Crytek says it wants to be as well known in VR as it is with its games or engines - and wants to kick off major interest in VR as a whole with its first major release.

The Crysis and Rise developer, who has showcased several VR demos and recently announced a new virtual reality game Robinson: The Journey, said it hopes to make projects that push "the whole industry forward".

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Crytek


"We want to be established [in VR] as we do everywhere," director of production David Bowman told Digital Spy.

"Crytek is famous for leading graphics - the games always push what's possible in technology, and we're often used as a benchmark for things. We want that same status in VR, because we have stories to tell.

"I think the result will be people going, 'Oh - if you're doing VR, you'll want Crytek experiences' - you'll want to have a game from Crytek to play.

"We need a new vocabulary, because they simply aren't games anymore. This is more, this is different, right? Whatever we end up calling these new experiences, we want to make it the name that's associated with that."

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Crytek


Right now, Crytek has a team of 50 people dedicated to VR in its Frankfurt offices with one full project underway, Robinson: The Journey, which sees players explore a dinosaur-filled landscape.

Before that, starting in early 2014, Crytek produced two tech demos, each with elements that featured ideas of what we could expect from Robinson: The Journey.

Last year's demo was one showcasing scale with a passive experience of a looming T-Rex staring down at a player. The other, which debuted earlier this year, saw the player navigate a steep cliff face by ziplines, moving their arms from one to the next while pterodactyls rushed around them.

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The demo was very impressive, showcasing how navigation from such an unusual perspective could be made both easy and surprisingly tactile.

With each controller trigger representing an arm gripping onto a zipline, you must move from one to the next by releasing a trigger one at a time, and moving each arm by glancing at the next zipline before latching on again.

As the zipline races to the next point on the cliff, you can stop still and gaze at the panoramic view around you, a clash of wild forestry and bizarre sci-fi structures that arc out in the valley below.

After positive feedback from its tech demos, and the culmination of VR technology meeting expectations, Crytek decided to ramp up from tech demos to a full project being put into production.

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Crytek


"So all of that came together last summer," Bowman explained. "We said, yes, Crytek as a company wants to make VR content to solve the problem we're going to have, about what's worthwhile.

"Why would I spend this money to have the experience? There has to be content - there has to be an experience worth that investment to start the pump, to start the cycle.

"And then, once there's something you can not only experience to have great experiences yourself, but also show other people, that's when it becomes worthwhile to invest in the whole ecosystem that it takes for VR."

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Crytek


Bowman said that while everyone is experimenting in VR right now, "no one's willing to jump in" without a proven audience behind it. Crytek is very encouraged by its potential, however, and hopes to start a cycle of offering good software to fuel hardware interest.

"Right now, [the audience is] purely speculative," he said. "But we see it as transformative - this is a brand new medium… I remember when black and white became colour television, I remember that transition.

"This is at least that level of distinctness, if not more - it might be the first motion pictures versus still, or talkies versus silent film.

"It's a kind of transitional thing where, I obviously don't think it's going to wipe out any other industry, but I definitely believe it's going to be a brand new storytelling opportunity, and Crytek with our CryEngine, we do beautiful better than anybody.

"There's an intimacy in this new medium that lets us tell stories that we - we've wanted to be telling stories our whole careers, right? We've wanted to get people to feel something besides just fear, or just scared. This new intimacy is going to allow us to do that."

He continued: "Having that opportunity, being willing to jump into it, making that content, is something that we really believe in. We understand the economics of it, and we're just trying to work with the whole ecosystem.

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Crytek


"We want everybody to win. They're providing really good hardware, we want to provide really good content for their hardware.

"Hopefully, there'll be good business cases that underline that, but we believe that with Crytek's ability, we'll make content that people will want, and they'll drive hardware sales, and that'll push the whole cycle forward.

"Somebody's going to do it, so we really think we have the capability of doing it. I think what you saw you today lets you know [why]… we're not trying to be overconfident but when we see this, we get excited as developers."

Robinson: The Journey has yet to be given a release date or platforms, but will support multiple control schemes - both traditional gamepads and split controllers.