Virtual Battle Royale At Its Best
The battle royale genre of games is absolutely exploding with popularity right now. And that means that everyone and their mother wants to get in on the action.
Thankfully the folks over at developer Cyberdream haven’t forgotten about VR gamers and their latest announcement, aimed squarely at that market, should help broaden the frontiers for the increasingly popular battle royale genre of games.
Virtual Battlegrounds, a title touted as the debut virtual reality battle royale experience, underwent furious development over the past eight months and has morphed into a game that looks set to combine the best of both worlds. Totally immersive, Virtual Battlegrounds still sticks closely to genre expectations and shouldn’t be too alienating for players of PlayUnknown’s Battlegrounds or Fortnite Battle Royale.
To distinguish itself from competitors that use more traditional control and presentation methods, Virtual Battlegrounds will emphasize the simulation aspect of the game – meaning that players will find themselves a lot more physically involved with the game than they would be with a game that uses a controller or keyboard. Since this is part of the magic virtual reality it is almost to be expected but hopes can often get lost in translation and simulation can become boring and tedious. Towards this end Dreamscape hopes to limit that kind of interaction and make the title very action-oriented. Employing an aesthetic that wouldn’t be too out of place in a Call of Duty title, it looks like Dreamscape isn’t shy about these aspirations either.
Though the aesthetic may be familiar and the gameplay inspired by some of the best, one area where Virtual Battlegrounds hopes to distinguish itself from its competition is in the arenas themselves. Described as “simply huge” by David Jagneux over at Venture Beat, the zones accommodate 24 players with a stated goal of eventually having 32 players. Though this is par for the course in the other battle royale games out there, that’s quite a few people for a VR title.
As part of its emphasis on physicality and turning up immersion a notch for the VR platform, Virtual Battlegrounds also features a climbing ability that is not only unique but a game changer. You can climb over obstacles, mountains, and on top of buildings, opening up a whole new layer of strategy in the gameplay. One feature that players may find annoying, however, is that swimming requires arm movement. We understand the simulation aspect of the game, but some things can be a little tedious and this is one of the few things that we think players will try to avoid simply because it doesn’t add a whole lot to the game.
Of course, as with everything these days, it looks like the folks over at Cyberdream are positioning Virtual Battlegrounds for the eSports market, a huge, booming industry that is only expected to grow in the foreseeable future. Though that is possible from a distance many people are probably going to take a wait-and-see approach with Virtual Battlegrounds to make sure the concept works out in the first place.
