Tripwire Interactive has announced a partnership with independent developer Digital Lode to publish the studio’s first title, Espire 1: VR Operative. Designed to deliver the definitive VR stealth experience, Espire 1: VR Operative drafts players as drone operators of the future.
In Espire 1: VR Operative, players become “Espire Agents” and use cutting edge Virtual Reality hardware to remote-operate the Espire model 1 from the safety of their “Control Theatre.” The technology behind the “Control Theatre” and the game’s movement system lies at the heart of Espire 1: VR Operative’s gameplay and intuitive VR control system. Any time a player performs any artificial locomotion, the game world shrinks down to the size of a floating tablet, with the Control Theatre visible in the player’s peripheral vision. This “VR within VR” system allows for precise full freedom of movement, maintains immersion, and also eliminates “VR motion sickness” for almost everyone.
The Control Theatre is fully customizable to suit the player’s level of comfort, up to fully disabled for those already comfortable moving in VR. Check out this developer diary from Michael Wentworth-Bell, Founder of Digital Lode and Game Director for Espire 1: VR Operative for a closer look at the game’s Control Theatre locomotion system.
Tripwire CEO and Co-Founder John Gibson said:
“We were blown away when Digital Lode first showed us Espire 1: VR Operative. Not only is the game amazing, but their Control Theatre movement system finally enables the dream we’ve all had of VR to become reality – full freedom of movement in VR that the masses can enjoy without motion sickness. We’re blown away to be able to work with Digital Lode to bring this game to the players.”
Digital Lode Founder Michael Wentworth-Bell added:
“Tripwire is a publisher that has understood the challenges a fledgling independent development team faces and have been able to catapult our team forward. Tripwire’s experience in VR development with Killing Floor: Incursion has helped save the Espire team countless hours of R&D. Espire 1: VR Operative has been a dream opportunity to establish a new stealth IP, while re-imagining stealth game mechanics in the unique medium of VR. Without Tripwire’s oversight, this dream would have remained out of reach.”
Enjoy!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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Finally something that looks like its worth playing on my Rift.
“finally”
I haven’t touched my rift in months, except for when it fell off my wall last week and took some drywall with it.
Sucks to be you.
Not really, I live in a rental. I just can’t be bothered to use my rift. I have enough other games on PC to play and putting that thing on for some mediocre gameplay, no matter how immersive, just didn’t appeal to me after about a month. Granted, when I do use it once in awhile it kinda rekindles its charm. Honestly though, the only game I’ve played through and really enjoyed was Arizona Sunshine.
This is the type of games I imagined that VR would bring, and I’m glad to see it’s finally come! It looks like it will be an absolute blast to play and it makes me want to buy a RIFT/VIVE very badly but I’m waiting for 2nd Gen before I jump into the waters of VR.
I am SO SO SO SO SO freakin’ excited for this title. Ever since I got into VR I badly wanted a Hitman-style assassin sim and it looks like this has everything I want in one: stealth(obviously), gunplay, slow-mo combat, voice commands (Dragonborn Naturally Speaking in Skyrim changed everything for me, talk about LARPing) and tactical play.
So hyped for the future. Two years in and we’re starting to see more and more VR-only titles with bigger budgets, better production values, more content. Creed comes out in a few days and then Espire gets announced for 2019, Oculus Santa Cruz drops in a few months(insta-buy), the Pimax headsets are looking beastly and I might even go all in and invest a few grand into the StarVR HMD.
I’m moving to a new house in a few months on five acres of land and will be looking for a way to play SkyrimVR and other open-world titles where I can just walk around my property while wearing my headset for a world-scale experience. Maybe get an expensive laptop, plug it into my Samsung Odyssey, chuck the laptop into a backpack and go.
Going to be an awesome next 12 months for VR.
looked fun as hell but still i’m not buying a VR. I don’t see myself being able to wear them for couple of hours.
Holy crap this looks awesome. This is what VR was made for. Insta buy