Move over Tony Hawk: Ride (for anyone that remembers that tragic mess); there’s a new immersive skateboarding game in town. And VRSkater looks like it could be quite good.
Our stomachs churn just at the very thought of a VR skateboarding game, but Deficit Games is bravely taking on the task. But VRSkater isn’t a Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater-style sandbox but instead a sort of linear set of courses that you can navigate in different ways. The idea is to keep the player from spinning in dizzying circles whilst also giving them freedom in which stunts to do. We’re also intrigued by the game’s movement system; check it out in the trailer below.
As you can see, players swing their controllers a little like they were pushing with their foot. “The ‘pushing’ with the controller helps to connect yourself with the virtual environment,” Deficit Games’ Andreas Deininger tells me over email. “To avoid motion sickness, we mostly avoid any camera rotation. That’s also one reason for the ‘linear’ level design.”
But there are other reasons for that too. Deininger says the most entertaining parts of the game are actually skating as fast as possible. But that doesn’t mean tricks won’t be fun too. “Skating in VR easily becomes complex as real skating,” Deininger says. “If you have to make too many decisions it could become frustrating and stressful. It’s important for us, that you don’t need too much knowledge about skateboarding. Otherwise it would target only a very small group of people.”
Currently VRSkater is aiming for Early Access release on PC VR headsets in spring 2020. Following that, the team hopes to release on PSVR and Oculus Quest too.
