VR Struggles
I desperately want to love VR. Why can’t I?
I THINK VR is a lot of fun. I’ve fooled around with most of the big-name headsets (I’ll get my hands on a Valve Index eventually), and most games I’ve played have been genuine fun. Some games just work in VR; the moment I first dived into space combat sim EVE:Valkyrie was a revelation. I can’t properly describe the mix of emotions I felt upon looking down and seeing my own newly space-suited body gripping the controls of my ship, lasers glinting off the cockpit glass, while missiles subtly followed the movement of my head.
And yet, when I look at the industry, I can’t help but feel disappointed. Half
Life:Alyx is a single pinprick of light, a hopeful glimpse into a world of glorious, immersive, big-budget VR games, but I’m afraid that it won’t be enough. Developers understandably don’t want to commit too much to VR projects when the format is still struggling to achieve any significant mainstream success. It might be a jealous, entitled thing to say, but I want more! I think of all the game worlds I’d love to explore in VR—from a fresh perspective like Alyx; not going back into Skyrim for the 90th time, Todd—and I’m practically salivating.
The deep, expansive universes of Warhammer, Bioshock, and Titanfall would be glorious in VR. I want to pilot a towering mech around a battlefield swarming with other players, to lop off some orc heads with a weighty swing of my sword. Let me explore the most beautiful settings in gaming, like Rapture or Hyrule, or crawl through creepy vents aboard DeadSpace’s
USG Ishimura. And lastly: EA, please let BioWare bring back MassEffect as a VR shooter-slash-dating-simulator. I have no shame. I’ll pay good money for that.