Ever since Valve released Half-Life: Alyx in 2022, many in the VR community have wished for a chance to play the franchise’s original titles through their headsets—without using Vorpx.
In September, Source VR Mod Team granted one wish and released the Half-Life 2: VR Mod on Steam.
The mod was an open beta release and the team continues to update it, but it has received an overwhelmingly positive response from players.
The creators say that VR mods for Half-Life 2 DLC are part of their conversion plans once they polish the base game mod.
But just over a month after Half-Life 2: VR Mod hit Steam, a VR mod for the original game will land on the platform in October.
Breathing New Life into Half-Life
Max Makes Mods plans to release Half-Life: VR Mod on Steam on October 19.
Half-Life: VR Mod comes 24 years after the pancake game’s original release in 1998.
While the mod is free, players must own the original game.
According to Max, he has been working on the mod since 2017 with the help of a few lovely folks.
At launch, the mod will feature full motion controller interactivity, VR hands, and high-res textures and 6DoF weapon models from Rorin, Fromic.Sapien, and DoomMarine23.
Max says the mod will support all past, present, and future VR hardware by utilizing the SteamVR input system.
“Default input bindings for a few controller types are included, but depending on your needs, you might want to select community-made bindings or configure your own,” states Max on the Mod’s Steam page. “You can play seated or standing, use free locomotion or teleport, touch buttons, grab levers, and physically climb ladders. Oh, and grab, throw, and play baseball with headcrabs.”
While the mod comes with hi-res textures and other enhancements, Max says players can enable Classic Mode for the unchanged vanilla 1998 experience.
According to Max, classic Mode features SD models and crisp, clear, low-res textures.
Additionally, the mod features voice artist Katie Otten, who re-recorded all of the original scientist lines.
Max says that Half-Life: VR Mod is fully playable from start to finish, but it still has some bugs.
Max Makes Mods will continue to develop Half-Life: VR Mod as there are plenty of features to make.
Players can join the Max Makes Mods Discord server to stay current with development progress.