A
fter busting out VR games for almost a decade and in a year in which it received more than £28 million in
investment and opened its new remote studio, Elevation, nDreams recently announced Ghostbusters VR for Meta Quest and PlayStation VR2. A first-person co-op shooter full of iconic spooks and gadgets, it’s not a game nDreams has revealed too much of or spoken much on, but in the mind’s eye it seems such an obvious fit for VR that the rest of the industry should consider giving itself a collective slap to the forehead for not thinking of it sooner. Even if it ends up some way distant of the Left 4 Dead meets Luigi’s Mansion we imagine one day playing, we’ll still take it.
brilliant indie VR devs, finding some amazing games, supporting them, funding them, marketing them and publishing them. Hopefully that increases our chances of finding something magical, even if we don’t make it ourselves.”
HOME SWEET HOME As the UK’s most persistent VR game studio, nDreams has come a long way during its 15-plus years, having started out creating content in support of Sony’s PlayStation Home project, which despite being quietly shuttered in 2015, is increasingly considered way ahead of its time. “We’ve always wanted to do stuff at the cutting
“It’s a great game, and we’re very excited about
it,” says O’Luanaigh. “The nice thing about it is you mention Ghostbusters in VR to people and they just get it instantly like, ‘Yeah, you don’t have to say any more, I can imagine what it’s going to be like’, so, yeah, I think it’s certainly got a real chance.” Given how long nDreams has been supporting
VR, on PC, PlayStation and more recently on Meta (not to mention free roam VR with its easily overlooked Far Cry game), a hit game is long overdue. “We’ve had lots of nice sellers that have made
money. Phantom: Covert Ops has done really well for us. Little Cities has massively exceeded our expectations. But we haven’t had a big hit for sure.” admits O’Luanaigh, who’s quick to point out Ghostbusters VR is just one game that nDreams has in development. “One of the things we’d love to do, if we look back in 12 or 24 months, is to go ‘You know what, we’ve actually had our first big hits’. We haven’t had that yet. But we’re getting closer all the time. We’re working really hard. The quality of the team is getting better all the time. With third party publishing, now we’re out there looking at
August 2022 MCV/DEVELOP | 19
edge,” recalls O’Luanaigh. “PlayStation Home was brand new when we started and we were learning new stuff. VR is pretty similar and there’s definitely lots of social similarities as well. We learnt in Home how people liked to interact together, what they wanted to do, how people formed friendship groups and what they liked to spend money on online. We know what they liked to do and what they didn’t like to do. That was really useful and, I think, as our VR games get bigger and more elaborate, there’s a lot more multiplayer stuff going on. I think some of the lessons from Home will kind of come back around now, actually.” Referencing his involvement at at panel
discussion at this year’s Develop conference, where it was argued that PlayStation Home had laid the the foundation for the modern day metaverse, O’Luanaigh’s regard for Sony’s virtual world experiment and the opportunities it lead to does not necessarily translate into a desire to repeat it in VR anytime soon. “It’s certainly possible [but] we haven’t
kicked off building our own because it’s a huge enterprise” says O’Luanaigh, who estimates
Patrick O’Luanaigh, nDreams CEO
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