Barry Allen is a fan
In case you haven’t heard, Beat Saber, a VR rhythm game released in the middle of last year, is a bonafide hit.
The gist is that you use two remotes (in each hand) to simulate virtual lightsabers, then slash cubes to the beat. It’s a simple overarching concept and they weren’t even the first to do it (I played Soundboxing among others, for several years before it), but they managed to break through and achieve a great deal of success in the otherwise limited market of VR.
With that success comes the notion of being ubiquitous with the VR experience, as seen in this recent SteamVR update that’s basically all about them. Noting some alterations in the latest SteamVR patch notes, Valve has “Increase limits of what [they] thought was humanly possible for controller motion based on tracking data from Beat Saber experts.” In other words, people were moving so quickly that they broke the sensors for the HTC Vive.
I recently spoke to Tim Ruse, the CEO of Zero Latency (one of the biggest names in room-scale VR) and he specifically mentioned Beat Saber by name when asked about what kinds of experiences are going to move VR forward. Ruse explained that original, “compelling” titles are required to give the medium the push it needs.
SteamVR Beta Updated – 1.3.2 [Steam]
