Superhot VR on Quest is one of if not the best ports for Oculus’ new standalone headset. Some minor visual sacrifices aside, it’s exactly the same as the original game. In fact, Quest’s tether-free tracking makes it better than it is on PC. But the game’s developer didn’t always plan a straight port for Quest. At one point in time, it was working on new levels.
The developer revealed as much in a recent blog post detailing the Quest version’s progress. After testing the original Oculus Quest prototype over a year ago now, the studio started to experiment with the freedom to move in VR. “Quest unlocked a whole swath of new potential features and design options for us. Larger playspaces were particularly exciting to explore,” the team wrote. “Running around in huge 20x20ft virtual environments seemed to open up so many new opportunities.”
As such, the developer began to work on “larger, more walkable levels” for an eventual Quest release. It was even planning to showcase these new levels at Quest’s reveal at Oculus Connect 5 in 2018.
Ultimately, though, the team decided against using these new levels. “Turned out – walking around was way less exciting than just naturally using larger playspaces to be even more of a badass in the tight, action-packed combat scenes of the original game,” the studio explained.
Two weeks before OC5, then, the team set about reworking the original game’s levels for Quest.
While it’s definitely disappointing to hear that new Superhot VR levels were ditched, it makes sense. Quest does allow for more movement in VR, but that doesn’t mean players themselves have more space to move in. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to play massive Superhot levels in my tiny apartment.
The team did make a few changes to this version, though. You no longer need to grab pyramids between sequences, for example, and there’s a guest mode. It’s also planning to add some of the optimizations it’s made into the PSVR and PC versions of the game soon.
The wait continues for a true Superhot VR sequel, then.
