If there's a game that deserves to be explored with a virtual reality headset, it's Half-Life 2. Valve technically enabled support for the Oculus Rift in June 2013, but the company didn't make any additional effort, something that could be said of the entire saga. Fortunately, the Half-Life 2: VR project aims to fix that with a mod that updates and optimizes the game so it can be enjoyed with the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive, and it includes extra features like manual reloading of weapons, among other things.
A Saga Stuck on a Cliffhanger
On November 16, Half-Life 2 will turn 13 years. If we extend to Half-Life 2: Episode Two, its tenth anniversary will be on October 10, and I sincerely hope Valve uses that date to throw something on the table... anything. A teaser, an announcement, the definitive confirmation that there won't be a third game, whatever. There are many unanswered questions, and I even think that at this point we could accept their resolution in an alternative medium, say a comic or an animated movie. The Half-Life saga cannot remain stuck on a cliffhanger.
How hard is it to throw Gordon Freeman into the Combine's home world with a portal gun to kick and teleport asses from one place to another? Valve is swimming in money with Steam, and I understand that making games is no longer its priority... but at the very least we deserve a conclusion. Until that happens, the fan community is responsible for keeping the Half-Life universe alive, and the latest project to reach us is Half-Life 2: VR.
What the Mod Brings to the Table
Valve launched a beta patch in May 2013 that added compatibility with the development versions of the Oculus Rift, and its full version arrived a month later. However, that patch had a fairly crude hack profile. Half-Life 2: VR aims to do things much better, updating character and weapon models, adding special features like manual reloading of weapons (I wonder how well that will work), stereoscopic rendering in DirectX 9, latency adjustments, controller tracking, and of course, the ability to play with the HTC Vive.
Distribution and Requirements
Half-Life 2:VR is a mod, and as such it requires the full Half-Life 2 package (the original game and the two episodes), but its distribution will be free. The project has already been approved on Greenlight, so its installation via Steam should be relatively simple. It doesn't have a release date yet. With everything related to Half-Life, patience is mandatory...
