If the Oculus Rift headset has any chance of success it will need some amazing experiences to bolster its technology. We know of a few games that are looking into incorporating VR, and support has already been patched into some existing games, but what the Oculus truly needs is that "killer app."
Enter EVE Valkyrie (formerly known as EVE VR), the forthcoming title from EVE Online developer CCP Games. EVE Valkyrie looks to be one of the first titles to truly highlight what makes the Oculus Rift special, and as a result the folks at both CCP and Oculus are doubling down on that relationship.
Just announced today, EVE Valkyrie will be an Oculus Rift exclusive game/experience, and it will also be co-published by Oculus. As was mentioned, the Oculus team has a huge investment in EVE Valkyrie being done well, and so they have ostensibly put their money where their mouth is.
In conjunction with the co-publishing announcement, CCP Games expressed their enthusiasm for the Oculus Rift and VR in general. They believe, like 3D movies for example, VR games are best when built specifically for the technology, not patched with it later. They also shared a few details about the evolution of EVE Valkyrie, which originally started as nothing more than a passion project and a demo for the Oculus Rift at E3 2013.
"We strongly believe the best VR experiences are going to be the ones built from the ground up for VR, and we’ve kept that in mind whilst developing Valkyrie. We wanted people to really feel like they were there — to sense the vastness of space, feel the confined area of the cockpit and get that adrenaline rush as you see an exploding fighter whizz past your head. In a very short amount of time this passion project became a full fledged CCP project which we’re now working on in Newcastle."
Unfortunately, not much else was revealed by Oculus or CCP, only that EVE Valkyrie will be exclusive to the VR headset and that Oculus will co-publish. We're not even sure how far along in development Valkyrie is, but we would be surprised if it was not an Oculus launch title. And as far as an Oculus Rift release? There is a new prototype, but the public release might not be until late this year, or sometime next year.
Although it's unclear at this point how much buzz has been built among casual gamers over the Oculus, snagging EVE Valkyrie as an exclusive could give the Rift a big advantage. Granted, VR headsets (or at least this latest generation of headsets) are still part of a developing technology, so there aren't too many brands out there trying to compete with Oculus. The future looks pretty bright for VR as a whole, though, and it seemingly all starts with the Oculus Rift.
Do you think that EVE Valkyrie will be the first must-have title for the Oculus Rift? Does securing the title as an exclusive put Oculus at an advantage?
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Source: IGN