The Oculus founder and a girl in a cape stole the gaming show.
This was a huge year for VR during Japan’s premier Tokyo Game Show. Some 110 VR games for PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive got all the attention with new demos and mixed reality performances.
It was no surprise that Sony came out in full force with their PlayStation VR, which launches in near weeks, with large crowds gathering to demo the latest VR games like Resident Evil 7, Call of Duty Infinite Warfare, Farpoint and Batman Arkham.
HTC Vive had a huge presence as well, taking the form of mixed reality demo booths that had attendees all snapping photos and video. Many of the experiences on display were clearly aimed toward a Japanese fan audience, inviting attendees to enter the worlds of anime and manga, with demos like Sega’s Space Channel 5 and Square Enix’s Project Hikari.
But it was really one mixed reality demo that got most of the attention, where we stumbled across a girl just crushing it in a game called Circle of Saviors. Having just taken first place at the Unity VR Expo Akiba awards, the developers brought their sword wielding game again, where a girl absolutely destroyed a boss all while twirling in a cape and school uniform. See our video below.
Which brings us to our second big VR moment, this one instead of a boss totally destroying it and wearing flip flops instead of a skirt. Captured in an ever so perfect tweet, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey was spotted cruising the show floor and demoing an HTC Vive experience that gave onlookers quite a show.
脱出病棟を全身で堪能されるパルマーラッキー氏でございますm(_ _)m #VRZONE pic.twitter.com/jVjwZk3zd6
— コヤ所長 (@mayanmoyan) September 15, 2016
Aside from some virtual reality groping going on that you couldn’t un-see, this is one show we’ll be sure to attend again next year. We can probably expect VR to take center stage again in 2017.
Additional Reporting by Stephen Ip
