CCP Announces Eve Valkyrie for the Oculus Rift
Earlier this year at Eve Fanfest, CCP put on a demo using the Oculus Rift, a “next-generation virtual reality headset designed for immersive gaming” according to their website, and arguably the first real, tangible virtual-reality to ever see the light of day (No, Nintendo’s Virtual Boy does not count).
CCP helped fund the Oculus Rift Kickstarter almost exactly one year ago, and received their development kit early this year. A group of CCP developers used their “20% time” to work on a dog-fighting tech demo that puts the player in the cockpit of a fighter, and allows them to fly around and shoot at things, mainly other people who are also flying around shooting at things. I really wish I had been there to try it out, but fortunately I may get my chance in a couple months when I attend Eve Vegas 2013 (If you’re going, I’ll see you there!).
It was the talk of Fanfest 2013. CCP has made the choice to run with it, and announced that Eve VR is now Eve Valkyrie.
I’m a PC gamer. I’ve owned consoles and I occasionally enjoy playing them, but if a game is released on multiple platforms, I’ll buy it on the PC first. That said, I generally shy away from buying “extra hardware” for my PC like joysticks and controllers. However, if this is even 10% as awesome as it looks, I’ll be right in line to buy the Oculus Rift.
Eve Valkyrie, assuming CCP doesn’t find a way to cock this up, has the potential to do what DUST 514 couldn’t for CCP. It could launch a new era and a new genre of gaming in a spectacular fashion. IGN is claiming that this will be a full game, but I really have yet to hear anything from CCP about it other than the trailer and launch site. It could be an expansion like Incarna was as well, just hopefully without all the Bad Things™ that happened with that.
Regardless, I really am looking forward to this and hope to hear more in the coming weeks.
Update: CCP Manifest replied to my tweet and confirmed that Eve Valkyrie will indeed be a full-fledged, stand-alone game.
Filed under: Eve Online,Technology,Video games - @ August 20, 2013 12:10 pm
Tags: ccp, dust 514, eve online, mmo, mmorpg, oculus rift, video games, virtual reality