Praydog has made some real progress on the Universal VR mod
Virtual Reality is one of the coolest and most functional current next steps in gaming. Putting players into these virtual worlds, having them look around, move their arms, and sometimes even their whole bodies can really enhance the experience. Simple games can feel wondrous, Fast paced games are exhilarating, and scary games discover a whole new level of terrifying. But developing for VR is a tonne of work, and it’s still kind of niche so there are far from as many games out on VR as there could be. Thankfully, once again, modders are working to help change all that.
Dedicated folks out there are working hard to bring us amazing VR experiences by way of older games. We’ve seen that epic Half-Life 2 VR mod, explored the high-fantasy land of Skyrim, and even games like Valheim are getting VR. Mixed News tells of a recent update to one VR mod project called the Universal Mod that could bring hundreds of games into this new perspective.
A universal mod is being worked on to bring Unreal Engine games into VR. That’s not just one Unreal title being worked on, but a solution for the engine itself meaning we could see a burst of older games coming to VR. While the mod isn’t done yet, a new video has been released showing off a few games running in VR. These include games like Life is Strange: True Colors, and everyone’s favourite cat sim Stray, running in VR with 360 views and freedom of movement.
The mod was originally being worked on by Gabriel Pizarrom, a programmer that often goes by TheNewJavaman. Pizarrmon left the project for work in the industry, leaving Praydog, the modder behind the excellent Resident Evil VR ports to take over the reigns.
(Image credit: Valve)
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Praydog has since been working to use the framework created in their Resident Evil work to translate that to the Unreal Engine as a whole. While it doesn’t have any release date yet, the videos look promising, especially combined with Praydog’s previous known work. In the video you can get a fairly clear look at the promised features like synced eye stereoscopic 3D and detached look from weapons so you can look one way and point your gun another.
Better yet, legend Praydog is leaving this Universal Mod open so others can play and tweak to their heart’s content. They also encourage others to work on their own mods for games using the groundwork already laid here. There’s even a list of games they believe could benefit from the mod fresh for the picking.
This is a wonderful example of the kind of amazing things the PC gaming community can pull off when working together. The dedication and passion as well as intelligence and drive to do these things is incredible, and is going to bring big smiles to plenty of happy VR gamers all over the world.
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