VR (Virtual Reality) technology is having a real impact on the gaming world in 2016. At the latest E3 convention we saw numerous developers showcasing VR titles and headsets that are now on the market for regular consumers to purchase, for around the same cost of a console itself.
Flash back two or even just a year ago and this technology perhaps didn’t seem attainable, but like everything electronic based we seem to be advancing it at a furious rate – just consider the wearable tech market for a moment. While Google Glass might have flopped activity trackers such as Fitbit are worn by the masses. We can send emojis to a friend by tapping our wrist on an Apple watch and heart rate monitors can be found on our wrists, not strapped around our chests awkwardly – the world is really adapting and changing to our needs.
Many would argue that technology as innovative as VR has been around since Nintendo brought out the Wii console, which cleverly used motion technology to play games with surprising accuracy. Microsoft took this one step further with the Xbox Kinnect, using a camera to track our movements without the need for controllers.
VR will change how games are made. Much like when 3D was introduced in the cinemas, game developers will have to adapt like filmmakers did to ensure their titles can be played using a headset as well as traditional controller or the aswd keys.
With a headset there will be no clunky loading screens and you will be immediately immersed in a new world, free to explore as you see fit but with this new feature you will be the character and therefore developers will need to adapt.
The world you play in will also need to be much bigger, because you are experiencing it first hand. At the moment games adapted for the VR are on a much smaller scale making the player feel tiny – oh, and if you look down you also won’t see your legs or feet. This is something developers will need to work on, to ensure the immersive new world feels real.
This means the games themselves will need to be realistic, so don’t expect to play as Spider-Man anytime soon whizzing around New York city because our heads wouldn’t be able to adjust to the concept of such speeds and motion sickness will become a real problem.
VR is quickly changing everything we know about games and it will be interesting to see how developers adapt to the trend. It may take a while for its impact to be seen in the world of gaming, VR tech is still in the teething stage of the process, but in a year or two perhaps it will be a common way of gaming?
