White Lotus Interactive have announced that their VR-enabled adventure title XING: The Land beyond is now coming to the HTC Vive with full motion control support. Here’s a new trailer showing it off as well as some insights from the developers as to why and how they did it.

XING: The Land beyond is a made-for-VR adventure title from White Lotus Interactive which was one of the earliest VR titles born from a successful Kickstarter campaign back in March 2013. We’ve followed the title, created by the then 3 strong development team White Lotus Interactive, ever since. VR support (the game can be played with or without) was pledged for the Oculus Rift (then in DK1 form only) and even after all this time, it’s still one of the most anticipated indie VR titles.

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Fast forward over 3 years, multiple Oculus Rift prototypes and 2 consumer VR headset launches, and the developers are still hard at work refining their labour of love, a VR adventure puzzler in a similar vein as the PC classic Myst (a title which received a spiritual successor recently), but in this case set in the after life. Other inspirations cited by the developer include The Legend of Zelda and Portal – all worthy muses indeed. You can see some of those influences at work in the new Vive reveal trailer below.

Up until now, the development of XING has focused on Oculus Rift support, but today the team have revealed that they’ve been working on reworking the title for the HTC Vive and SteamVR motion controllers. Retro fitting tracked controllers to a pre-existing title is no mean feat, as their latest blog update illustrates: “Bringing XING to Vive has been challenging, but also insanely fun. Supporting both VR and non-VR styles of playing has offered an interesting design dilemma.”

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As ever, to deal with the introduction of HTC Vive’s room-scale brings with it locomotion challenges, so the team have integrated two methods from which to choose. ‘Free Movement’, which the team state are “analogous to the FPS (first person shooter) controls used for PC” and Teleportation, the now familiar locomotion technique seen in many early Vive titles.

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As to when we can finally expect to see the title up for sale, no specific word as yet, although the team do sound like they’re closing in on a launch soon, with time spent “working on marketing” an optimistic sign.

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Paul James
Based in the UK, Paul has been immersed in interactive entertainment for the best part of 27 years and has followed advances in gaming with a passionate fervour. His obsession with graphical fidelity over the years has had him branded a ‘graphics whore’ (which he views as the highest compliment) more than once and he holds a particular candle for the dream of the ultimate immersive gaming experience. Having followed and been disappointed by the original VR explosion of the 90s, he then founded RiftVR.com to follow the new and exciting prospect of the rebirth of VR in products like the Oculus Rift. Paul joined forces with Ben to help build the new Road to VR in preparation for what he sees as VR’s coming of age over the next few years.
  • J.C.

    Unlike Obduction and The Assembly, whose developers thought adding motion control support was too much work, THIS game will actually get my money.

    • Muddy

      Mine too! I think developers are starting realise that the rift alone is not enough to carry their labours of love to greatness.

    • Charles

      Obduction developers have stated that they will add Vive motions control support. They just prioritized the Oculus launch because that’s what was promised in the Kickstarter.

      • J.C.

        Glad to hear it! I’m interested in Obduction, but a non-combat exploration game SCREAMS for motion controls. I’ll pick it up when they release a motion-control update.

        The Assembly devs have stated (on this website) they have no intention of adding motion controls, ever.

        • DougP

          It’s great Obduction will be adding motion control support.
          I think The Assembly replied that they’d not even add support to using the Vive controllers as “traditional controller” (i.e. mapping buttons/controls) which I found very telling of their support for VR community.

  • wheeler

    Wow, props to these devs. Not just motion controller support but a free motion locomotion option too? Yeah, I think I know where my money will be spent (hint: it won’t be spent on obduction). Call Of The Starseed is a Myst-like VR game/demo too and the teleportation ruined everything except the rollercoaster for me.

  • Pete

    Same here. Xing will be getting my money. Obduction is a bust.

  • I hope the dev’s read this: When you pop up the menu, just make it appear at the location of the left hand controller, and have it remain in that point of space for as long as the menu button is depressed. Don’t actually attach it to the hand, because people often have a hard time holding their hand perfectly still.