Guerilla Cambridge developed arena shooter Rigs: Mechanized Combat League will be available at the PlayStation VR’s launch and this new trailer reminds us why it’s one of our most anticipated titles for the platform.
Rigs: Mechanized Combat League is somewhat of an anomaly amongst first generation virtual reality titles in that it resolutely targets hardcore gamers, not just in terms of its chosen genres—a team-based arena shooter—but in terms of its accompanying game mechanics.
Whereas most titles appearing for the PSVR alongside Sony’s console-powered virtual reality platform’s launch have sensibly opted for safe locomotion techniques to ensure those sensitive to traditional joypad induced sickness in VR are well catered for, Rigs opts instead to challenge you to “just deal with it”.
Rigs is a multiplayer mech combat game that pits you and two other teammates against a rival faction. The aim of the game? To destroy your opponents, collect dropped orbs of energy and score points by dropping through a central ‘goal’.
After my time with the title at E3 last year, I described the game thus:
Excellent anti-aliasing, high geometry scenery and mechs really give Rigs the feeling of a triple-A experience. It’s a welcome change from the more simplistic target stylings of the majority of early Morpheus titles. It’s also rendered smoothly, with low persistence of vision allowing the screen to melt away becoming a window on the action instead. This is early code of course, and there were a couple of occasions where frame-rate faltered, but for the most part it was near flawless.
Gameplay too is a cut above, with action reminiscent of titles like Titanfall – especially in its reach for verticality. Boosting into the air before unleashing two rockets and watching them hit home against an unsuspecting enemy as you descend was wonderfully and familiarly satisfying.
Rigs looks to have the multiplayer first person shooter space largely to itself right now, so it’ll be interesting to see how well those hardcore locomotion controls are received by VR newbies.
Either way, The new 30 second trailer conveys the action well, and we’re now looking forward to its arrival on October 13 even more.