Last week, Seattle-based studio Camouflaj (Republique) announced to be working on a Marvel’s Iron Man VR game, an exclusive for the PlayStation VR platform due for release later this year.
Camouflaj founder Ryan Payton, a veteran developer known for his contribution to games like Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and Halo 4, was interviewed by GamesBeat and revealed additional details about Iron Man VR. According to Payton, there’s no better protagonist than Tony Stark’s Avenger for a Virtual Reality game. He also highlighted how it’ll be a full, non-linear experience with optional missions and deep customization options.
One of the big challenges of Iron Man VR is that there’s no playbook. There’s no blueprint for how to make a game like this. VR is still in its infancy. We’re also learning. We knew we didn’t want to create an experimental VR experience. We wanted to make a full game. Developing the flight mechanics has been a real challenge, but it’s been a lot of fun. Once players remap their brains to match the triggers in the bottom of their palms being where the propulsion comes from, then they’re doing all kinds of cool, crazy things. But it does require some time. We’ve been iterating on that initial tutorial for more than a year, learning about what’s most natural for players. We want to allow them to do full 360 movement in PlayStation VR, too.
Over time we notice that players are living the Tony Stark fantasy more and more. The way they hold the Move controllers looks more and more like Iron Man. The way they’re posing looks more like Iron Man when he’s flying. That’s one of the fun things about VR. It breaks down all these barriers to the fantasy. That’s one of the reasons we were so excited when Marvel gave us the blessing to make an Iron Man game. We couldn’t think of a better character to match with VR.
From the very beginning we pitched it as a full game, not an experimental demo. We don’t know exactly how many hours the campaign will be because we’re still building it, but our goal here is to create a Marvel-feeling, authentic Iron Man experience that PlayStation VR users can really sink their teeth into. It’s not a linear campaign. It also has areas with optional missions, deep customization, and other things we’ll be able to talk about soon.
There’s no release date yet for Marvel’s Iron Man VR, but we’ll likely get that at E3 in June.
