VR has always been a priority for Elite: Dangerous, presumably because the venn diagram that includes both David Braben fans and holodeck fantasists is at 100% crossover – looking like a single, sun-like orb.
The latest development on that front is SteamVR. Frontier have announced that Elite will become compatible with Valve’s software and its officially supported kit, the HTC Vive, later this year.
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The update will come as a free patch before Christmas, Frontier PR Michael Gapper revealed on Twitter today.
Happy to announce Elite Dangerous is coming to SteamVR and HTC Vive with a free update later this year.
— Michael Gapper (@michaelgapper) September 21, 2015
Oculus Rift support for Elite was in the works long before its launch, after Frontier were delighted with their tests. An early but convincing version of the tech appeared in the Elite: Dangerous alpha, and Braben later said that he preferred playing Elite in VR – touting the impact of a 5.1 speaker set-up.
“It does make a difference because you can hear the engines behind you and the guns going off,” he told us last year. “You can hear yourself being hit right across the canopy. It’s that sort of level of immersion which does make a difference.”
How Elite might incorporate the Vive’s dual controllers into its cockpit remains to be seen. Do you have any ideas?