Highwire have been very cagey about its upcoming PlayStation VR title Golem, only revealing the bare minimum and letting fans speculate to try to fill in the gaps themselves. Now the beans have been spilled with a blog post by Highwire Creative Director, Jaime Griesemer, which reveals details on the title along with the expected release date.
The a extensive post on the PlayStation Blog, Griesemer speaks of the approach that Highwire has taken to developing for VR, pointing out that there are two potentials paths – to iterate on existing, proven concepts, or to go outside the box and try and image something that has never been done before. The latter is described as the approach Highwire has taken.
Griesemer goes on to say that VR offers the experience of human connection, and empathy that can be felt towards virtual characters. As such, the development team focussed on a personal story. Golem is the story of an injured child who is learning to explore the world using her magical powers, with help from her family, including her brave older sister and protective father.
As Griesemer notes, locomotion has become something of a contentious subject with VR players, so Highwire have created a movement system that they hope will deliver an intuitive, natural feeling control with something called ‘incline control’ which lets users move their character by leaning the body as though preparing to take a step.
Exploration forms a key part of Golem, players can move through the ruins of the Endless City, exploring the environment to find the various secrets, shortcuts and dangerous enemy golems hidden throughout the maze of walls and archways. One-on-one melee combat is another vital gameplay component, allowing user’s to wield a sword and swing it as though it were a real blade, learning how to thrust, block and parry.
Golem will be heading to the PlayStation VR on 13th March, 2018.
VRFocus will bring you further news on Golem as it becomes available.
via Mint VR