Polyarc’s Moss has made a habit of coming to as many VR headsets as possible, but its upcoming version for the new Oculus Quest headset is unique in that it will be the first time the beloved VR game has appeared on mobile hardware. That means Polyarc will no doubt have its work cut out for it optimizing the experience. Fortunately, it looks like that work has already started.
Speaking to Windows Central, Polyarc CEO Tam Armstrong confirmed that the developer is already working on the Quest version of Moss, though it isn’t playable yet. “We think that experience where you can really get into the game and enjoy it will be nice and streamlined,” Armstrong said. “Hopefully it will be a nice streamlined experience getting into Moss, and people will enjoy playing it.”
With its standalone form factor and six degrees of freedom (6DOF) inside-out tracking, Quest does indeed represent an easier way to jump into VR. That said, one talk in particular at last week’s Oculus Connect developer conference made it clear that studios will have to make a lot of concessions to fit their Oculus Rift games onto Quest, though the results can still be impressive. Armstrong seems unphased by the challenge, though.
“I think we’ll make adjustments, but Moss was purposefully designed to be highly constrained,” he said. “The way the camera works, the way the lighting works, we feel like there’s going to be work to do of course, like there was moving to any of the other platforms, but it’s nothing that we’re extremely concerned about. We’re much more excited about having that portable six degrees of freedom, which is very motivating.”
We did ask Polyarc if Moss would support gamepads on Quest, though the team declined to comment for now. The kit, which launches in spring 2019 for $399, comes with two Touch controllers, but wider gamepad support is not yet confirmed.
