The lead game designer for the studio behind Blood & Truth, Sony London, has been speaking at the Develop: Brighton conference. Michael Hampden addressed attendees on the topic of virtual reality (VR) and what the next few years will bring.
During a talk for the first day of the conference, Hampden said that he expected the future to be bright for VR, with new genres of games emerging from VR, and new development tools being created.
As reported by MCV UK, Hampden said he expected VR to birth entirely new types of videogame, stating: “In the next five years, I think we’ll see some VR killer apps emerge and we’re going to have established a design language. I think we’re going to see some growth in mobile VR as well and medical applications. And one new genre of game will be born, one that will only be possible in VR.”
Looking further ahead, Hampden said he expected that accessories that provided more realism, such as haptic feedback, would make an impact on the VR space: “I think one of the missing key for everyone is haptic feedback. It should makes a giant leap forward and will be a game changer. Feeling an object, the texture, will change the game, it will make things much more immersive and it will allow new genres of VR games to emerge.”
The rise of location-based VR centres was something Hampden also pinpointed as an ongoing trend: “We’ve seen developers switching from doing room scale environment to do location-based experiences. These are things like the Star Wars Secrets of the Empire and stuff like that and it’s pretty interesting to see the ability that this technology brings to users. You can have the ground shaking as the user is walking through the space or you can have wind or temperature changes. These are very powerful and profound experiences that people love and are willing to spend money for, to try something like that. We have a limited number of these experiences out there so far but I think this trend is here to stay and we’ll see more and more location based VR coming in the future.”
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