The Oculus team was running a medieval scene yanked from Infinity Blade when we checked out Oculus Rift at CES 2013 back in January. Had they gotten Skyrim up and running, they would have never been able to pull the goggles off my face. It was hard enough not to stash them in my backpack and dash out the door.
Kotaku reader Chris Gallizzi, who received one of the early development releases of Oculus Rift, has The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim running on the headset using CyberReality's Vireio Perception Driver, a free and open-source driver created specifically for the headset. Vireio is short for Virtual Reality Input Output.
"Vireio Perception will allow you to play your favorite games in stunning stereoscopic 3D custom tailored for head-mounted displays like the Oculus Rift," reads the description. "Take advantage of full 3 degrees of freedom head-tracking on supported titles and experience virtual reality like you never have before."
According to CyberReality, the driver "will pre-warp the image to match the Oculus Rift optics, handle custom aspect-ratios (needed for the Rift's strange 8:10 screen), and utilize full 3DOF head-tracking." Other games with full or partial support include Left 4 Dead, Half-Life 2, Portal 2, Mirror's Edge, Unreal Tournament 3, DiRT 2, Dear Esther and AaaaAAAAA!!!!!!!! Additional games will be supported in the future.
Originally the Vireio Perception Driver was going to be a commercial product, requiring a fee of around $50. But CyberReality said back in January it would instead be free open-source software. "I did have some dreams of selling the software and getting rich, but I don't feel like the driver is really a polished product ready for consumers. I would feel bad selling something that wasn't totally solid, and that I couldn't get behind 100-percent. So there you go."
And now, here's a double dose of Skyrim:
