Valve has some good news for all the Gordon Freeman fans out there. And no, it's not Half-Life 3.
Valve has released an official update for Half-Life 2 that offers Oculus Rift support for the popular first-person shooter. The Oculus Rift is a virtual reality head set that was funded by a Kickstarter campaign. Apart from the Rift, the update also adds support for SteamPipe, the platform's new content distribution system.
SteamPipe is new content distribution system that changes the way games are downloaded, updated and stored. And as far as its benefits are concerned, SteamPipe is said to offer faster and smoother downloads, smooth dedicated server distribution and update, faster game boot times and easier distribution and management of mods.
Valve programmer Joe Ludwig, who has led the development of Oculus Rift support for Team Fortress 2, announced the information in the Oculus Rift forums, and that the virtual reality option for Half-Life 2 is included in the game's opt-in beta version.
However, he has also warned that this recent port for Half-Life 2 is "more raw" than a similar update for Team Fortress and that fan feedback (related to bugs and glitches) would help the port greatly. Ludwig is confident that the port will reach “everybody in a few weeks."
The port’s few known issues include an issue with the zoom UI that shows up in a quad in the middle of the screen instead of on the edges of the screen, and that the HUD is dim and hard to read.
The last time Valve experimented with the Oculus Rift, the company introduced its support for Team Fortress 2 in March. Ludwig, at that time, said that the company was still experimenting with implementing the headset into its games, and also dealing with the development that comes with challenges related to UI, motion sickness and more.
