The highly anticipated Doom VFR launched today, officially for the PSVR and Vive. While the SteamVR version initially wasn’t working with the Rift, a patch to SteamVR’s beta branch has enabled the game to work with Oculus’ headset. Here’s how to get the fix.

Bethesda’s Doom VRF launched yesterday officially on “PSVR and Vive.” While SteamVR games (like Doom VFR) intrinsically support the Rift, even if not explicitly designed for it, Bethesda’s repeated dodging of questions relating to Rift support made it unclear if the studio would take any active steps to prevent the game from working with the Rift—a hypothesis thought to be more likely considering the significant legal dispute between Oculus and Bethesda’s parent company, ZeniMax.

When the game first hit Steam, reports from Rift users indicated that the title would automatically shut down after being launched. It isn’t clear if this was an intentional block of the headset or not—we’ve reached out to Bethesda for comment.

Nevertheless, less than 24 hours after the launch of the game, Valve has deployed an update to the SteamVR Beta branch which fixes the issue and enables Rift users to play Doom VFR. The short patch notes are brief and don’t offer any clarity into whether or not the issue was intentional or just a bug.

The SteamVR Beta has been updated with the following change.

General:

  • Added placeholder hidden area mesh for Rift users as a work around for Doom VFR and other titles experiencing launch issues.

How to Get SteamVR Beta to Play Doom VFR on Oculus Rift

The patch is presently only available on the SteamVR Beta branch. The main branch (which all players are on by default) often sees updates carry over from the Beta within a day or two, but if you want to play Doom VFR on your Rift right now you’ll have to switch to SteamVR Beta. Here’s how:

  1. Launch Steam
  2. Browse to Library > Tools
  3. Search for ‘SteamVR’
  4. Right-click ‘SteamVR’ > Properties
  5. Click ‘Betas’ Tab > Switch beta drop-down selection to ‘beta – SteamVR Beta Update’
  6. Close Properties window, SteamVR Beta will download automatically

Switching back to the main branch is just as easy, and you can do so without issue once the main branch gets updated to incorporate the Rift fix for Doom VFR.

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Pablo C

    Can anyone confirm how this work and how the touch controllers work on this game?

    • Raphael

      Yes, someone can.

      • John Sullivan

        Pablo C waits… and waits… and waits…

        • Raphael

          You know… since the update is official from Valve.. Pablo C could buy the game and if it doesn’t work then get a refund on steam so long as he dunt play more than two hours. Steam refund generally happens within two hours or less.

          Money goes back to his credit card or paypoo.

  • Adam Jackson

    gonna try this later :D

  • Ben

    So do we know if the non-support was an accident (perhaps Bethesda was not allowed to even have a rift in the building for testing) or was this a nice way to block the rift (satisfying the Zenimax board) while still maintaining plausible deniability?

    • TheRealSpiderman

      we may never know

    • Caven

      I noticed when I was attempting to get the game to work that DOOM VFR had properly formatted square and rectangular tiles that appeared in Oculus Home. The rectangular one was in the Recently Played section, and the other was on the Oculus menu that can be pulled up while playing a game. I suspect that would have required conscious effort on the part of Bethesda.

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    • Thomas Van Iseghem

      On an other forum I saw someone that tought Bethesa intentionally blocked it but due to the massive amount of refunds steam was receiving, steam outsmarted Bethesa by fixing it themself. And now Bethesa made an apoligy because else they would look too scummy. And the fact that it isn’t optimised for oculus is bs, a game developed entirely on HTC vive, will work on Rift automaticly! That’s just how the openVR enviroment works. The only real problem that can occur is that the controls are a bit weird

  • Adam Jackson

    tried it, not a long season though, works the tracking is good but the thumbstick dash thing is iffy, you have to move thumb stick then press down instead of just being able to push in the direction, free locomotion should improve things though

  • Adrian Meredith

    Been playing for the last hour and tbh so far I’m pretty disappointed. It’s clearly been designed for psvr with pc as an afterthought and is very unpolished which is the opposite to what I expected. No free locomotion, you can only really use your right hand and the scale feels off. What really annoyed me was the fact that you character only requires one hand to use a pump action shotgun which is silly and immersion breaking.

  • MasterElwood

    I AM on the beta branch but steam vr does not update. How can I force one?

    • DNACowboy

      Strange, that suggests SteamVR is already updated….

      • MasterElwood

        I am on the beta branches of steam AND steamVR. Steam finally updated last night to build of dec 2nd – but steamVR is STILL on build from Nov. 21…

  • DiGiCT Ltd

    They shouldn’t have patched it, it is good for rift users to feel how exclusives are really a pain for vr industry.
    I am not against rift but I am against exclusives for sure.
    We play games to have fun together and it should not matter what “tool” we use to join the fun together.
    This entire exclusives is killing devs as the market is still small.
    As a dev it is already a pain to try to deploy to every device as they all have their own limitations.
    Exclusives only work for a dev to get paid more as they actually would sell, otherwise there is no reason.
    Exclusives tell at least that their main focus is money and not to make a good game.
    I believe every good game makes money and last longer.
    This doom game is one example.

    • Veron

      Oculus FUNDS exclusives that would not have been made at all. At least this way, you can get to play them via ReVive trick.

      Wishing games never existed just because of exclusivity is a childish way to go about things.

      “Exclusives tell at least that their main focus is money and not to make a good game.”

      The main focus should be to make money to remain profitable and pay your staff, while making quality product. Don’t be naive. As a consumer you should want your devs to be healthy.

      “I believe every good game makes money and last longer”

      Bwahahahaha. How naive. The videogame graveyard is filled with excellent games that sold like shite.

      • yuo

        You must be an oculus employee or one of those damn supporteers with small brain hahahahaha

      • rudy

        small brained american which likes money 1st before everything.
        Just like trump lol, no brains just stupid talk.
        Tipically a dumbass talking about revive hacks and even talking about game exclusive not existing, what totally not said by @digictltd:disqus

        The point was not having it patched, but seems you just cant understand or read what people actually say, talking about being naive rofl, do you even know what that means ?? :D

        • Josh

          Typically is spelled “typically…” You know, since you’re talking about lack of intelligence and all.

    • Flamerate1

      You are wishing users of a device pain because of what a company is doing…

      I rest my case.

      • DiGiCT Ltd

        I assume you want to label me being a stereotype, but as it seems you even did not know how to spell it correctly I am wondering if you even know what it means, tells me how professional your mind is, I rest my case as it just ridiculous.

        • Flamerate1

          Your only argument being a spelling mistake makes me think you don’t care.

          The only thing I care about in the actual argument is that I think it’s wrong that you are misrepresenting users of a device.

          If you want me to point out every mistake in your reply, then I can, but I only care that you understand what you’re doing.

          I don’t like having these types of arguments because it often leads to aggressive replies that have no purpose and end up being a war about who can write better. I don’t want that.

          I am just like you that we both hate device exclusivity. I just believe that you should redirect your hate to the companies and the people that support exclusivity instead of the users of those companies’ products. I mean no harm.

          • DiGiCT Ltd

            Exactly, rift users are supporting a company that has exclusives, so is Xbox or PlayStation too.
            And that is my point here, if doom would not work on a rift the user would actually know how it feels for non rift users to have exclusives, they could just stay out of occurs home and instead to for steam to show their support for having the exclusives gone.
            But we both know that mostly their proud comes first having bought “the perfect device”

          • Veno

            Want to know the reason I brought the Rift? It has nothing to do with exclusives, the only reason is that the Oculus Rift cost 550 AUD, when the HTC Vive is 900~1000AUD depending on sales. Neither of the two headsets are perfect, they both have bad fov; and subpar resolution. Obviously people would buy the product that is significantly cheaper.

          • DiGiCT Ltd

            No I’m not like you, I bought the vive simply because it was a more complete set compared to rift with an xbox controller, besides that their tracking system is better too, and I wanted something that just works on open platforms.
            I still own other headsets from Windows Mr and for mobile vr as I do development.
            For me it’s not about money, but more about what is worth my money, my decision are just based on another point of view as yours as I don’t believe in cheap to be good, it always comes with more flaws.
            Anyhow all this is getting off topic, I just wanted to make it clear that for me exclusives are a no go, all my products go to as many devices as possible and any kind of exclusive I will refuse.

          • Flamerate1

            I just think we should be universally against exclusivity, instead of blaming consumers.

    • Zorada

      So you do not like exclusives and yet wish this was blocking another platform?, ok sounds like you have an issue.

      Look at consoles and their exclusives, do you whine about that?? I am against exclusives personally but i would not want in that case to block others having games to show how much i hate exclusives

      • DiGiCT Ltd

        I don’t have an issue, it would just be good for rift users to see the impact of exclusives, let me say clearly I would have been more happy to see someone needed to make a rerift hack then maybe we all could wake up how ridiculous it all is.

        For your consoles part I can tell you that I only owned a console like 36 years ago, although that time it was even not called like that, just game computer.
        never bought any consoles, played on most of them as just loving games, but never bought.
        always stayed with home computers and later on the PC.

        The whining part must be you when you diapers were full and I was already playing games little boy kiddo :)

    • NooYawker

      Valve doesn’t play the exclusive game. It doesn’t benefit them. They want everyone to use steam. People buying games on steam is their bread and butter

  • DNACowboy

    I don’t buy it, the way in which the game locks out the Rift is NOT a result of incompatibility, the lock out was intentional; however, what Bethesda was not ready for was the intense negative pr, subsequently: instant fix.

    • Veno

      Their recent scummy business decisions have already generated a ton of bad PR, last thing they need it another stain on their formerly good name.

  • Jean-Sebastien Perron

    Won’t touch this game until it’s on the Oculus Store. There are more Oculus than Vive, if they don’t want money it’s their decision. But don’t be surprised when they close in 2 years from now.

    • LowRezSkyline

      Ah poor widdle princess is all sad cause a game isn’t available for Rift??? What a tragedy… also it is out for Rift… geez.

    • NooYawker

      You think they’re going to close because they won’t put their games on oculus? Is that a serious post?

      • Jean-Sebastien Perron

        Careful, i predicted the election of the greatest POTUS ever our great leadur Trump a year before the election.

        • NooYawker

          Ok. Now I know you’re joking. Greatest POTUS ever. Hahahaha. Almost had me.

        • RKipker

          Greatest in the 21st century

    • Veno

      Zenimax will NEVER release games on the oculus store, theres just a small billion dollar lawsuit that they filed against facebook preventing that…. Which they partially won.

    • RKipker

      Agreed….. Waiting as well

  • Jean-Sebastien Perron

    Teleportation, the game (Doom VR). Enjoy an another unoriginal wave shooter like 75% of all VR games with a Doom Skin. Even the Vegas shooter got bored after 10 minutes and killed himself.

  • Andrew McEvoy

    Hmm how are people switching to smooth locomotion? I dont see the option under controllers settings just the button layout screen.

  • Jason Mercieca

    I own a vive, and anyways doom vfr as i read reviews is horribly made, gun angle, performance, bugs and the worst is locomotion options, to play in free movement its required to use a gamepad, vive/oculus controllers wont work for free movement, and players with same likes as me do not play any vr game that does not offer free movement (for immersion reasons), where is the logic to not apply free movement to vive controllers when its already made, just for gamepad, the devs must be clever to code the game but there logic is so stupid…

  • This game is SO GOOD on the PSVR… Although not with the gun accessory.

    You’d think it’d be great, but I found it very hard to hold for some reason. It’s like it’s too far off to the side in DOOMVFR, unlike Farpoint, where it felt perfect. But man, the gamepad works like a CHARM! Fast, bloody, visceral!

  • Good to know. It’s fair that Oculus owners can play the game,too