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Valve Announces New Portal Content For Virtual Reality (roadtovr.com)

Posted by timothy on from the look-deep-into-my-portals dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Although I'm sure we'd all love to see Half-Life in virtual reality, Valve has been focusing on its Portal universe for SteamVR. The company announced today a "compilation of new VR experiments" called 'The Lab', which will be set inside one of Aperture Science's "pocket universes". One of Valve's earlier VR demos, 'Aperture Robot Repair', had players interact with Atlas, one of the robots from Portal 2 (with a brief GLaDOS cameo). The company says they'll be showing off The Lab at GDC 2016 next week and that they'll release it for free to SteamVR this spring.

30 comments

  1. Can we get a non-VR Port? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So I don't puke my guts out

    1. Re:Can we get a non-VR Port? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When I first bought my 3D stereoscopic TV the first thing I did was hook up a gaming PC and play through the original Portal game. Did it give me motion sickness? A little, but not enough to stop a full play-through of the entire game. This is exactly the type of catnip needed to get my early adopter juices flowing. The rest of you just keep on playing Job Simulator. I'll be in Cave Johnson's own little world.

  2. Motion sickness. Motion sickness everywhere. by blueshift_1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The biggest problem is that portal is disorienting with normal play... much less with full VR immersion. I would expect sickness everywhere.

    1. Re:Motion sickness. Motion sickness everywhere. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's made for VR, and by Valve, so there won't be artificial locomotion and so no motion sickness at all.

    2. Re:Motion sickness. Motion sickness everywhere. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      There is no way in Hades I am going to sink $800 bucks into one of these without trying it out first.

    3. Re:Motion sickness. Motion sickness everywhere. by alvinrod · · Score: 1

      I would imagine that they've tried it internally and it's not too bad or they've found ways of reducing potential disorientation, perhaps by only allowing your head position to change the camera view via the headset instead of using a mouse or analog stick as typical with most games. There's still going to be a disconnect between what you're seeing and your body's sense of motion, but to some degree you'll get that with any VR game.

      It doesn't make sense for Valve (who while not as involved in the VR-craze as other companies has been pushing for it) to release a bad product that puts people off VR entirely.

    4. Re:Motion sickness. Motion sickness everywhere. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      they have been doing R and D for years, and helped Oculus get low persistence display tech going on early prototypes,

      http://www.roadtovr.com/hands-valves-virtual-reality-hmd-owlchemy-labs-share-steam-dev-days-experiences/

      http://www.wired.com/2014/05/oculus-rift-4/

    5. Re:Motion sickness. Motion sickness everywhere. by dfsmith · · Score: 1

      It took me a while to get the hang of the weird Portal angles. But my kids had no trouble at 5 years old—it was just natural for them to do Portal Jumps and rotations. Hey, that's how the universe works, isn't it? ``Dad! Make me a portal to the fridge!''

    6. Re:Motion sickness. Motion sickness everywhere. by Fragnet · · Score: 1

      "No motion sickness at all". Ahahahahahahaha.

    7. Re:Motion sickness. Motion sickness everywhere. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it's not portal 3, you're not going to be flying around through portals. it'll be multiple room-based puzzles strung together with maybe a moving platform or individual portals.

    8. Re:Motion sickness. Motion sickness everywhere. by rsmith-mac · · Score: 1

      The biggest problem is that portal is disorienting with normal play... much less with full VR immersion. I would expect sickness everywhere.

      This assumes that they are using "Portal" as in the gameplay as opposed to the brand. Valve's existing Aperture Robot Repair demo was one big tech demo for the Vive's wireless controllers; there were no portals involved. Expect similar for The Lab.

    9. Re:Motion sickness. Motion sickness everywhere. by dohzer · · Score: 1

      Relax. The VR system will be sold with a vomit bag as standard issue.

    10. Re:Motion sickness. Motion sickness everywhere. by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      So they claim testing, then let's stop with the lies and secrets and lets see the results of testing. Let's see what someone behaves like and how they fell after 12 hours of VR gaming. Let's scope out the deterioration hour after hours and I am betting pretty major deterioration as the reason why no testing results are being released.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    11. Re:Motion sickness. Motion sickness everywhere. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is no way that anyone is going to sink $800 into it. One of the biggest obstacles to adoption for VR back in the 90s was the high cost. It looks like none of the companies trying to peddle their wares this time have learned a thing from the past.

      VR will fail, again. Maybe someone will get it right in another 15 years.

    12. Re:Motion sickness. Motion sickness everywhere. by LoneTech · · Score: 2

      Thank you! It's such a relief to have it reconfirmed that I, and thousands of other enthusiasts and developers, simply don't exist. Takes all the pressure to succeed off... :P

  3. In other news by Alyks · · Score: 1

    Valve announces it's still not making Half Life 3.

    1. Re:In other news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Portal Virtual Reality.. PVR letter count is three.

      HALF LIFE 3 CONFIRMED!!!!!

    2. Re:In other news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just ignore everything after HL2 Episode One. In the ending, the citadel blows up and a bunch of advisor pods are tossed from the explosion to violently crash into the surrounding countryside, killing off the Combine once and for all. Hurray!

  4. Way to go Valve! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Make a game for the 3% of people who'll buy a game for VR out of the 2% of people who'll actually buy a headset for VR for the 4% of PCs that will actually be able to support VR and not be an utter disappointment while you let your biggest game franchise (Half Life, if you forgot what made you a household name and made Steam spread so quickly) rot as your fanbase is practically breaking down the door for the content.

    WTF?

  5. Fuck headsets, I want a Holodeck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And I'll NEVER wrap a Microsoft device around my head.

  6. I.E. short demos you'll only want to try once by Scorpinox · · Score: 4, Informative

    I was able to try out the mentioned demo late last year, and it was cute, but it's note exactly something you would want to spend more than ~10 minutes messing around with. So to say new Portal "content" is coming might be a little misleading.

    I have a feeling that people are going to be very disappointed with the software available at launch for the Vive. It's mostly short tech demos that are worth seeing once, but certainly not worth $800 + a high-end computer upgrade. Still looking forward to the future of this stuff though. It has the potential to be huge.

  7. Doesn't HL2 work with Oculus? by Viewsonic · · Score: 1

    I swear I was playing that on my DK2 over a year ago. Thought all the HL engine games just "worked".

    Maybe that was some other reality I'm thinking about. I've got so many these days it's easy to be confused.

    1. Re:Doesn't HL2 work with Oculus? by Wraithlyn · · Score: 1

      Yeah we've played Half Life Source on the DK2, worked great.

      --
      "Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
    2. Re:Doesn't HL2 work with Oculus? by mobby_6kl · · Score: 1

      Yes, however it's not going to work in the future with new SDKs and so on. Apparently Valve considers that direction a failure and isn't going to support it with consumer HMDs.

    3. Re:Doesn't HL2 work with Oculus? by Calabacin · · Score: 1

      Yes, however it's not going to work in the future with new SDKs and so on. Apparently Valve considers that direction a failure and isn't going to support it with consumer HMDs.

      Is this really true? For what reasons? Got a link?

      --
      How much wood would a woodchopper chop if a woodchopper would chop wood?
  8. The 'portal universe'? by Zibodiz · · Score: 1

    Although I'm sure we'd all love to see Half-Life in virtual reality, Valve has been focusing on its Portal universe

    Portal is in the Half-Life universe. It's a spin-off.

  9. How about Half-Life 3..? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    How about working on projects people are clamoring for, Valve? Like, I dunno, Half-Life 3..?

    Let other people handle VR. Your solution is dead in the water, just like the Steam Box.

  10. Half-Life... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Although I'm sure we'd all love to see Half-Life in virtual reality

    I'm not sure I want to get that close to a headcrab!

  11. This is the Half-Life 3 demo by Mortirer · · Score: 0

    I believe that this is just the demo of the technology that will be used to make Half-Life 3! Just think about it, what else could they be working on over the years? They want VR to be groundbreaking, and what better story to use then Half-Life? Half-Life has a huge cult following. It's what made valve company it is today. What would be a better way to sell Steam Machines with VR headset then to bundle it with Half Life 3? How much would you pay for that experience? They have all the time and money the could possibly need in order to get it right. Valve has always been about raising the bar, but if they get this technology going it would changing video gaming as we know it.

    --
    Curiosity killed the cat, but cats have 9 lives.