The following article is in Unreal Engine, written by Dazhao.
Isn't VR no longer popular? Many people may feel this way like I do. It is true that after the VR boom of the year subsided, VR seemed to have fallen silent in the past two or three years. But with the recent release of Meta Quest 3 and the good returns of the Gone Pharaohs project, there are some teams interested in using UE to develop VR projects. So at this point in time, is it still a good opportunity to enter the VR track? In the current VR market situation, what should we pay attention to when developing VR games?
With these questions, the author interviewed Qu Jia, the producer of Beijing Alloy Cat Interactive. As a development team that has been deeply involved in VR games for many years, its VR game "Grimlord" has received many praises as soon as it was launched in the demo version.
GrimLord is a dark fantasy-style VR action RPG. Players can choose a variety of ** or spells, encounter various monsters in the soul-style level, and fight their way out with very realistic physical combat effects.
Can you tell us about your experience getting started making games?
Qu Jia:I actually started out as a post-production and display designer for film and television, and then I started making games around 2014 when I started my own business. However, when I worked at Tsinghua Academy of Fine Arts in the past few years, I actually began to contact VR to do some very cutting-edge projects, and VR at that time was not quite the same as our understanding now, and the functions at that time were far less powerful than now, mainly relying on projection, body recognition and gesture recognition to do some simple interactions. After graduating, I continued to do experimental projects and movie pre-roll advertising packaging, but I still like making games the most.
But I started thinking about making VR games because I suddenly had an opportunity to get my hands on the Oculus Rift DK1, and I thought that if this kind of VR equipment can be developed in China, there will be a good chance to make 3D games in China. At that time, many people around me were focused on making mobile games, but since my friends and I had a technical background that was mainly in the art of making console games, I was thinking about the future direction and started to try to make VR projects. At first, I used Unity to make a game where I could use drawing gestures to release magic, but after doing it for a while, I wanted to make the picture quality better, so I started to turn to Unreal Engine to make it. This is actually the earliest prototype of our current "Grimlord", a mage breaking through the dungeon.
After working with Unreal Engine for a while, we were very satisfied with the overall image quality and thought of continuing to polish and enrich the upgrades. We continue to want to add shooters and melee to the game. Crossbows and bows were easy to do, but melee combat found them difficult to do, and it took our team more than 1 year. At that time, the team did not get financing, so they did outsourcing projects to maintain it. At that time, it was very advantageous to use Unreal to pick up projects, and the game was very good just by its default basic setting screen, so in 2018, we cooperated with the number one player to develop a VR large-space game. But by the time of the epidemic in 2020, the online ** store inspection was not done, and although the team's revenue encountered a wave of difficulties, we still decided to continue to insist on making the "Grimlord" game. has been working hard to do a good job in the physics and interaction of the game, and finally launched in June 2023, and achieved sales of more than $150,000 in the first week.
Why Develop VR Games with Unreal Engine?
Qu Jia:Unreal Engine has always had an advantage in VR, and I was inspired by games like Bullet Train and Robo Recall. In order to be compatible with VR all-in-one machines, we are still using UE427。This version is very stable, and the optimization of the render pipeline is also very good, we can even directly take the scene from the PC and run it on the all-in-one machine, without too much optimization. There is also the optimization of HLOD and the automatic LOD of assets. Another point is that Unreal's toolchain is more advantageous, for example, our NPC character facial expressions are captured by Live Link Face.
We are looking forward to upgrading to UE5 as soon as possible. In fact, the team has preliminarily completed the migration of UE5, and is separating manpower to sort out and adjust, UE5 has unique generational advantages in animation, lighting, rendering, etc. As the performance iteration of VR devices becomes stronger and stronger in the future, the more the advantages of UE5 can be brought into play. Lumen brings a more realistic sense of light and shadow, detail to the Nanite model, and updated physical shattering. In particular, we learned that UE5 has added some technical improvements to the network, which is more suitable for doing some physical synchronization, so that we can move on to online play.
ue4.27 screenshots.
UE5.
Is now a good time to recommend making VR games?
Qu Jia:Now it is definitely not as popular as before, and there are not many domestic game companies that do VR, but the current living head team can still make money. In any market range, as long as you find a way to make the head, you won't be too cold. The top 10 products in the current VR game market have almost exceeded $50 million, which is actually comparable to the revenue of some high-quality indie games. How do you do it? I think it's still an excellent gameplay, in line with the interactive logic of VR games, and it's been a high-quality workmanship. Compared with traditional games, players are still more tolerant of VR games, and the advice given is more kind.
The advantage is that the current VR user base is still quite high, for example, Quest2 still has more than 20 million users, the newly released Quest3 performance iteration is very strong, with the promotion of some subsequent preferential activities, the installed base should continue to rise, these will continue to open a wave of market. In the future, as hardware and engine technology continue to develop, the popularity of VR will slowly increase. So from that point of view, I think there's a good chance to use Unreal for VR. In particular, offline VR experience projects that have become popular recently should take advantage of Unreal's graphics.
Back to the question, the current economic environment is severe, and based on the above-mentioned opportunities, there are some new teams who want to join VR game development. In particular, it is necessary to be careful not to copy the design and development experience of console and mobile games in the past to VR games, and it is necessary to completely change the concept and accumulate experience in interactive development.
Finally, if you are developing a VR game at this point in time, you still need to be prepared to polish the game for at least a year or two. Be cautious and do what you can.
Any advice for everyone?
Qu Jia:The first is to pay attention to the complex interaction well. One of the things we came to the conclusion of Grimlord was that the key to making VR games popular was how to interact well, which was the most different point from making other types of games. Other triple-A games use buttons to complete the game's interactions, but in VR you actually have to do a basic set of interactions just like in the real world. For example, how to grab, how to interact with swords and guns, as long as you do a good job of interacting with a pair of hands in VR, you can apply it to any other type of game. First the interaction of the hands, then the gameplay.
The second is to consider the divergent thinking of players to interact. One of the most profound examples that had a profound impact on me was Epic's bullet train, when I found out that if I threw a gun that had run out of bullets and smashed an enemy, I would hit the enemy and then suck the gun back and refill it at the same time. Inspired by this, the table on the floor in our game can also be picked up as a shield to block bows and arrows. These game designs that take into account the different interaction scenarios of players are also important points when developing VR games.
The third is not to stick to the PC VR platform when developing VR games at the beginning. The PC is powerful and great for showcasing your product, but the downside is that for the time being, PC VR installations and the number of active users are not enough to maintain the income standard of a small and medium-sized team. Therefore, the project can give priority to making a version of the Quest platform, and then make a PC version at the same time to facilitate the dissemination of the product.
Fourth, regarding the selection of VR game project types, I think that the physical interaction of a pair of hands should be done well in VR, and then the gameplay should be designed. This kind of product with the right underlying logic will definitely be more popular. Then the online game will also be relatively marketable, with a certain small social attribute, and in this regard, Unreal Engine's online room battle is inherently more technically advantageous. Finally, don't think too tall about the project, but be sure to make your own characteristic highlights, which you can learn from, but don't copy it.
What do you want to say in the end?
Qu Jia:The current version of Grimlord is only an early experience stage version, and it has already received good praise overseas, and players are full of anticipation. Our games are already available on SteamVR, QuestAppLab, Pico Store and Play Out Dream Store, so if you're interested, you're welcome to support us.
We've had a lot of help from the community and the Unreal developer community along the way, allowing us to design better ways to play, and we've been able to use advanced tools to bring these ideas to life. We hope to see more interesting and interesting ideas being created, and the features that make the VR game wider and deeper.