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:
- Launch Steam
- Browse to Library > Tools
- Search for ‘SteamVR’
- Right-click ‘SteamVR’ > Properties
- Click ‘Betas’ Tab > Switch beta drop-down selection to ‘beta – SteamVR Beta Update’
- 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.