L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files launched to much excitement yesterday, but it wasn’t long before it was revealed that the game explicitly blocks OpenVR-compatible headsets other than the Vive. Luckily a free, unofficial workaround has been released which adds support for the Oculus Rift and Windows VR headsets to LA Noire VR.
Legendary emancipator of VR exclusives, Jules “LibreVR” Blok, quickly came to the aid of Rift and Windows VR users wanting to play LA Noire VR. Just hours after the game launched yesterday, Blok released the ‘LA Noire Fix‘, a small, unofficial patch which restores LA Noire VR’s underlying support of the Rift and Windows VR headsets thanks to its OpenVR foundation. Rockstar Games had explicitly blocked the headsets from working with LA Noire VR, though its motivations for doing so are unclear.
The workaround released by Blok is a simple .dll file swap which takes just a few seconds to implement; installation instructions are listed on the patch’s official GitHub page. While the patch LA Noire VR fully playable on the Rift or Windows VR headsets, be warned that Rockstar says the game only officially supports the HTC Vive; some unexpected behavior may result from using other headsets, and there’s no guarantee that the company won’t attempt to block workarounds going forward—buyer beware.
Blok is the creator of Revive, a free workaround that allows OpenVR headsets like the Vive to play Oculus exclusive titles. His work is supported by the community via Patreon.
