Virtual reality – the end to games as we know it or the start of something great?

Trying to implement the movement of the body into a game to make it more realistic has always been the goal for the Video Game Industry.

The first steps were the little guns first developed back in 1984 for the game Duck Hunt. You point the gun to your computer and aim at the ducks. If you miss, the dog of shame would laugh at you and yeah, you’ll feel miserable. Various gadgets have been introduced too, such as the NES Power Glove (but I’d rather not talk about the rage that came with the controls). It was, however, a pretty neat try to make a player the part of the game.

The first real step into incorporating a part of a virtual reality into a game was made by Sony in 2003, when they entered the market with their EyeToy, a camera that was meant to capture your movements or put your face into a game. The follow-ups were Microsoft’s Kinect for the Xbox360 or Nintendo’s Wii, consoles and hardware that works much better than the EyeToy back in the day. However, a new player has shown up: TheOculus Rift, and they mean business!

Could the Oculus Rift be a game changer?

A pair of glasses that you put on and become instantly surrounded in your own virtual reality, in your own little world. In other words, you are your own character!
Just imagine moving through Wyzima and fleeing from all the beggars or experience real snow in the mountains of Skyrim! Is this really the end of the conventional gaming, where you once sat in front of your Computer or your PS4, while exploring the artificial world only with your eyes? The Oculus Rift has been all over E3 and the first impressions were quite impressive. It could open the door into next generation gaming and change the way the games develop.

When looking at the specs of the oculus on VR Bound, it’s obvious that it’s going to be a cornerstone in virtual reality.

However, it could also mean the death for some games that are meant to be played with the conventual mouse and keyboard. Referring back to EyeToy, Kinect and Wii – the features these consoles offered were only used for sports, workout and party games. The Oculus Rift, however, seems to aim at the use in nearly all games. This could lead to new innovations of strategy or MOBA games, such as Dota 2 or League of Legends, and could also find resistance with players that liked their games as they are right now (those will have a hard time getting used to new virtual reality people innovations like Oculus Rift.

To sum up: While I find that the use of your body in video games is quite amusing whilst having friends around or when you just want the full action experience – I think that many other genres will find it hard to implement to this concept. This may be the real end for some games we spent hours and days playing. The real answer to our previous question is: It could be the next big thing developing games with a Virtual Reality environment! Developers raise the bar for the graphics higher with every game, and this could be the logical step to follow, creating a high-resolution 360° environment. But, as much as I enjoy jumping around, shooting arrows or boxing against my friends on my Wii, I assume that I would have to rent a High school Gym hall just to be able to play Witcher 3 (when it finally comes out). In spite of this, we can only imagine how awesome it would be to play GTA with VR-Glasses.

We can only assume that there will be some changes in Gaming that the Oculus Rift will be responsible for, and until that happens, we can only lean back and enjoy the games we like today and to prepare for the games that will come tomorrow.