Do you want to play Half-Life 2 in virtual reality? This is the goal proposed by a team called the SourceVR Mod Team, which, as its name suggests, develops virtual reality mods for the Source engine, although the project that concerns us in this post seems to be the only one in which it works.

In other words, and unlike Half-Life: Alyx, Valve doesn’t seem to be behind a mod that would offer a virtual reality experience through Half-Life 2, but that doesn’t mean it can’t become a product. official.

At this time, Half-Life 2: VR does not have a planned release date, but The SourceVR Mod Team hopes to release a public beta in September of this year, probably some Friday of that month. That puts the 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd, and 30th as candidates, but given that this is a ostensibly volunteer-driven project, it’s best to take those dates as a possibility rather than a commitment.

The SourceVR Mod Team intends not only to bring a virtual reality layout to Half-Life 2, but also to take advantage of improvements in artificial intelligence to perform asset checks (assets) and in-game textures and modify the weapon arsenal to include a wider range of two-handed animations and stances. Right now, most weapons support manual loading and two-handed aiming in the private versions of the mod that have been developed.

Despite the 18 years that have passed since its first release, Half-Life 2 is still one of the best today. shooters in first person primarily due to its excellent level design. During the adventure, the player faces a variety of situations and traverses a gigantic corridor that takes him through different contexts and environments. Thanks to the great work on the design level, the development has hardly any ups and downs, which helps to hook the player. In short, it is a masterpiece of the genre.

Half-Life 2 was followed by two episodes and the first Portal, which was released together with Team Fortress 2 in a package called The Orange Box in 2007. In 2011, Portal 2 was released and since then we have been waiting for Half-Life 3, but it seems , that Valve has set the bar so high with the titles released so far that they don’t dare, so we had to make do with Half-Life: Alyx, a title totally oriented towards virtual reality.

The SourceVR Mod Team intends, at least for now, to release the VR mod for Half-Life 2 as free content, so Windows users should at least have it available once it’s available as a stable product. We leave you with a teaser for the public beta, which should be released in September 2022.