Bungie's Halo: Combat Evolved first landed on the original Xbox in 2001, followed by a Windows release in 2003. Now, over 20 years later, the game is playable in a new way, letting players experience the sci-fi shooter in virtual reality for the first time. What's impressive about this is that it's a free community mod made by user LivingFray.
However, the downside is that the updated Master Chief Collection version of the game is not supported.
The full VR conversion mod, aptly named HaloCEVR (spotted by UploadVR), touts a full six degrees of freedom (6DoF) aiming, too. This lets players use weapons, throw grenades, use picture-in-picture scopes, and use both hands for holding weapons with tracked controllers.
Motion-controlled melee attacks, a flashlight that can be turned on by tapping on the helmet, in-world crouch support that's detected via motion, a detached UI, and rebindable controls are available, too. Some of these features aren't even seen in high-profile VR games nowadays. Check out gameplay from YouTuber LunchAndVR below:
To play the original Halo: Combat Evolved for PC is a requirement, and the 1.10 patch needs to be installed as well. This isn't an easy-to-find piece of software, considering it was released on CDs and never arrived digitally. Multiplayer isn't officially supported either, with the developer warning that issues may arise when trying it out.
As for why the mod wasn't developed for the Halo: The Master Chief Collection version of Combat Evolved, LivingFray says that it was done for development simplicity's sake:
This mod my first time attempting to reverse engineer and mod a close sourced game engine requiring learning how to decompile, analyse and patch x86 assembly. As you may guess, this is hard. By focusing on an older title I have a simpler project to work with as I do not have an additional 2 decades worth of updates and advances in technology to worry about.
Find complete installation instructions and a download to the latest version on the HaloCEVR GitHub page. There are some known issues to keep an eye out for, too.
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