Hugely popular tabletop role-playing game Numenera is the latest to explore bringing its world into a VR headset, though not quite in the way you’d imagine.
Despite the name, Numenera – Beyond Tactics is not a direct virtual adaptation of Monte Cook’s RPG. Handled by developer Boneyard VR, the game takes the world and lore of the fantasy experience and builds a new, turn-based tactical game on top of it. In it, you take a group of heroes into battles against opposing sides, whilst also managing resources outside of combat. You’ll pick up virtual figurines, move them into battle and roll dice to decide crucial outcomes.
I got a brief look at an early version of the game and, while there’s a lot of work to be done on it, my initial impressions were promising. It’s lacking in a tutorial right now and a lot of the UI is still to be filled in but there are some great core mechanics in place like picking up a figurine and seeing how far you can move it, then seeing the number of steps taken when you place it where you want it to go. It’s like a board game come to life, which is something VR does especially well.
Look for Numenera – Beyond Tactics to hit Rift, Vive and Windows VR headsets via Early Access in 2019. Bone Yard is encouraging anyone interested in the game to head to its Discord page and start building a community around it.
