Darknet is Coming to Samsung Gear VR, Developer E-McNeill Shares Thoughts

Today’s flood of content announcements following Samsung’s Gear VR announcement is starting to look like a procession of VR’s old guard classics. Darknet, Oculus Rift enabled hacking game originally conceived during an Oculus sponsored VR Jam competition (and finally coming first place) is on it’s way to Samsung’s new VR headset.

E McNeill Enthuses About Gear VR

If it wasn’t obvious during Samsung’s launch event, it’s certainly becoming so now – Gear VR is no half-assed VR solution, quite the opposite. In fact, it seems as if Oculus’s partnership with Samsung has been a match made in heaven if early reports from developers are to be believed.

One such developer who has had early access to a Gear VR developer kit is E McNeill, developer of Darknet – winner of the Oculus VR Jam 2013 (then known as Ciess) and one of the best early VR experiences plus a great game to boot. Now, Darknet is coming to mobile VR via the Gear VR headset and in a new blog post, E has outlined his experiences with the device he’s had to keep secret for so long.

“Phew! I’ve been holding that back for a long time” McNeill exclaims on finally being able to tell people his news and right off the bat he’s enthusiastic about the new device:

The bottom line: it’s good. Resolution is high, latency is low, and it’s a remarkably smooth experience overall. Efficiency and performance will be a challenge, but the platform is solid, and it’s definitely possible to build truly fantastic VR games on it. 

He goes onto to highlight the altered mindset he believes developers will need to adopt when developing for a powerful but ultimately mobile platform:

The Note 4 is incredibly powerful for something that fits in your pocket, but performance is still a concern. It’s a mobile device, after all, and most games built for PCs will require a lot of optimization before they’ll run well. Developers will also need to keep temperature and battery life in mind; VR consumes a lot of power, and anything that makes the game run faster will help save battery. No optimization is ever wasted.

And on that glorious 1440p / QHD Super AMOLED panel?

The Note 4 has a resolution of 2560×1440, a bump up from the 1080p resolution of the Oculus Rift DK2. It’s a big improvement, although it’s not as noticeable a difference as the jump from the DK1 to the DK2. You can still see pixels if you try, and more distant objects still seem a little blurry. Still, it’s the best resolution I’ve ever experienced in VR, and it’s extremely useful for games that contain a lot of text or graphical detail.

In addition to the blog, McNeill joined Reverend Kyle for a special Gear VR roundtable discussion, in which he and Proton Pulse developer (also on it’s way to the Gear VR) Justin Moravetz enthuse about their extensive time with Samsung’s headset. You can check that out here.

We can’t wait to get our hands on Darknet running wires free on the Samsung Gear VR. We’ll keep you up to date as and when we find out more.