Personally, I didn’t take to VR visual novel experiment, Tokyo Chronos. But I know plenty of other people did, so I’ve got news for them; a follow-up is on the way.
Developer MyDearest last week announced Altdeus: Beyond Chronos. There’s very little known about the game thus far other than that Tokyo Chronos director Haruki Kashiwakura is returning and it will release in 2020. The description for the game’s early teaser trailer (which you can watch below) also confirms that it will be a ‘VR Adventure Game’, though other platforms haven’t been announced.
The teaser trailer doesn’t give us much other than some ambiguous imagery. Based on the name, though it could be that Altdeus is a direct sequel to Tokyo Chronos, or at the very least connected to the original in some way.
Tokyo Chronos itself was a fairly traditional visual novel adapted into VR. The game had you following along with its story subtitles, in which a group of school friends find themselves stranded in a deserted rendition of Tokyo. I thought the game was visually striking and included some curious moments of VR intimacy. But the reliance on subtitles really killed the immersion and overall I’m not sure the genre suits VR so well, at least when translated to directly.
I’ll be interested to see it Altdeus changes my mind, though. Tokyo Chronos came to basically every VR headset under the sun, including, Quest, Go, PSVR and PC VR devices. There’s a good chance this ends up on a platform you own at some point in 2020, then.
