The mod itself is still in early beta but even at this stage of development it’s possible to play through the full campaign (and all the DLC levels) in its entirety. For this week’s episode of VR Corner, which you can find just below these words, I tested the mod out on one of the most memorable missions from the game, Dark Carnival. It was an excellently gory trip down memory lane, only made better by the fact that I also managed to accidentally summon Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Developed by a modder named Kem, the l4d2vr mod is still a work in progress, albeit one that seems to be getting regular quality of life updates. For instance, while l4d2vr does have motion controller support with fully mapped controls, you’ll notice in the video above that this has been implemented in a rather um… unique kind of way. Rather than giving the player a full body rig or even just a pair of floating hands, l4d2vr instead attaches both the avatar’s hands and arms to the models of their guns. Not only does this mean that both arms are controlled by the controller that’s holding the gun, but also that it’s possible to ‘remove’ both of the avatar’s arms from its body by holding your hand out in front of you. While the absence of any kind of physical reloading or weapon swapping may be disappointing to some people, it’s not really something that you’ll notice mid-rampaging horde. I actually found that this scheme worked perfectly with the speed and intensity of Left 4 Dead 2’s gameplay so, while a complex control scheme would definitely be more immersive, I feel like this is a pretty good compromise. Kem’s l4d2vr mod is free to download right now and, as long as you already own a copy of Left 4 Dead 2, installation is relatively easy. One word of warning though, because the mod is unofficial, you will need to deactivate Valve’s Anti Cheat software if you want to use it without risking being VAC banned. There are details on how to do that in the mod’s readme files, but this does mean that it’s probably best not to try this mod out in multiplayer for the time being. Despite the rough edges though, l4d2vr is incredibly fun to play and it’s a brilliant way to experience one of the best zombie shooters of all time. If playing classic Valve games in VR sounds like something you’d like to do by the way, I can also recommend keeping an eye on this upcoming VR mod for Half Life 2.
