Luke Ross, the modder who brought VR support to a host of non-VR games such as GTA V, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Mafia II, surprise-released a VR mod for the PC version of Horizon Zero Dawn.

YouTube channel Cas and Chary got an exclusive first look at the mod. Casandra Vuong (aka ‘Cas’) went hands on, revealing just how the mod’s first and third-person modes look in a 20-minute video.

In the video, we get a look at Cas playing the full game with a gamepad, riding tamed beasts and attacking the game’s rougher mechanical wildlife. In the third-person, we see Cas experiencing cutscenes and following the game’s protagonist Aloy from overhead.

Both first and third-person appear to be pretty intense from a VR comfort standpoint, since the game requires fast and frenetic movement. It also doesn’t appear to include motion controller support.

Granted, it’s still early days for the mod, which was originally supposed to be a third-person only experience—just like the unmodded game itself. Luke Ross says in a paywalled Patreon update that the bugs are still being ironed out, but implementing first-person was just too tempting to pass up:

I hate last-minute ideas, because they inevitably bring crunch and a huge risk of failure and disappointment. Yet, there was zero chance that I could pass up on something that looked so promising. I decided to at least try to implement [first-person], even if that meant delaying the release for some indeterminate (hopefully not too large) amount of time. Then the curiosity to actually see the game from the new perspective got the better of me, and I literally worked day and night, first to prove that it was actually possible, and after that to iron out all of the kinks. Well, most of them :-)

If you’re looking to install the mod, Cas provides a step-by-step tutorial at the end of the video (timestamped 19:33). You’ll need to be a Patreon supporter to get access, which starts at $10 per month. If you’re looking to follow Luke Ross, you can check out updates posted to his Patreon page and Twitter.

SEE ALSO
PSVR 2 Works on PC Without the Adapter If You Have the Right Graphics Card

In the meantime, we’ll be waiting to hear more news on the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 VR mod that Luke Ross says should arrive sometime in January 2022.

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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.
  • sgtwalterson

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  • JesuSaveSouls

    It looks and plays very excellent. Gamepad only but options to choose alternative resolutions and settings. In my opinion Jesus is mankind’s sole hope. He freed me from alcoholism and suicide.

    • Torsten Balle Koefoed

      Well, good for you, but in the game it’s Aloy that saves mankind – not Jesus.

      • Jinral

        True. But, don’t discount the dude’s testimony. In the end a game is a game. But, dude has his life becuz of Jesus.

    • Jinral

      Haven’t yet played this game. This is one I prefer to see others play.
      And…Jesus saves, indeed.

    • Alexisms

      Believe whatever evidence less bs you want to but shut up preaching about it here.

  • 3872Orcs

    Is this alternate eye rendering? Like in GTA and Red Dead? Not really excited for any of these with all these drawbacks I see here. And is any of these games much different from VorpX? I prefer the way mods like Risk of Rain 2 are done, it feels like a native experience, no performance problems too if I disable certain effects in the settings and use FSR on top of it.

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    • kakek

      Yes, it’s alternate eye rendering. And yeah, I agree it has many issues, mostly performances.

      It’s not the same as VorpX, wich use either Z buffer 3D ( great for performance, but very bad 3D effect ) or “classic” stereo rendering depending on the games.

      And mods like RoR 2 are something different again. Because they are for much less graphicaly intensive games, but more importantly they are for Unity games and therefore can use the built-in VR support. Meaning even if there’s a LOT to fix if the game has been made for flat, at least they can rely on the engine having all that’s required to adress the headset and do stereo rendering, wich is why they get much better results.

      • Cless

        When you can use VorpX on stereo mode it is absolutely amazing, even if the hit to the FPS is quite high too. Zbuffer… is okayish… sometimes, the hit to FPS is minimal, and the compatibility is super high though.

  • Zack274

    Ross should and could make better mods, instead of outing a mod for a new game every months…

  • johann jensson

    Gotta love how the VR train finally picks up speed (even VorpX will release a Cyberpunk 2077 mod for the 10th anniversary :). The VR community can downvote me all they want, but IMO VR ports of AAA games will be what will make VR really popular, not half-baked and ugly/cartoony native “games” that feel like demos and have the matching playlength…

    And pron. But that’s a given.

    • VR5

      I think we need both.

      We need safe games that buyers can be sure to be able to play, without having to train to stand them.

      And we need the traditional games become playable in VR, with the warning you might not be able to play them right away. Or ever.

      Even without proper full VR, flat games are stunning on a high res cinematic screen inside an HMD. That’s value even if you cannot play them in VR. And some of the safe games are still some of the best games, i.e. Super Hot VR and Beat Saber.

      But really, if you played VR for a while, you just don’t want to go back to playing on a small TV. Bring the VR mods and official VR modes.

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      • johann jensson

        I agree.

        BTW, it’s more like “high res cinematic STEREO 3D screen”, if you use software like VorpX. Or even better: natively displayed in Stereo3D. Most video games use depth calculation anyway, so why not put it to use, like nVidia did with their 3D drivers?

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      • Ace of Spadеs

        Super hot and beat saber are not real games, they indie app for weirdos.
        A game is something that has story, has meat, has begging, mid and end, not some dumb wiggle music games or cheapo shooter.
        Lone Echo is a game, Alyx is a game, but those two you mention are trash and the bane of VR.
        When newcomers come to VR all the see is TRASH and get scared.
        I would NEVER invest in VR if all it had was trash like pavlov, vrchat, beat saber, super hot, that ape game whatever it is, boneworks and otehr cheapo pauper trash applications.

        • VR5

          Alyx with teleportation is a safe game and so is LE for most people. They’re also great, the best the medium has to offer. So are Super Hot and Beat Saber. Critics and customers agree, great ratings and sales all around.

          • Ace of Spadеs

            The thing is some people are easily amused, they will enjoy anything, even playing with sticks.

          • VR5

            If you just want to be dismissive about what other people enjoy, I don’t think there’s a worthwhile discussion to be had. Just remember, you need those other VR users, because you alone won’t be able to pay for those games you want. $60 is not enough to fund a AAA game. You need hundreds of thousands who pay those $60 (or many more who buy during sales) to make it worthwhile for studios to make the games you want. Millions even if you want a very ambitious game.

            And even then, it takes time to make those games. Simpler games keep players engaged until a big game comes along. Or that big game will just launch to a dead market. Or never be made, because the market never was promising in the first place.

          • Ace of Spadеs

            The opposite is true, every buyer that buys indie game is money that could be spent on AAA quality game, people dont have infinite money and have to make choices.

            I been gaming since 1986 and I have bunch of “rules” that i try to adhere to

            1. Don’t waste time on cheap indie games, there are many good games to be played [I have over 1400 just in steam and MAYBE i finished 2-3 games, cant say they all good, most are OK that i got on a whim or in bundles with good ones],
            by supporting cheaply made games you show the devs that you like it and they will MULTIPLY. [Make more]

            There are FAR more trash level games on Steam then AAA and AA, probably 100 trash vs 1 good, support the good guys.

            2. Good game has to be like a roller-coaster and book mixed together, to have a story, to have proper start, middle and end, to have highs and lows.

            3. “games” without story and narative, ie puzzle, rithm, music, singing and other pointless chores are not real games, they waste of time.

            4. Never re-play the same game [or watch the same movie/TV show] more then once.

            5. Do not buy games that promote liberal political agenda: If they make Political Propaganda material, it should be free, PAID Entertainment is not a tool to promote vile ideology.
            But if you really want to see what it is about or its your favorite franchise that been politicized in a new installment, then pirate it, do something to hurt the dev to punish him.

          • VR5

            I’m not saying you should buy games you don’t like. Obviously everyone is free to choose. I don’t mind your choice. Other people prefer games you don’t like. Sorry (not really) if that bothers you.

          • Ace of Spadеs

            The issue here is that VR turns into this cheap-indie niche, it creates an image, big devs get scared and dont want to invest, when they see that all people buy is beat saber and so on, they dont want to invest porting big games.
            The fact is that its already happened.
            Bethesda no long ports their games to VR, we had VR doom and VR standalone wolfenstien, but thats it, Doom Eternal wasn’t ported to VR.

            Now all my hope is with PSVR2, the hardware sounds insane, resolution is tad low by my standards but because its Real RGB OLED [Only sony has real OLED in their VR] and it has HDR,+ Dynamic Fovated rendering, the game quality might not be that bad visually i mean.
            Sony invests in VR games, we will get a good number of AA and AAA titles for sure, also big ones, they already announced HZD, which i don’t really like for political reasons but its playable.

            And i hope it finally works on PC, it should in theory since its inside out tracking and just uses USB-C

          • VR5

            Bethesda was bought by Microsoft who don’t believe in VR. Skyrim also was a PSVR exclusive at first and likely incentivized by Sony money. They also put out a made for VR game for Doom instead of porting the flat games.

            There are many possible explanations why Bethesda pulled back on VR, some very obvious ones. Did they comment why? Did they say something about indies? You can’t just invent something and treat it like fact without evidence.

            In reality, indies never stopped AAA games from thriving. They don’t on Steam, nor on consoles. Why should they be a problem in VR?

    • xyzs

      Agree, sick of VR Gamecube graphics and milkpack headsets…in almost 2022.

      We need Matrix Awakens level sh*t in our RGB-OLED-pancake lenses tiny VR headset now!

    • Raphael

      I agree. Too many VR games with ultra-simple kiddy graphics, short gameplay etc. Meanwhile devs like CDProjekt stubbornly refuse to add VR. Having modders deliver these big games in VR is a punch in the face and wakeup call for AAA devs.

    • Ace of Spadеs

      100% I hate these indie trash level game, i think VR goes downhill, after Bethesda released those AAA VR games and Alyx, no one makes AAA games for VR anymore, Quest had PS2 port of RE4 LOL

  • VR5

    Okay so I got the game during the Steam sale and the mod. It’s definitely two steps forward and one step back as the alternating eye rendering is jarring (it’s worse the faster the movement is). An added nausea inducing factor and a distractor.

    But it’s also 100% worth it. The game looks stunning and this mod is exactly what I wanted the PS5 to be: a way to play recent flat games with full VR immersion. If it had been possible to play Spider-Man Miles Morales and the other PS5 games with PSVR, at launch, I would have wanted one and would feel bad for not being able to buy one.

    Without VR I don’t care for the PS5 at all. But there’s hope that PS5 will catch up with the dream when next gen PSVR launches. If not, I’m really just fine with PC.

  • Ragbone

    Will this work on a 3DFX VOODOO 2 graphics card?

    • geronimo

      Yes, but you’re gonna need AT LEAST 32MB of system ram.

  • Richard R Garabedian

    how do you dodge in first person??? Also it looks aamzing but i dont think i could play in that mode…just look around maybe

  • Cless

    I would MUCH rather play the game in regular 3rd person, but immersed in 3D VR, than like this…