CyubeVR on Playstation VR 2: Interview with the developer
The voxel game CyubeVR is releasing on Playstation VR 2 today. MIXED spoke to the developer about its beginnings, mod support on PSVR 2 and future plans for the VR game.
CyubeVR has been in development for eight years. It was released in early access on Steam in 2018, and has received 57 updates since then. But according to developer Corvin Engelken, that's just the beginning.
On March 16, 2024, the VR game launches on Playstation VR 2. I was able to play CyubeVR in advance and was impressed by the visuals and the VR implementation.
Here is my interview with Engelken, slightly edited for length and clarity.
How did you get inspired to start developing a VR game?
I have been interested in VR since the Oculus Rift DK1 was announced in 2012, but I really got into VR development in 2016 when I realized that good and affordable room-scale VR would soon be available thanks to the HTC Vive. The HTC Vive brought entirely new game concepts into focus that would not be possible in flat games. I was fascinated by the technology and really wanted to develop something for it, as I had worked on conventional games before. I got the HTC Vive devkit in early 2016 and started developing right away.
Can you tell us something about how CyubeVR got started?
There was one thing that I didn't like about the very first room-scale VR games that were announced at that time: they all looked like mobile games. I am someone who realistic graphics. I want to be impressed by the best possible visuals, especially in VR games where you are really "inside" the world. And since nobody seemed to want to make such a game for VR in 2016, I wanted to do it myself.
I then briefly thought about what kind of game it should be, and decided to focus primarily on what kind of game I could make in very good quality on my own. It was clear to me that if I wanted to make a game that was really "good" in its particular genre, then it had to be a game in which the most complex aspect was the programming, because I'm primarily a programmer and that's where I have the most fun. The most complicated aspect of a voxel game is always that you first have to program your own "voxel engine" because no game engine can do "voxel games" out of the box.
There are three climate zones in CyubeVR. | Image: Stonebrick Studios
Did you develop CyubeVR on your own?
Yes, I am the sole developer of CyubeVR. It would be nice to have a team, but I knew I didn't have the necessary resources. The opportunity to expand the team should have come with the release of the game, once it sells well enough. That hasn't happened yet, but VR is still a small market. I'm happy to have been able to work on CyubeVR full-time for 8 years. And so far, the game has only been released for PC VR headsets. Maybe things will change with the release of the PSVR 2 version?
Why should Minecraft fans play CyubeVR?
The question implies that CyubeVR is a game specifically for "Minecraft fans", but that's not the case. Many people see CyubeVR and immediately compare it to Minecraft, but CyubeVR is a unique game in the genre. Of course, it shares many traits with other voxel games, but it feels very different from any other voxel game because all the game mechanics have been implemented natively for VR. I've often heard from CyubeVR players that they never liked Minecraft, but they love CyubeVR. I tried to bring the genre to VR in a unique way, with beautiful graphics and a style that contrasts with Minecraft.
CyubeVR looks exceptionally beautiful and sharp on PSVR 2. How did you achieve that?
This is mostly due to Foveated Rendering, which is a really, really great feature of PSVR 2. Without Foveated Rendering, CyubeVR would not have worked on PSVR2 and would not have looked nearly as good.
The implementation was simple and took me about a day to get close to perfect. Sony is very supportive of developers in this regard, at least as far as the Unreal Engine implementation is concerned.
CyubeVR offers a dynamic day/night cycle and weather.. | Image: Stonebrick Studios
CyubeVR supports mods. What does that mean on PS5?
CyubeVR's mod support on PS5 is something special. CyubeVR has been available on Steam on PC for a long time and has mod support there. This means that there are years of content in the Steam Workshop that adds a lot to the game. I thought it would be a shame to deprive PS5 players of this content. So I've spent a lot of time working on bringing mod support to PS5.
The main form of mods on PC for CyubeVR are mod blocks, and these are precisely the mods that are available on PS5. Mod blocks are blocks created by the community with their textures and crafting recipes. These blocks do not replace any of the traditional blocks and are new. In the PSVR2 version of the game, you can now easily browse through the list of mod blocks uploaded to the Steam Workshop and download and install the blocks you would like to use, and then craft and use them to build just as easily as "normal" blocks in the game.
Are you thinking about developing a Quest version of CyubeVR?
Not for current Quest headsets. It would be impossible to port CyubeVR, which is supposed to have a beautiful, big open world with dynamic lighting, weather and so on.
But I expect that in the future with a Quest 4 or Quest 5 there will be enough processing power and when that's the case I would like to release CyubeVR for that as well.
What's next for CyubeVR? Is the game finished and are you thinking about new VR projects or do you want to keep adding new content?
I want to work on CyubeVR for a long time and frankly, I have no desire to ever start a new project. CyubeVR, like No Man's Sky, will get free updates with new features for many years and on all platforms.
A game like CyubeVR can be expanded indefinitely. The most requested feature for CyubeVR is of course multiplayer and that will come, with crossplay between PC and PS5.
You can buy CyubeVR here:
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