A recently released fork of one of the premier VR mods for Half-Life 2 (2004) added a number of features that should make you feel a little less like Gordon Freeman, and a little more like John Wick.
Mod creator Vittorio Romeo calls the unofficial fork of SourceVR Team’s HL2VR mod ‘HL2VR Unleashed’, which includes unique VR interactions such as dual wielding, universal melee attacks, and a virtual stock for customizable shouldering positions—basically turning you into an indiscriminate Combine-killing machine.
You may also recognize Romeo from his work on a VR mod for classic shooter Quake (1996) as well as indie arcade game Open Hexagon (2021).
You can download the mod here for free, which also includes a handy installation guide. Here’s the full list of new features for HL2VR Unleashed:
Universal Melee
– Allows physical melee attacks with any weapon, or even with empty hands.
– Can be toggled in the tweaks menu, the damage can also be tuned as well.
Physical Jumping
– Translates physical jumping into in-game jumping.
– Can be toggled in the controls menu.
– Jumping threshold can be tweaked via the
hlvr_control_physical_jump_thresholdCVar.Dual Wielding
– Allows each hand to independently equip and operate a weapon.
– Requires the following actions to be bound on both controllers in the SteamVR bindings menu:
"Fire","Alt Fire","Eject Magazine","Open Weapon Selection".– It is recommended to rebind
"Toggle Menu"to be a long press or chord to not interfere with left hand"Alt Fire".– It is also recommended to unbind
"Sprint"on the left hand, as that is the most natural bind for weapon selection. Sprinting is still possible by double-tapping the joystick.– Obtaining a weapon makes it usable by both hands. E.g., as soon as you collect the crowbar, you’ll be able to dual wield crowbars.
Virtual Stock
– Interpolates two-handed aiming with the player’s approximate shoulder position, giving more stability when aiming down sights.
– Can be toggled in the tweaks menu, where also the shoulder position can be tuned.
Grip-Holster Mode
– Automatically holsters weapons when the grip is released, and equips the last holstered weapon when the grip is held.
– Any hand interaction (e.g. grabbing a prop, using the flashlight) takes priority over equipping the last holstered weapon.
– This is the recommended setting when dual wielding, as it simplifies the reloading process for two weapons a lot.
– Helps to quickly interact with the world (e.g. collect an item, climb a ladder) without having to open the weapon selection menu.
– Compatible with the “Toggle grab” option, that, if enabled, will require simply pressing the grip button rather than keeping it held.
– Can be toggled in the controls menu, where the related “Toggle grab” option can also be tuned.
Difficulty Tweaks
– Allows fine-tuning of damage, recoil, and bullet spread.
– Both inflicted and taken damage can be tuned, allowing a more deadly and intense (i.e. no bullet sponges) yet fair experience.
– It is recommended to reduce the recoil multiplier a bit to make dual wielding automatic weapons more enjoyable.
– Can be tuned in the tweaks menu.
Miscellaneous
– Manually tweaked the offset of every weapon to keep the player’s hand in the same position, improving aiming consistency.
