When it comes to boxing, the Rocky franchise is probably the most famous fictional story out there. Developer Survios announced that month that its virtual reality boxing title set in the Rocky universe, Creed: Rise to Glory would be heading to the PlayStation VR, and some of the development team took to the stage at E3 2018 to give some details about it.
The title allows players to take the role of Adonis Creed as he trains with the famous Rocky Balboa and seeks to build his boxing career.
The development team said they were aiming for a dynamic, cinematic experience with Creed: Rise to Glory as Mike McTyre of Survios explains: “We really wanted to make melee in VR feel incredible. We wanted to make hitting things and being hit incredible.”
Creed: Rise to Glory uses a system called the ‘Phantom Melee’ technology, which McTyre thinks will revolutionise how melee fighting is approached in VR: “People have been fighting the system, and we had to accept that the player avatar and character avatar are different concepts, and once we separated those that unlocked the incredible features in the game we see today.”
Eugene Elkin adds: “When we set out to create this game we really wanted to induce that fight or flight response. We had to figure out what would make punching feel really good, or dodging feel really good.”
The team indicated that the cinematic element was important, that part of the appeal of the experience was to make players feel part of the action: “You’re part of a move, you are Adonis Creed and the phantom melee allowed us to do that.”
The story of Creed: Rise to Glory is original, and the developers worked with the rightholders to keep the story accurate: “We’re fans of Rocky and Adonis and we wanted to keep it authentic to the franchise. We wanted to expand on the universe, not just relive exactly what you saw in the films.”
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