Deep Rock Galactic is a cult-favorite PC co-op game where teams of up to four players dive into perilous caverns in search of precious minerals while battling hordes of alien bugs along the way. And now the game is soon to see the first release of a mod that makes DRG fully playable in VR.
The Deep Rock Galactic VR mod, which its creators are calling VRG, has been released in open beta. One of the mod team’s members, Herr “Punished” Fristi, posted a short announcement trailer for the open beta release:
You can find the mod and detailed instructions on how to use it at the Deep Rock Galactic VR mod’s official Mod.io page.
This is a genuine beta release and the team warns, “this mod is currently in beta, you will encounter bugs, maybe also crashes, and things will not be as smooth as they could, but we’re working hard on this mod every day and we’re very dedicated to improving it to the best of our abilities, and trying to make it feel as good as possible!”
The mod team encourages users to leave feedback in the DRG section of the Flatscreen to VR Mod Discord server.
There’s a lot of movement in DRG and the mod doesn’t appear to have done much to address the potential for discomfort, so be careful—the last place you want to be nauseas is in a cave full of aliens that are out to kill you…. Perhaps later updates will add additional comfort options.
The updates and original article below overview the inception of the mod and some key development milestones along the way to this open beta release.
The Deep Rock Galactic VR mod is nearing initial completion with many of the game’s major functions working correctly in VR with motion controls, including the interface and weapon wielding.
DRG modder Herr Fristi reports over at the mod’s Discord server that the developers of Deep Rock Galactic have given the mod ‘Approved’ status, which means players will be able to use the mod with their main save, including the ability to play multiplayer with other players and earn progression in the game as normal. And yes, VR and non-VR players can play together (provided everyone has the mod installed).
Matteo311 recently took a look at an early version of the Deep Rock Galactic VR mod, showing off a holster system for inventory and some gesture controls, though there’s still a number of things to be fixed like weapon and hand placements and the ability the dig using a swinging gesture rather than a button.
The DRG VR mod is purportedly set to release in public beta “soon.”
The prior update, which covers the mod’s early development progress, continues below.
Modders have been quick to jump on the newly opened opportunity to mod Deep Rock Galactic with VR support. While the first tests simply showed that the game could be correctly displayed inside of headsets, just a few weeks later modders have already demonstrated functional motion controls.
While there’s still plenty of work to do before the mod is ready for prime time, modders have also showed that things are working well enough to play through a complete mission (albeit not with motion controls or any comfort adjustments).
Even after fully functional motion controls are added, there will still be a lot of work to do to get the game’s informational UI and interactive UI into VR, followed by some reasonable accommodations for VR comfort.
The original article, which overviews the genesis of the Deep Rock Galactic VR mod, continues below.
Original Article (November 5th, 2021): Developer Ghost Ship Games this week launched a major update to Deep Rock Galactic which adds new weapons to the game for the first time, alongside new missions, enemies, cosmetics, and more.
Hidden deep in the update’s huge list of patch notes was this valuable gem:
ENABLED VR PLUGINS
Speaking of modding, we have enabled the SteamVR and OculusVR plugins to allow modders to play with them. Have fun!
While this doesn’t mean that the game can be played in VR just yet, it does mean that modders can tap into those VR plugins to begin experimenting with adaptations that could make the game fully playable in VR.
This small addition to the update appears to be thanks in part to Reddit user Elliotttate, a member of the Flatscreen to VR Mod Community, who got the attention of the studio through a post in the Deep Rock Galactic subreddit which asked the developers to enable VR plugins so that VR modders could try adapting the game. As the post explained:
For an UE4 game, the one essential ‘piece of VR modding’ that we need first from the developers (that currently can’t be ‘modded in’) is just to include the VR plugins in the project when building. It takes two minutes to do and has no negative consequences for the shipping version of the game. Recently, we asked the Mechwarrior 5 developers (PG) the same thing, they added it and now have a full VR mod for it!
In fact, modders have now already triggered the plugins to verify that the game can be rendered correctly in VR.
Of course this is extremely early work. Getting the game to play well in VR will need to go well beyond simply rigging up the game to take input from motion controllers. Anyone who knows Deep Rock Galactic knows that it’s a game with lots of erratic player movement and comfort will be a huge challenge—not to mention figuring out how to balance the game’s vast number of quickly moving enemies to not be completely overwhelming in VR.
Luckily the game also recently added official modding support; as long as VR input, rendering, and interfaces can be made to work correctly, it should be relatively easy to experiment with VR-focused content and balance changes and then distribute them to players via the existing modding system.
