This story is part of our new Future of Gaming series, a three-site look at gaming’s most pioneering technologies, players, and makers.
When looking forward at the future of gaming, it’s hard for the gaze not to drift, inevitably, to virtual reality. In some ways, VR has been the “future” of gaming for more than 40 years at this point, even as most of its forays into regular reality have found themselves tied rather anticlimactically to the past, buried in a landfill of TV glasses, Virtual Boys, and other failed attempts at bringing the future to life. It’s only in the last decade or so that tech has caught up to gaming’s Neal Stephenson-esque ambitions, making headsets just ubiquitous and (relatively) inexpensive enough to support a games industry of their own. Even then, though, the results have been limited by boundaries—not just of technology, but of human beings’ willingness to submit to the kind of full vision and sound immersion that virtual reality requires. (To say nothing of games that require exaggerated physical movements, or even just standing for long periods of time.) It’s one of the key reasons VR games tend to be decidedly short: It’s all that most of us can take.
2016’s Arizona Sunshine was an exception to that trend. At four-plus hours in length, Vertigo Games’ technically slick zombie shooter—eventually ported to every VR platform under the sun, even Sony’s typically title-starved original PlayStation VR—was short for its length, but massive for its medium. Its upcoming sequel, Arizona Sunshine 2, which we had to chance to play at a press event in San Francisco last month, promises to be even beefier—and not just because the game lets you jam hamburger patties straight into your virtual face in a quick effort to restore some health after a rough encounter with the undead.
During our hour of time with the new game, guided by game director Peter Duerloo, much emphasis was put on the new features being built into this second title, most especially a canine companion, “Buddy,” who is made integral to play—fetching objects (or severed limbs) for the player, tackling zombies as you desperately work to reload your guns, and cutting down on some of the occasionally oppressive loneliness of the original. (And, arguably, of VR itself, a medium that can leave players isolated at times even when they’re in a crowded room.)
At the same time—and despite some notable glitches, to be expected in a title still in development when we took it out for a spin—we were impressed by how tightly the sequel built on the core gameplay of the first game, delivering zombie shooting that hit a perfect balance between instilling a sensation of mastery and one of being frenetically overwhelmed; there are few things as satisfying as finishing one of the game’s deliberately complicated reload animations just fast enough to pick off the “Fred” bearing down on you, or hurling an improvised mine right into the biggest possible horde. (Don’t worry, Buddy can’t explode along with the ambulatory corpses—which we confirmed by asking, not trying, so don’t get mad.)
But given that we were also decidedly out of breath by the time we got through that opening hour of gameplay, we were also curious about where Duerloo saw VR gaming’s future as a whole: Is there a future where playing in a headset is the norm, while more traditional screen-and-controller-based gaming eventually gives way to the immersive experience? Can VR supplant traditional gaming?
Acknowledging the industry is still “a bit sluggish, in a way,” Duerloo argued that VR certainly could take up that front position, pointing to newer technology like Meta’s Quest 2 that makes it easier for VR to reach the “plug and play” point necessary for players to be able to pick up controllers, toss on a helmet, and be in a game as quickly as with traditional gaming setups. (“[VR] needs to reduce in cost, as well,” Duerloo granted, pointing toward the continued need to build enthusiasm for the medium in order to increase the install base and bring prices down.)
Playing Arizona Sunshine 2 made a genuine case for the strengths of the medium—while also highlighting a few of its frustrations. (Picking stuff up off the ground was a persistent problem for us, although it’s possible we were screwing up the “point at it and watch it fly into your hands” technique.) But there’s something undeniably thrilling about being in a world where you have to constantly be checking your back to make sure a zombie isn’t sneaking up on you; glancing down at your gun to check how many shots are left in it; and, yeah, putting a chef hat on your dog so that he can look extra-cute while mauling the undead. The immersion is exhilarating—even if it couldn’t entirely sell us on the idea of playing like this for the same lengths that we often (and not entirely healthily) apply to traditional gaming.
Interestingly, Vertigo isn’t just looking forward to gaming’s future with its current crop of VR titles, but also toward its past: The studio has just released a VR remake of adventure game classic The 7th Guest, driven by an innovative new volumetric video technology that allows the studio to present its own versions of the game’s famous (and occasionally infamous) full-motion video acting in the form of 3D virtual reality performances of live actors. (It’s a fascinating effect, allowing the player to move around the characters and see them from multiple angles, something usually impossible with live-action performances.)
Directed by Paul van der Meer, the game takes plenty of inspirations from the 1993 classic, while also adjusting numerous factors, both for its new medium, and for modern appetites. (Among other things, van der Meer told us that one of his big inspirations for remaking the game was his youthful desire to explore its central haunted mansion in full—only to realize, when building it in VR, that its original floor plan made no sense; fine for a game where you’re just clicking between abstract rooms, far more or a problem when dropping players into a VR world.)
Van der Meer also acknowledged the difficulties that VR can face with accessibility, noting that one of the reasons the new game makes heavy use of a spirit lantern—a lamp players can shine on various haunted surfaces in the game to reveal eerie visuals or necessary clues—was because it was a mode of interaction that didn’t require extensive physical reaching from players. (In some ways, you could argue that looking, not touching, is the fundamental verb of VR, at least as it’s mostly being practiced today.)
At the same time, he put an especial emphasis on the “tactile” importance of manipulating puzzles with your hands—stating, among other things, that the team was frequently asking themselves whether they were making sufficient use of the VR and 3D natures of the game when they were putting its challenges together. (He also noted that responses to accessibility concerns are often built directly into the storefronts through which VR games are distributed, since part of the process of being certified involves ensuring games have options that allow them to be played by the maximum number of people.)
On the topic of VR’s future, meanwhile, van der Meer told us he saw the field as part of the future of gaming, but not its entire basis, just one element of the gaming diet going forward:
It’s just like mobile gaming. When that came to be, and then became so huge, it didn’t just replace console gaming—and even console gaming didn’t replace PC gaming. VR is very suited for certain kinds of experiences. It can be very intense, but it’s also a reason why people don’t want to do it all the time, because it can be exhausting, just being very physical on your feet. Sometimes you just want to lay on the couch and play a game and you have to just not move.
And those things can perfectly go together. I don’t see why not. That’s how I game. Sometimes I want to dive into a VR game and see these sort of interesting new things they’re doing. And sometimes I just want to play Mass Effect.
The 7th Guest is out now on most major VR storefronts; Arizona Sunshine 2 comes out later this year, with a demo available now.