laity markedly: Playing an actual game with Oculus Rift: hands-on with Valve's Team Fortress 2 'VR Mode'

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Playing an actual game with Oculus Rift: hands-on with Valve's Team Fortress 2 'VR Mode'

Playing an actual game with Oculus Rift handson with Valve's Team Fortress 2 'VR Mode'

Valve's free-to-play first-person shooter, Team Fortress 2, is getting Oculus Rift support with its VR Mode update in the coming weeks. Think of it as a large beta test -- Oculus Rift dev kits ship to Kickstarter backers and Team Fortress 2 players on PC can snag a free update, thus feeding Valve valuable feedback on how people play TF2 with VR. The only thing left to know is perhaps the most important: how does it play?

We found out just that on a recent visit to Valve's Bellevue, Wash., offices, where Valve programmer Joe Ludwig lead us through a hands-on demo of the game's VR Mode update, replete with a near-final build of the Oculus Rift dev kit (not quite the one shipping to backers, but far more advanced than the previous Oculus prototypes we've used). Follow us beyond the break for detailed impressions of playing an actual game (read: not just tech demos) with the Oculus Rift VR headset.

Gallery: Valve - Team Fortress 2 VR Mode and Joe Ludwig