CCP Games Announces 'Sparc' Full-Body Virtual Sport

How do you follow up a game series focused on epic space battles? Well, for developer CCP Games, the answer is "with a sports game." The company behind EVE Online and its spin-offs, EVE: Valkyrie and EVE: Gunjack, announced a virtual sports game called Sparc as its first new IP since EVE's debut.

CCP Games bills Sparc as a "unique physical sport only possible in virtual reality." Players chuck various projectiles at each other and try to block, dodge, or reflect them at their opponents. That sounds interesting enough--who hasn't wanted to throw a sharp object at someone?--but Sparc's main hook is the fact that it lets people compete  with "fast and fun full-body VR gameplay" against friends or random opponents via an online platform.

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Here's what CCP Games said about the motivation behind Sparc in a press release:

“After our early experiments with standing VR gameplay, we were excited by the idea of building an original sport designed for the current generation of VR hardware. We’ve designed Sparc so that players can express and improve their skill through their physical actions.” said Morgan Godat, Executive Producer at CCP Atlanta. “Ultimately, we want players to think of Sparc as a virtual court in their living room where they can meet and compete with other players from around the world.”

This might seem like a bit of a departure for CCP Games, but the developer said it plans to use its experience with EVE: Valkyrie and EVE: Gunjack to create this new VR sport. EVE: Valkyrie focused on seated gameplay that allowed people to participate in gun battles in space, while EVE: Gunjack was supposed to highlight the potential of mobile VR. Those efforts should inform Sparc's development even if the sports game has a wildly different focus.

Sparc is expected to debut some time in 2017 for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR. It's not clear whether or not the game will be cross-platform, nor did CCP Games say how much Sparc will cost when it debuts, but the developer plans to reveal more information ahead of its release.