Valve are doing a ‘content showcase’ in Seattle as a ‘follow up’ to HTC’s Vive demonstration at CES 2016, running 6th – 9th January 2016.

It has been a while since Valve expanded the Half-Life and Portal universe. The 2015 Game Developers Conference held on March 4, 2014, however, brought the ‘Aperture Science Virtual Reality Demo‘, which was enough to get fan’s hopes up for the next potential instalment of the series.

On March 3rd, Valve released news of their latest products at the 2015 Game Developers. The news includes the official announcement of the Source 2 engine, SteamVR, Steam Link, as well as updates to Steam Machines and the Steam Controller.

Just hours ago, HTC Corporation announced they are working together with Valve on new Virtual Reality (VR) hardware technology, with plans to release a fully-featured headset.

Ever since developers got their hands on the Oculus Rift developer kits earlier this year there has been a steady stream of incredible videos appearing on the internet showing what this piece of technology can do for video games, it was only a matter of time before someone would start working on a Half-Life mod that utilised the new kit.

I’ve seen a couple of videos of people playing Half-Life 2 with the Rift but this latest show case by Nathan Andrews has some very important differences that really change the experience from simply playing Half-Life 2 with a Rift, to actually experiencing Rift VR in Half-Life 2.

We’re currently in the process of wrapping up the latest release of Half-Life VR, which will include HL2: episode 1 VR support. This video was made in a single playthrough with my oculus rift dev-kit and razer hydra, I cropped the video to make it easier to view for those who currently don’t have a rift so keep in mind that the vertical field of view is probably twice what is shown in the video when wearing the actual rift.

Interested in giving this a shot? Check out the official web page for the mod here.