Crytek, makers of Crysis and the Crytek Engine, brought a special tech demo with them to GDC a month or so ago. This was a virtual reality build of a “game” they’re calling Back to Dinosaur Island.
We throw game in quotes because this isn’t much more than a tech demo at this point. It has a title, there’s a bit of a narrative here and you can interact with it, but that’s about as far as the “game”-ness of it goes.
We also call it a game because, well, we want them to turn this into a real thing, complete with Oculus Rift, Steam VR and Project Morpheus support. Yep, it’s that awesome. See for yourself in the direct feed video at the head of this post.
Crytek Producer Fatih Özbayram tweeted about the demo all the way back in March. Here’s what he had to say then, before we had direct feed footage.
#BacktoDinosaurIsland is the name of our VR demo. We've chosen Dinosaurs as we wanted to nod to the origins of Crytek pic.twitter.com/fQ572w2E2M
— Fatih Özbayram (@fatihg28) March 4, 2015
The narrative our demo is you being a baby dinosaur sitting in the middle of a nest of other dinosaur babies about to hatch
— Fatih Özbayram (@fatihg28) March 4, 2015
Our demo has a variety of interactions. One of them is the interaction with a hollywood feel T-Rex which mimics your head movements
— Fatih Özbayram (@fatihg28) March 4, 2015
I totally get that this is nothing more than a tech demo. However, I also think I’m not alone in hoping that this eventually becomes a project for the Crytek team. It looks amazing, and I’d be ready to positively lose it if and when I get a chance to strap on a set of VR goggles and explore the prehistoric world.
I’ll also be terrified. Imagine this thing with raptors? Oh boy.
