If there is one barrier to VR game development, it’s that it is expensive to make games and the market for VR, whilst growing, is still relatively small. Unfortunately this has led to some publishers being apprehensive about taking risks and instead pour the majority of their resources into less risky projects.
Flat2VR saw this problem and came up with a clever solution. If it is too risky to develop entire new games for VR why not take old classics and tweak them into working VR games. And surprisingly, they have done an amazing job of it so far, with some of their work putting official devs to shame.
What is Flat2VR?
Flat2VR is a new development team that will specialize in porting old classic games over to VR headsets. They are made up of groups of different mod teams that have already brought some amazing games to our headsets. You have probably already tried a few, but here is some of games they have already done amazing VR ports for:
- Half Life 2 VR Port
- Outer Wilds
- Doom
- Doom 3
- Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast
- Firewatch
If you have played any of these ports you would know that they almost feel like native VR games, they are pretty much jank free, run fantastically, and all the systems have been adapted to work in VR as well as they can be. The Half Life 2 port in particular almost rivals Half Life Alyx in terms of quality, and Alyx had some of the best VR devs on the planet working on it with a huge budget.
The incredible thing is that these mod teams produced this work unpaid, and purely on a volunteer basis. They didn’t have proper funding, they didn’t have source code access, and they didn’t have official support from the original developers. But none of that mattered, because they absolutely smashed it each time.
So what has changed?
Flat2VR is no longer just a collection of various modders, this year they have formed a proper official studio that is dedicated to working on VR ports of classic games. The difference now is that they are working with the original developers and have access to support, source codes and funding. This means they can dedicate their full time to the ports. They don’t have to worry about making janky workarounds due to not having the source code. And in some cases the original developers can support them.
The fact that they have access to the source codes alone is a huge deal. The quality of Flat2VR’s ports is already fantastic, but this will make development so much easier and will make the ports even smoother.
So what games are they working on?
Flat2VR hasn’t wasted any time and they have four projects that have already been announced officially. The first official ports they will produce will be:
- Flatout
- Wrath Aeon of Ruin
- Trombone Champ
- Robo Quest
I will admit, of these games only Flatout really interests me. But then again, the Quest has been begging for a proper racing game for some time now, and the Burnout style car combat was always something I loved. But there are plenty of people hyped for each of these games and considering they are rather cheap to port, they should make decent money.
The amazing thing here is that they were only announced as an official studio back in March 2024 and they already have four games in the pipeline, some of which are due for release by the end of the year.
What headsets are Flat2VR working on?
When I first heard what they were doing my first question was, are Flat2VR only targeting PCVR, or are they going to hit the Quest and PSVR 2? The good news is that they are targeting every platform, not just PC, so everyone should be able to take advantage of the new ports.
The PS5 has loads of power so it should be easy to get the games running on that, but bringing something like Flatout to standalone headsets and still having it look good is a really impressive technical feat which is a testament to the devs talent here.
What does all this mean for the future of VR?
Personally I have been a bit frustrated over the past few years, as there is an enormous library of classic games that are begging for a port to VR. But the publishers being hesitant to take any kind of risk meant that these games were locked to old systems, never to be visited again. Flat2VR should be the ones to change this, and if their first round of ports are successful, it’s not hard to imagine the team will grow and they will be able to bring new ports to our headsets.
They could be the ones to finally bring a series like Metal Gear to VR. Or they could do what Rockstar refuses to do and finally bring us a port of San Andreas. Imagine a racing game like Burnout: Takedown but you are actually in the car in the middle of the action. How many classic games out there are just waiting to be ported to our headsets.
Let’s hope Flat2VR’s first ports sell well and are well received. If they are, it could open up a whole new world of possibilities for VR gaming in the future.
