I have to say, when I first saw the announce trailer for Marvel’s Iron Man VR, I wasn’t exactly blown away. Now that I’ve actually had a chance to try the game for myself, my tune has totally changed—there’s huge potential for this to be an excellent VR game, thanks to innovative flying mechanics which really channels the feeling of unrestricted flight in the suit of the iconic hero.

Update (July 19th, 2019): Iron Man VR developer Camouflaj published a new behind the scenes video which offers a fresh look at the game’s flying mechanics which manage to deliver an incredible sense of speed and control.

Over at the official PlayStation Blog, Camouflaj’s Ryan Payton explained some of the key concepts behind the game’s flying mechanics, which includes “calculations of up to a dozen forces, such as thrust, drag, and gravity—as well as our assistance systems—that output Iron Man’s accurate and believable trajectory through the sky.”

Momentum Conservation
Whenever possible, we preserve the player’s forward momentum. These systems allow the player to carve turns at high speed and enable our dogfight mechanics.

Bumpers
Inspired by those balloon-like “bumpers” at bowling alleys, we built an invisible system that cushions and guides the player around hard edges of buildings and other geometry. The bumpers also soften the blow when the player rams into something at high speeds. Under the hood, we account for potential upcoming collisions and gently apply collision-avoidance forces.

Contextual Suit Settings
It turns out, the player doesn’t want to accelerate from zero to 300 kilometers per hour when they are trying to delicately fly around more confined spaces. Wherever more precise flight speed is needed, we apply different suit settings based on context. This allows the player to utilize their thrusters for both small-scale maneuvers as well as unlocking full-blown, face-melting thrust when they need it.

Original Article (April 2nd, 2019): Iron Man is of course known well known for the ‘repulsors’ on his hands and feet which offer both propulsion for flying and act as laser-like energy weapons. The studio behind the title, Camouflaj, has clearly spent a lot of time figuring out how to make the core flight mechanics feel awesome. They achieved that through a combination of immersive input (thrust is dictated by the direction the repulsors on your hands are facing) with enough assists to keep things comfortable while still making players feel like they’re in total control of where they go. The studio has also smartly designed the system to work in full 360 degrees (which is normally just about impossible for PSVR games), which further lets players get lost in the fantasy.

When I got to try the game for the first time recently, I started out with some flight training which, after just a few minutes, had me zipping and zooming around a waterscape full of sea stacks.

To fly forward, you put your hands behind you facing backwards, which directs the thrust backwards and thus sends you forward. To gain altitude you angle your hands downward. To fly left and right you can of course point your hands side to side, and to turn you just rotate your body.

After getting the hang of it, the whole flying thing just feels awesome. I was able to maneuver my way between the sea stacks at high speeds, banking turns, gaining altitude quickly as needed, and even forcefully shedding altitude by putting my hands over my head to thrust downward as I threaded a few needles.

The flight system has been smartly built so that it’s capable of working even when players are rotating in 360 degrees, away from PSVR tracking camera. It seems this is achieved by designing the flying mechanics to constrain the range of possible motion so that IK can be employed when the camera loses line of sight of the controllers. In practice, the system that made this work felt invisible as I was playing (aside from the occasional funky arm movement) and I had no sense for what my real-world forward direction was (whereas knowing the forward direction is essential in many other PSVR games). Because I didn’t have to worry about where forward was, I ended up being more immersed because I stopped considering the outside world.

Combat also ties nicely into flying. Because you have lots of momentum as you jet around, you can lay off your thrust for a second and bring your arms forward to aim your repulsors. In practice, especially when you’re moving at a steady clip through the air, the best approach seems to be to get yourself on an upward arc trajectory with some downward thrusting, then put your hands up in front of you to shoot your repulsors as you clear the climax of your arc, before pulling your hands back behind you to keep flying.

Image courtesy Camouflaj

There’s also a flying punch attach which allows you to zoom forward quickly to smash opponents with your fist. This works by holding a button to prepare for the punch and then doing an actual punch gesture in the direction of your intended target. It feels a little heavy on the auto-aim, but is ultimately successful in making you feel like Iron Man putting the hurt on the bad guys.

My flying and fighting skills in Iron Man VR were put to the test in an action sequence which started with me as suitless Tony Stark on a private plane. After some story banter in the cabin, an enemy drone blew the side of the plane open, launching me out in the process.

And if you’ve seen any of the Iron Man movies lately, you can probably guess what happened next—I’m free-falling toward the ground and reach my arms out as pieces of the Iron Man suit come flying out of the sky and snap onto my body. First it’s the left hand, then the right. Then a big chest piece comes crashing right into my chest, and last but not least the helmet. I’ve gotta say—as someone who has no special affinity for Iron Man—the sequence did make me feel like a total badass.

Once I was suited up and flying, I immediately went in pursuit of the damaged plane which was careening through the sky with Stark’s confidant, Pepper Pots, still on board. As I approached I had to fight the malicious drones which were responsible for the attack in the first place. The whole battle took place with the falling plane as the centerpiece, and it felt quite convincingly like I was keeping pace with the plane as it cut through the sky, even though I was maneuvering around it while fighting off attacking drones.

Aside from blasting (and punching) the drones, there were also a few scripted moments where I had to land on the plane’s wing or come up underneath to fix some damaged part. Thanks to the fun flying mechanics, making a slick landing right onto the plane did feel really cool.

After the flying, fighting, and fixing of the plane, I eventually pulled Pepper from the falling wreckage and saved the day.

It was a lot of fun, and the experience made me feel like Iron Man VR has a ton of potential. It’s too early to say how it might turn out (the game is set for a release sometime this year) but what I’ll be looking for going forward is whether or not the game can create enough variety to keep things feeling fresh. The feeling of flying and the action sequence with the plane was pretty awesome, but it’s going to take more than that (or similar scenarios) to extract the most fun out of a really well crafted set of VR flying mechanics.

For the studio’s part, they say that Iron Man VR will tell its own unique story, and this is something they’re spending significant time on. They’ve also said that players will unlock upgrades to enhance the Iron Man suit throughout the game.

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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."
  • NooYawker

    I have a game called Eagle flight which is pretty cool to get that flying around sensation. This looks really fun, but when will they do a SpiderMan VR game?

    • MosBen

      There’s a short experience that I think came out around the release of Homecoming.

      • NooYawker

        I have it, you’re on a roof top shooting web at stuff. And when you get to swing.. it ends. It shows how cool a spidey VR game can be.

        • MosBen

          Yep. It’s pretty cool. I wonder if they tried web swinging and decided that it’d be too nauseating in VR.

          • Baldrickk

            That was my inital thought. The motion is completely “wrong” compared to your body’s other senses.

        • GammaSmasher71

          There’s another one getting released with the upcoming Spiderman Far From Home that lets you do some actual swinging around.

        • GammaSmasher71

          Not announced for psvr yet, but I’ve gotta assume, since it’s a Sony movie, it should be available for psvr.

          https://www.google.com/amp/s/uploadvr.com/spider-man-vr/amp/

  • knuckles625

    Welp, there’s a game thats definitely not coming to Quest or Rift S ;-)

  • ClipHalfFull

    Just so you know, you wrote “The bag guys”.

    • Sven Viking

      He means these guys. Presumably they’re the standard enemy type.

      • benz145

        This is my favorite comment in a while : P

    • benz145

      Haha thank you, fixing now : )

  • Haven’t you felt motion sickness with this movement mechanic?

    • benz145

      Not so far. There was an AR-like interface which effectively functioned as a cockpit, visually, to add comfort.

      • Darshan

        Secret of Comfort is lying in point of refinance, when we are proceeding at high speeds there is always a point of reference in front of eyes stationary like in case of normal running runner’s nose, in case of fighter plane flying a cockpit, in case of moving car a driver cabin. as long as stationary point of reference exists motion won’t be jarring or nauseating.

  • Alexandre

    The reaction for this game at State of Play was mixed to negative. Maybe it was a poor choice of trailer.

    But the gameplay is looking good, maybe people will give it a try.

    • benz145

      Yeah I think the trailer did a bad job of selling how it actually feels to play, which is very embodying.

      • Sven Viking

        Yeah, from the trailer I was almost sure it was a rail shooter.

    • namekuseijin

      it was mostly flatties pissed it’s not yet another flat game

      • Tags I812

        flatties or fatties? lol…. awww man i gotta move to play a game….. no way.. hand me chips and dip.

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    • WyrdestGeek

      Trailers not selling the VR well is a recurring problem, right?

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  • namekuseijin

    can’t wait. This year is being totally awesome for VR in general

  • RationalThought

    Exclusivity to PSVR is just silly……hopefully this is just a 6 month exclusivity deal. The PSVR has no competition in the VR space……in the console arena it stands alone. Exclusivity is just damaging to the growth of VR. Something that Valve and Oculus have learned to varying degrees.

    • Orogogus

      It looks like Sony is the publisher, so I wouldn’t get your hopes up.

    • Tailgun

      Doesn’t seem to be too damaging for Sony. The PSVR has outsold all the other VR headsets combined.

  • Darshan

    Don’t seem to be too complex graphically, Oculus should bring it on Quest once PS Exclusivity is over, should be an easy port for developer.

    • Anon

      So, you have to put your hands behind your back to move forward…the Quest (or Rift S for that matter) can’t handle the concept of Iron Man controls.

      This is one of those cases where even a PSVR’s tracking will enable devs to do neat stuff you can’t do with inside out tracking.

      • Dave

        This is of course BS. You don’t need to move you arms that far back to achieve the mechanic on show. I don’t have any issues with space pirate trainer or golf club vr. Since the recent patch it’s even better.

        • knuckles625

          Not trying to be a jerk, just going by what’s shown and whats said in the article (plus X number of movies): “To fly forward, you put your hands behind you facing backwards, which directs the thrust backwards and thus sends you forward.” That’s not a mechanic that works well for any extended period of time on any of the inside out headsets.

          Totally agree that tracking’s gotten better and works for a lot of game mechanics (behind the head weapon changes work because they’re quick and accel/gyro can extrapolate for a little bit). But unless the pose for the primary mode of movement in the game to something less directly drawn from Iron man canon, I can’t imagine it’ll work on inside out headsets.

  • ale bro

    This looks like an expensive version of Lander 8009 VR.

  • wonder if the movement type in this game will be similar to the Iron Man flight mod in Robo Recall, because you really feel in control in that mod (obviously, without the bumpers)

  • Jarilo

    iS IT cOmiNg tO QuESt ?

    • Skip

      Seeing as Sony is the publisher, I highly doubt that there would be a version for the Oculus or any other HMD.

    • alex

      with some chance, SideQuest ftw

  • Justin Davis

    There’s a modifier in Jet Island that lets you fly like Iron Man with thrust going down from your palms.

  • Francesco Fazio

    Why only for PSVR ? Stupid very stupid

  • Francesco Fazio

    Why it is going to be only for PS VR (that btw is one of the worst vr HMD out there) ?

    I hate this thing really …