Can You Play EVE: Valkyrie Without VR?

If you’ve been living under a rock you might not have heard about the VR dogfighting space game that can be played cross-platform on Steam, PlayStation, and Oculus Rift!

You play a pilot, in first person, with a VR headset to create a fully immersive experience of this futuristic war zone.

In 2016, the game was upgraded. It’s now called EVE: Valkyrie – Warzone. The upgrade was free and mandatory, so if you haven’t played in a while you’ll be receiving the upgrade too.

Many things happened in this upgrade, but the biggest change was the option to not use VR.

EVE: Valkyrie was a VR-only game for less than 2 years, but the hesitant reaction from low-budget gamers has still stuck with it. Some people can’t afford VR, get motion sick, or simply don’t like it, so after a year of intense popularity, the developers decided to experiment on “Flat Monitor” experiences, basically seeing if their game was any good without VR. 

The reason behind the change was simple: they wanted to give the fans what they asked for, to be more accessible, and to allow for the community to grow.

“We’re a multiplayer game first and foremost, so it’s really important that we build our community. The bigger our community gets, the more we can invest in social tools and features that people really want – stuff like streaming tools, private matches, and spectator cams.”

The game is just as fun and still has a competitive edge. No matter what platform you use, or if you decide to wear a headset, you won’t be out of balance when playing. There is no advantage to using a VR headset when it comes to winning.

But that doesn’t mean that VR is a waste. The lead game designer, Andrew Willans, explains the difference between these valuable choices of game play:

“You don’t have that sense of presence that you have with VR – it’s undeniable that when you’re sat in a cockpit in VR and you’re looking around, there’s a real sense of immersion that you can’t equal on a 2D display.”

So the difference is all in the immersive effect. With the VR headset, you will feel like the pilot, as you move your head in a way that isn’t robotic but natural to you. It makes those wins even more adrenaline plumbing, and the losses even more gut wrenching. 

You become the player, instead of its puppet master!

Like we said before, the change to allow non VR users to play this game was a choice of inclusion. So with that in mind, it should be obvious that playing without a VR headset is easy to set up. The only thing that might stir you into the wrong direction, is the platform that you are playing on.

Don’t worry, I’m not trying to force you into buying a console, I just mean that each platform has a different way to set up a non-VR EVE: Valkyrie game. Jump down to your platform to get the best directions.

If you already have a VR headset, and you’re choosing not to use it, then you’ll have to turn the power off or disconnect it. This is to stop any automatic setups from happening.

If the game doesn’t automatically change to a 2D game, then you can do this manually instead.

Launch the game, then go to “Main Menu”. Click “Settings Menu” where you should find “Gameplay”.

In “Gameplay” there should be a “VR Enabled” setting that you can toggle from “Enabled” to “Disabled”. Pick “Disabled.”

Now you can play EVE: Valkyrie without a VR Headset on your PlayStation.

How To Set Up EVE: Valkyrie Without A VR Headset – Oculus Rift

To set up a non-VR game in Oculus Rift you need to start the process before you launch the game. 

The process is super easy. You simply head to Oculus Home and click on the drop down. You should see next to the “Start in VR” button, another button that says “Start in Desktop Mode”. Click “Start in Desktop Mode” and everything else is done for you!

Now you can play EVE: Valkyrie without a VR Headset on Oculus Rift.

How To Set Up EVE: Valkyrie Without A VR Headset – Steam

Steam is the easiest platform of them all. When you launch the game you have to click which option you want to use anyway.

The options are “Play EVE: Valkyrie – Warzone”, “Launch EVE: Valkyrie – Warzone in Steam VR Mode” and “Launch EVE: Valkyrie – Warzone in Oculus VR Mode”.

Pick “Play EVE: Valkyrie – Warzone” and the game will start playing in the 2D flat monitor mode!

Now you can play EVE: Valkyrie without a VR Headset on Steam.