Quantic Dream experimenting with virtual reality
But David Cage won't venture into VR space “for the sake of it”
The team at Quantic Dream is currently exploring the possibility of developing a game for virtual reality devices, the studio's founder revealed.
During an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, David Cage said he was encouraging his staff to experiment with VR tech and keep up to date with the latest releases, but added that he won't commit to virtual reality until he can bring his own style to the medium.
"We have all VR systems installed in the studio and I encourage my teams to try them out," he said. "We've downloaded every game on every system to try and understand where people are right now, what works and what doesn't work, and what we could bring to this medium.
"The idea is not to do VR for the sake of doing VR. It's about saying something on this medium that hasn't been said already."
However, Cage believes virtual reality could be a natural extension for his favoured game structure. Each of his titles is built with a gesture-centric control system, with players pressing buttons or moving the analogue sticks in order to trigger contextual actions in-game. As unconventional as it is compared to the majority of games, Cage claims it is the best way to keep users immersed in the story he's trying to tell.
"You shouldn't be struggling with how to do things, you should be struggling with what you want to do," he said. "The challenge should be in your mind and not on your thumbs.
"I try to invent an interface that's not based on mechanics or action loops, one that's purely contextual. I really like this idea because it's about not limiting the amount of actions my characters can perform based on the number of buttons on the controller. I try to go beyond that and work on a sense of mimicry between what you do with your thumbs and what happens on screen.
"Now if we project ourselves into the future, VR is going to be an interesting avenue for what we're doing because if we're talking about immersion and the fact that you're in the world with characters, it's going to be something very very interesting."
Cage himself has already played through a number of virtual reality games and experiences, and is particularly impressed by the sense of presence VR affords.
"If there's a character in front of you, your brain thinks they're actually there," he said. So suddenly there's a distance you're trying to keep when you talk to them.
"I had a very weird experience in a VR game. It was during a cutscene where the characters are moving around me and I was very close to one, really looking at it. But I wasn't paying attention so when he moved forward, he went through my body. And I can't tell you how weird that felt. It was almost mystical, like someone going through you. You feel it. Your brain is tricked."