Valve comes with Desktop Theater Mode to play non-VR games in VR

Valve has announced that it is working on a way to play non-VR games with a virtual reality headset on. Within virtual reality, Valve creates a space with a two-dimensional screen, on which the games can be seen.

The feature is now in beta phase, Road to VR writes, among others. Valve plans to reveal more about the new functionality at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco in the coming week. Desktop Theater Mode must work with Valve’s proprietary Vive headset as well as all other virtual reality headsets compatible with SteamVR.

Although no images of Desktop Theater Mode are available yet, the description of the solution is very reminiscent of the Cardboard functionality in the YouTube app. In it, a three-dimensional space is created in which a two-dimensional screen can be seen with a YouTube video on it. With the help of, for example, a Google Cardboard, users can see the stereoscopic image properly and virtual reality content is made as far as possible from 2D content.

So while Desktop Theater Mode can’t really turn a game into a VR game, it does provide the convenience for users that they don’t have to remove their virtual reality headset when going from a VR game to a non-VR game. In addition, the environment created by Desktop Theater Mode may be customizable to the user’s needs. That is, it can be distraction-free and the 2d screen within the 3d world can probably also be resized depending on the wearer’s preference. Finally, thanks to this function, a monitor is theoretically superfluous.