Crytek Has A New Video For Their VR Rock Climbing Game, The Climb

Crytek has shared a new video teasing their upcoming VR rock climbing game for Oculus Rift, called The Climb.

Crytek details in this developer diary how they intend to hit a steady framerate of 90 FPS, the first time they are attempting to do so. Considering this was the same studio that pushed the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 to their limits with the Crysis games, they intended to do the same on VR with The Climb.  Crytek upsells VR for giving them the power necessary to hit this metric.

Crytek also discussed the new challenges of designing for VR. They had to create a broader 3D space for players to explore, and they cite their own CryEngine as a suitable tool for this. However, understanding human limitations, they actually have to create less details, less individual objects for the world, since each eye can only take in so much. Instead, they focus on creating small details where the player will seek them out, such as when taking a closer look at the player character’s hands.

The focus on making detailed models for hands and climbing materials is also an entirely new challenge for Crytek, but if they can pull it off, they can create a VR world that will convince players is real. To make something convincing in VR, Crytek constantly has to check by looking at it from within VR headsets. They also focus less on graphical textures, and more on shapes and geometry. Crytek is even using new photogrammetry technology to copy scanned rock shapes and duplicate them in the game.

You can watch this developer diary, named Ascent, below. The Climb is not coming out on time to be an Oculus Rift launch game, but it will be making its launch window. Based on Palmer Luckey’s comments about the Touch, The Climb seems to be optimized for play on a game controller.