Over on the Oculus VR developer forums, Joe Ludwig, the Valve programmer who led development of Oculus Rift support for Team Fortress 2, said that Half-life 2 has been updated with support for the virtual reality headset. It's included in the game's opt-in beta version.
"We just shipped a beta for Half-Life 2 that includes Oculus Rift support," he said. "To get it, open the properties for Half-Life 2 in Steam, set your command line to '-vr', and opt-in to the SteamPipe beta. This should ship to everybody in a few weeks."
"This port is a bit more raw than Team Fortress 2 was when it shipped, so we would appreciate hearing about any bugs you find," Ludwig added. "Just like in Team Fortress 2 this mode is experimental, so we really want to hear what you think."
He points out a few known issues, reporting that the HUD is dim and hard to read, and the zoom UI up in a quad in the middle of the screen instead of on the edges of the screen.
Half-Life2's compatibility for Oculus Rift arrives after Valve revealed support for the headset in Team Fortress 2 back in March. The feature is dubbed as the Virtual Reality Mode, and caters to all game modes and classes. A unique in-game hat is also available within Team Fortress 2 to all owners of the Oculus Rift development kit.
"Team Fortress was sort of the obvious choice for this," Ludwig told Engadget. "The Team Fortress community is large and healthy. There are millions of people playing Team Fortress every week, but they're also used to us shipping a lot of updates. The real reason for [choosing] Team Fortress is the community around Team Fortress, and the way that we use it as a place where we run experiments."
At the time he also mentioned that Valve was currently experimenting with Portal, Left 4 Dead and Half-Life 2. Support will undoubtedly take time to impliment due to the challenges of bringing a shooter into a true 3D experience like implementing the UI correctly, positioning objects within the virtual space and minimalizing motion sickness.
