Finnish indie studio Hipfire Games had been very quiet for most of 2019, with the last thing VRFocus had heard coming almost a year ago regarding Failspace. Well, today the studio has announced a brand new project in the form of a dedicated PvP shooter called Blastworld.
A first-person shooter (FPS) where all the guns have foam bullets, the design of Blastworld is focused on freedom of movement. So players can go anywhere they please whilst having a variety of comfort options to suit almost any player.
Hipfire Games wanted to be able to offer more than just the standard teleportation (which doesn’t suit most multiplayer FPS titles) and smooth, direct movement mechanics seen in other virtual reality (VR) videogames. So Blastworld’s locomotion system has been balanced two suit both styles. For those that like to teleport there’s an out-of-body mode which fires the character first before the player then follows in a blink. This way other players can still shoot them without some looking like they’re glitching all over the map.
For the players that like full immersion there’s arm swinging locomotion, to run around the map flinging yourself of buildings whilst shooting darts. Players can also climb any building or other tall objects they can see for a better tactical viewpoint. At any time during the matches players can also swap their movement styles, ideal if you become accustomed quickly or need to dial it back.
And just because the darts are foam doesn’t mean to say the guns only come in one flavour. There’s an array of crazy weaponry like bazookas, machine guns and frisbee launchers to play with as players fling themselves across rooftops.
And the best part is that Hipfire Games has already released a demo of Blastworld to download for free. Featuring a ranking system, the demo can be downloaded directly from the studio’s website or via its Discord channel supporting Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Valve Index headsets, with an Oculus Quest version available via sideloading.
Currently, Hipfire Games hasn’t revealed when Blastworld will fully launch. When that happens VRFocus will let you know.