G2A adds VR development to its ambitions

G2A has taken another step beyond games retail and its first steps into development with the announcement of a new virtual reality title.

Blunt Force is the firm's first internally developed game and will be released episodically in 2017, PCGamesN reports. The title is a first-person shooter set during both World War II and the period just before the war began.

Players will explore the world for clues and secrets in the latter, and take part in traditional shooting missions in the former. The game's story is being written with the help of Mark Bristol, the screenwriter who has worked on Battlefield 1 and Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.

PCGamesN notes that while this is G2A's first game, it's not the retailer's first virtual reality project, having previously collaborated on VR amusement park G2A land. The firm is not the only marketplace to go beyond selling games: leading US retailer GameStop has begun publishing its own games, starting with Insomniac's Song of the Deep.

G2A is best known as a retailer of PC game keys, although it has branched out over the years into new areas such as a service that prints 3D figurines from in-game models. It has openly declared its ambitions to become the leading force in games eCommerce, and attracted developers with a partnership scheme that allows studios to sell games directly through G2A's marketplace.

However, the retailer has been at the centre of numerous controversies in recent years. Tinybuild accused the firm of selling fraudulently acquired keys for the developer's games earlier this year, a clash that caused several YouTubers to walk away from G2A sponsorship deals. More recently, G2A was banned from sponsoring professional League of Legends players after Riot claimed third-party firms using the marketplace violated its terms of services.