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PlaySide Studios, Australia’s largest indie sport studio, introduced the psychological thriller digital actuality sport Shattered for the Meta Quest 3 and 3S VR headsets.
The Melbourne-based studio payments the sport as a groundbreaking mixed-reality labyrinth of escape rooms and mind-twisting puzzles. The intent is to enshroud gamers into an immersive expertise the place actuality and reminiscence intertwine, difficult each notion and problem-solving expertise.
Shattered is a single-player sport set to launch late 2024, and you’ll see an unique take a look at the gameplay within the video.
I spoke with Jamie Bentley, vice chairman at PlaySide; govt producer Ivan Ertlov and sport product advertising supervisor Aaron Krause at Meta.
“Prepare to lose your mind in the world of Shattered, where reality is just a puzzle waiting to be unraveled,” mentioned Bentley. “We are excited to be working with Oculus Studios to bring this gripping escape room thriller that blurs the lines between memory and madness to Meta Quest users. This December, immerse yourself in a game that transforms your reality—literally.”
Distinctive gameplay
Shattered invitations gamers to step into the sneakers of a personal investigator named Jessica, who’s tasked with unraveling the darkish secrets and techniques of a twisted psychological well being facility. This mixed-reality journey transforms your residing area right into a dynamic playground, permitting you to work together along with your setting in unprecedented methods. Navigate via eerie vignettes stuffed with intricate puzzles and unsettling eventualities, all whereas exploring the fragmented recollections of the enigmatic Jessica.
In Shattered, actuality is only a puzzle ready to be unraveled. Trapped in a mysterious psychological well being facility, your perceptions can’t be trusted. To flee, you have to flip your bodily area right into a labyrinth of escape rooms and manipulate objects throughout digital and combined actuality to unravel complicated puzzles. Examine and alter recollections to bend actuality itself to your will as you accumulate the required proof to show the secrets and techniques of Greyvale and escape to security.
Shattered doesn’t put you in a state of psychosis or trigger psychological discomfort past the same old suspense in a thriller. Fairly, Shattered lets the participant expertise distortions of actuality and subjective recollections via the eyes of the protagonist (Jessica), whose notion of actuality appears to be closely altered. This may be in comparison with our inspirations just like the traditional psychological films Shutter Island and Inception. The query of what’s actual and what not is one for each the protagonist and the participant.
Ertlov famous he was a psychologist earlier than he received into sport work. On this sport, the story delves into the idea of subjective recollections, which signifies that your recollections should not dependable and are constructed in some type of biased means.
The investigator Jessica experiences previous recollections which are distorted, and she or he has to govern the setting in an effort to come to change the recollections and get to the following stage.
“We have different levels of reality, and none of them is reliable,” Ertlov mentioned. “You have to constantly question what is real. What is a memory? What is an important memory? And if I change something in the memory, how does it affect the next level of reality?”
It’s a little bit just like the movie Inception on this means, with mind-bending puzzles, Ertlov mentioned. The crew labored on the venture for about 2.5 years. For components of the sport, it might solely be achieved in VR, Bentley mentioned.
“There’s no mixed reality game like this,” Bentley mentioned. “We can keep you engaged for six to eight hours in mixed reality.”
I noticed a little bit of a demo of the sport. You possibly can see your individual room via the combined actuality imagery of your VR headset, however there are issues like cracks within the partitions that provide you with a window into one other place. It seems actual as a result of the digital room aligns with the scale of your bodily room.
The sport takes place in a metropolis like Boston within the Nineteen Nineties, so there are not any ubiquitous smartphones or digital recorders and such.
You possibly can Wishlist the sport now and discover extra details about Shattered on the official Meta Quest
Retailer. Shattered is meant for ages 13+. Rankings fluctuate by area. The sport will promote for $20 within the U.S. and the equal value in different international locations. It doesn’t have a launch date but however is coming in December.
Background
PlaySide Studios has made video games equivalent to Age of Darkness: Closing Stand, and the Dumb Methods to Die franchise, and it’s the writer for Mouse, Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown and Dynasty of the Sands.
Following greater than a decade of video games improvement, and over 70 titles launched throughout cellular, PC, and
VR/AR, PlaySide Studios’ latest authentic IP launches have included the award-winning RTS Age of Darkness: Closing Stand, and have seen the studio acknowledged as Studio of the 12 months on the Australian Recreation Developer Awards 2023.
The corporate was began by Gerry Sakkas as a cellular studio in 2011, with hit video games like Catch the Ark. The corporate expanded into work for rent. It added PC and console video games, after which moved into VR. It labored on video games for others like Dumb Methods to Die and extra. It began working with Meta as the corporate launched its Meta Quest headsets and financed plenty of VR and combined actuality video games.
In 2020, PlaySide went public, and it has since grown to 3 studios and 370 individuals in Australia and New Zealand. These days, it’s doing extra authentic IP than work-for-hire video games. This specific crew had about 50 individuals on it. In VR, you can also make that type of funding and get a great return, the corporate believes.
“It’s a new ocean,” Bentley mentioned, concerning VR. “The ecosystem for the headsets is getting more stable. There are millions of headsets out there.”
The sport doesn’t actually go too far into horror, as that may inhibit demand. It walks a stability between compelling narrative and thriller moments.
Krause at Meta mentioned, “This is a unique title. We know our audience really loves new experiences. This is something that hasn’t been done before, but also is something that people will appreciate — those who love puzzles, love escape rooms, love the thrills and something completely different.”
