Sunsoft, the Japanese publisher and developer, today announced their multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) for PlayStation VR Dark Eclipse will be launching Spring 2018. If you’re heading to Sony’s annual PlayStation Experience next week you’ll be able to get your hands on a demo.
MOBAs are traditionally fast-paced affairs, as they rely on quick-twitch mouse clicks and a mind mindbogglingly fast ability to traverse the map. To that effect Sunsoft is trying to dial in on the right speed so players don’t get tired quickly, but also have the sort of MOBA experience they’re used to.
Sunsoft Senior Programmer Bill Hung explained a little more about the game in a PlayStation US blog post, saying that Dark Eclipse doesn’t require you to extend your arms to aim like in VR shooters, but rather tasks you with dropping the cursor like an object that your little army will follow, effectively slowing down gameplay for a more comfortable experience. According to Hung, the game is paced so that you can move “more casually” and allows a rest period between matches, so you can rest your body if needed.
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The game will include tutorials, practice mode, player vs A.I. bots, and of course player vs player. There will be rewards as you gain more experience that you’ll collect regardless of solo, casual mode or rank mode.
Sunsoft says they’ll be over twenty characters available for the game at launch, including human-like characters called ‘Heroes’ and monster-like characters called ‘Dominators’.
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The player will be able to take control of three characters (leaders). Sunsoft says it’s aiming to provide “around a thousand hours of gameplay,” although since it’s an online game, the gameplay could technically be endless. Matches are said to last between 10 to 30 minutes each.
Dark Eclipse will first launch with only 1v1 gameplay, but will at some point later include 2v2, and then later 3v3 matches. “We don’t want to jump into a situation where there are not enough players in-game at any given time, and we don’t want to have people waiting for a long time for a match,” says Hung.
To give it the future potential of becoming an eSport, Sunsoft is including a spectator mode, which will be released in an update after launch.