Flat2VR Studios has been accepted into the SPEEDRUN accelerator, not only giving the studio a financial boost on its mission to bring VR support to non-VR games, but a good measure of validation too.

Hosted by A16Z Games, a games-focused investment arm of Andreessen Horowitz, Speedrun is early-stage accelerator for startups that includes $750,000 as well as “a highly curated set of industry coaches, mentors, and a community of ambitious founders,” the VC firm says.

In a post on X, Flat2VR says the accelerator “should help open some doors to porting more of those absolute dream titles officially into VR!”

Flat2VR Studios co-founder Elliot Tate reveals that only 30 of around 4.000 applicants were chosen for the accelerator, putting the studio in the company of Speedrun veterans such as Oculus, Gym Class VR, and Sandbox VR.

Earlier this year, VR publishing and marketing firm Impact Reality founded Flat2VR Studios with the aim of engaging leading developers from the VR modding scene to create officially licensed VR adaptations of popular flatscreen games.

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While traditionally the work of hobbyists and distributed modding groups, Flat2VR Studios works directly with developers to create official VR versions of their titles. Among their ranks the studio counts VR porting veterans ‘Cabalistic’ and ‘Raicuparta’, renowned for their VR adaptations of games like Half-Life 2 and Outer Wilds respectively.

The studio is currently working on an official VR port of a still undisclosed game, which is slated to release in late 2024 or early 2025 on major VR platforms. We’re looking forward to learning more at the VR Games Showcase on August 15th to learn more.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • ViRGiN

    If we take uevr as their metric of success, the product will be a total failure.

    • Hussain X

      These are official VR ports and will be available on official stores. The same way Armature officially ported over RE4 to VR, where it was received extremely well.

      The current title Flat2VR is working on is also coming to not just Quest but will also be available on Quest store (unlike Dr Beef ports which are sideloaded and not official) as well as PCVR stores and I think also on PSVR store.

      • ViRGiN

        It all depends what they are actually porting. I just don’t see them securing rights to anything desirable, but I’d love to be wrong.

    • disqus_nUte0XSviO

      The Half-life 2 vr mod is a better indicator of what they plan to do. UEVR is great, but it's a universal injector that's meant to be a starting point for other modders to then further customize the mod to a particular game. Also, praydog was the modder who did UEVR and he's not officially working with flat2vr studios, but several of the people who worked on HL2VR are.

      • ViRGiN

        Damn, they did praydog dirty after all these years. What about Luke ross, the gta guy?

        • disqus_nUte0XSviO

          Who did praydog dirty? He has a regular unrelated job and doesn't have time to work on VR as a full time job. I don't know about Luke Ross, he seems to be doing well on his own without collaborating with others

          • ViRGiN

            I don't know his private life and probably neither do you. But he has been vital to flat2vr efforts, as a vr modder, and with the funding one could think that he would like to do it full time, as a job, as something he is passionate about.
            He can only strengthen the team.

          • kakek

            One would think wrong.

            Praydog was very active on Flat2VR discord even before UEVR. The question was asked a couple time, before he had a patreon. It would seem he has a very good (very well paid) job related to reverse enginering, and is content with working on VR ports in his free time.
            Luke Ross his already full time with his mods and his patreon, was never really a part of Flat2VR, and has his own aproach. Both technically and business wise.

  • NotMikeD

    I'm a simple man; I see mention of Flat2VR Studios, I upvote/purchase/subscribe/like/cheer/generally support.

  • Arno van Wingerde

    I am surprised Meta does not fund this: the '*"§$%! develop new games for a mega budget, when you can convert great 2D games into VR for 1% of the costs?
    I am curious how the distribution works out: does the original studio get half the price and Flat2VR the other half? For the original studio it could be some smalle extra revenue for little effort and Flat2VR does the heavy lifting and gains income they could not have generated themselves, since too small to write AAA games? The original studio would probably still need to put effort into this as well I assume?

    • ViRGiN

      I am not surprised Valve does not fund this.

    • Brian Elliott Tate

      Meta has actually funded a couple of the games we're working on! For the way it works, it's usually a percentage deal (but could be different) where the studio signs off on it, gives us the source code and we're doing all the work from porting, optimizing, marketing, publishing, funding, etc. It's setup so it's a pretty compelling selling point to the studios where they can just get an extra check each month + gain a new audience at no additional work on their part (some studios want to help work on it though)

      • ViRGiN

        How many people are working at F2VR that you're handling "a couple" of games at once?

  • Octogod

    "Company takes $750k loan for X% of their company, after competing in game show. Press release and applause."

    Love what they do, but this is why game studios close. With $750k they can pay for maybe a 1-1.5 years of small team development, before they have to sell off more of their company for cash. It's a dangerous cycle.

    Given their background, they'd be better off self-funding.

    • Brian Elliott Tate

      We are self-funded and so are the games we're working on. The small amount of equity we gave up for A16z was more about the connections and how they'll be able to help position us rather than being funding related.

      • Octogod

        As someone who knows multiple A16z funded companies in VR, I hope this works better for you than it did for them. Truly.

  • Well, being funded by a16z is an enormous endorsement, kudos to them!

  • how about unreleased games? is there any chance u guys help a studio launch with a vr mode? i play Star citizen that would be a great game for u guys to reach out to and see if u can help bring it into vr

  • david vincent

    Well deserved.
    Now bring us Kingdom Come: Deliverance VR

  • Jonathan Winters III

    Elliott is a great person in general, and very talented in VR modding as well. Can't wait to financially support them with purchases of their future VR titles!

  • gothicvillas

    Now make DayZ in VR please:)