We reported yesterday that critically acclaimed The Vanishing of Ethan Carter had received VR support as part of the Redux edition, a rebuild of the game on the Unreal Engine 4 engine. It now appears that VR support was released by mistake – according to Co-owner of developer The Astronauts Adrian Chmielarz.
It was a lovely surprise to find one of the best games of last year, mystery adventure yarn The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, had added virtual reality support on on releasing it’s reworking of the title on Unreal Engine 4. Those with Oculus Rift DK2’s fired up the new version, included for all who own the original title or buy it now, to find the headset auto-detected and the game started in VR mode.
Now it seems that this little surprise was probably too good to be true, as Co-owner and Creative Director of The Astronauts, the developer behind the title, has taken to Twitter to pour a little cold water on the good news, stating that this VR support was release by mistake. “That VR support shouldn’t have been there in the first place, don’t want a half-baked thing,” Chmielarz says responding in a conversation talking excitedly about the discovery.
@fenderf4i That VR support shouldn't have been there in the first place, don't want a half-baked thing. Proper 100% support coming Q1 2016.
— Adrian Chmielarz (@adrianchm) September 12, 2015
It’s not all bad news though, this leak has at least brought confirmation from the studio that the game will indeed receive “Proper 100% support coming Q1 2016.” Which is brilliant news.
Whether the existing ‘leaked’ VR support will be patched out in a patch release is not yet clear, but it seems likely. For those of you want to play Ethan Carter in it’s current virtual reality form, we’d recommend not updating the game any time soon.