‘Myst’ Spiritual Successor ‘Obduction’ Gets Street Date, Supports New Nvidia VR Tech

By
Paul James
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14

A street date for the long-awaited VR-enabled Obduction, created by Cyan, a development studio set up by some of the team behind classic PC adventure Myst, has finally been announced.

Obduction was one of the very first titles we covered back in 2013, and was one of the early success stories for crowd funded projects, having raised some $1.1M on the then fledgling Kickstarter platform.

The title was created by members of the original Myst (and it’s sequel Riven) development team, with the project launching on that game’s 20th anniversary. The news for us of course was that (as an increasing number of projects were) the title was touting Oculus Rift support. Other than its obvious heritage for the nostalgic, ageing gamers out there, Obduction sported some pretty startling production design and the more sedate, puzzle oriented of the promised gameplay seemed ideal for virtual reality.

ObductionScreenshot03

Since then title has kept a relatively low profile, but Cyan have now released a new trailer for the title giving us probably the longest look yet at what to expect from the title, now with a release date set for July 24th this year.

Powered by Epic’s Unreal Engine 4, the game looks beautiful with that original Kickstarter concept production design now shining through in sumptuous looking, real-time rendered environments. And, unlike some early titles whose VR support waned during production, the Cyan team are planning Oculus Rift support right out of the gate. Not only that, they’ll be one of the first titles to take advantage of VR specific rendering technologies found in Nvidia’s latest Pascal-based GeForce GTX 1080 and 1070 GPUs, specifically Simultaneous Multi Projection and Lens Matched Shading, a hardware assisted technique to handle the rendering of multiple views (for example, stereoscopic VR) of a scene in a single pass, in theory increasing performance substantially.

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ObductionScreenshot061

Cyan recently pushed their release date from June to July 2016 citing Unreal Engine updates and some Oculus Rift support polishing requirements, but the title will be part of the Indiecade Showcase at E3 this month, with an early playable demo for the title available at UploadVR’s E3 party on June 14th.

Road to VR will of course be on the show floor at E3 2016 to bring  you the latest VR news.

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Paul James
Based in the UK, Paul has been immersed in interactive entertainment for the best part of 27 years and has followed advances in gaming with a passionate fervour. His obsession with graphical fidelity over the years has had him branded a ‘graphics whore’ (which he views as the highest compliment) more than once and he holds a particular candle for the dream of the ultimate immersive gaming experience. Having followed and been disappointed by the original VR explosion of the 90s, he then founded RiftVR.com to follow the new and exciting prospect of the rebirth of VR in products like the Oculus Rift. Paul joined forces with Ben to help build the new Road to VR in preparation for what he sees as VR’s coming of age over the next few years.
  • Jonathan Hogins

    Honest question – why are developers targeting the Oculus SDK when they could be targeting OpenVR and get Vive support for free?

    • victor

      Oculus support also free!

    • Deithwen Addan yn Carn Morvudd

      Asynchronous Timewarp, amongst other things?

      • Jonathan Hogins

        A reasonable suggestion, but I question any developer who chooses to prioritize a specific perf feature over doubling their consumer base.

        • Deithwen Addan yn Carn Morvudd

          I ultimately agree, which is why I hope (and wouldn’t doubt) that Vive support will be following swiftly after. (And kindly don’t mind the Vive fanboy below me, the poor full knows not his sin.)

    • Muddy

      Probably because Oculus/Facebook are in there behind the scenes dolling out dollars to developers and doing everything they can to get exclusive titles for their IOI like empire. Maybe they feel it’s the only way they can compete with the Vive because they sure as hell can’t compete head to head with hardware.

      • Zapin

        They are selling it on Steam so is this case Facebook is probably not to blame. They really should be encouraging VR for everything from Cardboard to Vive and all the many many VR alternatives in between rather than continuing to pretend that there are good reasons to trying to make a closed system around the Rift.

        • Muddy

          I totally agree and I think developers like this one need to take some responsibility right now because ultimately it is their actions that will corrupt the evolution of the VR ecosystem and the big losers will be us, the consumer.

  • Sam Illingworth

    But it would be so much better on Vive with room scale support! :(

    • Michigan Jay Sunde

      A first-person VR adventure game needs to have made room-scale consideration from the very beginning design stage, and needs that support baked firmly into its level design at every stage (like The Gallery : Call of the Starseed). The primary player-base for this game will be people on 2D displays, with Sit/Stand VR as an alternate, more immersive mode. I’m trying to develop a first-person game myself, and the difference in player locomotion between room-scale Vive and the Rift is absolutely enormous and head-splitting. Maybe they’ll add Vive support in the future, but it’s not just a switch you flip, and the Vive didn’t exist when they were getting started.

    • Zapin

      Hopefully there is support for proper VR controllers at least.

  • Zach Mauch

    There are plenty of games that are not right for room scale. That is fine. I just want to be able to play it with the vive. I don’t care if it doesn’t support room scale.

    • Charles

      Whether or not a VR game is designed for room scale, it still works as room scale – the tracking camera on both the Oculus and the Vive allow you to walk around (moreso on Vive).

  • Anony Anonymous

    good by gtx 970!