EVE: Valkyrie Confirmed As Oculus-Exclusive Launch Title

[Andy Chalk]

EVE: Valkyrie Confirmed As Oculus-Exclusive Launch Title

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If you want to play CCP's space combat sim EVE: Valkyrie, you're going to need an Oculus Rift headset.

Oculus VR announced today that EVE: Valkyrie, the EVE Online-based space dogfighting simulator, will be an "exclusive launch title" for the Oculus Rift headset. Describing it as "one of the first AAA games designed exclusively for the Rift," Oculus said Valkyrie is "a brilliant showcase for the power of VR." A demo for the game won several awards at E3 2013 and also made a big splash at CES 2014 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/conferences/ces2014/10890-Hands-and-Head-On-With-Oculus-VRs-Latest-Prototype] in January.

"We strongly believe the best VR experiences are going to be the ones built from the ground up for VR, and we've kept that in mind whilst developing Valkyrie," CCP said in a statement. "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 whiz past your head."

Oculus also announced the release of the Oculus Latency Tester as open source hardware, meaning that anyone can "freely use, modify, distribute, tear apart and even sell the project or pieces of it to your heart's content." People who have a need for the tester but don't feel like building one of their own can also order it online.

Source: Oculus VR [http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/eve-valkyrie-open-source-hardware-and-the-best-practices-guide/]


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[Elate]

So, this is essentially "how to kill your game before it hits the shelves, 1 easy step". I really can't see them sticking with this, for one is the Oculus Rift market/community even big enough to support a game like this entirely by itself? I highly doubt it is.

I do like how the trailer exits with Below The Asteroids though.

 

[Me55enger]

This smells like fear.

Star Citizen has been making waves, and has already expressed both spoken and developer support for the Rift.

 

[Alterego-X]

for one is the Oculus Rift market/community even big enough to support a game like this entirely by itself? I highly doubt it is.

We don't know, given that it isn't released yet, but it's Virtual Reality, so there is good reason to assume that it will have a rather large userbase.

It would have been a lot more "killed" by it's reputation being tarnished by a pointless monitor port, that would be implying that the two mediums can be comparable.

 

[Rainforce]

exclusives sacrifice their number of sales to increase the sales of the system they run on. (let's ignore that this doesn't sound very right mathematically, but is exactly what happens)
Why would you try to further boost the popularity of the OR? everyone already knows about it, and is either willing to pay for it or not. Doing something like this seems a bit too suicidal for the game. Then again, if they have the money...*shrug*

 

[Product Placement]

This smells like fear.

Star Citizen has been making waves, and has already expressed both spoken and developer support for the Rift.

1: Valkyrie was developed because CCP were given 3 Rifts to play with. The tech demo was created by 4 guys who were allowed to spend 20% of their work time into fooling around with the Rift. Since the company specializes in a space sim, making a dogfighting game was a natural step.

2: Valkyrie is a standalone game. It's not gonna be tied with EVE online in any way, apart from the fact that it will take place in the EVE universe and use ship models from that game. The success or failure of Valkyre is not gonna affect their flagship product at all.

3: There are like ompteen billion first person shooters out there. You honestly think that the market can't support two space sims?

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I'd love to try it out. But I doubt it will be good without a flight stick.

 

[Lightknight]

Rift exclusive? Is it really that hard to make a keyboard/mouse analogue for basic head controls just like every non-rift game has had since first person games began? Maybe it is? Maybe the switch between being able to use head for controlling camera angle frees up coding to other buttons in a way that would make standard controls a lot more work than they're up for.

This game looks great, but I really want Occulus Rift projects to make a ton of cash.

That being said, I'm excited that launch titles are actually being announced.

 

[Wookie 1]

I cannot see this selling very well, then again I dont think it was intended to, what with it being designed for the rift, which I cannot see doing particularly well long-term. Besides which CCP has already made a great pc space game, EVE Online itself.

 

[Smooth Operator]

So they are making a game for 5000 people total? Well it's certainly a brave move... but I suspect their offices will not be open long after launch.