If you were one of the precious few to actually get their Oculus Rift launch unit in time, then you may just be about ready to move on from its massive day one line-up. Fortunately, Oculus and Crytek will provide later this week.
The latter has confirmed that its Oculus exclusive, The Climb, will be releasing in just a few day’s time on April 28th 2016 for $49.99. The Climb was announced late last year as another project to come out of Oculus VR’s Oculus Studios initiative, in which the company partners with a number of studios to create content for its platforms.
In this case, Oculus and Crytek have created a first-person rock climbing game in which players scale up picturesque cliff faces. You move from hold-to-hold, battling an ever increasing sense of vertigo as you go and completing complicated runs as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Obviously, The Climb only supports the Xbox gamepad that comes with the Rift right now, but it’s also one of the rare VR games that will be adding in support for the Oculus Touch positioned-tracked controllers post-launch, as they’re not due to release until the second half of this year. When fans on Twitter asked why the game was being released without the Touch support, Crytek noted that The Climb still “feels great” with an Xbox One controller. The game was also built with Crytek’s latest development toolset, CRYENGINE V.
This is Crytek’s first major release for VR platforms, but it’s got plenty more planned. Its first-person adventure game, Robinson: The Journey, is also in development for PlayStation VR, with other headsets expected to be supported later down the line. CRYENGINE V is also heavily skewed towards VR developers, and the company is even working on an in-engine editor to compete with the likes of Unreal Engine 4 and Unity 5.
There’s also more to come from the Oculus Studios line. Insomniac Games recently confirmed that its debut VR game, Edge of Nowhere, will hit the Oculus Rift on June 6th 2016, while also announcing two other new titles in Feral Rites and The Unspoken. Then there are projects like Rock Band VR from Harmonix and Damaged Core from High Voltage Software that will continue to make sure Rift owners have plenty to play this year.
