EVE: Valkyrie’s lead designer, Chris Smith hopes CCP Newcastle’s VR dogfighting game will sell Oculus Rifts, just like the original Halo was a major system seller for the Xbox.
“I don’t see it as pressure, I see it as a challenge. Damn right, I want it to be the Halo for VR,” he said in a chat with Digital Spy.
Halo blew Smith away, he says, and made him keep his Xbox. “Halo came along and it wasn’t a feature-rich experience, actually – it was a very tight game. But it blew me away, and it made me keep my Xbox.”
Valkyrie is certainly the Oculus Rift title generating the most buzz, and Oculus VR are even co-publishing it, so expectations are likely very high. But Smith doesn’t see it as external pressure. “
It went from a prototype that wasn’t going to be a real game to an Oculus Rift launch title mainly due to the prototype’s reception at EVE Fanfest. And with EVE’s existing fanbase and the countless people who watched Last Starfighter or still fire up X-Wing or Rogue Squadron every now and again, it’s got a built in audience.
Cheers, Digital Spy.