Crytek has today released the Back to Dinosaur Island tech demo for download. The five minute demo showing a perturbed T-Rex is compatible with Oculus Rift DK2 headset and built on CryEngine.
First seen at GDC 2015, Back to Dinosaur Island was revealed as Crytek’s first foray into the world of VR. There we learned that the tech demo was the result of a 50-person VR team and that the company was developing VR compatibility with its in-house CryEngine 3 game engine.
We first tried out the demo on the Oculus Crescent Bay prototype headset, one of the first exemplars to find itself outside the hands of Oculus employees.
Little did we know at the time that the company would run with the dino-theme to develop their new upcoming PlayStation VR (PSVR) exclusive title Robinson: The Journey, which puts you in the boots of a marooned astronaut on a world rife with prehistoric life. The company was last seen demoing Dinosaur Island 2, the second Robinson tech demo, on Oculus hardware as late as Gamescom 2015. There’s still no word as to how long the PSVR exclusivity deal will last.
See Also: Hands-on – Crytek’s ‘Robinson The Journey’ Prototype is a Visual Feast, Built for Motion Controls
Download Back to Dinosaur Island CryEngine Virtual Reality Tech Demo
Back to Dinosaur Island is now available for download directly from Steam, but beware: this high detail tech demo has some pretty hefty minimum system requirements. There are no in-game settings to lower, so you either have the right system to run it, or you end up with a juddery mess. If you’re lucky enough to have the former, you’ll be treated to an impressively detailed scene, one of the most polished we’ve seen of any VR tech demo.
Minimum Requirements:
- Windows 7, 8 or 10 (64bit)
- Processor: Intel Core i7-2600K CPU 3.40GHz
- Memory: 16 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 980 or AMD Radeon R9 290
- DirectX: Version 11
- Hard Drive: 2 GB available space
- Additional Notes: Oculus Rift DK2 required, SDK Version 0.6 or 0.7 (0.8 coming in the future)
- Author’s note: I tested with 0.8 runtime and it ran without a problem