If John Carmack isn’t the biggest proponent of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, he’s definitely the most proactive. In addition to backing the display technology at E3 2012 and lending his endorsement to the Oculus Rift Kickstarter page, the co-founder of id Software has led the charge in gaming support, integrating the hardware with the upcoming Doom 3: BFG Edition re-release.
Other developers like Epic Games and Mojang have since pledged future Oculus support of their own, but Carmack has once again aligned himself even tighter: He announced during a Quakecon 2012 interview that Doom 4 – whenever it might release – will be fully incorporated with the VR headsets.
The slowly-developing scion of the id Tech 5 engine, Doom 4 is widely believed to be headed for a next-generation release. Whether or not consoles will be able to support the Oculus Rift by then is uncertain – console functionality is part of the manufacturer’s plan, though as of now the headsets only work on PC and mobile platforms – but according to The Verge, Carmack can’t wait to submerse his next shooter into virtual reality:
“I’m excited for once Doom 3 ships, and gets out there, I’ll put all this stuff into the Doom 4 platform, which will be nice to take our current top-of-the-line stuff and have that in virtual reality. I’m looking forward to doing that.
“It’s going to be a fully supported feature on there, because I think I could justify — based on the response that we got from our 8-year-old re-release title on here, when we finally do end up giving demos on Doom 4, we’re gonna say, ‘Okay, here’s all this great stuff, run through all this stuff,’ everybody has a great time, and then at the end you can play it in virtual reality, and that’ll just put the stamp on everything. So I think I have good justification for my continued involvement in it.”
While Carmack recently promised that Doom 4 would soon become id’s sole focus, once clear of their Doom 3 re-release, nothing has been seen of the shooter outside of some leaked concept screenshots in February. The relevance of the images – any notion that they might be emblematic of the final game – was instantly repudiated by the developer, and fans have been on standby ever since.
But even the silence is significant.
There’s a pattern evolving out of Carmack’s Doom 4 demure, his hesitance with placing a deadline or a time stamp on a project that is already, at the very least, four years in production. Everything id is building into the game, be it the id Tech 5 engine or virtual reality, needs to be carefully assessed before getting the green light; games like Rage (which our Rob Keyes has described as an id Tech 5 tech demo) and Doom 3: BFG Edition (the first pioneer of Oculus Rift) have, as Carmack’s recent interview suggests, provided that testing ground.
Doom 3 will re-release on October 16, 2012 for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC – and perhaps its view under the Oculus Rift headset will impart more insight to the Doom 4 experience than anything we’ve seen yet.
Ranters, what do you think of John Carmack and Doom 4 embracing virtual reality technology?
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Follow me on Twitter @Brian_Sipple.
Source: The Verge
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The more games that support the Oculus Rift the better. I think the Rift needs more announcements from developers saying that they will support the Rift because people aren’t going to buy the Rift if the only games that have been announced for it are Doom 3 and Doom 4.
The Rift has raised over $1.3M thus far… and it’s only been fundraising for 5 days, with another 25 to go. This astounding amount of attention and interest is going to draw more developers to the Rift, which is a great thing. Good going id, and Oculus.
Still don’t fully understand how they plan on the controls using this headset. Is it purely a display method, or will they have some way to kind of augment the movements of other body parts to control the game? Maybe they can have some kind of sensors you can wear on your hands or something? I know it’ll start to resemble the virtual-boy and the power glove too much, but if done correctly it could be pretty awesome…
I hope it’s just a display method. I’d prefer to just view it in VR, and have my hands in front of me with a good ole xbox controller, that’s it.
I think you meant good ole keyboard and mouse (as of right now this is a PC only gadget), but yah, I do wonder how they would control movement if it does augment your hands. It’ll become like a shooter on rails, lol.
There’s a screenshot of the Rift with an xbox controller on yahoo.
Nope. I play PC games with my Xbox controller. :p
why even bother? -_-
Arthritis? Maybe they just prefer to sit back and play a game from more than a foot away from the screen? Any number of reasons why someone would take an xbox controller over a keyboard…that said I’ll take a mouse and keyboard any day of the week.
It depends on the type of game. Mouse+Keyboard > gamepad in FPS. And a gamepad is pretty impossible to use in an RTS. But for action games like Darksiders, Assassin’s Creed, and LEGO games (yes, I play LEGO games) a gamepad is vastly superior. At it’s more comfortable to recline in my chair and play with the controller than it is to give myself a back ache and carpal tunnel by playing with the keyboard and mouse. It depends on the person and the game.
@Jon
Ah, that makes sense, wasn’t sure if maybe you were talking about actually using it on a Xbox…
@Jon
About the types of games, I used to feel the same as you, but I’ve played Batman: Arkham City on the PS3, Xbox, and PC, and played Arkham Asylum on the PS3 and PC and actually I play it better on my PC with keyboard and mouse than with either console with controller. I almost never miss a perfect combo in fights on the PC and the flying missions are 100 times easier on my PC with the keyboard and mouse… So I no longer feel that way about action adventure games with the controller.