Atari has confirmed that the forthcoming Rollercoaster Tycoon Joyride, its first VR title, will make its debut at GDC 2018 later this month. The game is slated to launch in the first half of 2018 on PS4 with support for PSVR.
The existence of Rollercoaster Tycoon Joyride was confirmed initially last year in small blurb in an investor announcement, but now Atari is planning to give the game a proper reveal this month at the GDC 2018 conference in San Francisco, the company announced in an email.
Details are light on exactly what the game will entail, including who will be responsible for developing the game (Atari functions as the publisher), but PlayStation VR support has been confirmed. Unclear at this time is whether the game is VR-only or VR-optional, and whether or not it could end up on PC VR headsets.
At first blush Rollercoaster Tycoon, a legendary theme-park management game, seems like a perfect fit for VR—build awesome roller coasters and then ride on them! But, as many developers and VR gamers have learned quite early on, rollercoasters can be a recipe for nausea in VR if the locomotion design is not very carefully considered.
We expect to be able to try Rollercoaster Tycoon Joyride for ourselves at GDC 2018 later this month and will find out whether players will indeed be riding with joy, or if park managers will need to hire plenty of new janitors for the post-ride cleanup.