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In late November 2019, Xbox head Phil Spencer gave an interview regarding Microsoft’s
upcoming Series X console, in which he said that VR wasn’t going to be a focus of the
project; stating that he viewed VR as isolating, where he saw the strength of games as more
of a communal exercise; that VR wasn’t selling and that people weren’t asking for it.
And while he was clear that people can go elsewhere if they want that experience, it’s
hard not to view these comments made by the head of one of the most well-known brands
in video games as pretty damning of VR as a whole.
It’s understandable to a certain extent.
A perfect storm of high costs; PC hardware and physical space requirements; a lack of
content-heavy games; all topped off with a general experience whose immersion is incredibly
difficult to sell to people through traditional channels, have all led to the uptake on VR
being much slower than some eager developers might have anticipated, with various teams
shutting down or refocusing their efforts in the last couple of years.
To some, the whole venture might seem like a failed experiment.
But as someone who recently picked up an Oculus Quest, it’s hard to take this stance or
Spencer’s comments particularly seriously at all, right now at least.
It’s been a slow process but VR seems like it’s in the best place it’s been in years—with
the aforementioned Quest barrelling through those entry requirements (both financial and
physical), with Valve using the tech to revive Half Life and the fact it is selling, VR seems
closer than ever to achieving the mainstream adoption I think it deserves.
Because even beyond all of the sales stuff, VR is just so goddamn cool.
To dismiss it as a gimmick, I think, is to ignore its potential to completely shake up
every aspect of how games are designed and played.
It forces us to question how well-established genres and trends are adapted, how interfaces
are navigated, everything we’ve previously taken for granted.
That is to say, VR has been a revitalising, revolutionary experience for me and I believe
it can be for the industry as a whole too.
Interestingly though, these thoughts only started to come about after booting up a version
of a game I’d already played.
But before we get into what game that is, let me quickly tell you about today’s sponsor,
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Thanks again to Skillshare for sponsoring the video and now back to the game that started
to shift my ideas on how destabilising VR as a platform can actually be.
Superhot, what many consider to be VR’s killer app, is maybe the dumbest I have ever
looked playing a game, but it’s simultaneously the coolest I’ve ever felt.
While to an onlooker this action translates to a series of gesticulations, contortions
and gawking facial expressions that make it look like you’ve just dunted a not-insignificant
quantity of psychedelics, this awkwardness belies what’s actually happening inside
the headset—a cavalcade of hyper-focused bobs and weaves, physically placing yourself
in just the right spot and seizing upon the myriad opportunities to pull off unbelievably
cool shit on the fly.
Reaching out and grabbing an enemy’s gun from their hand, bludgeoning them with it
then turning and taking cover from the flurry of bullets headed your way…
I can honestly say it’s a thrill unlike any other I’ve experienced in a video game.
And what’s interesting about Superhot in particular is that it’s probably the most
obvious example I can think of where VR significantly changes how you play.
The core of the title’s “time moves when you move” shtick remains, the same system
that in 2015 turned the FPS genre from mindless bombast to something resembling a puzzle game;
but here, because it’s actually you physically doing the moving, aiming your weapons and
ducking behind cover, it results in a renewed tension that b rings that more visceral shooter
feel back into focus.
In other words, it’s less cerebral than its non-VR counterpart; you’re not so focused
on thinking your way through these scenarios as you are doing.
Making a video on the original Superhot earlier this year re-established it as maybe one of
my favourite games but, having played the VR component, going back to vanilla feels
decidedly tame now, when I’m not actually staring down the barrels of multiple shotguns.
Superhot VR was the title that got me thinking just how different a game can be in virtual
reality even if it bears all the hallmarks of the same game out of VR.
But I was also told it would have that effect on me.
What was perhaps less expected is that this kind of perspective shift isn’t limited
to super-stylised titles—the way we talk about more simulative action is fundamentally
different in VR.
A game like Gun Club sells itself on its more grounded aesthetic; placing you in a series
of shooting galleries and encouraging you to caress every part of its lovingly rendered
firearms.
Reloading a gun, usually a single button press, is here a multi-stage physical process of
unloading a clip, reaching for another, placing it in, then readying your weapon.
It’s designed to feel real… and also happens to be one of the more uncanny experiences
I’ve had in VR as a result.
It’s really fun, for sure, but it’s also wacky as hell, and this is down to one thing—recoil
(or the lack thereof).
Controller vibration can only get you so far in conveying the pushback of these weapons
as you fire them and the need to keep your hands accurately tracked at all times means
that holding your hand still will largely negate any kind of bullet spread, no matter
your gun’s stopping power.
A hulking weapon you’d normally expect to blow your shoulder off now sees you wielding
your semi-auto shotgun in one hand with ease as if you were BJ Blazkowics; while the pistol,
a weapon that would typically see players sacrificing power for speed and control, suddenly
represents a much greater challenge thanks to its smaller, more fiddly components.
In VR, authenticity can now only get you so far on the software side of things; you can
no longer rely on a player’s suspension of disbelief that comes from controlling a
quote-unquote “simulation” with a mouse and keyboard and staring at a screen.
The player is holding these objects and that comes with all kinds of expectations of weight
and power, potentially shifting how we think about things like weapon balance in shooters.
This is potentially an issue for more “serious games”, but there are those that actively
play into that uncanniness, presenting sandbox-esque environments that create comedy out of fumbling
around to grab an object and the clumsiness that can often result from that.
These games are relatively simple, they might not be super content-rich on their own but
honestly, what’s becoming clear with VR the more I engage with it, is that a little
tactility goes a long, long way in keeping me coming back to them.
Take a game like No Man’s Sky, for instance; whose VR component I’m now able to play
thanks to the recent release of the Oculus Link beta—which, despite some understandable
technical issues, essentially turns my Quest into a Rift, opening up a wealth of previously
inaccessible PC-only experiences.
No Man’s Sky in particular was originally a game in which traversing space was often
effortless to the point of triviality—a means to an end of getting to another planet
I suppose—but it takes on a whole new meaning when you’re in that cockpit, surrounded
by glowing monitors you turn your head to examine, physically manipulating levers and
joysticks to move around.
Suddenly the core of No Man’s Sky action—exploring planets to gather items—itself becomes the
means to the end of getting to fly my ship around some more.
Waiting in hyperdrive for up to a minute at a time ceases to be the chore it once was—it
relaxes me.
It’s a break from the physical work I’ve done in order to get my ship off the ground.
Physically inhabiting that space is often its own reward.
And by extension, what would otherwise be considered budget experiences or even interactive
movies can become so much more in VR.
For example, there’s very little mechanical engagement to be had with the Star Wars tie-in
that came bundled with my Quest, but one thing that can’t be so easily sold to people,
especially through video captured like this, is the sense of scale that VR provides.
I, for one, never thought I’d be taken aback at the sight of Darth Vader, and perhaps this
is just me, but when a full-sized version of that dude is getting up in your face for
the first time, it’s an unnerving experience; just as it is staring out at these now-massive
ships and seemingly endless expanses that previously have been difficult to imagine
because I wasn’t…
there like I am now.
Similarly I love I Expect You To Die—it’s a really neat game that juxtaposes a noire
aesthetic with the chaos of a VR sandbox to create comic, complex, physical puzzles, along
with clever grabbing mechanics that help to avoid frustration when your poking and prodding
leads to you throwing a key item out of reach.
But the one thing I keep returning to is that credits sequence—as people stylishly point
guns at you with missiles going off around them and billboard-sized names scroll past
your eyes, it’s like being inside a Bond intro.
It’s the same with the First Steps tutorial provided by Oculus—more exciting than the
swingball or the ping pong bat is the whale that flies over your head and it’s the size
of an actual whale.
What I’ve found is that quantity of content in VR often don’t matter as much as just…
being.
Maybe I’m just late to the party on this and it all sounds super lame and cliché but…
I don’t care.
There are so many aspects to this that bring into stark focus how I play and think about
video games.
Things like the lack of comfort features in a game like Boneworks, designed to be VR’s
biggest narrative-focused action title to date, point to the fact that even half-a-decade
after VR’s re-emergence as a going concern, developers are still being forced to consider
potential issues with the most basic building blocks of the medium.
Some people, myself included, can’t play this game because the lack of movement options
makes them feel sick, but thanks to the team’s vision of physically rendering a body in the
game space for the sake of immersion, snap-based transport controls simply wouldn’t work.
In VR, how you move your character is a massive accessibility concern; it potentially shuts
a large portion of the player base off from your game based on this one simple decision
and the commitment to any one style in the face of that fact, then, borders on an artistic
choice.
Figuring out basic movement in VR is an art.
But it’s not just the fundamentals of gameplay that change in VR—interfaces take on a different
purpose when that headset goes on, morphing from purely functional to experiences unto
themselves.
Menus are now these ridiculously cosy, homely environments; loading screens are breath-taking
vistas.
There’s something calming about being alone in these quiet worlds; watching Netflix in
a façade of a cabin in the mountains is a tool I’ve used to relax myself when I get
stressed.
Casually flying around the world in Google Earth is genuinely therapeutic; being able
to escape to the summit of Mount Everest via a YouTube video is powerful.
It’s sometimes a little disappointing to take off that headset as a result.
And without wishing to get all Black Mirror on you, in years to come, as hardware becomes
less bulky, as users become less aware of the fact that they’re wearing this big thing
on their face, there’s part of me that’s curious if we’ll eventually encounter the
problem of people becoming lost in these worlds, where they shut themselves off from those
around them.
This is a platform that redefines escapism; you’re choosing, to some extent, to block
out one reality in favour of another.
That VR could potentially be used to help with all kinds of neurological or mental health
issues has been researched long before the technology’s most recent boon in the mid-2010s,
but there’s been surprisingly little work done into how that technology itself could
create issues of addiction, or the possible implications of letting people handle guns
or enact violence in such detail.
We know video games don’t make you violent, but can we be so sure about VR (also check
out Lambhoot’s channel for his upcoming behemoth on that very topic)?
Point is, questions we’ve long since considered answered in traditional games become foggier
once VR enters the equation.
And that’s what I mean when I say that everything about games as we’ve come to know them changes
in some capacity with VR.
We’ve become so used to generational upgrades manifesting in these barely noticeable increases
in graphical fidelity but here we have something so relatively new, so destabilising, that
its implications can be as scary as they are exciting.
But none of those potential issues detract from how elated I’ve been regarding this
technology since getting my Quest, and crucially I’m not alone.
When showing the headset to my family for the first time, my dad was absolutely astounded
that he could soar over Victoria Falls.
My mum couldn’t believe the fact that a full-size robot had just appeared right in
front of her and that she could interact with it.
We laughed as the person in the headset floundered while attemping to describe this entirely
new thing they were seeing, experiencing.
And, when they returned to reality, it wasn’t the same as when they’d played Wii Bowling
or whatever all those years ago, which they recognised at the time as a fun novelty.
This was different, it was genuine awe—they kept talking about how incredible it was,
how real and futuristic it felt.
It seemed like they understood my world, my investment in games, a little better than
they did before.
They begged me to bring the Quest round for Christmas so the rest of the family could
experience these wonders too.
And that, for me, is possibly the biggest way VR changes things, the real point at which
Spencer’s prior comments fall apart for me—that even with someone inside a headset,
this was one of the most genuinely communal experiences I’ve had with technology in
years; that if the barriers to entry continue to diminish as they have done with the Quest,
VR not only has the potential to break into the mainstream as a commercial success but,
more importantly, use games to bring people together.
So I hope you enjoyed my piece on VR.
Thank you again to Skillshare for sponsoring the video and for the two-month free trial
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And with that this has been another episode of Writing on Games.
Thank you very much for watching and I will see you next time.