Crytek has released their impressive VR tech demo Back to Dinosaur Island 2, the precursor to their forthcoming Oculus Rift exclusive The Climb and PlayStation VR exclusive Robinson: The Journey, to download for free right now.
One of Road to VR‘s favourite demos at E3 2015, Back to Dinosaur Island 2 represented a milestone for developer Crytek as representing the company’s increased and impressive commitment to virtual reality game development.
The demo would later evolve into the forthcoming Oculus Rift exclusive title The Climb and features their CryEngine in full flow, generating beautiful pre-historic vistas as you, the player, attempts to scale an immense cliff. However, the demo is also the pre-cursor to the developer’s next major project, PlayStation VR exclusive Robinson: The Journey.
Back to Dinosaur Island 2 gives players the chance to get to grips with Crytek‘s ingenious gaze-based climbing gameplay, which will feature fully in The Climb to be released exclusively for the Oculus Rift later this year. The Oculus Rift went up for pre-order in January and is expected to begin shipping later this month.
Download Back to Dinosaur Island 2 on Steam for Oculus Rift
Crytek has thrown itself headlong into virtual reality development with “I’m not going to go into specific numbers, but I would argue that we’re one of the largest VR development teams on the planet today,” said David Bowman, Director of Production at Crytek, speaking with us at E3 last year. “We’ve one full team working on Robinson and that team’s growing as we speak … and of course we’re going to continue with experimentation in VR” said Bowman. “One example in the demo you’re about to see it’s possible to fall, and if we let you bounce off the rocks like we did in the first version of this demo you would get sick.” says Bowman. “So we did 20 iterations of falling ’til we got to a solution set that we like. That’s the kind of things you have to do to make great VR.”
Crytek said they’re releasing the demo after previously only being seen at industry events due to the positive feedback the team received. Crytek’s Executive Producer, Elijah Freeman, said, “The feedback we received from people who played Back to Dinosaur Island 2 was really encouraging, and the lessons we learned from creating it have been significant for our current VR projects. The demo goes beyond being merely a visual showcase and includes interactive elements that harness the unique power of the medium. By making this experience available for free, we hope as many players as possible will take the opportunity to feel truly present in a new world of dinosaurs.”