The Mage’s Tale is a great game that recently released for the Oculus Rift with Touch. Taking one of gaming’s most beloved genres — the dungeon crawler RPG — and adapting it for a modern audience with the power of VR is nothing short of magical. And what better developer to do it than inXile Entertainment, the studio with the creative minds behind the likes of The Bard’s Tale and Wasteland franchises? The end result is one of VR’s beefiest (over 10 hours of content) and most immersive games to date.
That being said it’s not without its faults. One of the biggest gripes players have had ever since launch is that the only movement options are square-based incremental movement, such as it was back in the old days of PC dungeon crawlers, and point-and-select teleportation movement. Gamers with established VR legs are yearning for a full, smooth locomotion option like the one added to Arizona Sunshine and the one that powers Onward, one of VR’s most popular multiplayer shooters.
Luckily the team at inXile have been listening and coming very soon (likely this week) the game will receive an update that includes the option for smooth locomotion. Brian Fargo, CEO of inXile Entertainment, confirmed as much to me in an interview late last week (and on Twitter).
“We’re listening to our audience,” said Fargo during the interview. “VR makes people more sensitive than usual to things like UI elements and immersion breaking features. For example, some people complained about the aiming reticle so we’re adding an option to remove that. We also are implementing smooth locomotion, which was by far the the biggest complaint, and decreasing the game’s load times.”
All of these are welcomed updates that will at worst give players more options and improve performance and at best dramatically improve the gameplay experience for those looking to get the most immersive gaming experience possible.
What do you think of these updates? Is The Mage’s Tale on your radar of Rift games to play? Let us know down in the comments below and read more about The Mage’s Tale and eight other games in our list of the best games to play on Rift right now. You can find the game on Oculus Home exclusively for the Rift with Touch right now for $39.99.
