14 DAY TRIAL // Video game developer Jonathan Blow is announcing that his upcoming The Witness will get full support for virtual reality systems courtesy of a new collaboration between the game creator and Valve.
In an official announcement on his site, he explains that, “Last year I was pessimistic about VR systems in the near future. But I was fortunate enough to get a sneak peek at Valve’s virtual reality system. It is so much better than anything else I had used that I was instantly very excited by it.”
It will be interesting to see whether The Witness only focuses on the Oculus Rift, which is already available albeit in non-commercial form, or if there are plans to support a wider array of VR solutions.
Blow adds, “In late November I spent a few days at Valve’s offices working with Atman Binstock and Doug Church to adapt the HMD’s input system more thoroughly for The Witness and to build a few scenes that are playable on the device.”
Valve announced during the Steam Dev Days that it had no plans to launch its own virtual reality devices and that it dedicated its resources and expertise to making sure that the Oculus Rift realized its full potential.
The Witness is a complex adventure game which will challenge players to explore an island and solve a number of puzzles spread around the landscape in a non-linear manner.
The game is designed to be launched on the PC and the PlayStation 4 from Sony and does not yet have an official date.
It is unclear whether a form of virtual reality support will also be offered on the Sony home console.
The company is rumored to be working on its own VR solution, but it has not yet offered any sort of details about it.