Oculus VR Co-Publishing Exclusive Game for Oculus Rift
Oculus VR is co-publishing an exclusive title with CCP Games.
Oculus VR updated its blog on Wednesday with news that EVE: Valkyrie will be the first Oculus Rift launch title that the company will co-publish with CCP Games (EVE Online, DUST 514). The space dogfighting game will be one of the first to be designed exclusively for the Rift.
"Since its debut at EVE Fanfest last year, Valkyrie has been a brilliant showcase for the power of VR and hands-down one of our favorite Rift games," the blog states. "At E3 2013, Valkyrie came away with a half-dozen awards including Best Game of E3 from PC Gamer and Most Innovative Game from IGN. Valkyrie was also a key part of the award-winning Crystal Cove demos at CES this year."
The Valkyrie team believes that the best VR experiences will be those that are built from the ground up to support the technology.
"We wanted people to really feel like they were there – to sense the vastness of space, feel the confined area of the cockpit and get that adrenaline rush as you see an exploding fighter whizz past your head," the team states.
We went eyes-on with the latest Oculus Rift hardware, codenamed Crystal Cove, and played a demo of EVE: Valkyrie. We didn't need any further proof that Oculus Rift will change gaming, but we left impressed nonetheless.
Read more: Oculus Rift EVE: Valkyrie Preview
Currently, there's no word on when the game or Oculus Rift will be made available, although there's talk that Rift won't fall into the consumer's hands until late 2014 or early 2015. For now, Oculus VR is currently seeking out additional game developers to partner with on made-for-VR content. Interested parties can ping Oculus by sending an email.
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Back in December, Oculus VR announced that David DeMartini, a former senior vice president at EA, joined the company as head of worldwide publishing. The company's blog said that he would lead the publishing initiative, providing Oculus developers additional resources to help them achieve their vision.
"What I'm doing at Oculus, it's not particularly different from what I did for seven years at EA as part of the EA Partners program," DeMartini told Gamasutra. "I'm figuring out how to partner effectively with big developers, small developers, all the way down to the individual who just wants to make something great for the Rift."
In addition to announcing the co-publishing deal, Oculus VR also revealed on Wednesday that it's releasing the Oculus Latency Tester as open source hardware. The Latency Tester contains a Cortex M3-based microcontroller, a digitally interfaced RGB color sensor, and a 3 digit 7 segment display. The Tester can be ordered from Oculus VR, or builders can construct their own and download the software for free.
Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
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lancelot123 " there's talk that Rift won't fall into the consumer's hands until late 2014 or early 2015"Reply
I swear to god, if it isn't out by the end of the year, I will punch a baby. -
IndignantSkeptic I hope when they say exclusive, they don't mean you are stuck having to use VR hardware from their company only and devices from other companies will not work with that game. That sort of thing should not be allowed.Reply -
WithoutWeakness ReplyI hope when they say exclusive, they don't mean you are stuck having to use VR hardware from their company only and devices from other companies will not work with that game. That sort of thing should not be allowed.
They're going to program it for Oculus Rift. If someone else is able to make a VR headset that is compatible with games and software designed for Oculus then you may have the option of using a different headset from another manufacturer. However, Oculus is absolutely allowed to build games/software designed specifically for their headset only. It's no different than Nintendo only releasing Zelda and Mario games for Nintendo consoles.