“Each movement is affecting the game drastically.” “With regular speed running you still have to do a lot with precision– but it’s not as physical,” said Superhot VR speedrunner Ben Massey.
The main holdup is the increased difficulty that runners have to deal with in VR. “It throws players into this floating god mode where you literally get to be a giant watching over the map.” A New Paradigmīut the viewers aren’t the only ones having issues enjoying VR runs, the speedrunners themselves face a few big challenges that really prevent them from successfully completing new runs. “Like the VR spectating in DOTA 2,” Hodges said.
The viewers won’t get that, they only get what they see on a 2D plane.”Ī possible solution for this disconnect is a third person, drone-like view that plops viewers above the action, allowing them to see everything and removing them from the nauseating first person view, similar to what VREAL is aiming to do. If there is a big zombie behind you, it feels like there’s a big zombie behind you. “With VR, you’re experiencing your own reality,” Hodges said. “Popular games that still give them that one-to-one connection with the streamer.” “The most popular speedrunners have thousands of viewers because they play games like Mario 64,” Hodges said. That’s a different beast compared to traditional speed running, where there is no difference between what the streamer and viewer is seeing. “All the people watching don’t have the same experience, it might even be nauseating for some.” “There is a disconnect between what someone sees in their headset in virtual reality, and what someone sees on a 2D screen,” said Hodges. And while the implemented features made runs easier, he couldn’t minimize the disconnect viewers had when watching VR on a regular computer screen. He implemented a timing overlay, so runners could compare their run with the top times while playing. When Tristan Hodges from Fox Leap Games was developing his Mario 64 inspired platformer, Gem Hunter, he did so with speedrunners in mind. The disconnect that happens when viewers are watching VR on a regular computer screen and the physicality of the platform make speedrunning a difficult task. Getting Closer To The ActionĪnd while providing a solution for those two issues will help immensely, speedrunning in VR still has two huge roadblocks standing in it’s way. Those two features may seem insignificant, but they actually make speedrunning a more focused and community-oriented event. You can’t really interact with a Twitch chat when immersed in VR and there is no clear way to compare your run time against others in real-time. It’s obvious that few developers and streamers have actually put thought into speedrunning VR titles since fundamental features that support the community aren’t there in most cases. But despite that, some speedrunning VR owners are still out there gunning for the best time in their favorite games.
The speedrunning community, while still growing, is rather small– and the list of those willing to speedrun VR titles is even smaller. A lot of people would classify VR speedrunning as a niche of a niche.
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