Easily one of our most anticipated releases next year is the second episode of Cloudhead Games’ The Gallery series, Heart of the Emberstone.
Cloudhead hasn’t given us a window for the next installment’s release, sadly, but it looks like it’s ramping up to a bigger reveal with the launch of a new developer diary series. There’s no footage of the next entry in this first installment, but the studio does discuss its development and how they’re building upon the first episode. Apparently you can expect this episode to be closer to fantastical 80’s adventure movies like Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal.
We are excited to announce a new Dev Diaries series w/ @CloudheadGames. Stay tuned for future episodes leading up to the release of Ep 2! pic.twitter.com/QATupB78fw
— HTC VIVE (@htcvive) December 27, 2016
Expect to see much more about the direction Cloudhead is going in with Episode 2 in later entries into the series. Hopefully we’ll get a first look at gameplay, too.
The Gallery is a fully room-scale mystery series in which the protagonist searches for his missing sister. It takes advantage of the Vive’s position-tracked controls and was one of the first games to feature a teleportation system, now commonly used in room-scale VR experiences.
The first episode, Call of the Starseed [Review: 9/10], is one of the games you’ll get for free when you pick up the HTC Vive, and it recently came to Oculus Touch too, with a PlayStation VR version still expected. You can find deals for it on both Rift and Vive in ongoing winter sales.
We liked the initial episode a lot. In his review, David Jagneaux stated that the game was short, but “those precious 2 hours you spend inside the game are some of the best you’ll find in VR on any platform. With The Gallery, Cloudhead uses simple, old-fashioned, awe-inducing beauty and immersion that hooks you instead of any cheap tricks or gimmicks and I’m absolutely dying to dive back in.”
Bring on Episode 2.
