The Force is strong with this VR mod.
Perhaps it’s nostalgia, but one of my favorite video game memories will always be sitting down after school and completing missions throughout the galaxy in Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy. Originally released back in 2003, LucasArts’ hybrid first-person/third-person action game has you playing the role of a student at Luke Skywalker’s Jedi Academy and investigating a Dark Jedi cult.
Not only does the game allow you to choose your fighting style and Force abilities, but the order in which you complete missions as well. There was even support for online multiplayer, allowing you to take on other players in various objective-based game modes using blasters as well as Lightsabers.
Now it appears as though we’ll soon have the opportunity to play the critically-acclaimed game in VR thanks to a new mod in development for Meta Quest 2 headsets. The mod is being developed by Simon Brown, aka DrBeef, who’s created a number of VR ports for popular games such as Quake, Half-Life, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein just to name a few.
Last week, VR modding community Flat2VR shared a sneak peek of the mod running standalone on the Meta Quest 2. During the roughly 50-second video, we see a combination of first-person gameplay with support for motion controls. It appears as though the game switches from first-person view to third-person view whenever a Lightsaber is equipped, just like the original.
Brown said on Twitter that he is working on motion control support for Lightsaber combat in addition to gunplay, though nothing is set in stone at the moment. According to Grant Bagwell, a member of TeamBeef, the team is also working on a VR mod for 2002’s Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, another first-person/third-person action game set before the events of Jedi Academy.
No word yet on when the Jedi Academy VR port will hit Quest 2 headsets. Until then you can stay up-to-date by visiting patreon.com/teambeef. The team recently announced that it is switching to Patreon as its primary source of financing moving forward. All past and future mods will be available free of charge according to the team.
Image Credit: Flat2VR via Twitter
