The long-running Half-Life 2 VR mod finally launches on Steam today

After nearly eight years in development, an ambitious VR mod for Valve’s seminal shooter Half-Life 2 finally hits Steam today as a public beta.

Created by a group of modders by the name of Source VR Mod Team, Half-Life 2: VR Mod had a bit of a bumpy ride coming out. Eurogamer first reported on the project in 2017, but this build was actually an expansion of an earlier mod released for Razer Hydra in 2013. Sometime after that, it disappeared into what the team recently dubbed ” its own kind of development hell”, almost abandoned, but finally reappeared in 2021.

The wait continued until last month, when Source VR Mod Team announced that, thanks to a “new influx of team members [that] “revitalized” development, the Half-Life 2: VR project was about to be released, and that day has now arrived.

Half-Life 2: VR Mod – one of many attempts to bring the shooter’s sequel to VR headsets – brings a range of features including room-scale VR with tracked motion controls , giving players the ability to manipulate items and weapons, and climb ladders directly with their hands.

There’s also full locomotion, a weapon selection menu inspired by Valve’s Half-Life: Alyx (over-the-shoulder ammo storage, working sights, two-handed weapons, and manual reloading are also included), as well as various comfort features including motion. vignette and a third-person camera for vehicle sections. Additional options include full left-handed support, a laser sight, and arcade-style “fast reload”.

Half-Life 2: VR is free to play and can be played by anyone who owns Valve’s original game, but, crucially, isn’t finished yet. While the team claims the game can “be fully completed from start to finish” and is “very enjoyable to play”, there is still work to be done, as detailed in its roadmap. As such, it’s initially released on Steam as a public beta, so its developers can “make it the best VR experience possible.”

If you’re curious to see Half-Life 2: VR Mod in action before jumping straight in, Eurogamer’s Ian Higton tried it out earlier this year.