Ben Lang is at EVE Fanfest 2015 in Reykjavik where the event, ordinarily dominated by CCP’s huge MMO hit EVE Online, is setting aside significant chunks of itinerary to its virtual reality only online space dog fighting game EVE: Valkyrie. Ben sits down with Game Designer Erich Cooper to delve a little deeper into the design and evolution of this triple-A VR title.
Erich Cooper started life at CCP as a QA tester, identifying bugs and holes in EVE Online‘s vast online universe. After two years, an internal experiment within CCP, driven by the company’s “20% time” initiative – a program which allocates 20% of an employee’s time to work on projects they’re interested in – started gaining real momentum. So, in 2013, Erich made the leap to work on EVE: Valkyrie full time as game designer and since then has been instrumental in guiding the games evolution from VR tech demo to a fully-fledged, triple-A virtual reality title that’s anxiously awaited by VR enthusiasts the world over.
The title is PC exclusive on the Oculus platform, who are co-publishing the title once their consumer hardware materializes, but will be heading to the Sony Playstation 4 to grace their Morpheus VR headset too.
In this in-depth interview, Cooper talks about design decisions the teams have made to make Valkyrie a compelling standalone experience, how the game’s been accepted by hardcore EVE Online players and a little of what we can expect from the final game when it ships.
Ben Lang is at Fanfest covering the event, he’s been hands-on with the latest version demo’d on Oculus’ Crescent Bay and will report back soon with his impressions.
Disclosure: CCP Games is covering travel and lodging expenses for one Road to VR writer to attend Fanfest 2015.