A game studio is thinking about VR, who knew? Still, it's nice to hear Battlefield 1's design director Lars Gustavsson talk about the tech with such a good take on what the future holds and how to deal with it.
When it comes to VR, Lars makes it clear it was never on the cards for Battlefield 1. "If you build a VR game there’s more things you need to think of in order to create the best experience. From the get go we’ve designed [Battlefield 1] to be the best possible Battlefield". However, don't discount the idea for another day: "Who knows what we do in the future with VR but it’s definitely something on the radar for the studio".
Whatever that future might bring, Lars is clear on approaching it sensibly, and it's obviously not as simple as just adding a VR headset to Battlefield. "You need to have a different mindset when you develop with VR". Like all new and different tech, "it comes with strengths and it comes with restrictions".
While virtual reality is still fairly new, Lars thinks that guidelines for "how you do it right and how you do it wrong" are already starting to form. The key thing to getting it right, then, is to "build your experience around those limitations. There’s great possibilities but it comes with thought and special craft to make it right, and those are the ones that will stand out as winners. Sometimes, when there’s new ideas, it’s a mistakes to think you can apply it to every game and automatically make it better".
