Digital Foundry: Hands-on with SteamVR and HTC Vive

[Administrator]

Valve and HTC's Vive virtual reality system isn't just about the headset, or about the immersion - which is simply incredible, by the way - it's about space. At the risk of venturing into hyperbole, you could even suggest that it's about creating a first generation holodeck of sorts, to the point where there's even a subtle homage to Star Trek: The Next Generation. As you wander around the play area, the signature grid pattern appears before your eyes in the form of glowing vectors - defining the safe limits of the space, and stopping you from hitting the walls in the real world.
And that's the key difference between Valve's offering and the other VR demos we've experienced at GDC 2015: the SteamVR demo software creates an immersive virtual space that offers you some degree of mobility, encouraging you to walk around and to explore the play space. In both the London Heist Project Morpheus VR experience and Crytek's new Dinosaur Island demo for the Oculus Rift Crescent Bay prototype, the action takes place mostly in front of you, with little encouragement to actively explore the environment. You can look behind you of course, but there's not much going on, and the actual amount of movement in the play area is limited.
In many of the SteamVR demos we played on the HTC Vive prototype, exploration of the play space is a crucial component. While actual travel around the gameplay environments is necessarily limited by the physical dimensions of the room, what you see through the visor can look almost limitless. One of the less interactive demos in Valve's suite is called TheBluVR Encounter. You wander about on the deck of a sunken ship, interacting mildly with schools of passing fish, flicking the controllers to scare them aware before the arrival of an enormous whale, swimming peacefully around you as you walk around the deck. The sense of scale underwater is breathtaking, but the actual physical area is limited by the geography of the deck itself. Despite the obvious limitations, what becomes clear is that just a little bit of freedom can go a long way.
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