Half-Life: Alyx’s gravity gloves ruined many of my other virtual reality games, because being able to aim and throw objects at my hands solved a lot of awkward maneuvering problems common in other games. It’s hard, after the elegance of the Half-Life system, to bend back, dodge, and get in the air to pick up items, or worse, so that your hands don’t collide with the world around you.
Enter the modders. Specifically, introduce the modder FlyingParticle, which has released HIGGS VR for Skyrim VR. It’s a modification that adds to Skyrim a glove-style interaction by gravity and seems to work really well.
HIGGS stands for Hand Interaction and Gravity Gloves for Skyrim. YouTuber Cangar, focused on virtual reality, has made the following video to demonstrate the features of the modification and contains everything you would expect from an Alyx-inspired modification:
You can point to items and turn them over in your hands. You can now use your hands to put things on the tables. The hands of the game will hold the models in natural positions, allowing you to grab bottles from the base, tip or any point on the side, for example. You can now drop 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, which highlights objects in red that will have the thief mark to pick them up.
There are some differences between this implementation and Half-Life: Alyx. On the one hand, here you point your palm at the objects to attract them to you, which I can imagine getting used to. However, there is an .ini file that allows you to fine-tune some of its parameters according to your preferences.
Instructions on how to install and configure HIGGS VR can be found on the Nexus Mods page of the modification. You want to download the VRIK mod for the full experience seen in the video above, as this is what gives you body and finger animations for grabbing objects.