It’s been a long road for 3DRudder, the company that makes a VR foot controller of the same name, but its initial product is now available for purchase. It costs $179.
We first spotted (and became instantly enamored of) the 3DRudder back at CES 2015. It wasn’t until 11 months later, in November 2015, that preorders for the 3DRudder opened, and the following CES (2016), we were told that the peripheral was slated for a March 2016 launch.
That didn’t quite happen, but 3DRudder did manage to get some of the devices out to early adopters in May 2016, and what followed were some ups and downs in terms of software and device support.
In July 2016, we published our full review of the 3DRudder.
The value of a third-party controller like the 3DRudder is currently somewhat limited, but the potential is enormous. The need for better control and locomotion methods is one of the biggest issues in VR right now. Fortunately for the market, both HTC and Oculus now offer room-scale tracking and excellent handheld controllers, but neither offers a way to navigate or move without either a clever locomotion technique or you as the user physically standing up and walking around. The 3DRudder could help with both issues and augment the powerful capabilities unlocked by HTC Vive’s wands and Oculus Rift’s Touch controllers.
Update, 12/14/16, 8:40am PT: 3DRudder just informed us of a few updates to the device. It now comes with a dashboard that lets you emulate, without any additional software:
-Keyboard keys to play a game like World of Tanks or Minecraft
-A mouse, for greater accessibility
-A joystick (three or four axes)
-The D-pad of a gamepad
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