Epic Games’ Unreal Dev Grants began back in 2016 as a $5 million USD initiative awarding developers with funding for contributions to the Unreal Engine community. In this latest round, 17 projects have received a total of $275,000, seven of which are virtual reality (VR) related.
The projects cover a range of genres – mostly videogames – with film and community support also included. Ape Law’s psychological horror title Albino Lullaby is the first on the list. The first episode arrived for HTC Vive last year, with Oculus Rift support added afterwards. Episode two is scheduled to release later this year.
Cooperative Innovations’ Raiders of Erda is a VR role-playing game (RPG) experience that was announced earlier this year. The videogame features a complex combat system and an alpha is expected in 2017.
The Soulkeeper VR by Helm Systems is an episodic dark fantasy RPG that’s due to arrive on Steam Early Access. It will offer a variety of combat styles and mechanics, including melee, spell casting, combat with staff and ranged.
From New Reality Co comes Tree, a VR experience shown at VRLA, the Tribeca Film Festival, and Cannes that uses sight, sound, touch and smell to explore the lifecycle of a rainforest tree from a seedling to full-grown state to unfortunate human consumption.
A studio to be directly award is New Zealand-based realityvirtual.co. The company specialises in new media, including drone UAV cinematography and VR, with its most recent project MANA VR currently touring several events.
Lastly there’s MGS Studios, a developer behind the creation of several Robo Recall mods, such as a locomotion mod that changes how the game is played and a Star Wars mod.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of the Unreal Dev Grants, reporting back with the latest VR recipients.
