Play God of War (2018, PC) in VR: every frame is drawn in true 3D for each eye with full head tracking, and you can switch to a first-person view through Kratos' eyes and fight with your own hands. Works with the Steam, Epic and GOG versions of the game.
⚠️ Work in progress. It is playable but not finished; expect rough edges. First person and the motion controls are still being tuned.
New in v0.2.8
+Health, Spartan Rage and runic bars in first person are now above your left hand. To have them at your head instead (shown when you hold your left hand next to it), pick Head in the VR settings panel (Health bars).
+New VR settings option: Aiming mode (Hold / Press). Press: one pull of the left trigger starts aiming, the next one stops it.
+New VR settings option: Hand angle. − / + tilt Kratos' hands and the axe, 5° a click, saved for your headset type (for controllers whose hands don't line up, e.g. Meta Quest 2).
+VR settings panel: the VR On / Off row is gone (F9 still switches VR).
+Chests: the view turns with Kratos while he opens them, like climbing.
+Fixed: Atreus' arrow type couldn't be changed with the VR controllers. Push the right stick up and click it.
+Fixed: Atreus' bow crosshair was blurry.
+Fixed: Steam Link (and other headsets with a narrower view than PS VR2): the HUD was tiny and blurry. It is now the same size on every headset and stays sharp when SteamVR picks a low resolution.
+Fixed: Valve Index: with Xbox controls nothing worked in game (PlayStation controls did).
+Fixed: Baldur fight: when the axe got stuck in Baldur, the game switched to third person as if it were a finisher.
New in v0.2.7
+New VR settings option: Motion controls On / Off (first person). Off: the controllers work like a gamepad and attacks play their normal animations. Kratos' body still holds still when he is hit.
+First person on / off: hold your right hand next to your head and press ○ (PS VR2) / B (Meta Quest, Index). Press it while walking to switch first person for gameplay, or during a cutscene to switch it for cutscenes. By default it is on for gameplay and off for cutscenes. You can also change both in the VR settings panel.
+VR settings panel tidied up: the rows are in a clearer order, with new rows for First person (walking) and First person (cutscenes), and a hint about the quick switch.
+Starting choices: the game starts with first person while walking on, first person in cutscenes off and finishers in third person. The installer sets this once; your own changes are kept.
+The installer now also turns on NVIDIA Reflex when you choose DLSS: Low Latency On + Boost, latency markers and latency flash on.
+Head-based aiming with any controller: aim with a gamepad's L2, a PlayStation pad's L2 or Left Ctrl on the keyboard and the throw goes where you look, as with the VR controllers.
+Menus: the sticks now also work as the arrow buttons (D-pad), on every VR controller.
+The HUD is 25 % smaller (the shop's screens keep their size).
+Health, Spartan Rage and runic bars in first person: hold your left hand next to your head to see them.
+Low health is visible in VR: below 20 % health, red edges with a heartbeat pulse frame your whole view, the same in first and third person.
+Pimax: double vision fixed. Each eye's picture now goes to the headset in exactly the shape the headset asks for, headsets with outward-turned displays get both eyes drawn parallel (like Pimax's "Parallel Projections"), and the menus and HUD sit straight ahead of both eyes.
+Fixed: switching from third to first person could teach the mod a bad axe grip (backwards or too high).
+Fixed: after a stun-grab finisher, axe swings stopped hitting (they were taken as Spartan Rage punches).
+Left Blade flip (L3): it now turns the other way round, and flips back the way it came instead of spinning the long way round.
+Ropes and climbing: the view turns with Kratos when he turns to face the wall.
+Fixed: after a rope, ladder or similar move the camera lines back up with your view - button prompts and jumping over edges work again.
New in v0.2.6
+New VR settings option: Rendering Method (Native / AFR). AFR draws one eye per frame, the eyes taking turns, for much better performance; Native draws both eyes every frame. It switches instantly.
+The installer now sets the game's graphics settings for VR (Display mode Windowed, VSync off, frame rate limit off, Motion blur 0, HDR off) and asks whether you use DLSS and which preset (Ultra Performance, Performance, Balanced or Quality). If it can't change a setting, it tells you which ones to set yourself. The uninstaller puts your old values back.
+No more shimmering without DLSS: the DLSS fixes now switch on and off by themselves with the game's DLSS setting.
+No more walking through walls during attacks: walking backwards during an attack no longer pushes you through walls, objects or stairs (and out of the map).
+Fist combat: you can now walk while punching, and the punch reach is much shorter (no more hits from 2 metres away).
+Getting hit in first person: Kratos' body and your view stay still while he is hit, also by Baldur's attacks. Dying now plays like a cutscene.
+First-person view at the eyes (0 cm in front of them).
+Atreus' aiming icon is centred and in one piece.
+Hand smoothing: small hand jitter is smoothed out (fast moves stay fast).
+Meta Quest: hold Y to make fists with both hands (Quest controllers can't feel resting fingers); the left controller's ☰ button is Options / ☰.
+Menus: tap all four face buttons for Options / ☰, hold them for the game menu (map, skills, inventory).
+Fixed: in the settings screen the left stick's up / down and left / right were swapped.
New in v0.2.5
+The light in caves now works without any flickering: in first person the light on Kratos no longer jumps between two places.
+The talisman on the belt no longer flickers in first person.
+Fixed some animations of the final boss: they now play as cutscenes (first person in cutscenes, or the game's camera) instead of in gameplay first person.
New in v0.2.4
+Meta Quest over Link (Meta's OpenXR runtime): VR now starts through the official OpenXR loader, the same way every OpenXR game does (and the Beyond: Two Souls VR mod, which works there). Quest players using Link with Meta as the OpenXR runtime should now get the game in the headset.
+Smoother fog and god rays (Quest streaming): the game's 10-bit picture is now dithered when it goes into the headset's 8-bit image, so dark gradients no longer show bands. Over Virtual Desktop, Link or Steam Link the video stream could turn those bands into flickering god rays.
+No more view jumps when tracking drops for a moment: if the headset briefly loses tracking (more common over Virtual Desktop or Link than on a cable), the view now holds its last good position instead of jumping or shaking, like the Beyond: Two Souls VR mod does. Each dropout is written to the log.
+Better logging for problems: the mod's log (gowvr_logs\gowvr.log) now records everything needed to find a VR problem in one go: which runtime and headset, what the runtime offers, whether it actually shows the game (and why not), the headset's refresh rate, the GPU and driver, a once-a-minute check of each eye's picture, and which of the recent fixes were switched on. It does not slow the game down. If something goes wrong, just send that file.
New in v0.2.3
+DLSS works in VR: no more shimmering, blocky edges. Each eye now gets its own correct motion and history, so DLSS is recommended from now on (turn DLSS on in the game's graphics settings if you have an NVIDIA graphics card).
+New option in the VR settings panel: Finishers Perspective. Choose whether finishers play in first person or in third person (the game's own camera).
+The aiming icon is no longer too big: the circle around it that enlarged things is gone.
+The frost icon is fixed: aiming at something breakable shows one icon in the right place, no longer split in two.
+Sharp UI in the shop: the shop's interface is as sharp as the rest of the HUD.
New in v0.2.2
+Quest Link: near people and objects should no longer look doubled. The mod now sends each eye's picture to the headset in exactly the shape the headset asks for. SteamVR is unchanged.
New in v0.2.1
+Sharper picture, automatically: the VR picture size now matches what your headset asks for (Auto in the VR settings panel), instead of being stretched up from a smaller picture. Quest headsets on Virtual Desktop look much sharper. If the game runs too slowly, pick a fixed size in the panel.
What's fixed and new in v0.2
+Square VR picture and a small monitor window: the game draws a square picture for each eye in the size you choose, whatever your monitor's resolution, and its window on your monitor is a small square while VR runs.
+Sharper HUD: the HUD is shown at full resolution in the headset.
+VR settings panel: in the game's settings menu a VR panel appears next to it: smooth or snap turning, turning speed / snap angle, controller buttons (Xbox / PlayStation), wall collision, VR picture size and VR on / off. Point a controller and pull its trigger.
+Snap turning in first person: the view and Kratos' body turn at once.
+No launcher: run Install VR mod.cmd once, then just start the game as usual.
+Meta Quest hands are set up by default, and the first-person view is centred.
+Weapon draws with either hand: reach over your right shoulder with either hand for the axe, and over your left shoulder for the Blades.
+Meta Quest fists: a light squeeze of the right grip makes fists with both hands (Quest controllers can't feel resting fingers); the left grip is only the shield.
Important: read before playing
+Only playing in third person? Skip the first-person points below. Your controllers work like a gamepad.
+Game settings: no need to change them. The installer does it.
+First person on / off: hold your right hand next to your head and press ○ (PS VR2) / B (Meta Quest, Index). Press it while walking to switch first person for gameplay, or during a cutscene to switch it for cutscenes. By default it is on for gameplay and off for cutscenes. You can also change both in the VR settings panel.
+Tested: only the first 2 hours of the game. Later parts may break or crash.
+No button prompt, or the body glitches out? The fastest fix: switch to third person and then back to first person (○ / B next to your head twice).
+Menus: tap all four face buttons for Options / ☰. Hold them for the game menu. Meta Quest: the left ☰ button works too. In menus the sticks also work as the arrow buttons (D-pad).
+Health and Spartan Rage bars in first person: hold your left hand next to your head to see them.
+VR settings: in the game's settings menu, a panel appears on the right. Point a controller and pull its trigger.
+Axe: reach over your right shoulder with either hand and press grip. Throw: hold the left trigger and throw. Recall: right grip or △ / Y.
+Blades of Chaos: reach over your left shoulder with either hand and press grip.
+Fists: rest your fingers on the grips. Squeezing the left grip fully is the shield. Meta Quest: hold Y.
+Finishers: face the enemy from the front. They play in third person; first person can be picked in the VR settings panel.
Install
- Download
GOW_VR_MOD_v0.2.7.zipbelow and unzip it. - Copy the
GOW_VR_MODfolder into your God of War folder (Steam: right-click the game → Manage → Browse local files; Epic: ⋯ → Manage → folder icon; GOG Galaxy: settings icon → Manage installation → Show folder). Updating from an older version: replace the oldGOW_VR_MODfolder. - Double-click
Install VR mod.cmdin theGOW_VR_MODfolder. You only do this once, and again after each update. - From now on, put your headset on and start the game as usual (Steam, Epic, GOG or
GoW.exe). SteamVR starts with it (Virtual Desktop / VDXR: connect your headset first).
Uninstall: Uninstall VR mod.cmd moves the mod's own files to the Recycle Bin. It never deletes anything for good and never touches the game's files.
Controls
| Button / key | What it does |
|---|---|
| ○ (PS VR2) / B (Meta Quest, Index) next to your head | First person on / off - press it while walking for gameplay, during a cutscene for cutscenes |
| Tap all four face buttons | Options / ☰ |
| Hold all four face buttons | Game menu (map, skills, inventory) |
| F9 | VR off / on (play on your monitor, press again to go back to VR) |
Something went wrong?
| What happened | Send |
|---|---|
| The game crashed | The newest crash_<date>.txt from gowvr_logs\crash_reports in your game folder
|
| Something looks or works wrong, the game froze, or VR did not start | gowvr_logs\gowvr.log right after quitting the game (and gowvr.prev.log if you started the game again since)
|
| The install or uninstall window showed an error | A screenshot of that window |
The mod writes these files itself while the game runs. They contain no personal information.
Known bugs
+The axe position in first person can be wrong (see Important: read before playing for the workaround).
+Body glitches: your hands can end up in the wrong place (see Important: read before playing for the workaround).
+Combat isn't perfect yet. Kratos sometimes teleports a little during attacks.
+VDXR (Virtual Desktop) has rendering issues, such as flickering lights. Try AFR rendering (VR settings panel: Rendering Method).
+Button prompts can go missing in first person (see Important: read before playing for the workaround).
Free and open source under the MIT license. Not affiliated with Sony Interactive Entertainment or Santa Monica Studio. No game files are included.