Panther VR (official website) is a brand-new stealth action game from Wolfdog Interactive, the same developers behind both VR Dungeon Knight and Skyworld. The game’s Kickstarter is now live seeking to crowdfund $16,598 by November 2nd.
With Espire 1: VR Operative’s release right around the corner next week, Phantom: Covert Ops following not far behind that, and indie projects like Unknightly showing real promise, it seems like we could be entering an era of stealth action becoming the new hotness in VR.
In Panther VR players will take on the role of a Panther Agent within an international secret group of master thieves known as the Guild. It’s your mission to take back power from evil major Corporations, steal top-secret prototypes, plan out heists, and infiltrate heavily guarded facilities. From the description on the Kickstarter page it sounds a bit like a modernized Robin Hood meets cloak-and-dagger antics a la Assassin’s Creed I’m totally here for it.
The developers describe Panther VR as a “stealth action sandbox” that lets you “play how you want” with careful planning, or full action, and lots of weapons and loot. There will be a dedicated campaign mode, a “contracts” mode focused on shorter, replayable content, a “missions” mode that’s randomly generated with “unlimited” content, and challenges including leaderboards. Game flow seems to involve planning out missions, picking gear, and then trying to enact your plan — sort of like the heist scenes you see in movies.
This will be a VR-only game and specifically lists support for SteamVR, Valve Index, Oculus, and HTC Vive — although it’s unclear if that means just Rift or Rift and Quest. Wolfdog specifically cites Metal Gear Solid, Hitman, Dishonored, Payday, Thief, and Just Cause as their inspiration.
If you back early you can nab a copy for as low as $14, but the base pledge price to get a copy is $20. Other, highter tiers include beta access, alpha access, getting your name in the game, or even the ability to name locations. For the highest tier ($2,500) you can have direct contact to the devs whenever you want, all future games from Wolfdog, your own statue in the game, and even instant access to the game immediately pending signing an NDA. Stretch goals include a dedicated music composer, skill trees, more weapons, hideout customization, a new story mode, and more.
We don’t write about every single VR Kickstarter out there, but there have been a lot of really promising ones as of late from the cyberpunk adventure LOW-FI up to the ambitious VR MMO, Zenith. Panther VR is fresh and just launched so they haven’t raised much at all yet, but the modest $16,598 is very achievable and they have proven experience shipping VR games. VR Dungeon Knight is one of the best action RPGs in VR and is considered by many to be the gold standard for co-op RPGs.
For more details check out the Panther VR Kickstarter right here, follow the team on Twitter, or join the community Discord server.
