VR mech shooter Archangel was one of the more polished games to release for headsets last year, but its overly-simplistic gameplay held it back from greatness. It sounds like an upcoming update to that game will address that somewhat, though.
Archangel is getting a multiplayer mode. Chris Hewish, executive vice president of VR at developer Skydance Interactive, confirmed as much to VentureBeat in a recent interview. Players will be able to take their giant, Pacific Rim-style battle suits into combat against other human players for the first time. Interestingly, though, competitive play will also introduce off-rails gameplay, whereas the original campaign is all on-rails.
Hewish didn’t elaborate on exactly how that might work, but it could add an entirely new dynamic to Archangel. Having freedom of movement will change up the gameplay considerably. “You’re piloting this giant mech,” Hewish promised. “We have locomotion and torso twisting and the fun combat that goes along with that. We’re adding new classes of mechs into the mix.”
The update will apparently be arriving in the middle of the year, presumably on all the platforms the game’s already out on: Rift, Vive and PSVR. Outside of that, Hewish confirmed that the studio is still working on a new VR experience based on the ever-popular Walking Dead brand as well as a new title set for release in 2019. Hewish said that Skydance Interactive looks to establish itself as a “triple-A player in the VR space” over the next few years, so expect to see big things coming from the studio.
