Due for release later this year on Oculus Rift and Touch is Arktika.1, a first-person shooter (FPS) from Metro 2033 studio 4A Games. Today, 4A Games has announced a collaboration with Del Ray Books which will see a companion eBook, ARKTIKA.1: My Name is Viktoria accompany the virtual reality (VR) title.
Del Ray Books partnered with the studio on Arktika.1’s storyline, with many of the narrative elements behind the videogame penned by New York Times (NYT) bestselling author Christie Golden – known for several Star Trek, Star Wars, StarCraft, and World of Warcraft novels.
“I couldn’t ask for more from 4A Games and my publisher, Del Rey Books,” said Golden in a statement. “We’ve worked together every step of the way to bring Arktika.1 to life. I brought my A-game to this project, calling on my playwriting training to create sharp dialogue and utilizing my world-building skills to help complete the immersive experience virtual reality offers. Players looking to dive into the game’s universe by cozying up with a book have much to look forward to!”
The fast paced shooter is set nearly a century in the future, in which Earth has entered a new ice age. Only the equatorial regions remain habitable, yet pockets of humanity still manage to survive in small numbers all over the planet. These regions of civilization sit on resource-rich, highly desirable territories to the north and south. As a mercenary hired by Citadel Security, players must protect one of the last colonies in the wastelands of old Russia from violent raiders, marauders, and horrifying creatures.
“Story is at the heart of any AAA game – and we have some things to say about that! With our experience making post-apocalyptic games, we’re now taking players a hundred years in the future and presenting them with a dangerous yet hopeful world,” says Yevhen Fedorets, lead game designer on Arktika.1. “We’re building environments filled with detail – resulting in believable, atmospheric locations. Immersion is all about connecting everything in the world with the player, and we found that this feeling of ‘being there’ is by far the best way to tell an engrossing story about survival.”
ARKTIKA.1: My Name is Viktoria is set to release towards the end of Q3 2017, with pricing and launch date yet to be announced.
As 4A Games release further details, VRFocus will keep you updated.
Nina heads into the frozen wastelands of Arktika.1 in order to give her verdict on the current version of the game.
Arktika 1 is set in a dystopian future where climate change has wrecked the world and reduced the available habitable areas down to a few strips of land by the equator. The player character is located in a colony somewhere in Russia called Arktika.1, which must be defended from enemies and wild beasts.
Movement is handled with a fixed-point teleportation system and the various different types of guns can be reloaded by twisting the controller sideways. 4A Games also worked on the Metro franchise, so much of Arktika.1 will feel familiar to players of those titles.
The title is planned for release on the Oculus Rift with Touch some time in Q3 of 2017.
You can watch Nina’s preview video below.
VRFocus will bring you further information on Arktika 1 when it becomes available.
Roving VRFocus reporter Nina speaks to Jonathan Bloch from 4a Games, Executive Producer of Arktika.1, about the upcoming virtual reality (VR) post-apocalyptic shooter.
Arktika.1 is set in a Russian post-apocalyptic future where climate change has caused a new global ice age where the only habitable zones are close to the equator. Arktika.1 is the name of a colony that is exists on the site of a where a large Russian city used to be. The player’s job is to protect the colony from bandits, raiders and violent creatures.
Weapons that can be used for the job range from standard ballistic weapons such as exist today, to electromagnetic weaponry through to plasma and laser weaponry, all of which have their own effects and function in their own way.
Movement in the game is handled with a type of fixed point teleportation controlled by a ‘look and travel’ system which the developers believe to be the most intuitive and comfortable for the majority of players. There will be twelve areas to travel to an explore with a large amount of content.
Arktika.1 was built with the help of Oculus Story Studio and designed from the ground up to be used with Oculus Rift with Touch.
The title is planned for release in Q3 of 2017, though no price point has yet been set. Further information can be found on the 4A Games official website.
You can watch the full interview below. VRFocus will continue to bring you the latest on upcoming VR titles.
Mit Metro 2033 und Metro: Last Light brachte uns der Entwickler 4A Games bereits zwei Spiele, welche uns einen tiefen Einblick in Post-Apokalypsen werfen ließen. Nun bringen sie mit ARKTIKA. 1eine neue Vision des Weltuntergangs exklusiv für Oculus Touch heraus. Die Welt von ARKTIKA. 1 ist in eine neue Eiszeit gehüllt und nur wenige Überlebende können sich rund um den Äquator oder in rohstoffreiche Gebieten im Norden und Süden ansiedeln. Doch die Kälte ist nicht das Einzige, womit die Reste der Menschheit einhundert Jahre in der Zukunft zu kämpfen haben: Plünderer, Räuber und sogar schaurige Kreaturen fallen in die letzten sicheren Siedlungen ein. Als Söldner sollt ihr nun für die Citadel Security eine Siedlung in Vostok (Russland) vor den biologischen wie auch technischen Feinden beschützen und so der Menschheit eine zweite Chance ermöglichen.
Was euch in der eisigen Apokalypse von ARKTIKA. 1 erwartet
Das nun auf Malta angesiedelte Entwicklerstudio 4A Games verwendete für den Full-VR-Titel ihre eigens entwickelte 4A Engine und kann so mit einzigartigen Details und einer neuartigen Shooter-Mechanik aufwahrten. Die Entwickler erschaffen somit eine neue Dimension sowohl grafisch sowie auch technisch für die Virtual Reality. Der Creative Director und Mitbegründer von 4A Games Andriy „Prof“ Prokhorov äußerte sich wie folgt zu ARTIKA. 1:
„Dies ist für uns ein gewaltiger Schritt vorwärts. ARKTIKA. 1 ist das Ergebnis von allem, was wir über das Erschaffen von lebensechten Umgebungen gelernt haben. Wir haben ansprechende Shooter-Mechaniken implementiert und liefern herausragende Grafik.“
Zur Entwicklung des Spiels für Oculus Touch verkündete Prokhorov außerdem:
„ARKTIKA. 1 ist einer der ersten AAA-Shooter, der von Grund auf für die VR konzipiert wurde – im Gegensatz zu herkömmlichen Portierungspraktiken. Außerdem heben die Präzision und die intuitive Bedienbarkeit der Oculus-Touch-Controller realistische Schusswechsel auf eine ganz neue Ebene.“
Eine Vielzahl an Waffen und Aufsätzen
Erste coole Manöver sah man bereits im Trailer, in dem eine Waffe nach einer Drehung in der Luft wieder aufgefangen wurde und eine Kugel um die Ecke flog. Die berührende Geschichte des Spiels soll mit der immersiven Egoperspektive und der natürlichen Umsetzung von Bewegungen mit Hilfe der Oculus Touch verstärkt und abgerundet werden. Das post-apokalyptische Sci-Fi Setting bietet dem Spieler des Weiteren eine Vielzahl an Waffen und Aufsätzen, welche nach Belieben kombiniert werden können. Oder die Grundlage für völlig neue und persönliche Exemplare bilden. Das Gameplay bietet packende Herausforderungen, besitzt dabei aber stets einen ausbalancierten Schwierigkeitsgrad. Der Spieler muss in den taktischen Kämpfen vollen Körpereinsatz zeigen, sich ducken und ausweichen sowie durch Berührungen die verschiedenen Waffen nutzen, um die Feinde zu besiegen.
Um euch einen besseren Einblick in das Spiel, sein unglaublich gutes Aussehen, die Geschichte und die Spielmechaniken zu geben, veröffentlichte 4A Games ein neues Video, in dem ihr euch das Gameplay im Tutorial und in der ersten Mission ansehen könnt:
Einen festen Release-Termin besitzt ARKTIKA. 1 noch nicht, angesetzt ist aber das 3. Quartal in diesem Jahr. Auch der Verkaufspreis wird noch angekündigt. Sicher ist das Erscheinen des Spiels exklusiv für die Oculus Touch. Mehr Informationen erhaltet ihr auf den sozialen Netzwerken wie Facebook oder Twitter von 4A Games.
Launching exclusively on the Oculus Rift in Q3 2017, ARKTIKA.1’s polish and presentation has quickly risen it up the ranks to one of the year’s most anticipated VR titles. And though it’s still months away, we’ve got a new glimpse at a chunk of the game’s opening mission.
From 4A games, the creators of Metro series, Arktika.1 is an impressive looking VR FPS that’s due to hit Oculus Touch this year. The title was first revealed at Oculus Connect 3 last year, and this week at GDC, the studio is showing off a 25 minute chunk (see video heading this article) of never before seen content taken from the game’s polished “4–5 hour” campaign.
Nearly a century in the future — in the aftermath of a silent apocalypse — the planet has entered a new ice age. Only the equatorial regions remain habitable, yet pockets of humanity still manage to survive in small numbers all over the planet. These small regions of civilization sit on resource-rich, highly desirable territories to the north and south. As a mercenary hired by Citadel Security, your job is to protect one of the last colonies in the wastelands of old Russia from violent raiders, marauders, and horrifying creatures. Be the savior. Give humanity a second chance.
Arktika.1 aims to be a AAA polished VR FPS that’s all about the guns. It was clear from our first time playing that the studio has spent as much time giving the guns their own character as some of the actual characters themselves. Not only do they look cool, but they’re a blast to shoot thanks to great audio, visual, and haptic design. Many of the weapons will be customizable and some have secondary fire functions, making them much more than a ‘point and destroy’ interface for VR.
Not due out until Q3 2017, the wait for Arktika.1 will be long for some, but hopefully this taste of the game will tide most over for now.
I’m cold. I can see the flurries of snow outside and the thin coat of ice on my hummer’s windshield and I feel cold. This wouldn’t be all that notable except for the fact that a moment ago I was feeling quite warm inside the busy Oculus demo hall at GDC 2017. But I’ve been transported somewhere else since then, transported to the freezing, incredible world of Arktika.1.
I first had the chance to preview Artika.1 — an exciting new collaboration between Oculus Studios and the 4A Games (Metro: Last Light) — at Oculus Connect 3 last year. The brief demo I saw there was enough to convince me that this was a game to watch in 2017. The extended GDC experience that 4A brought to GDC, however, has convinced me that Arktika.1 is the game to look out for this year. It really is that good.
As soon as the new demo began I knew that this time around the studio was focusing on showing off the deep narrative and thoughtfully constructed world of Arktika.1 rather than the more combat heavy slice from OC3. The first 5 minutes or so of the preview I was simply sitting in a heavily armored car.
I was being driven through the frozen landscape by an NPC who’s narration provided story hints at every turn. I won’t spoil them for those looking forward to the game but generally Arktika.1 takes place in the midst of a second ice age. You are a mercenary hired by the last remaining humans in Russia to protect them from marauders, bandits…and something even worse. Here’s the official synopsis from 4A:
Nearly a century in the future — in the aftermath of a silent apocalypse — the planet has entered a new ice age. Only the equatorial regions remain habitable, yet pockets of humanity still manage to survive in small numbers all over the planet. These small regions of civilization sit on resource-rich, highly desirable territories to the north and south. As a mercenary hired by Citadel Security, your job is to protect one of the last colonies in the wastelands of old Russia from violent raiders, marauders, and horrifying creatures. Be the savior. Give humanity a second chance.
Getting past a guard with a pass card
When my car finally broke through the blizzard I saw on the horizon where exactly the name Arktika.1 comes from: a massive, heavily secured compound. The last refuge for a dying human race.
As I drove up to the survivor city’s gates I was struck by how beautiful this game is. 4A is building Arktika.1 using its proprietary engine and it is able to produce the most striking visuals I’ve ever seen in a VR game. A good portion of that too is owed to the art design. Much like the Metro series before it, Arktika.1’s story oozes out of every carefully crafted asset you’ll come across in its richly developed environments. There’s more detail in every frame of Arktika.1 than you’ll probably even take the time to notice. That commitment to world-building through design, coupled with the amazing visual fidelity, makes this a game that sticks in your mind long after the headset comes off.
A snowy battle at the airfield
In addition to amazing visuals, 4A is also doing some interesting mechanical things that are exciting to see from a bleeding-edge VR title. For example, during my car ride I could interact with certain elements inside the vehicle. I could role the window down at will by pressing a button. I did so and immediately the sound changed. I could hear the engine and the wind more clearly than before. The voice of my companion also got more difficult to hear but when I closed the window again the sound reset and the noises inside the car got much crisper. Little touches like this make a good VR experience a great one and Arktika.1 is packed to the frozen gills with them.
Apart from the world-building moments, the GDC demo also took me through a completely new combat mission as well. Things began similarly to the OC3 demo. I went to the armory and picked out my weapons. After that, however, I was taken into a simulated training room to hone my skills against digital opponents. From there, I was taken to a nearby airfield that had fallen to the icey cold and notorious bandits. My job was to eliminate them. I’m good at my job.
Arktika.1’s combat is all about cover. You need to use it well in order to survive. The levels are designed creatively enough that your cover points always feel interesting and strategic rather than frustrating or overly simplistic. The guns themselves are interesting as well, with enough variable ammo types and firing options to keep you experimenting for hours. 4A also showed us a secret gun hidden behind a hotkey in the demo.
Picking a weapon and the mod-gun (left)
This new weapon is modable with different options for the chamber, barrel and ammunition. Swapping these around created a completely different weapon for each configuration. Mods like this seem to be a staple of what 4A is building here and they are a very welcome addition to the world of VR shooters, where loadouts are often pre-determined and limited.
Between the deliciously ambient world, the pulse-pounding combat and the innovative VR mechanics, its safe to say — for me at least — that Arkitka.1 is the game to look forward to in 2017 on any platform. Its currently set to release in Q3. Until then, stay warm out there.
Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2017 is here, and Oculus is showing off a bevy of exclusive games that are due out sometime later this year. Among them was an entirely new level of ARTIKA.1, a sci-fi shooter from 4A Games‘ Malta-based studio that aims to get gun freaks excited as you plug away at human raiders and horrific creatures alike with an arsenal of customizeable futuristic weapons.
The demo begun in the passenger seat of a military vehicle, sitting beside my companion Viktoria and driving through the icy desert wasteland. Approaching our Russian outpost, we pass several guards. They seem friendly for badass gun-totting sentries and joke with Viktoria as we move closer into the protected confines of the huge base, a place I later learned would be my new home and consequently house the entirety of the game’s action.
image courtesy 4A Games
Snow is pouring down and the windshield wipers are sluffing off melted snow, a detail that steals my attention away from the massive downed military airplanes to my right, a relic from earlier times before the world went topsy turvy. I roll my window down with my outstretched finger to give the final guard Viktoria’s ID from the glove box. It’s windy outside and the vehicle’s engine is purring loudly. It’s a harsh place and I instinctively roll the window back up to return my attention to the quietness of the car and my guide’s explanation of the world around me. The demo hasn’t even really started and I’m already blown away at the little things, the level of care that 4A Games has taken in getting you acquainted with the world while listening to what could have been a boring monologue in a conventional flat screen game’s opening cutscene.
image courtesy 4A Games
Once inside the base, we slip into a vehicle bay and get out, my first taste of the new level’s locomotion scheme. A ghostly outline of a man appears standing in front of a circuit breaker a few meters from me. I zap to the pre-determined spot, pull down a lever to get the bay’s electricity going and similarly zap over to the elevator for my weapon’s training. All of this interaction happens while I remain front-facing, something required by the Rift’s two-sensor setup.
image courtesy 4A Games
Next I’m put through my paces with the guns, something we got a crack the first time we saw ARTIKA.1 at Oculus Connect 3. I toss red dot scopes onto a powerful blaster rifle, paint it a white camo color and grab another gun that charges up to release a powerful laser bolt and throw on a thermal sight. The developers say you’ll be able to scavenge these parts throughout the game and even build an entire weapon from scratch, something that promises to be ‘particularly impressive.’
Shooting is easy, pull the trigger and reload by lowering your gun to your side—but I was more interested in was how the game’s locomotion system informed level design. Moving around the starting level, an ancient military transport plane from earlier, I noticed a few ghostly outlines to choose from. A blue outline appears on a teleport node that has adequate cover and a yellow outline indicates no cover. It’s your choice really which one to search for, so you can go in guns a-blazing or stick back and line up your targets for a more efficient take down. But there aren’t infinite teleport options, only a few you’re presented during fire fights, and ones clearly created to move you forward through the level (in front of doors, code panels, displays, etc).
image courtesy 4A Games
There are a few puzzles to solve as well, although I didn’t encounter any that were especially hard. In one instance a key code was written on the wall behind me, the number 18Ɛ. I foolishly plugged in 183 to the code panel which resulted in an error message. Realizing the 3 was actually backwards, I then typed in the correct code of 381 to open the door I needed.
I’m tempted to call it a wave shooter based on the fact that most areas have at least 2 waves of enemies, but I don’t really feel comfortable reducing it to that due to its constant forward movement. The teleportation mechanic, although limiting somewhat for immersion, creates interesting bottlenecks that you have to navigate and helps keep the game’s pacing consistent. Some may call teleportation an outright minus to the game immersion-wise, but I found it refreshing, almost creating a gameplay style similar to the Halo franchise’s campaign mode.
And while it won’t have the same reach as Halo, ARKTIKA.1 is undoubtedly playing in the same ballpark, and we can’t wait to get our hands on the full game, planned to launch exclusive to Oculus Touch in Q3 2017.
The official website for the novel Metro 2035 suggests that another video game is arriving next year. There have thus far been two console and PC games, as well as a mobile spinoff.
Arktika.1 is the VR debut for 4A Games, the developers bind teh Metro series of first person shooters. The title is built from the ground up for Oculus Touch, here’s 17 minutes of the Oculus Connect 3 demo where the title made it’s debut.
Oculus Connect felt like another milestone marking the maturity of content for virtual reality. VR is beginning to gain support from mainstream, triple-A developers and the games which have been in gestation are now beginning to filter out, with a step change in production design and polish, which the traditional games market takes for granted.
One such title revealed at the event was Arktika.1 from developers 4A Games. You may know them from the hugely popular (and technically excellent) Metro series of first person shooter games. Their Malta studio has been dedicated to building a new made-for-VR title which was unveiled for the first time at Oculus Connect 3. It’s a first person shooter designed around motion controls, specifically Oculus’ forthcoming Touch devices. It’s a first person shooter game set in an icy, futuristic wastelend:
The feel of the weapons as they shot, the strong haptics induced in the Touch controllers, and the quality of the sounds, were all satisfying, not to mention the look of the projectiles and the trails in the air left by them. All of this contributed to the high quality AAA feel of the game. Out of the assortment, I picked what looked like a revolver that shot a scattering of bullets made of pure energy, and a handgun that also scattered but with what seemed to be green projectiles leaving light distorting streaks in the air.
The gameplay seen here was shot ‘off screen’ so there’s no in game audio unfortunately, but it’s well worth a watch to get a handle on how 4A Games have approached gunplay and VR locomotion in the game, which promises a lengthy campaign mode to play through when it releases in 2017. Arktika.1 is exclusive to the Oculus Rift and Touch and is published by Oculus Studios.
4A Games’ recent teasing of their Oculus Rift exclusive title culminated in the reveal of Arktika.1 at Oculus Connect 3, San Jose, this week. A first-person shooter (FPS) with more than a passing resemblance to the studios’ Metro franchise, Arktika.1 is a brand new intellectual property (IP) developed exclusively for virtual reality (VR). This is a tantalising prospect for sure, but in reality Arktika.1 feels outdated before it’s even launched.
The VR industry is moving fast. First it was rapid iteration of hardware, now it’s software. What felt fresh and exciting a year ago feels old hat now, and despite 4A Games’ depth in environment design and a wonderfully intriguing backdrop to the action, the gameplay itself feels stuck in a rut that AAA VR has since moved on from.
The demonstration build of Arktika.1 began in a home base of some sort. A safe haven which through its decaying mise-en-scène told the tale of a world outside that was most definitely not safe. A female companion enters and informs you of your mission (along with a little backstory) before you experience the first of the two gameplay mechanics that comprised the entirety of Arktika.1’s demonstration version: teleportation. In Arktika.1 each area will feature a small number of silhouettes, either blue or yellow representing the amount of cover and range to the enemy – blue being safer, yellow less so – and the player can instantly teleportation to these locations. Arktika.1 is not freeform in teleportation as with Robo Recall, nor does it automatically orientate the player towards the action as with Arizona Sunshine. You can quite easily teleport ahead of the enemy and find yourself being fired upon from behind.
Of course, the gunplay is the second mechanic. A shooting range offers a taste of a selection of weapons which can be customised both visually and with varying attachments, such as scopes. The player can choose only two of these weapons to take into combat, which can be holstered by reaching over your shoulder. Reloading is simply a case of lowering the weapon which, when coupled with the static teleportation locations, makes Arktika.1 feel more like a VR version of Time Crisis or Virtua Cop than a true VR FPS.
It’s not all doom and gloom however. Arktika.1 has already showcased some wonderfully imaginative weaponry, from automatic shotgun-esque pistols to lock-on weapons that can bend the trajectory of their bullets around corners. Furthermore the environment design is top-notch – littered with debris and incidental detail – while the character models are of a very high graphical standard. Sadly, the time in which being visually wowed in VR was in and of itself a reason to purchase a product has long since passed.
Despite a disappointing first outing there’s still hope that Arktika.1 will deliver an enjoyable FPS experience. Indeed, the likes of Edge of Nowhere and Dead & Buried were both very different at their debut to the product that was/is due to be released. There’s promise in Arktika.1, but in the face of such hefty competition within a genre that for VR few had faith in two years ago, it’s going to be an uphill struggle for 4A Games to prove there’s value beyond the visuals.
