Highly anticipated: The inspiring decade-long development of Half-Life 2's free VR add-on continues. The Source VR mod team has added support for the FPS classic's first expansion pack, with the second planned for next month. If for some reason, you don't own Half-Life 2 and its follow-up episodes yet, the whole set is on sale for $2.
As of Friday, the Half-Life 2 VR mod lets players enjoy Episode One from start to finish. The whole Half-Life 2 story will be playable in VR when the mod adds support for Episode Two on April 6, just in time for Easter.
The mod, free for owners of Half-Life 2 and Episode One, adds full room-scale VR gameplay to the seminal 2004 shooter. Players can use the motion controls for immersive weapon functionality like two-handed weapons, manual reloading, reaching over the shoulder for ammo, and functional iron sights. Options for quick weapon switching, quick reloading, and laser sights are also available. Additionally, the mod now supports bHaptics vests, so players can feel in-game impacts.
The project has been in open beta since last fall, adding and improving features with a significant update last month. Players uncomfortable with smooth VR movement can now try teleport movement for an easier experience, but the feature is still in the experimental stage. Source VR also added a first-time setup wizard to ensure players notice all the comfort options the mod can provide.
If users are annoyed that allied NPCs often shove them out of the way, they can now disable collision with friendlies to pass through them when necessary. Furthermore, the modders adjusted aquatic movement to make exiting the water fully manual and let players adjust swimming speed. Controlling vehicles in third-person mode also now has more options for increased comfort.
The Episode One VR mod is available on a separate Steam page from the base game's VR conversion. It's compatible with any VR headset that supports SteamVR, including the Valve Index, Meta Quest, HTC Vive, and others. Source VR recommends an 8th-gen Intel or Ryzen 3000 series CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a GeForce GTX 1080 or Radeon RX 5700 to play the mod. It requires 6GB of storage space.
Those looking for more Half-Life VR content who have already played Valve's Half-Life: Alyx can try the fan-made add-on campaign, Levitation. It adds a few hours to what some have called the best VR game. Players can also try other Half-Life: Alyx fan maps available on the game's Workshop page, as many appear to have high player ratings.
The currently-running Steam Spring sale is a good time to grab the base Half-Life games. The Orange Box, containing Half-Life 2, both of its expansions, and Portal (which recently received a free RTX add-on), is just $2. Half-Life: Alyx is on sale for $24.