UK-based Fierce Kaiju was one of the first developers to support Gear VR when it launched as an Innovator’s Edition back in 2014, and it’ll be one of the first to support Oculus Touch too.
The studio today announced that it’s revamping it’s original game, Viral, for the position-tracked controllers. Named Viral Ex, the remastered game casts you as an anti-virus named Ragnarok that attempts to rid a computer system known as E.V.E. (Emotional Virtual Engine) of infections, simply by gunning them down. Touch support brings dual-wielding blasters and a deflector shield for defensive play.
“We’re very proud of the original version and the response it received, however we always wanted to bring it to Rift both to widen the audience, and also to really spice up the look and feel,” Fierce Kaiju creative director Paul Colls told UploadVR over email. “Then when Oculus got Touch controllers in our hands, we saw a golden opportunity to bring an extra layer to the actual gameplay and add real value.”
You’ll still be able to play the original version of the game with the head-tracked controls, but Touch makes the game more “edgy”, in Colls’ words. “It presents a quite different challenge, and we’ve offset some of the extra trickiness with a deflector shield on the end of the weapons, which can be activated to punch away enemy shots.”
Viral Ex will be out December 6th — the day Touch itself arrives for $199 — but it’s not all Fierce Kaiju is announcing today. It’s also revealed Viral: Quarantine, a spin-off heading to Gear VR later this year. You’ll take control of Ragnarok once more, though you’re now trapped in an area known as Quarantine.
“We see Quarantine is a spin-off rather than a true sequel, it’s definitely a Viral game in that it shares the same world and the same core physics based aim-shoot mechanic, but we’ve approached the stage design in a very different way,” Colls said of the project. The difference comes in level design. Viral features 50 short stages that the player travels through, but this is designed around five arena stages that players revisit to unlock secrets, improve skills and earn higher scores.
Interestingly, Quarantine will support Rooms, Oculus’ newly-announced social feature debuting on Gear VR this year before coming to Rift. It allows up to eight friends to meet in a hangout space and then launch into games. The game isn’t directly multiplayer, but when everyone launches the game they’ll be able to talk through Oculus Parties.
“Added to this, we’ve also fed in a cool multiplayer feature with Mario Kart style attacks known as ‘Glitches’ – these randomly spawn, and if a player collects one it will ‘glitch’ the other players with one of a number of temporary negative effects, such as under-powered shots or invincible enemies,” Colls explained.
