Renown and respected developers who made fame and fortune in the AAA space continue to experiment and dabble in the pond of virtual reality. One of the latest developers to step foot into the liquid realm of digits and triangles is Metro Redux’s 4A Games.
The studio recently announced that their latest project is called ARKTIKA.1 and it’s in development for the Oculus Touch, the upcoming motion-based controllers designed for use with the Oculus Rift.
Andriy Prokhorov, the co-founder and creative director at 4A Games, explained in the press release what they’re trying to achieve with the upcoming title and what gamers can expect, saying…
“ARKTIKA.1 is a full-blown ААА title, and we’re employing all of our accumulated experience making high-quality shooters, and also using a lot of new opportunities provided only by VR. Oculus has allowed us to take the immersion to a whole new level, and it would have been a shame to miss such an opportunity.”
Words oftentimes ring hollow, of course. Most gamers bank their expectations on what they can see and – more importantly – what they can play.
With that said, 4A did release a teaser trailer alongside the announcement, which you can check out below.
As you can see, the thematic setup is quite similar to the Metro series; monsters in tunnels trying to kill you.
The big difference here of course is that the game is set in a VR environment, so that means some more good ‘ole disembodied hands, the new trademark of virtual reality gaming.
Essentially the game is another one of those rail-shooters it seems, where the most control that players have is aiming and shooting guns that attached to those disembodied hands.
I haven’t been won over by any of the VR games where you’re just floating hands. I didn’t think it was cool back in the day in Timesplitters 1 and 2 when it was just a floating gun, and a decade later I still don’t think it’s cool when it’s either floating guns and no hands or floating hands and no arms. The most ridiculous one yet is Batman: Arkham VR, where Batman is just two jittery floating hands.
Anyway, ARKTIKA.1 will be running on the latest iteration of the 4A Engine and will release for the Oculus Rift on PC in the second quarter of 2017. If your PC can handle it, there are 10K resolution screenshots available for your viewing pleasure over on the official website.