Half-Life: Alyx’s gravity gloves ruined many other virtual reality games for me, because being able to point and turn objects in my hands solved many strange maneuver problems common in other games. It is difficult, after the elegance of the Half-Life system, to bend over, deflect and grab the air to pick up items – or worse, not to have your hands colliding with the world around you.
Enter the modders. Specifically, enter the FlyingParticle modder, which launched HIGGS VR for Skyrim VR. It’s a mod that adds interaction to the gravity glove style for Skyrim, and it looks like it works beautifully.
HIGGS is the acronym for Hand Interaction and Gravity Gloves for Skyrim. VR-focused YouTuber Cangar made the video below to demonstrate the mod’s capabilities, and it contains everything you expect from an Alyx-inspired mod:
You can point items and put them in your hands. You can use your hands now to push things on the tables. Your hands in the game will grab the models in natural positions, allowing you to hold the bottles by the base, tip or any point along the side, for example. You can now place items over your shoulder to pocket them, a common feature in many first-person VR games. You can use this system to remove armor from defeated enemies. It even works with Skyrim’s theft system, highlighting objects in red that you will be considered a thief for catching.
There are some differences between this implementation between this and Half-Life: Alyx. On the one hand, here you point your palm at objects to attract them towards you, which I can imagine will take a little getting used to. There is an .ini file included, however, that will allow you to adjust some of your settings to your preference.
Instructions on how to install and configure HIGGS VR can be found on the mod’s Nexus Mods page. You will want to download the VRIK mod for the full experience seen in the video above, as this is what gives you a body in the game and finger animations to grab objects.