The VR gaming experience has offered up a ton of worthwhile twitch shooters.
The PSVR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive platforms have seemingly mastered that sub-genre of gaming. Players who don any of these headsets tend to fling themselves into action-packed skirmishes where quick teleports and on-rails firefights exist. Another contender for the top spot of VR shooters is set to join titles such as Robo Recall, Farpoint and Superhot VR – Archangel. If you’ve ever wanted to live out your giant mech controlling fantasy after watching Pacific Rim one too many times, then you’re in luck.
These facts will give you a complete overview of Archangel thanks to the devs at Skydance Interactive.
1. Archangel was Created as a Premium Gaming Experience for VR
Skydance Interactive
The development team behind Archangel wanted to make a real push to showcase VR as a viable gaming medium. With a lot of titles already existing that feel more like tech demos or proof of concept; the goal of Archangel was to create a true game for gamers. Focusing heavily on story and character development, Skydance Interactive wanted to pull on the emotional strings of the player and truly suck them into the world as they pilot this six-story tall Mech.
2. Gameplay Upgrades Allows Players to Personally Upgrade Their Mech
Skydance Interactive
With Archangel, Skydance Interactive wanted the player to have a certain amount of control over how they play the game and the strategy behind it. As players progress, they can allocate points into the mech to customize how they want to play. This can be applied to certain kinds of weapons, shields, and hull integrity (health) so they can decide what the strengths of their Mech are, depending on your play style.
3. Skydance Interactive Made Archangel On-Rails to Avoid Locomotion Sickness With Players
Skydance Interactive
With VR still in its infancy stage, there are loads of challenges any development team faces when creating VR content and games – one of which being locomotion sickness. Many players who throw on a headset experience nausea and motion sickness from the illusion of depth and motion. With Archangel, we were very aware and concerned with this issue and worked very hard to figure out a way to avoid players experiencing this.
This is why we decided to have the player on a track. Working this into the story so it fits within the world, the player controls each arm of the mech as if their own, as well as the obvious head movement. By having the legs of the mech being controlled by the AI character in-game, we carefully decided on the pace and speed of the mech’s movement. We felt that we hit a sweet spot where the player can jump into the mech and feel as though they are truly piloting this massive machine without the risk of getting sick over long play periods.
4. Skydance Interactive is Part of Skydance Media, Which is Responsible for Films Including Star Trek Beyond, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and World War Z
Skydance Interactive
Skydance Interactive is the third pillar of content creation at Skydance Media, the first two being film and television. SDI’s goal is to create AAA VR titles that focus on rich storytelling, deep character development and immersive gameplay to deliver high-octane and exciting games.
5. Archangel is Now Available on PSVR, Oculus and Vive
Skydance Interactive
Teaming with Sony and the PlayStation team, Skydance Interactive decided to first release Archangel on PlayStation VR for a 2-week exclusive window on their marketplace. With PSVR now passing over a million units, the company saw this as an amazing opportunity to get their game into a console gamer’s living room. With Archangel now available on Oculus and Vive – the two leading VR systems – for $29.99 they aim to hit console players with PSVR and hardcore VR enthusiast with PC headsets, such as Oculus and Vive.
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Archangel: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know