Cliff Bleszinski has been an interested party and an early supporter of virtual reality, but seems to be wary of the initial launch and first wave of games that are coming to these fledgling platforms. Speaking to us and Digital Spy in a small roundtable interview, he said that “most of the games don’t feel like real games, they feel like fifteen minute demos that were done as a proof of concept and maybe they should have combined together in some sort of WarioWare experience.”
Funnily enough, that’s almost exactly the approach that Sony are taking with the PlayStation VR. Playroom VR is a collection of party minigames, while VR Worlds bundles together The London Heist, Ocean Descent and VR Luge, which were all early tech demos when the system was first announced.
Cliff was also critical of the initial hardware release, noting that “the launch has been clunky, the price point’s too high,” and that “getting it set up and installed is a problem”.
Having said that, he continued, “I still think it’s magical and I still think that in a year or so it’s going to flourish and become mainstream. It’s just not yet.”
Come back later if you’d like to read the rest of the roundtable interview, where we obviously talk about LawBreakers and its design, but also diverge into his thoughts on cosplaying as a sentient mushroom, how many games put an emphasis on eSports too early, and his thoughts on the recent Gears of War 4 trailer – spoiler: he liked it.
In the meantime, check out our LawBreakers preview and video preview.
Thanks, Digital Spy
We travelled to North Carolina and visited the Boss Key Productions studios for the purposes of a preview and surrounding content. Travel and accommodation for this was provided by Nexon.
TSBonyman
I don’t always agree with what he has to say but on this occasion i couldn’t agree more.
beeje13
It’s a big call by any dev/pub to make a big budget AAA game for an entirely new platform, a new type of game even. For VR exclusive games, either the scale or length will be relatively low, if we are to have the high quality of production demanded for immersion in VR. RIGS is essentially an arena game, similar to rocket league, but it’s concept is unique and it’s probably going to be hurtling along at 1080p 90fps.
Some VR-supporting games (racing games spring to mind) will give you the ‘full game’ experience. Project Cars is a good example.
Most of the games he tried WOULD have been demos though? He goes onto say it’s magical and will be mainstream… Always good for a quote MR Bleszinski.
mclarenrob2
VR’s gonna die. Heard it here first. well not quite first …
misstroywithers
you haven’t tried it.
The Lone Steven
The same could have been said for the first video game consoles. It takes time to grow the medium and VR shouldn’t be written off just yet. Give it 5 years and we’ll find out if it’s Virtual Boy levels of disappointing and crap or a welcome alternative.