(Supermassive games)
One of the nicest new features on the latest VR headsets from Sony and Meta is eye tracking. The technology, which relies on infrared cameras to detect where you’re looking, aims to create high-quality graphics by allocating processing power to game scenes in your immediate view.
But it can also be used to scare players when a new game is presented.
An upcoming PS VR2 title called The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR uses eye-tracking to pull nightmarish enemies towards you when you blink. According to Edge magazine, the hell function kicks in when you walk into a room full of blood-smeared mannequins in harlequin masks.
The insane dummies, whose bodies are twisted into “unnatural poses”, strike new poses every time you flutter your eyelids.
“In no time at all, more and more enemies will be overhead as your pupils are spotted,” notes the game’s developer, Supermassive Games.
Switchback VR also uses haptic feedback and headset rumble to ensure you feel every bump in the dark and even knocks to your head. Still, it won’t kill you in real life like the concept headset envisioned by the creator of Oculus VR, the company Meta (then known as Facebook) acquired in 2014.
The new game is a VR spinoff of Supermassive’s The Dark Pictures Anthology series featuring episodic narrative titles.
It sounds similar to the studio’s Until Dawn: Rush of Blood for the original PS VR on PS4, itself a semi-sequel to the 2015 horror hit Until Dawn Shoot demons, vampires, witches and the aforementioned mutating mannequins.
The game is available to pre-order now ahead of its March 16 release exclusively on PS VR2. Sony’s new VR headset for the PS5 console will go on sale on Wednesday 22nd February for £530.
Compared to the first generation PSVR, the new headset is quite a step forward in terms of immersion.
Aside from utilizing the PS5’s immense graphics and processing power, the biggest update is the tracking. Where the original PSVR was tracked via a single camera on your TV, PSVR 2 has four outward-facing cameras on the headset to keep track of where you and your hands are in virtual space. That means it should be able to track you around an entire room (known in VR circles as “room scale”).
Eye tracking, on the other hand, uses a technique called “Foveated Rendering” to improve graphics processing in the area you’re focusing on, rather than around in your peripheral view. The term refers to the fovea, a small pit in the center of the retina that provides our absolute sharpest vision.
Eye-tracking was previously limited to VR headsets for professional users, but is now appearing on expensive consumer devices. Meta’s £1,500 Quest Pro also comes with the feature, and Apple is reportedly using it for its rumored mixed reality headset.
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