There’s no denying that Half-Life 2 is one of the best-loved games of all time. Despite its release in 2004 (a long time ago for any game), it completely changed the face of the FPS genre. Now, the game is taking another revolutionary turn as a VR mod is scheduled for release in September.
The team at the Source VR Mod Team, which is the company responsible for making the VR mod, announced that the public beta test will launch this September. So far, they haven’t been able to provide an exact date. The mod is currently in a closed playtest to iron out any issues before the beta is made public.
The VR version is coming after many years! It was already greenlit on Steam in 2017. After numerous development nightmares, the project was almost abandoned. However, with a new influx of talented team members in 2021, the project was revitalized and made immense strides in a relatively short time – which is why the game is finally ready for beta testing.
The new VR game will run on SteamVR and can be used with any headset using the Steam platform. So far Half-Life 2 VR has been tested on Index, Quest, Vive, and Pimax systems. It appears that this VR mod will be free to download, but it will require a copy of Half-Life 2 to play.
At the moment it’s unclear whether or not the game will be released on Steam. The team explained that they’re still waiting for approval by Valve. At the moment there’s no indication as to how long the approval might take. As such the team decided that if approval comes through in time the game will be released on Steam as planned. If not, they will look at alternative launch options outside of Steam.
This is not the first new development for Half-Life 2 in the years since its release. In 2014, almost ten years after the release, Half-Life 2 came to Android as an NVIDIA Shield exclusive. More recently, the game received an official VR sequel in 2020 known as Half-Life: Alyx. As such, we look forward to the newest Half-Life VR coming in September.
