Virtual reality gaming hasn’t exactly taken off as well as the industry might have expected and content is one of the big reasons it’s still a niche sector, but with the release of the the Farpoint VR story campaign trailer it looks like there’s going to be a new feather in the 360 degree cap. The first person shooter and sci-fi deep space adventure is built around the story campaign, so getting to see more of the action ahead of the release gives us a little more to go on.
It sets the scene for the introduction to the game with the two main characters, Eva Tyson and Grant Moon, as they arrive at they’re destination near Jupiter to to investigate a special wave of radiation that has no obvious source. However, things get a bit choppy for them when an explosive force tears out of the anomaly and the space station that they’re working from ends up crash landing on an unknown alien world, almost 800,000 light years from Earth.
Trying to come to terms with the reality of the situation, Eva and Grant are left to fend for themselves with a trail of holographic logs scattered across the landscape to follow in a bid to find the rest of the scientists and get off the planet. They start to get a sense that they’re not alone part way through the story campaign trailer, and it doesn’t take long before they’re confronted by a whole host of alien creatures that have had years to evolve on the planet to start attacking them.
Farpoint VR story campaign and gameplay footage trailer:
The two are then left with the challenge of blasting their way through the nightmare, picking up the clues along the way, but you can see from the trailer that the farther they go, the tougher things are going to get for them. It’s not just alien bugs that they have to face either as there’s also a lot of advanced tech nasties that attack you too, ranging from dragon fly-like drones to large bipedal robots that look like a cross between the ED-209 from Robocop and the AT-ST from Star Wars.
We’re loving the terminology that features in the campaign story trailer with the likes of “keep moving to survive”, and the song that runs through it all puts in a very cautious tale. The closing line is one of the most enigmatic we’ve seen in a computer games trailer and it leaves a lot of questions for the game with an unknown lady in a space suit ponting a gun at you saying, “I’ve been waiting for you, a long time. You know who I am?”. Maybe finding the other scientists isn’t going to be the end to the scary roller-coaster ride for them after all.
Farpoint VR is a PlayStation VR exclusive that has a release date of the 16th May 2017, so there’s not too long to go before you’ll get to immerse yourself in the action yourself. You’ll be able to play the game with your Dualshock 4 wireless controller, but if you want to get the full VR experience you can use the recently developed PlayStation VR Aim controller, which you can see in the pic above. It’s got motion sensors and a sphere, which work with the PS Camera to track your movements and shot trajectory. A bundle pack with the game will also be released on the 16th, so you’ll be able to go straight in on day one with all the kit.
In addition to the main story campaign mode, you’ll also be able to play through levels you’ve completed in online co-op, so you can join forces with a friend to get points for kills and accuracy as you work together. Developed by Impulse Gear as its debut title, it’s shaping up to be an impressive first person shooter release with an incredible VR environment to explore, but the big question for us is whether or a not a full online multiplayer mode will be coming out later down the road as DLC. If it does, then this could well be a game changer.
