Quest 2: Meta pushes technology for open-world games
Open-world games are the next big step for Meta Quest 2, and Meta is preparing VR developers for it.
Open-world games are among the most popular genres: The Witcher, GTA, The Elder Scrolls, Far Cry, Assassin's Creed are game series that delight millions and millions of gamers.
If Meta wants to become part of the gaming mainstream, it has to enter this territory with Meta Quest 2 (Best Games). The issue though: The VR goggles run autonomously on a smartphone chip and are therefore severely limited in performance and memory. VR studios have to find ways to work around these limitations.
Meta Quest 2: Selectively load open worlds
One possible solution among many is so-called asset streaming. The idea is that only those parts of the world are rendered in full detail that players are currently in and interacting with. In practice, this means that objects in various degrees of detail are always loaded into and streamed from memory in the background.
Now Meta is providing new resources to help developers learn how to use asset streaming in VR apps. Documentation and a Unity sample project are now available in the developer area. The sample project is based on the Oculus Studios title Dead & Buried 2.
Meta has big open-world games in development
Meta has big VR games up its sleeve for the next few years that will have to prove that open-world games are also possible on Meta Quest 2.
At Connect 2021, Meta announced a first such project: a VR port of GTA: San Andreas, which is said to have been in development for many years. Another possible contender is Assassin's Creed VR, which has been announced for a while, but nothing concrete is known about it yet. However, it would be a disappointment if the VR game did not offer an open world.
All of these high-profile projects are being developed exclusively for Meta Quest 2. New rendering techniques like AppSW could additionally help to get the most out of the device. AppSW promises up to 70 percent more rendering power and a first demo looks promising.
Note: Links to online stores in articles can be so-called affiliate links. If you buy through this link, MIXED receives a commission from the provider. For you the price does not change.
