New Retro Arcade is easily the best virtual reality arcade experience we’ve seen yet, but it was released prior to the introduction of motion controls from HTC and Oculus and before room-scale gameplay. Somehow the game seems like it was designed for both from the beginning, and now the developer is teasing a new version in the works for the Vive and SteamVR.

Developer Digital Cybercherries tweeted a major tease today about a forthcoming version of New Retro Arcade with support for the HTC Vive.

The title is a brilliant recreation of an ’80s arcade which is populated with cabinets full of classic arcade games which actually work thanks to an underlying emulator. The UE4-based visuals are top notch, and thoughtful mini-games—bowling, darts, and a basketball arcade machine—couldn’t be a more lucky fit for today’s VR systems with motion input controllers.

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The title, which we called a “must-play homage to video game culture old and new” in our review of the Oculus Rift version of the game way back in 2014, was begging for motion input and room-scale gameplay from the start—in fact we called out both in that same review, long before the HTC Vive or Oculus’ Touch controllers were announced:

“I would have loved to have seen motion input options, which would make the mini games much more fun, and make item interactions far more intuitive.”

“It’s your standard WASD + mouse or left stick + right stick movement scheme depending upon which you’re using. Movement speed is kept slow enough to not make me sick, but some people are more sensitive than others and might benefit from an alternative way of interacting with the scene…”

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Being able to simply walk from one cabinet to the next in room-scale is going to be amazing, not to mention that interactions with nostalgic items like a gameboy and various cassette tapes (which can be played in a virtual boombox) are going to reach a new level of awesomeness. After room-scale and motion input, seemingly the only thing left on the wishlist is multiplayer support.

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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."
  • Dotcommer

    Finally, we’ll have a way to properly explain to future generations why “our” generation and childhood were some of the best! :p

    “What the heck is Galaga?”, “here, put this on”.

  • Jason Evangelho

    Yup, I’m going to live inside this.

  • sirlance

    Ready player one…..planet arcade….

    • Hyper Dash

      Archaide*
      That book sucked. Writing was bland, bad predictions, storyline was very predictable.

      • sirlance

        I grew up in the 80’s probably why I liked it…but to each his own…and thanks for the spell correction…I did the audio book….hopefully my vive will come soon. .dk2 still holding up though

        • Hyper Dash

          I wish I could say I was waiting for my Vive, but the truth is, I’ve already spent all my money on a computer to run it with. Hopefully before the year is out. Also waiting for the sweet Pascal 1080 GPU.

          • sirlance

            I understand it can get expensive trying to keep up….it just depends on how bad you want it 800 bucks acually isn’t much money, I payed that much for an amiga computer in the 80’s which was like 1700 today ” no hard drive and 512k memory …it was elite dangerous in VR that got me to upgrade to a 980ti. .”I’ve always like space sims” my kids game too so imagine having to build 3 extra rigs…..anyways all I can say is take a part time job for extra bucks

    • CMcD

      Also grew up in the 80s and loved ready player one, and I listened to the audio version as well! Hoping there are secrets or Easter eggs hidden within this ;) the little arcade machine in steams The Lab felt cool, can’t wait to use motion controls on these cabinets!

  • AreaMan

    Blips and chiiiiiiitz!

  • REP

    So Arcade is now obsolete.

  • Clearly what the world needs now is a VR multiplayer competitive air hockey addition to the other cabs in the arcade. And a multiplayer, multi-avatar version of Gauntlet.

  • Jeggo

    Will I get a quarter if I land a pefect game in Pacman?