Currently by default all VR plugins are loaded in the editor and packaged with your game. This causes many issues, such as launching SteamVR or the Oculus equivalent if they are installed when launching non-VR games if the dev didn’t have the foresight to disable it. Including the overhead of all VR plugins in executable even for those unaffected by the VR service launching. It’s caused issues with development branch VR services that have sometimes required developers to uninstall all VR services to get a non-VR project to stop crashing on start-up.
I understand the reasoning behind having those plugins enabled by default. I assume one of them is having easy low barrier to entry access for VR devs without them needing to enable a plugin. And countless other reasons I can’t think of.
However if I had a dime for every indie or jam UE4 games that have launched VR services I’d have probably like $5. It’s the number 1 thing I tell game jam participants to do if they plan to use UE4. And it’s been a bad first impression for the engine when they realize just how many bloat plugins are enabled by default.
It’s not a high priority by any measure, I’d simply prefer a more elegant solution. Maybe a plugin selection screen on project creation? Or plugin list templates. At the very least not loading those plugins on bare editor start-up, which has also caused it’s own issues. It’s a stumbling block for a lot of people including those first adopting the engine, especially for devs still learning the ropes.