During the Game Developers Conference 2015 this week a huge amount of focus has been put on virtual reality technology. With the Oculus Rift consumer build right around the corner, Sony’s Project Morpheus pegged for an early 2016 release and the newly announced HTC Vive having Valve’s backing to deliver the experience to smartphones, the future of VR is looking bright.
There are plenty of games we’d want to experience in virtual reality, and if the developer build of the Oculus Rift has taught us anything, it’s that the new tech can potentially add a great deal of immersion to games we know and love, thus rendering them far more than simply another gimmick of peripheral.
Related: 32% of Consumers Interested in Purchasing Virtual Reality Headset
With that being said, here are the top 8 established video game series we’d love to make a move towards virtual reality:
Top 10 Gaming Series We Hope to in Virtual Reality
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Rock Band
With Rock Band 4 having recently been announced, rumors have already circulated that the game will feature live audience recordings for you to play your plastic instruments to. If this is to be the case, then the next obvious step would be to implement virtual reality, allowing the player to really feel like they're a rockstar with a baying crowd cheering them through their cover of Enter Sandman.
Rock Band already has a whole bunch of peripherals attached to it, so why not throw in one more? Harmonix has already stated that Rock Band 4, set to be released later this year, is a platform for updates and DLC, with them not planning on following it up with yearly iterations. If this is the case, then if one of those updates were to include Project Morpheus compatibility we could finally live our dream of playing in front of an adoring crowd without actually having to work hard or be talented.
Potential Best Bit: Nailing a hard-as-nails riff and being showered in cheers. Or completely screwing up and having rotten tomatoes thrown at your face.
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Silent Hills
I have no idea whether or not Silent Hills is going to go the route of its teaser demo P.T. and feature a firmly first-person viewpoint, but if it is then I'd hope this upcoming PS4 title would boast Project Morpheus support.
It's looking likely that Silent Hills is stay a long way off, given that its creator Hideo Kojima is busy wrapping up Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, so when it eventually does release I hope that Sony's VR headset will already be on the market. If that's the case, then including Morpheus support with the survival-horror game will be a no-brainer, and will add an extra layer of nail-biting tension to what is already shaping up to be one of the most horrifying games ever, if P.T. is anything to go by.
Potential Best Bit: Wading through that familiar Silent Hill fog, unsure of what horrifying monstrosity could lunge from out of it at any second. There are seemingly infinite ways in which Kojima could choose to terrify you by implementing VR functionality into Silent Hills.
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Grand Theft Auto
A Grand Theft Auto IV PC mod already allows the game to be played in first-person with Oculus Rift support, and the latest remastered edition of the GTAV for the PS4 and Xbox One (with the PC version just around the corner) added an official first-person viewpoint to the game for the very first time. This means that Oculus Rift support should surely be just around the corner, right?
Given that Rockstar has a habit of taking its time (we're all still waiting for those GTA Online Heists to release), it's unlikely that the company would implement Oculus Rift support into GTAV PC following its launch. However, we can rely on modders to do what developers won't, and hopefully they have something special lined up for the Rift and the world of Los Santos.
Potential Best Bit: If Grand Theft Auto V were to have Oculus Rift support, be it official or modded, the GTA Online game mode Top Fun would certainly be a highlight. Pitting a team of players controlling fight jets against a team of players riding motorcycles, this particular game mode is an exhilarating race to the finish line, with the motorcyclists attempting to outrun the fighter jets whilst the jets shoot explosives at them. It's one of the very best things about GTA Online, and would only be made more exciting by the introduction of the Rift.
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Any MMO. Seriously. Any at all.
The technical ramifications of trying to add VR into an MMO would be huge, and this is not something we're likely going to see in the near future, but imagine how incredible it would be to play the likes of a Guild Wars or a World of WarCraft in virtual reality.
Virtual reality being introduced into an MMO would only increase that sense of immersion that frequently leaves players dedicating hundreds upon hundreds of hours of their lives into the worlds of Tyria, Azeroth and the like, and while it would likely lead to many more relationships crumbling and college dropouts, there's no denying it'd be so much fun.
Potential Best Bit: Questing. Imagine rolling with a party of players in order to take on some oversized beast for that precious loot, with you all equipped with virtual reality headsets? I can't think of a better use for VR technology, and it makes me sad to think that it sounds a little too good to be true.
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Fallout
We're still waiting on Fallout 4's announcement, and with Bethesda announcing that they've got some huge news to deliver at this year's E3, we may finally get some confirmation that the much-anticipated sequel is on its way.
If that is to be the case, then implementing Oculus Rift support in the PC version of the game would be incredible. Skyrim, another game by Bethesda, has already been modded to include Oculus Rift support, and while it's workable, it's not the full VR RPG experience fans are clamoring for. If Fallout 4 were to be announced at E3, I'd hope that it would jump onto the virtual reality bandwagon with gusto, as exploring the Wastelands in such a fashion would be incredible.
Potential Best Bit: Simply strolling through the Wastelands as a marauding, deadly loner would be enough to justify me purchasing an Oculus Rift. Fallout 3 had one of the most well-realized worlds in modern video game history, and being placed inside the setting of the next iteration in the series would be like a dream come true.
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Mirror's Edge
Since the Oculus Rift was first unveiled people have been pointing towards Mirror's Edge as a game that could really make great use of the tech, and that theory still stands. Mirror's Edge 2 is set to release in 2016, with Project Morpheus pegged to release in the first half of that year, while the Oculus Rift is said to be moving towards consumer models in late 2015. This means that the game could well feature virtual reality support.
The benefits of playing Mirror's Edge 2 in virtual reality are obvious. The sensation of free-running with a VR headset could potentially prove to be the definitive Morpheus/Rift experience, and allow us to believe that we are actually skilled at parkour from the safety of our own couch.
Potential Best Bit: No weapon playthrough. If Mirror's Edge 2 is to ape its predecessor and allow the game to be played without necessarily having to use weapons, completing it by doing nothing more than learning how to successfully evade enemies by hopping from wall to wall, sliding underneath tables and generally being a badass would be an experience best lived in virtual reality.
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Portal
Valve showcased a virtual reality Portal demo for its HTC Vive device, a VR headset which works exclusively with HTC smartphones, though I desperately want to see a fully-fledged Portal game with VR support.
Worries of motion sickness aside, flying through those blue/orange portals at maximum velocity gives the player a tremendous sense of speed, which would only be heightened when playing with VR headset strapped to your face.
Potential Best Bit: Sharing a room with GLaDOS. Portal's acerbic antagonist is one of the most beloved video game characters of all time, despite her/it spending the vast majority of both games insulting the player. While sharing a room with the all-knowing machine would likely put a dent in our collective self-esteem, it would undoubtedly be a lot of fun.
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Rollercoaster Tycoon
If you've seen that new Rollercoaster Tycoon World trailer, you'll know that the game looks terrible. Somehow looking worse than its predecessor, which is 10 years its senior, I don't exactly have the highest of hopes for the future of the once popular franchise. However, that could change if the series were to take a step towards reality and allow us to experience the thrill of a rollercoaster in virtual reality.
Now this would hardly be a huge, fantastical leap forward for the gaming industry, given that theme parks are dotted around everywhere and you could therefore just as easily go and experience one in real life, but there's a great deal of potential in being able to build your own theme parks, and then take a ride on them for yourself.
Potential Best Bit: Creating a half-finished rollercoaster that will send you plummeting to your death which, with the help of virtual reality, would turn the typically pleasant Rollercoaster Tycoon series into a horror game in which we live out one of our very worst fears.
