The Flat2VR community is taking the next step and announced a studio that will develop and commercialize licensed VR ports.
The Flat2VR community has been bringing flat gaming hits and classics to VR for years, including Cyberpunk 2077, Half-Life 2 and various Resident Evil remakes, all for PC VR headsets, and several classics such as Half-Life, Quake 1-3 and Doom 1-3 have been released for Meta Quest under the direction of Team Beef. Most recently, the community attracted attention with UEVR, an injector that makes most Unreal Engine titles playable in VR.
Most of these projects are not licensed and are only available as mods or via sideloading. But that could change.
Some of the leading figures in the Flat2VR community are now taking the next step. On the Q2C VR Gamer podcast (check below), the group announced the creation of Flat2VR Studios, a studio to develop and commercialize VR ports.
First secret project is already in development
In the podcast, those responsible teased an official VR port, which will be released in late 2024 or early 2025. The name is not mentioned, but it is said to be a popular Steam and Switch game.
The first two developers Flat2VR Studios is working with are Raicuparta (known for VR ports of Firewatch and The Stanley Parable) and Holger "Cabalistic" Frydrych, the lead developer of Half-Life 2 VR, a fully-fledged port that received Valve's blessing and released on Steam.
What is the basic idea behind Flat2VR Studios? This is what Eric Masher said during the podcast:
Number one: We want to take some of these developers who are not doing this for their full-time job right now, but want to make a living making games. We want to make those dreams come true. Number two: We'd like to be able to do some of these things and get them to a platform where everybody can play on. Most of these mods are only PC and a lot of people are not able to play them. So if we can take some of these amazing people, have them help us make a port and put it on the store where everybody can get it, that's what we're trying to do.
More details should follow soon.