For the past five years, indie developer Rune Skovbo Johansen has been building Eye of the Temple, a virtual reality (VR) adventure that utilises roomscale tracking as its core mechanic for navigating and solving puzzles in a treacherous temple. Today, Johansen has announced the official PC VR launch will take place in October.
Players have been able to sample Eye of the Temple’s gameplay for over a year now with a free demo called Eye of the Temple: First Steps available on Steam. Evoking a very Indiana Jones vibe, the videogame explore a vast temple using your feet – rather than stick-based locomotion. So that means physically stepping onto moving platforms or walking along ledges. Hence why Eye of the Temple requires a 2m x 2m play area.
It’s not just about watching your step as you try not to fall down a chasm or into a pool of lava. Eye of the Temple throws in traps to avoid and puzzles to solve, with a handy whip on your hip to put to good use. It can be used to defend yourself against flying enemies and grab levers out of reach.
“Eye of the Temple was born out of a desire to combine the immersion of moving with your own body in roomscale VR with the ability to explore a vast environment with lots of verticality and large open spaces,” says Johansen in a statement. “When I started out, I never expected it would take five years to finish the game, but the scope and ambition of the game grew along the way. After going full-time indie last year, I’ve finally been able to complete it, and now I’m very excited for players to be able to experience this adventure for themselves very soon.”
While the main campaign features plenty of hidden treasures and areas to encourage you to return, those who love a challenge can unlock a speedrun mode. You’re able to speed up the gameplay with every timed step speeding up the moving blocks a bit.
Eye of the Temple is scheduled to launch for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index and Windows Mixed Reality headsets on 14th October. Take a look at the new launch trailer below and for further updates keep reading VRFocus.