Ubisoft continues to be aggressive in grabbing the early lead in virtual reality games. Its latest project is Space Junkies, a new multiplayer shooter game where you can fly around in VR with a jet pack in space.
The French video game publisher announced the game at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the big game trade show in Los Angeles this week.
Chris Early, vice president at Ubisoft, said that the company continues to experiment with virtual reality, even though it has “not taken off as fast as anyone would like.” Still, he said the company has had good learnings from its early games like Eagle Flight, Werewolves Within, and Star Trek: Bridge Crew.
“Some things we do don’t make sense,” Early said. “It is part of our creative ingenuity.”
Space Junkies is a new game being made at Ubisoft Montpellier in France. Adrian Lacey, producer of the game, said that the company has created a VR content creation engine called Brigitte VR for the preproduction of VR games.
Space Junkies is using the preproduction engine. You fly around in a jet pack and shoot other players.
“We have full embodiment, with arms and legs visible inside VR. So when you look down, you can see your arms and legs in the game. You can grab weapons in space and use them against other players.
“The sense of scale in space is impressive,” said Lacey.