Lightbound Studios, a Los Angeles-based indie studio, may not have succeeded last year to fund their VR game Titan Arena through Kickstarter, but all is not lost. The studio has continued work on the titanic-sized boss battler in the meantime, and now calls it Rise of the Titan.

Lightbound says in a Steam update that the new name was created to set it further apart from the waveshooter genre. Although Rise of the Titan is admittedly a shooter in some sense, the studio now says it better fits in the narrative-driven action-adventure genre.

The studio has only thrown out a short clip for now, showing a little bit of the locomotion mechanic and how the game handles object interaction, although they’ve said more info is coming soon.

 

Rise of the Titan’s features include:

  • Titan Bosses – Player will face off against giant metal machines that can crush a human with a flick of a finger. He must use everything in his arsenal, from climbing to shooting to bring down these humongous beasts.
  • Combat – Interaction and the combat with enemies in this VR environment is designed to be as fluid and natural as possible. The player can employ various strategies to destroy enemies more efficiently and great style.
  • Tethers – Multipurpose tool used for both combat and for maneuvering in the world effortlessly in all 3 dimensions. This tool can be used to pull, climb, hang, zip, catch, throw, break, tear, and manipulate objects.
  • Adapters – Tether modifiers that turn the tethers into high-tech weapons. The player will acquire these while progressing through the game and discovering hidden secrets. Used in various combinations, these weapons can be extremely powerful and fun.
  • Full Locomotion – Player can move naturally through the environment using locomotion, speed-dash, and evade. The game features full 360° gameplay and provides the option for players to switch between smooth and incremental turning.

According to the game’s Steam page, Rise of the Titan is slated to launch sometime in 2019, supporting HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Valve Index, and Windows VR headsets.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.

  • You know what the tethers need? A grappling hook mode. Right now they look like just a basic zipline mechanic, which is nice, but not necessarily the most comfortable mechanic to use in combat (trust me, I made a spider-man mod for Robo Recall that uses the same type of mechanic, and it’s not as fun as it sounds in combat) but if there’s an option to enable Windlands-style swinging instead of zipping, that also uses full locomotion for velocity, then count me in!

  • JesuSaveSouls

    Sorry they didn’t meet the kickstarter.It was close.Possibly would now.

  • Well, it’s close to the old PS2 game “Robot Alchemic Drive”… but falls short. Instead of driving the robots remotely to fight, you instead just attack them by climbing them. It’s high time somebody did a good ripoff of RAD for VR. You could actually appreciate the size of the robots, and use the joysticks to move your robot as you grapple hook around the city with the triggers.

    I suppose though it’s more akin to another PS2 game, “Shadow of the Colossus”, albeit with a more boring art style and less action packed. Either way, these nearly 20 year old games were more impressive.