Elite: Dangerous is a popular Kickstarter-funded space epic, and even though it is already aiming at being a beautiful game, graphically, the developers want to provide an even more engaging experience. It was announced this week that Elite will feature support for the virtual reality technology Oculus Rift.
According to a story by Develop, Frontier, the developers of the Elite series, have found the technology interesting and useful enough to give it a shot in their game.
Frontier’s CEO Dave Braben said,
“We’ve been playing with the Oculus Rift dev kits and are excited about the potential – just glancing around your cockpit or being totally immersed in a space battle. Many of our backers have made it clear that they would like Oculus Rift support – and so do we! We’re very pleased with the results so far.”
Putting It to Work
In watching the teaser video for the game, it’s easy to imagine how the Rift might be utilized. As commander of a ship, the Rift could serve as a way to look around to see the ships and action going on around you. Players might also be able to control and navigate their craft by looking at their surroundings in the cockpit and issuing commands.
Develop also reported that while the base game itself requires a purchase, crowdfunding supporters of Elite: Dangerous will receive the Rift version for free if they already own a headset at launch.
The game is due on PC and Mac in early 2014.
Is Oculus Rift on Your Radar?
What does Frontier’s embracing of the Oculus Rift do for the device? As a new technology that has yet to reach the masses, the Oculus Rift is still a futuristic idea to many people. Unless you have actually had heads-on (sorry for the pun) time with the Rift, it is hard visualize how it works and how it will impact your gameplay experience. While the tech hasn’t caught on completely with developers, more and more of them are beginning to latch on and start cranking out cool ideas like this.
What about you? Does this news make you more excited for the Oculus Rift technology?
