Half Life Coming to VR Headset

Although there had been rumors of Valve’s VR headset development dating as far back as a few years ago, it was only this weekend that the company made things official. Or rather, things were made official for them when HTC revealed Vive, the company’s new VR headset developed in conjunction with Valve.

At a glance, the Vive headset sounds like a promising addition to the VR space, and its use of base stations for interactive movement has us very intrigued. More than that, though, we want to know how Valve plans to support the tech with software.

So far, the only game on the Vive’s roster is Job Simulator, an interactive experience that lets players trade real work for virtual work. However, Job Simulator is more a proof of concept than it is an actual game; it’s a showcase for Valve and HTC’s new tech. What gamers really want to see is something substantial. What they really want is Half-Life.

Well, those Valve fans may be in luck, as HTC Chairwoman Cher Wang has confirmed early plans to bring Half-Life to the Vive headset. Granted, Wang wouldn’t say in what form Half-Life might appear on Valve’s new tech, but the prospect is intriguing nonetheless.

The quotes from Wang are a little hard to decipher, but the basic gist is that HTC is “cooperating with Half-Life” in the hopes of bringing it to the VR headset. That doesn’t guarantee anything, mind you, but it does suggest HTC will try their best to get something Half-Life related on the platform.

Valve-Vive-VR-Headset

That being said, we wouldn’t hold our breath that this upcoming game is Half-Life 3. More than likely, HTC and Valve would work out some type of VR-based port of a previous Half-Life for the Vive to generate a little extra interest. Half-Life 3, on the other hand, is but a pipe dream at this point.

However, if Valve wanted to ensure thousands of Vives get sold they could add VR support to Half-Life 3 and announce it for release alongside the headset. There really is no more highly anticipated title, one that would easily move whatever piece of tech it was on. But clearly Valve’s focus is on VR and this new headset not development of a major sequel. Still, stranger things have happened.

Do you think Half-Life will make its way onto Valve’s new VR headset? Will it be a new Half-Life game or a re-release?

Source: BBC