Today during the Meta Quest Gaming Showcase, developer Vertical Robot announced Red Matter 2 for Quest 2, the sequel to its 2018 PC VR game which was eventually ported to Quest. Not only does the studio say the gameplay is expanding further into the adventure genre over just puzzling, but it also claims it will deliver the “best graphics on mobile VR to date.”
The original Red Matter launched back in 2018 on PC VR where it found a very positive reception but remained largely in the cult-favorite category. When developer Vertical Robot eventually ported the game to the original Quest in 2019, it stood out as one of the best looking titles on the headset thanks to the care the studio took in optimizing the game to run on Quest’s diminutive hardware.
This time around the studio seems to be building Red Matter 2 from the ground up for the even more powerful Quest 2 (and won’t have the overhead of trying to cram a game originally made for PC VR onto standalone VR hardware).
To that end the studio is throwing down the gauntlet, saying it plans to deliver the “best graphics on mobile VR to date.” And while the game’s announcement trailer (below) is probably captured on PC, assuming the studio has made a good-faith effort to show what Red Matter 2 will really look like on Quest 2… well, consider us impressed.
But Red Matter 2 promises to be more than just pretty graphics. While the original was largely a narrative-puzzle game, the studio says the sequel has “expanded the gameplay into the adventure genre.”
“[Vertical Robot] have crafted a rich narrative-driven adventure with excellent voice-over work and new gameplay mechanics. Not only will you face brand new and challenging puzzles, but thanks to a new jetpack you will be able to traverse the game’s incredible environments more freely than ever before through platforming sections,” the studio says. “A new tool has been added to the classic loadout that will enable you to hack terminals, as well as a (projectile) weapon that will prove useful in various environmental puzzles as well as in combat. Yes! Red Matter 2 features some action as well.”
Beyond that, the studio says Red Matter 2 will include a heavy emphasis on physics objects.
“We believe immersion is key, and have therefore developed a fully ‘physicalized’ world to maximize this sense of immersion, while also enabling us to create exciting new gameplay possibilities around it,” says Vertical Robot co-Founder and Technical Artist Norman Schaar.
Red Matter 2 is planned to launch on Quest 2, though it’s not clear if the game will also find its way to the original Quest or PC VR as the original game did (though we’ve reached out for more info). There’s no specific release date yet for Red Matter 2, but Meta has said that all the games announced during the Quest Gaming Showcase would be out ‘within the next year’ (though we’re not clear if that means in 2022 or ‘in the next 12 months). We’ve reached out for clarification.
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