Last week VRFocus reported on Valve releasing details on its upcoming Knuckles controller, a device first showcased at its Steam Dev Days event towards the end of 2016. Those details on Knuckles were for the developer kit, which have now started to land at select studios, one of which is Cloudhead Games, the team behind The Gallery – Episode 1: Call of the Starseed. Handily Cloudhead decided to make a short video, giving a better glimpse a the new device.
In a tweet posted a short while ago, Danny Unger, CEO at Cloudhead Games runs through some of the features, and some interesting highlights of what’s been printed in the box. Inside Valve has written that the Next Gen SteamVR Controllers are ‘Magic!’, it also says the device has ‘capacitive sensor for finger’, ‘grasp detection’, ‘improved ergonomics’, ‘weight’ and ‘next gen trackpad technology’.
A quick look at the next-gen SteamVR Knuckles in use! #VR pic.twitter.com/0HJGhrYimZ
— Cloudhead Games (@CloudheadGames) June 29, 2017
While the video shows that the controllers are a little rough around the edges – it is a dev kit after all – it perfectly highlights what users are going to be able to do, with far more natural hand and finger interactions than what’s possible with the current HTC Vive controller.
Having that strap around the back of the hand should free up movement so that throwing or catching a ball for example is far more intuitive as you won’t need to worry about ‘holding’ the controller. The whole design is about improving VR immersion after all.
This will certainly fan the flames of desire with HTC Vive owners, but there’s currently no confirmed details on a possible launch window. Valve being the secretive company it is will likely keep everyone in suspense, with a Steam Dev Day announcement later this year probably a good bet.
As ever, keep reading VRFocus for the latest VR news and announcements from around the world.