It has long been known that Star Citizen should get VR support. But the release of Half-Life: Alyx brought the topic back into the focus of the players. Now the developer comments on the implementation. It's not just that harder to realize VR in SciFi simulation, he also wants to eliminate some annoying aspects of Half-Life: Alyx.
What hurdles does VR have to overcome in Star Citizen?
Rendering just a VR image is easy, according to the Junior Engine programmer using the alias Silvan-CIG from developer Cloud Imperium Games. A good VR experience, however, consists of much more than simply depicting the game in three dimensions.
Getting around is the biggest problem: In a multiplayer game like Star Citizen, the most important thing is that users can move around normally. A teleport function like Half-Life: Alyx falls out. But this creates new problems. How do you deal with motion sickness in a continuous movement?
Phased implementation: The team therefore plans to gradually introduce VR into Star Citizen. There is not yet a precise plan for this, but Silvan could imagine that the VR option would initially only be activated in the hangar or in the cockpits of the vehicles.
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A better experience than in HL: Alyx
He doesn't want to promise anything, but his personal goal is to achieve a VR experience "similar to that of Alyx". But he doesn't want to stop there and advance the technology. For example, while you only see your hands in Alyx, you should be in Star Citizen perceive your entire body can.
He has for the future similar plans to Valve too. The developer of Half-Life and Steam is already working on the concept of a brain interface. With such a you could log into a digital world like in the film Matrix.
But before that Star Citizen has to solve other problems. Because in contrast to Half-Life: Alyx did it not developed from scratch with VR in mind. And more often there are sections in the game in which you are removed from control for short animations. With a VR headset, this can quickly lead to motion sickness.
The Cloud Imperium Games game is still in an alpha phase. The release of version 3.9 is currently nearing. The planned VR support cannot yet be found on the current roadmap.
