive adjustments the brand new format provides and evokes. There’s nonetheless work to be achieved by WormSlayer and the staff, together with extra enhancements to the weapons, tweaks to make the sport a bit simpler for people susceptible to movement illness, and even some AI-upscaled textures to offer the extra aged facets 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 basic recreation. When you like Half-Life and personal a PCVR headset, you need to obtain this yesterday.
