Game News Horizon PSVR 2: “Next-gen virtual reality”? The developers say yes!
No doubt, Horizon Call of the Mountains promises to be the flagship of PSVR 2. We were able to discuss with Guerrilla Games and Firesprite, the two studios at work on this big VR game.
For the release of its PSVR 2, on February 22, 2023, PlayStation has put the dishes in the big ones! More than 30 games will be available from the start: including a virtual reality update for Gran Turismo 7, Resident Evil 8 and the port of the two parts of Moss, the little mouse from Polyarc studio.
But, more than races at a hundred an hour and an adventure to flank you the jitters, it is especially a certain Horizon Call of the Mountain which makes you want. It’s simple: it’s the first PSVR 2 software announced by Sony (in January 2022) and which focus on the technological innovations of the object, in particular “eye-tracking” that is to say eye tracking … Not to mention the graphics power of the PS5. The title takes up the well-known universe and makes us embody Ryas, outstanding archer and climber.
So yes, a beautiful baby on which PlayStation has mobilized two internal teams: Guerrilla, the father of the eponymous franchise (Horizon Zero Dawn, Forbidden West) and who has already worked in virtual reality with RIGS Mechanized Combat League, via his studio of Cambridge; and Firesprite, a young foal from the Japanese manufacturer acquired in 2021 and specialized in VR (Playroom, The Persistence). The first installment in the Horizon series, released on PS4 | PC, exceeded 20 million units in 2022.
two is better
With 4 years of development on the clock, Call of the Mountain begins to germinate in the spirit of Guerrilla in 2016 even before the release of Zero Dawn. “We were wondering what we could do with this universe if it was a success,” says Jan-Bart van Beek, who oversees all the artistic part at Guerrilla Games. I’m a big fan of virtual reality (…) and when there was this discussion “should we make a VR game?” » I answered « yes, absolutely! “”.
The project finally kicks off a few years later (presumably in 2018) and Firesprite, who previously collaborated with PlayStation on The Playroom VR bound for PSVR, joins the ship. “We (Guerrilla, editor’s note) have created a vision | Firesprite took it over, handled all of the production (…) until we figured out all the gameplay aspects and core mechanics”.
“We worked with Jan-Bart | the rest of the studio to make sure we stayed in the world of Horizon, that it didn’t feel like a spin-off” – Alex Barnes, Firesprite
“I think that’s what worked so well for this collaboration: Guerrilla really gave us the keys to the world of Horizon, let us push the limits in VR” explains Alex Barnes, Game Director at Firesprite. “We had close communication on the project | worked collaboratively”. Jan-Bart remembers conversations every day – even every hour. Based in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, the two studios have only one hour time difference.
A “game changer”
Well known for its very solid graphics, the Horizon license is the ideal candidate for a big VR game… Its colorful universe makes it possible to reflect the quality and resolution of the PSVR 2 screen, its giant creatures imply ” a difference in scale between the player and his environment (perfect to create the “wow” effect). Easier said than done. Virtual reality is a very demanding medium. The refresh rate of a game must be very high (between 90 | 120 frames per second, in general) to avoid any unpleasant sensations when shaking the head.
“One of the first things we did when we started working on the project was talk to the hardware team,” says Alex Barnes of Firesprite. “You had to understand what this new headset (the PSVR 2, editor’s note) could do”. The man talks about eye-tracking as a real “game changer”taking the visuals from “ok for a VR title” to “awesome”.
Concretely, the technology makes it possible to follow the direction of the eyes then to adapt the resolution of the image accordingly. So the precise point you’re looking at is at its maximum potential – while peripheral vision (naturally blurry, anyway) drops in quality… All in all, it allows for better rendering without sacrificing the – very important – number of frames per second.
“(With Horizon VR, editor’s note), we wanted to create a new benchmark for what is possible to do in virtual reality” – Alex Barnes, Firesprite
“Not being held back by the hardware (thanks to eye-tracking, among other things) was incredibly satisfying,” summarizes Alex Barnes. What’s more, this feature has also been integrated into the gameplay, helping players to shoot archery. Are we at the dawn of a new generation of virtual reality games powered by PlayStation licenses? Maybe. We’ll see what Sony does next.
