Credit: Steam
Former Valve developer Tom Forsyth shared in a Mastodon thread how the company attempted to bring Half-Life 2 to VR, but it ran into a critical issue due to a glitchy door at the very beginning of the game. As a result, an official VR version of the game was never released.
Just a couple of minutes after launch, the VR build completely soft-locked. In the scene where the guard is supposed to let the player into the room, the door simply wouldn’t open, breaking the entire sequential script.
Forsythe called in other developers, including those who had worked on the original. Tests showed that the problem wasn’t VR-specific; the bug occurred even in the regular version when recompiled with the current compiler.
Eventually, the cause was found: there’s another guard standing behind the door, and in the original scene, his position is calculated with microscopic precision. When the door begins to open, it slightly pushes the NPC, causing him to turn almost imperceptibly. In the old build, this turn is enough to move his boot out of the door’s path, and the game then works as expected. But in the new build, the turn is slightly smaller, so insignificant that the guard’s toe still remains in the door’s path. The door collides with an obstacle and locks. The player stands and waits for a script that will never trigger.
However, playing Half-Life 2 in VR became possible later. In 2022, a fan-made Half-Life 2: VR Mod appeared on Steam, adding full support for VR tools. The modification was approved by Valve and published on the platform as an officially recognized fan project.
