wccftech Half-Life Alyx Campaign Now Fully Playable in Non-VR Through The Half-Life Alyx NoVR Mod

[bonami2]

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The team behind the Half-Life Alyx NoVR mod has succeeded in making the entire campaign of the VR game playable without VR.

Yes, you heard that right. Alyx is of course meant as a VR-only experience, and as such the gameplay mechanics have been completely centered around VR, complete with the iconic Gravity Gloves, and more. Ever since the release of Half-Life Alyx in 2020, various modders have been working on ways to play Valve's VR title without the need for a VR headset.

Half-Life Alyx Campaign Now Fully Playable in Non-VR Through The Half-Life Alyx NoVR Mod

WCCFTECH.COM

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The team behind the Half-Life Alyx NoVR mod has succeeded in making the entire campaign of the VR game playable without VR.

 

Edited April 10, 2023 by bonami2

[UltraMega]

From what I understand, this was a big push from Valve to kick start VR, and from Valves perspective it failed. I don't think we will see any more VR games from them, and I don't think VR will ever really take off in anything like its current form. As cool as VR seems (have not tried it personally) the barrier to entry of having to buy all the gaming stuff and then an expensive VR kit on top, plus the amount of space it takes in your house to do it properly is just too much for VR to ever take off and justify another full blown title like Alyx. 

[pio]

7 hours ago, UltraMega said:

From what I understand, this was a big push from Valve to kick start VR, and from Valves perspective it failed. I don't think we will see any more VR games from them, and I don't think VR will ever really take off in anything like its current form. As cool as VR seems (have not tried it personally) the barrier to entry of having to buy all the gaming stuff and then an expensive VR kit on top, plus the amount of space it takes in your house to do it properly is just too much for VR to ever take off and justify another full blown title like Alyx. 

Never tried VR myself, so take my opinion as just that, my opinion.  From what I've personally seen though, seems VR is absolutely fantastic for things like simulator games.  Racing, flying, farming, walking, whatever .  For the more action themed games like Battlefield, Cowadooty, or in this instance, Haf Life Alyx, yeah the space and everything involved is just too much for a simple pick up and play kind of game as you'd be moving around a lot.  Something where you're just using the VR as your eyes while sitting using either a wheel or HOTAS, a lot less space is actually required.  Of course the gear still is though, but sim players tend to spend a LOT on their equipment anyway.

[Alex]

I absolutely love VR, it's a completely new way to experience games. It gives a much better feeling of the 'world' that you're in and exploring it is a lot more 'real' feeling versus being on a 2D screen. I am going through HL2:VR lately and it's really awesome to experience the world in VR, and I can't wait for Hogwarts Legacy VR mod to come out so I can try that. I don't care if I am 'worse' at a game because it's in VR, it's far more immersive and more fun. Also trying MSFS2020 in VR lately is mind blowing (even if its at like 40-45fps on minimum settings w/frame gen).

 

I think a lot of people that discredit VR haven't tried it in it's full potential... it's like discrediting an OLED screen versus a TN screen when you only edit Word documents on both... if you aren't using the OLED screen to it's strength and potential of course you won't understand what the appeal of it is

 

Also the barrier to entry isn't that high, you can pick up a second hand Oculus/Meta Quest 2 for ~$200-300 and it's 90% of the way there to an amazing VR system. No other trackers, etc. required.

[UltraMega]

5 hours ago, Alex said:

I absolutely love VR, it's a completely new way to experience games. It gives a much better feeling of the 'world' that you're in and exploring it is a lot more 'real' feeling versus being on a 2D screen. I am going through HL2:VR lately and it's really awesome to experience the world in VR, and I can't wait for Hogwarts Legacy VR mod to come out so I can try that. I don't care if I am 'worse' at a game because it's in VR, it's far more immersive and more fun. Also trying MSFS2020 in VR lately is mind blowing (even if its at like 40-45fps on minimum settings w/frame gen).

 

I think a lot of people that discredit VR haven't tried it in it's full potential... it's like discrediting an OLED screen versus a TN screen when you only edit Word documents on both... if you aren't using the OLED screen to it's strength and potential of course you won't understand what the appeal of it is

 

Also the barrier to entry isn't that high, you can pick up a second hand Oculus/Meta Quest 2 for ~$200-300 and it's 90% of the way there to an amazing VR system. No other trackers, etc. required.

Yea no doubt VR is super cool. 

 

From Valve's perspective though, VR is a flop and they're not going to make any more VR games. 

 

Same with Sony, they cut back their VR ambitions because VR sales are low. 

 

So no matter how cool it is, right now it looks like VR is on life support. 

[bonami2]

1 hour ago, UltraMega said:

Yea no doubt VR is super cool. 

 

From Valve's perspective though, VR is a flop and they're not going to make any more VR games. 

 

Same with Sony, they cut back their VR ambitions because VR sales are low. 

 

So no matter how cool it is, right now it looks like VR is on life support. 

 

Only reason it on life support is because they are doing the same crap as they always do. They use multiple standard and so many different device. That the dev as to buy them all to make it work correctly.

 

If they can make a standard Running envirronment or just use STEAM VR. And Make a standard design for headset with different display set but same controller. It would be easier for dev.

 

My Quest 2 in wireless is awesome. Just wish it ran natively steam vr instead of META garbage.

[Alex]

19 hours ago, UltraMega said:

Yea no doubt VR is super cool. 

 

From Valve's perspective though, VR is a flop and they're not going to make any more VR games. 

 

Same with Sony, they cut back their VR ambitions because VR sales are low. 

 

So no matter how cool it is, right now it looks like VR is on life support. 

I don't think so, they're actively developing a new VR headset - Valve just work on different timelines and expectations than most. VR is surprisingly growing (honestly thanks to Meta more than anything) but I do think the Index (and Quest 2) really helped push it from niche into mainstream appeal.

 

  

17 hours ago, bonami2 said:

 

Only reason it on life support is because they are doing the same crap as they always do. They use multiple standard and so many different device. That the dev as to buy them all to make it work correctly.

 

If they can make a standard Running envirronment or just use STEAM VR. And Make a standard design for headset with different display set but same controller. It would be easier for dev.

 

My Quest 2 in wireless is awesome. Just wish it ran natively steam vr instead of META garbage.

That's not Valve's fault, that's Meta/Oculus for refusing to support OpenVR. OpenVR is literally that, open source VR API for anyone to use - but a lot of other headsets refuse to support it native. At least Steam offers an OpenVR translator. For what it's worth, some games (MSFS2020) support the OpenXR API. You can download it via the MS Store and run it via that instead of the OpenVR translator in SteamVR. Should be worth some performance.

 

Edited April 15, 2023 by Alex

[Andrew]

20 hours ago, UltraMega said:

Yea no doubt VR is super cool. 

 

From Valve's perspective though, VR is a flop and they're not going to make any more VR games. 

 

Same with Sony, they cut back their VR ambitions because VR sales are low. 

 

So no matter how cool it is, right now it looks like VR is on life support. 

Huh?

Sony just released a new VR headset for the PS5 a couple of months ago and there are quite a few big titles that got support for it, from Gran Turismo 7 to Resident Evil and even Cities Skylines. The PSVR2 sales figures are also doing better than expected. They were expecting between 270K-300K units to be sold in March. Instead, they managed to sell over 500K units, almost doubling to a total of 915K units 2 weeks later.

 

Things are looking just as good on the PC side of VR as well.

[bonami2]

1 hour ago, Alex said:

I don't think so, they're actively developing a new VR headset - Valve just work on different timelines and expectations than most. VR is surprisingly growing (honestly thanks to Meta more than anything) but I do think the Index (and Quest 2) really helped push it from niche into mainstream appeal.

 

  

That's not Valve's fault, that's Meta/Oculus for refusing to support OpenVR. OpenVR is literally that, open source VR API for anyone to use - but a lot of other headsets refuse to support it native. At least Steam offers an OpenVR translator. For what it's worth, some games (MSFS2020) support the OpenXR API. You can download it via the MS Store and run it via that instead of the OpenVR translator in SteamVR. Should be worth some performance.

 

 

It get complicated pretty fast. But that was i was trying to says. If they all used the same api it would be ways easier for dev.

I use VORPX in Beam NG sometime but the performance is pretty bad on my 6800xt.  I wish i could try it with a 4090.

[UltraMega]

3 hours ago, Andrew said:

Huh?

Sony just released a new VR headset for the PS5 a couple of months ago and there are quite a few big titles that got support for it, from Gran Turismo 7 to Resident Evil and even Cities Skylines. The PSVR2 sales figures are also doing better than expected. They were expecting between 270K-300K units to be sold in March. Instead, they managed to sell over 500K units, almost doubling to a total of 915K units 2 weeks later.

 

Things are looking just as good on the PC side of VR as well.

Yes, PSVR2 came out, but sony has already cut back their plans for it due to low sales. 

 

My argument here is not that VR isn't really cool, just that it hasn't been successfully enough to justify another full blown title like Alyx in the foreseeable future and that's not just me guessing, it's based on all the news I've read or watched about this stuff. 

 

Stuff like Gran Turismo VR are ideal because it's just taking a game that already exists and tweaking it for VR, so the dev cost would be really low. I'm sure games that have a VR add on mode will continue to exist. 

 

 

Definitely agree that VR would do a lot better if it were standardized so all VR games worked on all VR headsets. Short of that, I'm sure headset will continue to come out in newer higher res as long as people are willing to pay for the headsets, but that doesn't mean it's not a very small market from a game developers perspective. 

Edited April 15, 2023 by UltraMega

[Alex]

22 hours ago, UltraMega said:

Yes, PSVR2 came out, but sony has already cut back their plans for it due to low sales. 

 

My argument here is not that VR isn't really cool, just that it hasn't been successfully enough to justify another full blown title like Alyx in the foreseeable future and that's not just me guessing, it's based on all the news I've read or watched about this stuff. 

 

Stuff like Gran Turismo VR are ideal because it's just taking a game that already exists and tweaking it for VR, so the dev cost would be really low. I'm sure games that have a VR add on mode will continue to exist. 

 

I think the reporting around PSVR2's sales is really bad and has led to a perception that it isn't doing well. After all, bad reporting is all too common these days:

 

 

 

Likely sales figures;

 

 

Backed up by:

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/91001/playstation-vr2-launch-sales-may-be-outpacing-original-psvr1-headset/index.html

PlayStation VR2 first month sales figures reportedly below 300,000 units

WWW.VG247.COM

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A new report suggests that initial PlayStation VR2 figures aren't looking so good in the first month the hardware has been out.

+ any others you can google.

 

People seemingly want VR to fail and do bad. I have no idea why because it would only a net loss for everyone.

 

 

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Definitely agree that VR would do a lot better if it were standardized so all VR games worked on all VR headsets. Short of that, I'm sure headset will continue to come out in newer higher res as long as people are willing to pay for the headsets, but that doesn't mean it's not a very small market from a game developers perspective. 

But they pretty much do? OpenVR / SteamVR will work with pretty much anything, While you might get better performance here or there if it were native - it's not impossible to run the game and at only a small % impact of performance loss for the API translation.

Edited April 16, 2023 by Alex