It’s been a while since we’ve checked in with ace VR developer, nimSony. But his latest take on Spider-Man VR looks very promising.
The developer’s most recent video shows his work implementing his hybrid presence system into a Spider-Man-style sandbox. The physics-driven experience makes the player’s hands physical items in the game world that can’t pass through walls in ghostly fashion as with most VR apps.
This allows for wall-crawling in which you yourself need to reach up, grab the next section of wall and hoist yourself up. It’s similar to a lot of VR climbing systems we’ve seen, though the recent Spider-Man: Far From Home VR experience used somewhat stiff stick navigation instead.
More impressively, though, nimSony’s demo features webs that are physically attached to the player’s hand when fired. This allows for all kinds of crazy physics-based fun. At one point the developer is even able to slow him descent down by placing his hands on two walls when falling down a gap.
Overall it looks like a much more liberating experience than Far From Home VR. The app made some understandable concessions to keep its swinging as comfortable and accessible as possible. But nimSony’s tech demos don’t concern themselves with those demands.
Of course this is very much a demo and there are some hiccups, but it’s still hugely impressive. In fact it’s so impressive we’ll overlook the lack of a hyphen in Spider-Man in the YouTube title. Given that it’s fan-made, don’t expect to actually see it as an official Spider-Man VR experience any time soon. Fingers crossed Marvel’s next take on VR web-swinging is as ambitious as this, though.
