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.

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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."
  • Suitch

    Why are companies starting to block other headsets from the Steam’s OpenVR? At least Oculus is upfront about it. This shit is starting to get shady from the Steam side of VR.

    • Luke

      Childish Marketing™

      I’m totally tired by -all- of them.

      • Suitch

        I am alright with legitimate reasons. Oculus might enrage some people by forcing them to use ReVive, but at least their reason is legitimate: they provide massive funds for VR content and want to ensure that content is fully optimized for their device. (the extra buttons and added hand presence) Restricting content developed FOR OpenVR though? That is a dick move.

        • J.C.

          It is not a legitimate reason. Oculus’ reason for restricting content is precisely as valid as anyone else’s: they’re playing favorites.

          • Suitch

            Playing Steam games on my Vive, they use all of the buttons–playing Steam games on my Rift, they disable three, or map those three to duplicates of other buttons. It is simple logistics that a platform allowing for everything is limited by the least powerful device it supports. In Oculus Home’s case, the least powerful device is the Rift. In Steam’s OpenVR, the least powerful device is the Vive. Even the Windows headsets have buttons disabled on Steam games because of this.

          • J.C.

            Uh huh. Greeeeat excuse there, buddy. So, what was their excuse BEFORE they had their motion controllers? What will be their excuse after the Knuckles controllers come out? Why don’t they support those WMR headsets with nearly identical controllers?

            I swear to god, oculus owners will defend THEIR exclusivity to the ends of the world but, like this case, lose their minds if someone ELSE dares make a hardware-exclusive game. All or nothing, jackass. Anything else is just pathetic.

          • Suitch

            I own both, let’s start there. I will defend both where defense is due. The difference between what Oculus does and this is that Oculus has a PLATFORM stance, and it NEVER changes. They aren’t breaking promises. SteamVR and OpenVR, however, make a different PROMISE. They say that they won’t have exclusivity but here we are experiencing it. Oculus isn’t the bad guy here, because they aren’t the group breaking any promises.

          • J.C.

            Alright, Oculus has kept its stance, I agree. As for Steam and OpenVR, Valve hasn’t released a single full game yet, so THEIR promise is intact. Each individual publisher is free to do what they wish. If R* wants to lower their overall sales (at least initially) by restricting players to specific hardware, well, that’s their own deal. They aren’t required to stick to any promises made by other companies.

          • Its as if take two wants to sabotage sales to make VR look bad so they can scrap future projects and demands..

          • Suitch

            It is frankly a case of OpenVR being limited by the least common denominator of all headsets it supports.

  • Luke

    micro stutters on the oculus, people asking for refound. do you have a fix? please let me know!

    https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/7k6iez/la_noire_stutter/

  • Its as if take two wants to sabotage sales to make VR look bad so they can scrap future projects and demands.

  • Jean-Sebastien Perron

    If it’s not on the oculus store they don’t get my money. In fact they will only get 1/4 of the VR market, because Vive is a dying brand.

    • Fredrik Pettersen

      Sore loser much?

      • Jean-Sebastien Perron

        I am the winner I have the best HMD with the best hand controllers with the best exclusives : Lone Echo, Mage’s Tales, Wilson’s Heart…

        • Fredrik Pettersen

          You mean you’re a whiner not a winner right? I’m sure your suffering will fade away if you have the balls to own both Rift and Vive. Like us real winners.

          • michèl

            …and the psvr, and cardboardvr, and samsung mr, and dsk2 osvr. Whos da boss now eh?!

          • Fredrik Pettersen

            You’re obviously the boss. I surrender on account of your awesomeness.

          • JeySigma

            you’re all pathetic, it’s like comparing dick sizes together.

            Just get whatever damn headset you want and fcking enjoy like grownups. Who gives a shit what one owns, as long as they play VR content.

          • Rich88

            Yeah, but have you taken any of them and made them work for every system and computer ever including the Atari 2600 and the ColecoVision? Probably not, because you’re all n00bs, obvs.

          • Danso Jones

            Why would you own both? I’ve played both, and the Oculus was just so much more comfortable to wear, plus the touch controllers are so good that you can’t go back to playing without them… Vive just sits gathering dust

        • BeehiveRound

          Those are all terrible. Unless you are 9.

    • Blue

      The Vive may not last, but SteamVR’s here to stay.