Back in December, the 7-man team responsible for Wayward Sky unveiled details on their 2nd virtual reality game: Dino Frontier. The title was bringing the RTS/Settler Sim genres to the platform with a prehistoric twist and cartoon style. At E3, we got some hands-on time with the title and not only came away impressed with the title itself, but with the potential of the settler sims on VR platforms.
The demo we experience on the show floor was a 30-minute experience that seemed fairly open in how you progressed. There’s a watch that you can look at on your left hand that gives you objectives that help you learn the mechanics and add settlers to your crew. You start off with one and can usher her around to chop down trees and harvest food. When you have the minimum amount of resources, a few buildings become available to build. In most RTS games like this, your settlers would be tasked with putting these structures up. In Dino Frontier, you’re the builder. Once you choose the place for your building, you grab a hammer and slam it down a set amount of times. This is also how you’ll upgrade your buildings and other interactive changes, like watering chopped down trees to make them grow again, to the formula take advantage of the immersion of VR.
In most RTS games like this, your settlers would be tasked with putting these structures up. In Dino Frontier, you’re the builder. Once you choose the place for your building, you grab a hammer and slam it down a set amount of times. This is also how you’ll upgrade your buildings and other interactive changes, like watering chopped down trees to make them grow again, to the formula take advantage of the immersion of VR.
In the demo, dinos wandered around and you can put your settlers into position to attack them. Further in, the option to bait specific types of dinos became available. When it comes to the resources that are scattered around the map by your settlers’ work, you have to grab them with your hands to add them to your pool. The dinosaur we baited and captured was essentially an automatic resource gatherer, but the demo ended before we got to see him in action.
Dino Frontier works really well and having this table-top like perspective inside the VR headset is a lot of fun. Moving around your constantly growing settlement is handled well with intuitive grab/pull and zoom mechanics with the Move controller. The experience was simple and accommodating to players new to the genre and to VR, but there are definitely opportunities for complex gameplay as you get used to using both hands to manipulate your settlement and settlers. This game could certainly serve as a solid bar for creators wanting to bring more RTS experiences to virtual platforms.
Dino Frontier is slated to release around August/September 2017 and will be a timed exclusive for the PS VR headset.
