‘Evangelion’ VR Game Will Primarily Use Hand-tracking, Increasing Ease-of-use at Cost of Interaction Fidelity

By
Scott Hayden
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8

At the Neon Genesis Evangelion 30th Anniversary event in Tokyo this weekend, Pixelity showed off its upcoming XR game EVANGELION: Δ CROSS REFLECTIONS, revealing it’s going all-in on hand-tracking.

The News

On stage at the event, game director MK Choi gave a quick overview of the game, noting that Evangelion: Cross Reflections will feature “controller-free interaction, utilizing hand-tracking technology that allows players to perform all actions using only hand and finger movements.”

Demo booths were available on-site, giving a few lucky event-goers a first public hands-on with the game. We haven’t seen a full demo session in action yet, although X user ‘togepytogepi‘ showed off a bit of the hand-tracking-based interactions, seen in the videos below:

From the video, it appears the user is punching, shooting and selecting specific buffs that trigger quick-time events, requiring the user to punch a series of stars in order.

While the demo appears to focus on combat and less on story elements, X user ‘EVA_Armaros‘ also managed to capture what appears to be the game’s first official hype video:

Evangelion: Cross Reflections is slated arrive as a three-part series based on the story of all 26 episodes of the original anime, with the first instalment expected to arrive in 2026. The studio hasn’t detailed target platform yet, however it seems fairly clear we can count at least on the Quest platform.

There are set to be new characters however, as following Choi’s presentation, four voice actors portraying the game’s newly created characters took the stage: Gakuto Kajiwara as Martin Dason Holloway, Hana Hishikawa as Rimi Okada, Tasuku Hatanaka as Tomohito Yagi, and Manaka Iwami as Erisa Nozaki.

On stage, it was also announced that global hands-on events are scheduled to take place throughout the year leading up to release this year. We’ll be following the studio’s X profile for more information in the meantime.

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My Take

Although Evangelion: Cross Reflections could include support for standard VR controllers, the decision to primarily rely on hand-tracking essentially signals that it’s targeting much casual gameplay.

At least from the limited gameplay we’ve seen—which rightfully might even be in-progress tutorial stuff—it’s suggesting that Evangelion fans should probably expect something more in the vein of a VR narrative experience, similar to what we saw with Mobile Suit Gundam: Silver Phantom.

Personally speaking, I’m not exactly excited about playing on-rails experiences like Mobile Suit Gundam: Silver Phantom, which felt like it was straddling a passive film-watching experience with some token gameplay stuff. For me, it ended up feeling more like an extended demo (or brand activation) than something that really tapped into the immersive possibility of having your own mecha fighting robot.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • XRC

    Quest only then? (Hand tracking takes majority of PCVR headsets out of the equation)

    • Andrew Jakobs

      Or pico, or samsung, or vive, or play for dreams, or Apple vision pro, or psvr2.

      • XRC

        pico, samsung, play for dream, Apple vision pro – all standalone headsets with streaming functions (Not PCVR)

        don't recall my Vive having hand tracking?

        • Andrew Jakobs

          Yes they are all standalone headsets with handtracking capabilities as you say "Quest only then?", so it might not be quest only..

  • Sven Viking

    Interesting decision when EVAs have controls pretty similar to twin VR controllers.

  • Kem Roolhaas

    oh cool, at the hospital scene?

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