Valve confirms class-based free-to-play shooter first game to officially support virtual reality technology.

Valve's class-based free-to-play shooter Team Fortress 2 will be the first officially supported Oculus Rift title, the developer confirmed to Engadget today. "VR Mode" will be available to gamers through an update expected to be delivered "sometime within the next couple of weeks."

"This is a mode that everybody who has a Rift dev kit and access to Team Fortress 2 will be able to play, just on public and in the same servers that everybody else is playing in," Valve programmer Joe Ludwig said.

"Everybody" will not include Mac or Linux Team Fortress 2 players right away, Ludwig said. He explained that Valve does not have a Mac or Linux software development kit (SDK) from the Oculus team yet.

"But once we get those, we'll get it ported over to those other platforms," Ludwig said.

Valve will hold two virtual reality-themed talks during the Game Developers Conference next week. Ludwig will present "What We Learned Porting Team Fortress 2 to Virtual Reality," which will detail the company's efforts to get the free-to-play game running in virtual reality goggles.

Additionally, Valve's Michael Abrash will speak more generally about virtual reality in a discussion titled "Why Virtual Reality is Hard (And Where it Might be Going)." This talk will touch on why virtual reality technologies could become more mainstream in the near future.

The Oculus Rift rose to prominence last year, when its Kickstarter campaign smashed its $250,000 target on its first day, ending with $2.4 million from more than 9,500 backers. A copy of Doom 3: BFG Edition was promised to backers, but this promotion was recently scuttled, with supporters able to receive a refund.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot