Game development is difficult, and VR game development is often harder. In the past, we’ve reported on different entities coming to grips with the difficulties of VR development from Star Citizen’s concerns with frame rate to the developer of Nebulous warning that the non-VR version of a VR game can damage both final products. The global head of VR for creative crew Framestore even took figureheads to task for expecting teams working on interactive VR content related to films to finish up in the same amount of time allotted for non-VR content. It looks like the realities of VR’s complexity may have claimed another victim as developer Farm 51 removed VR entirely from their upcoming game Get Even.
Get Even is a tense action/thriller FPS where you awaken in an abandoned asylum as protagonist Cole Black with a strange device fused to his head. The device reads and replays human memory so you’ll be exploring the depths of Cole’s mind while trying to solve the mystery of your predicament and attempting to save a young girl that currently has a bomb strapped to her chest. The premise seems interesting as a standard gaming experience and sounds like it would definitely benefit from the immersion afforded in VR. In 2014, the game was announced to have VR functionality even featuring Rift support in a making of video, but as you can see on their Steam page, there’s not one mention of VR as it charges forward to a Spring release.
We reached out to Bandai Namco for comment on the development and this was their response:
“VR is not planned for now but it’s always interesting to use new technology. We haven’t focused on that at the moment as our priority was to offer the best experience with our current tools. We could make a special version for VR later on but this is not the plan right now.”
Considering the way the game was discussed early on, VR was obviously a goal but it’s reasonable to believe they realized they were hurting the content by splitting up work on a VR and non-VR version and decided to shelve that for the time being. If the game has a successful launch, maybe Farm 51 will make the VR version a reality?
