Category: The Legend of Zelda

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Asgard’s Wrath Was Originally A VR Tower Defense God-Game

Lots of behind-the-scenes tidbits and details were revealed today in a massive oral history report published by Facebook that chronicles the history of Oculus to celebrate the five-year anniversary of the original Rift launch. One of the most interesting details to me is the surprising shift in tone and genre that Asgard’s Wrath went through between its conception and its release.

Asgard’s Wrath

For those unaware, Asgard’s Wrath is a massive VR action-adventure RPG that’s exclusive to the Oculus Rift PC VR store developed by Sanzaru (now owned by Facebook) in which you take control of a Norse God that has the ability to possess mortals and control them directly. The game plays out similar to a Zelda or God of War game in which you explore various realms of Norse mythology, solve puzzles, and fight hundreds of monsters. You can also transform animals into humanoid familiars that fight with you and all have unique abilities to help you on your journey.

It’s a huge, sprawling game that captures the essence of a large-scale AAA quality RPG and puts it into VR with great results. It was the first 5/5 score we ever game here on UploadVR back in 2019 and it’s still my personal favorite VR game to date.

In the oral history report that published today, developers from Sanzaru and Oculus Studios discuss a surprising revelation: the game wasn’t even planned to be an action game at all originally. Not even close.

“Asgard’s Wrath actually started as a Touch-centric demo like VR Sports Challenge,” said Grace Morales Lingad, Creative Director at developer Sanzaru. “It was meant as a Toybox-like demo early on and grew from there… It was more focused on being the god and helping this puny mortal.”

Toybox was a multiplayer Oculus Touch tech demo in which you and another person would stand at a table and play with toys. The toys were intended to encourage interaction so there were building blocks, remote controlled airplanes, and more. That feeling of being a giant looking down at little toys on a table stuck with the developers.

Then along the way it became a tower defense game where you were picking up little
Toybox-size objects and putting them down as your defensive armaments,” said Mike Doran, Director of Production at Oculus Studios. “There’s a couple places where you still see the tower defense game, a couple of boss encounters where you’re firing these giant cannons down on massive armies in the distance. Also, not a lot of people realize that our entire inventory is a series of shelves with tiny little units or objects, and those shelves were originally the UI for selecting towers.”

Once the idea for flipping between God-mode and mortal-mode were introduced, it spiraled from there. They added more features and more concepts on top of everything else, letting you explore more of the world and take control of more types of mortals. Before long, it wasn’t a tower-defense game at all.

“With Asgard’s Wrath, we wanted to make a real-deal, big game,” said Mat Kraemer, Head of Design at Sanzaru. “I’m tired of playing the ten-minute demos and I’m tired of limited movement. I wanted to play a God of War style game. I wanted to play a Zelda style game in VR. I want to make the game that makes you buy an Oculus headset, so when people look at Oculus hardware, they say, ‘I want to play Sanzaru’s next big thing.’ That is what I want to make, and I think as a developer being given the opportunity to do that has been awesome.”

For games similar to what Sanzaru originally envisioned, check out Defense Grid 2 and Brass Tactics. And for more on Asgard’s Wrath, you can read or watch my full Asgard’s Wrath review, beginner tips, and my one-year retrospective from last October that looked back at why the game remains so great for me.

Let us know what you think down in the comments below!

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This ‘Zelda: Breath of the Wild’ Fan Project Lets You Explore The Entire Great Plateau in VR

Ever wanted to step into Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017) and experience the game’s iconic world in VR? Well, this fan-built creation offers up a good slice of the action by transporting VR players into a lovingly recreated version of the game’s Great Plateau area.

The world is now available in VRChat, created by user ‘ColonelMcKernel’. There’s little to go on description-wise; its creator only says the publicly accessible world is meant for up to four concurrent users due to performance issues.

The video intro really sells it though. And just as we hoped, it’s decidedly way more than just a static version of The Great Plateau, the game’s starting area which is secluded from the rest of Hyrule by unpassable gorges․

Of course, tantalizing just out of reach is the Dueling Peaks, Hyrule Castle, and the imposing Death Mountain—all of it begging to be experienced in VR. Still, the attention to detail in the fan-built recreation is truly amazing, justifying a full exploration to see everything it has to offer.

Thanks to VRChat’s ability to host complex user-generated VR content, the world lets you descend into shrines using your trust Sheikah Slate, ascend the area’s main tower, and climb everything, just like in the real game. The whole feel of the world, including shaders and animations, are really on point here too, making you feel like you’ve truly stepped into Hyrule.

Whether you’re accessing the VRChat-based world through a traditional monitor or through a SteamVR-compatible headset, you can also toggle from the default first-person mode to third-person. Since it’s so large and complex, it unfortunately isn’t available natively on the Quest platform.

To access ColonelMcKernel’s fan recreation, you can either search in-game for ‘The Legend Of Zelda˸ Breath Of The Wild – Great Plateau’ or simply click this handy link to launch the world directly.

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If you have a Nintendo Labo VR Kit, you can actually play the full game in VR, albeit locked in to a third-person view.

The post This ‘Zelda: Breath of the Wild’ Fan Project Lets You Explore The Entire Great Plateau in VR appeared first on Road to VR.

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Sword Reverie Is A JRPG-Inspired VR Action Game Coming This Year For PC VR

Sword Reverie is an upcoming JRPG-inspired action VR game from Isekai Entertainment with a hand-drawn anime visual style. Other inspirations include The Legend of Zelda and Ni No Kuni.

In the outreach email we received from Isekai Entertainment, combat mechanics were described as being similar to Gorn in an attempt to make you feel like Cloud from Final Fantasy VII or Kirito from Sword Art Online.

Visually, the inspiration from Sword Art Online is clear. However, as far as we can tell, this is a single-player offline VR action game, not an online RPG like Nostos or MMO like OrbusVR. It is an open world game with various biomes, dungeons, and areas to explore.

To get a look at what playing Sword Reverie is like, you can watch this (admittedly rough) gameplay video from November 2019. It’s narrated with details on the game’s structure and flow and featured three minutes of gameplay footage featuring lots of exploration and a bit of combat.

On the main website, the game’s story is described as follows:

After a thousand years of peace, the boiling tensions between the “kingdom of man” and the elemental lords continue to escalate. Seeing that the threat of a catastrophic war is imminent, the Guardian Magnus uses his powers to summon you the “Hero” to his realm, to become his new apprentice.
The Guardian explains to you, that he believes the Elemental lords have grown too powerful and as legend goes, only a “true hero” from a faraway land, can bring balance, peace, and prosperity to all the realms.

Visually you might be remembered of Nostos, which is an online VR survival RPG that promised a lot in its cinematic debut trailer then mostly under-delivered. While Sword Reverie has a similar quality bar for its concept art, the in-game art assets look to be noticeably less sharp. That being said, from what we’ve seen this does appear to be made for VR headsets only, which should mean a better attention to detail in its gameplay design.

sword reverie town concept artFor more details check out the official Sword Reverie website and visit the dev blog for a behind the scenes look at the game. And, keep an eye on UploadVR next week for more on the upcoming game.

Sword Reverie is due out this year for PC VR headsets.

The post Sword Reverie Is A JRPG-Inspired VR Action Game Coming This Year For PC VR appeared first on UploadVR.