When most people think of VR games they probably think about first-person adventures and shooters. It’s a natural fit to give players a weapon and ask them to explore a world in first-person since that’s the most intuitive application of head tracking and letting a screen surround you as a portal to another world. But the real hidden gems of VR gaming are strategy titles.
Games like AirMech Command make you really feel like the commander of a massive force beneath you and upcoming titles like Brass Tactics have us excited for where VR can take the genre in the future. One place we’d love to see it go is down onto the field of Sid Meier’s iconic 4X strategy series, Civilization.
In thee Civilization games players get to pick a classic leader from history, such as George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte, Ghandi, and several others, and found a civilization starting in the early B.C. ages. Advancing through the years you build up your culture, government, society, military, and more to advance and spread influence across the globe. Reaching out and taking control of your people’s destiny with immersive VR technology would be amazing.
But we probably won’t see that type of functionality for the long-running strategy series for a while, if at all. In a recent interview with Glixel, Meier explained that while he is interested in VR as a medium, he doesn’t think it’s quite there yet.
“I’m intrigued by technology, especially musical technology,” explained Meier. “If there’s a new keyboard coming out, I’ve got to check it out. We’re still waiting for VR to figure out the killer app that legitimizes a new technology. I think that’s still around the corner.”
Around the corner typically implies something that’s very near, so hopefully he’s right.
The ongoing wait for that elusive “killer app” continues, but in the meantime, it’s certainly fun to theorize what other strategy titles would be like to play inside a VR headset. What do you think of Meier’s thoughts? Let us know in the comments below!
