Flat2VR, the modding team known for bringing unofficial VR support to games such as Final Fantasy XIV, Half-Life 2, Jedi Outcast, and Left 4 Dead 2, recently released a mod for Portal 2 which finally brings SteamVR support to the iconic puzzle game.

The mod is free, and posted to Giovanni ‘Gistix’ Correia’s Github, a contributing member of Flat2VR. If you need help installing, there are instructions on the mod’s Github page, however you can also head over to the Flat2VR Discord (invite link) for help.

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Another pretty handy coincidence: Valve has again put both Portal and Portal 2 on sale for just $1 a piece, or in the Portal bundle for just $1.50 total, giving you basically no excuse not to play this mod—provided you have a VR-ready PC and a headset such as a Valve Index or Quest 2 (with Link).

Check out this 20-minute playthrough showcasing just how fluid the VR mod is:

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 3,500 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • ViRGiN

    How many times modders have surpassed valve “efforts” so far?

  • Paul Bellino

    Wow I have been waiting for this for a while. They said it could not be done, that it would make you sick. I knew they were totally wrong. I am sure it’s a little uncomfortable at times. But I am sure it is well worth it. This is one of the best games of all time. The graphics still hold up, especially with all the cartoonish graphics released this year on the quest. I cannot wait to play

    • ViRGiN

      “it cant be done” is a perfect excuse when you have steam making money by itself, with zero human intervention.

      2020:

      Valve recently addressed whether or not Portal would enter the world of virtual reality.

      IGN’s Unfiltered sat down with Chris Remo and Robin Walker, both lead Game Designers at Valve. With the recent release of Half-Life: Alyx, fans want to know if the Portal franchise will ever be brought into VR. The biggest known complaint was the potential for motion sickness while playing Portal in VR. However, Robin Walker explains that it’s a little more than players not having their VR legs. “Building technology is an incredibly hard thing to do,” Robin Walker elaborated. “…Having the wrong technology for the game you’re trying to build can be catastrophic.”

      The technology for Portal was of paramount importance. It’s one of the reasons why Alyx is still only available on Steam and not on PSVR. When considering what games should be ported into VR, Valve a close look at what could realistically work with the technology.

      “So we looked at various IPs and, yep, Portal was one of them, [but] we didn’t get very far in that. It was pretty clear when we looked at Portal as a whole… If we can’t do player movement, not as a result of their choice, but by launching them… momentum…standing on things… all that sort of stuff… then a whole swath of Portal’s puzzles… the whole back half of Portal, or more… goes away, and we’d need some alternative thing.

      “The whole point of using existing IPs is to get a head start on trying to understand and learn, and if we start by taking away one of the most interesting things from the IP we’re looking at, then it doesn’t seem like we’re making a good choice there.”

      That’s a whole lot of words for “sorry, but we are making mroe money daily from Steam than we will from Portal VR in 100 years”

      • Paul Bellino

        Yes, Yes Excuses excuses. It could and has been done very well. The proof is in this VR mod. Why could not valve figure this out.

    • wheeler

      Well, they’re right when it comes to making most people sick. There’s no way an official version could be released without basically making the hoards of people that would buy VR for another official Portal game terribly sick, or otherwise cutting back the gameplay so much that it’s hardly recognizable as a Portal game and leaves people terribly disappointed.

      The mod is amazing though. However, its proper place is as a mod. The same even applies to the HL2 VR port, which is much more tame but still makes most people sick.

      The great thing about an open platform is that both opportunities can be realized.

      • david vincent

        “which is much more tame but still makes most people sick.”
        Don’t take your small case for a generality

      • Paul Bellino

        Been playing it in VR all morning Zero Sickness, However they did it, They totally minimized any sickness. And that the point. It can very easily be done. I played Bone Lab and got sick while driving their stupid car. way too much shakiness left and right. Its how you implement it.

  • ViRGiNCRUSHER

    I’m here to support PCVR and not let the
    ViRGiN reign supreme.. He has blocked me and Portal2 VR is our victory lap

    • YoloGeek

      bahaha there is a war in coming

      • ViRGiN

        buahahah praydog will save pcvr mamma mia!

    • xyzs

      “Reign” is a big word for a mean looser with nothing else to do than refreshing a vr website every 10 seconds to post anti valve comments. I love Valve more and more thanks to him though.
      Can’t wait to buy a Deckard!

      • ViRGiN

        Divorced childless 55 year old looser alert!

      • ViRGiNCRUSHER

        Wrong virgin

  • Outstanding move

  • Richard R Garabedian

    or you could have gotten vorpx and played it years ago in vr,

    • ViRGiN

      VorpX is superior in the way that it supports games people actually care about, unlike unreal injector which offers “hundreds” of games nobody ever wanted. However, it doesn’t support 6DOF controllers, which is not a huge issue, since it’s all emulating 3D mouse basically. It works for Portal, since it’s super simple game, point and shoot, you can play it at your own pace.
      But everything else people masturbate about is completly obsolete, and only helps to completly negate the VR experience and just turns it into 3DTVR.

      But yeah, valve being valve, dont care about anything but dollars. They had official Team Fortress 2 and Half Life 2 10 years ago, and over time they worked hard to remove any leftover code from it. It took bunch of modders years and years of work to bring it to playable state. And even then HL2VR has ridiculous player numbers, despite being far superior game to Alyx. Nobody cares about PCVR anymore.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      I’d also recommend getting vorpX, but there are sort of several levels of VR compatibility, and vorpX mainly serves several lower ones. The lowest one being just providing a giant virtual screen covering most of your FoV, which will still be a lot more immersive than staring at a distant small rectangle covering less than 10% of your visual field.

      The next step is support for head tracking, and I’d argue that being able to look around is the most impactful aspect of VR for immersion, way more important than stereoscopy or grabbing objects, which we already had with shutter glasses or exotic controllers like the Noving Falcon. Further steps are adding various levels of (pseudo) 3D, depending on what the game/driver allows. vorpX doesn’t really go beyond cleverly emulating input devices and displays, which limits how well the VR experience will be. Sometimes great, sometimes not so great, but at least possible, it is a valuable tool to experience esp. older games in VR.

      Newer approaches like the Universal Unreal VR Injector work better/more reliable, because they hook into existing game engine systems intended for this, but are therefore limited to games built with newer versions of UE, which is only a small portion of all games. Custom mods often go further and actually change aspects of the game to make them more VR-like, sometimes going to extremes like the metric ton of mods that can turn Skyrim from a minimal effort VR port into an incredible immersive experience.

      Those 3rd party mods usually still cannot get close to what well done VR modes as part of the original game design will achieve, like those in RE8, while (at least in theory) native design for VR is still the holy grail, with HL:A really using VR with mechanics that simply wouldn’t work without it. In reality a modded flat game can often provide a much better experience than a badly designed VR game, despite all the limitations, and sometimes just being able to stand and look around in another world can be enough.

      Which level of VR compatibility you pick will depend mostly on what is available at all and how strong your VR legs and stomach are. This Portal mod will be much more accessible for a larger group of users than a generic tool like vorpX. But of course vorpX users didn’t have to wait for ten years to finally play Portal in VR, which is still short compared to an official version done in Valve time. With so many options available, I’d suggest to use them all to see what fits your needs best. Those demanding that VR absolutely has to include specific features to be acceptable, be it high end graphics, no annoying cables or tracked motion controller support, are missing out on a lot of fun.

      • david vincent

        Vorpx was ok 8 years ago when there was no VR content.

    • david vincent

      Vorpx is a just a crude hack. It’s not even native headtracking

    • Kamala

      3D Vision (successor – geo-11) > vorpx

  • implicator

    It works with Steam Workshop maps too which is great. There is endless content. All it needs is an update to enable co-op.

  • Iggy Pop

    Modders are killing it
    Can’t wait for the unreal injector

    • ViRGiN

      Yup, modders are killing PCVR.

  • Chris

    snapped this up when Beardo Benjo posted his video about it, and it’s absolutely awesome ! I have zero problems playing it, but i’ve never felt sick in any VR game, played right through the fantastic HL2 VR mod without a single issue either. Great mod !

    • Paul Bellino

      You got that right

  • Wow, $1.50 for the bundle of Portal and Portal 2 is a steal!

  • Garhert

    From the pure system requirements it could probably run on the XR2 Gen 2 in the Quest 3, no?

  • ViRGiNsObESeMoThER

    My son is an idiot. That is all.

    • ViRGiNCRUSHER

      Hey fancy meeting you here.

  • I’ve owned portal and portal 2 for years but never played it. Looking forward to checking it out. For some reason the mod didn’t work for me though.

    • ViRGiN

      Digital hoarder alert!

      • Lol, it came with my razer hydra controllers years ago. Used it with my dk1 back in the day.

        • ViRGiN

          Ahh, you refreshed some memories for me. I never used Hydra for flat, but I paired it with DK1 and remember having 6DOF tracking by holding one controller close to my body. Good times. Even HL2 supported it.

    • Lo Pan

      When you unzip it, take the subfolders out of the main folder and drop those into the Portal 2 local directory. I did that the first time myself, and it wouldn’t launch in **proper** VR mode, just VR theater mode. My mistake.

      And, of course, make sure you copy pasted the ‘insecure window’ settings into Portal2>Management> Properties>General>Launch Options dialogue window so it knows to start directly in VR mode. If you feel compelled to change the width/height from the 720p in the dialogue, it won’t actually change.

      • david vincent

        “no messy doodads and arcane code shenanigans”
        You have to enable AA and 6DOF manually tho (in steamapps/common/Portal 2/VR/config.txt)

  • Paul Bellino

    The Best Mod All YEAR. I love it.

  • gothicvillas

    When the moded 10+ year old game become breaking news and best current VR game.. the state of VR is dire. Besides RE4 there isn’t much to look forward…

  • david vincent

    For some reason, 6DOF and AA are not enabled by default.
    Open steamapps/common/Portal 2/VR/config.txt
    set AntiAliasing=2 and 6DOF=true

  • Florian Dümig

    Hello,

    Does anyone know when coop mode will be added? It works, but something must have gone wrong with the controls. You have to shoot the portals for your buddy.

    Flo