Back at E3 2018 we went hands-on with both new VR adaptations from Bethesda in Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot and Prey: Typhon Hunter. While Cyberpilot faltered a bit with its mindless, repetitive wave-based combat, Typhon Hunter caught us by surprise with meticulously detailed environments and well-paced puzzle solving. It was basically an elaborate, Prey-themed escape room experience. We liked it so much in fact that we picked it as our favorite HTC Vive game at the show.
Now this past week in Dallas, TX at the annual QuakeCon event, press got the chance to go hands-on with both titles once again, but this time it looks like a few more details were gleaned from developer discussions.
According to Polygon, Ricard Bare, lead designer at Arkane, developers of Prey, said that the VR title will ship with three escape rooms, all of which will be playable in VR instead of just the single room. Each area will take anywhere from 30-60 minutes to complete. Enemies won’t attack you here and it’s not randomly generated at all, so you can just focus on unraveling the layers of intricate puzzles.
The other game mode featured in Typhon Hunter is on the polar opposite end of the gaming spectrum as a sort of competitive hide-and-seek mode where one player takes on five other players that are all acting as shape-shifting mimics in the game world. This mode will also support VR, although it’s unclear if the VR player is forced to portray Morgan, the protagonist, a mimic, or if they can pick just like a non-VR player would be able to do. Hopefully it also features cross-play between VR and non-VR players like in other titles, such as VRChat.
As a part of Bethesda’s mission to continue supporting VR when it makes sense, Typhon Hunter is scheduled to release later this summer (that means soon!) for anyone that purchased Prey’s Mooncrash single-player non-VR DLC. Hopefully we get a firm date soon. Let us know what you think of how that sounds down in the comments below!
