Starbreeze Studios and OVERKILL – A Starbreeze Studio have today announced the start of the highly anticipated beta for Payday 2 VR for the HTC Vive, now available via Steam. All owners of any edition of Payday 2 and its respective downloadable content (DLC) packages will be able to participate in the beta at no extra charge.

The Payday 2 VR beta will be on-going and is aimed to test several aspects of the virtual reality (VR) version of the videogame throughout the testing period. Instructions on how to join the beta, including how to play Payday 2 in VR, can be found on the official Steam page for the videogame. Developers will be at hand on the Steam forums to collect feedback for the duration of the beta.

The VR edition of Payday 2 was originally announced back in May of this year, with further details concerning the player mechanics and the beta testing phase revealed last month. During an ‘ask me anything’ (AMA) on Steam Tobias Remmers, Payday 2 VR producer, confirmed that the experience would be free to all existing Payday 2 owners, including any of those lucky enough to get the videogame free during a giveaway campaign earlier in the year.

“Yes, the [Payday 2 VR] will be free to all owners of the base game or the Ultimate Edition, no update will be required to gain access to VR.

“[Payday 2 VR] is developed for PC and it will be fully compatible with between desktop players and VR players. During the beta however all players will need to be on the beta branch.

“The VR and Desktop players will have acsess to the same content. They will be able to play together on all heists. [sic]”

Indeed, Payday 2 VR will allow players to cross-play with their friends on a standard desktop PC. Desktop PC ‘Heisters’ wanting to join their VR crew can simply participate by downloading the beta branch.

With more than 5.4 million community members on the main PC digital distribution platform Steam, Payday 2 has had more than 160 paid and free updates since its release in 2013. Payday 2 VR will likely bring something new to the mix, and VRFocus will bring you more details of exactly what that will be in a hands-on report very soon.