A screenshot from Alien: Isolation
Reddit users have figured out how to play the new Alien video game on the Oculus Rift and have shared the method online for anyone else brave enough to give it go.
To play Alien: Isolation on Oculus Rift, you need a copy of the PC version of the game and, of course, an Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset, which so far is only available as a developers’ edition.
Users will need to make some code adjustments to enable the game for virtual-reality play, but a post on Reddit seems confident that the magic recipe has been found.
The Reddit thread, started by Wookiee81, involved a number of users going through the process of trial and error to find the right method and it looks like they have cracked it.
It was known that Alien: Isolation was playable on Oculus Rift as developers Creative Assembly created an Oculus version for the E3 gaming conference earlier this year, but this was a prototype version for demonstration purposes only.
Playing on Oculus Rift, gamers will be planted directly inside the first-person horror survival game and, though their hands will be operating the controls, their view will be exactly that of their character’s. When the player’s head moves, the action on screen will move accordingly, and Redditors have described how positional tracking allows them to lean around corners, adding, “Oh my god it is terrifying!”
Alien: Isolation was released on 7 October and pits players against a single H R Giger-inspired alien which cannot be killed but must be avoided at all costs. The game has already been designed to up the horror stakes and the addition of Oculus Rift’s immersive technology is surely heart attack-inducing.
