war thunder project morpheus

At a Sony press event today during Gamescom 2014, the company showed the flight combat game War Thunder running on Sony’s VR headset, Project Morpheus, and with a ‘HOTAS’ joystick accessory.

War Thunder has had support for the Oculus Rift DK1 for some time and recently added support for the Oculus Rift DK2. Today is the first time the company is showing War Thunder working with Sony’s Project Morpheus VR headset.

See Also: War Thunder’s First Pass at Oculus Rift DK2 Support Needs Work 

War Thunder, originally for PC only, went cross-platform by launching on PS4 at the beginning of June. At the press event, the game appears to have been running on the PS4 using both the Morpheus headset and the Thrustmaster HOTAS (Hands On Throttle and Stick) Warthog joystick setup. It appears that this is also the first time that the HOTAS Warthog has been shown with compatibility for the PS4.

To our knowledge, this makes War Thunder the first game to be currently available on PS4 that supports Morpheus, though the build of the game enabling the headset likely hasn’t been deployed to PS4 yet.

Road to VR Editor Paul James shares his impressions:

Finding out that War Thunder was playable on Sony’s Morpheus VR Headset at Sony’s Behind Closed Doors session was surprise enough, but then when I saw they’d also hooked up a full HOTAS control system, it really blew me away.

My first time with Project Morpheus, jumping into War Thunder was a wild ride. Whilst the fluidity of the session didn’t match the best of the Oculus DK2 demos, I soon forgot about low persistence and was quickly sucked into the pure joy of swiveling my gaze around the glorious scenery whilst banking sharply and playing on throttle.

Newsletter graphic

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.


Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Psuedonymous

    It appears that this is also the first time that the HOTAS Warthog has been shown with compatibility for the PS4.

    The other way around, really. The PS3 and PS4 have already shown compatibility with USB HID keyboards and mice, so HID joysticks aren’t surprising. It’s down to Sony to expose alternate inputs to developers, rather than Thrustmaster to modify a joystick to a proprietary standard.