Three months ago Crytek announced The Climb, a rock climbing virtual experience built for the Oculus Rift, and today in this latest trailer they’re sharing with us the second location featured in the game. A simulator placing the player in the first person shoes of a rock climber, this title uses the CryEngine to deliver stunningly realistic environments in which to scale, grip, and fall. Previous footage showcased the game’s setting of Asia, but this new video, the Alps are shown in high detail, suggesting there will be many locations in The Climb to choose from.
I’ve had mixed feelings on virtual reality; on one hand I think this is the era that is priming the way for a future filled with full body real-life simulations, like the holodeck in Star Trek: The Next Generation. On the other, a lot of the VR games I’ve seen thus far, while creative uses of the technology, haven’t offered what I feel will be the devices’ primary purpose. This game however is right on the money. While video games already offer the player a chance to experience new worlds and scenarios in a way that fiction and artistic mediums could never achieve, virtual reality goes one step further in the immersion process. In many ways it seems built for this very concept: allowing the user to try things they might never “in real life”, like mountain climbing.
Not only that, I always loved the climbing sequences in games like Uncharted and Dying Light, and as you can see from the game’s launch trailer, the vertical platform gameplay will put you realistically in the shoes (and armless hands) of the first person scaling perspective. It looks like knuckle-whitening fun. I can’t wait to see where this goes. Be sure to peruse our gallery of screenshots from The Climb below.
