The Climb will be one of the first games coming to the Oculus Rift when it releases in April. For developer Crytek, this is the end of a long road of experimentation, prototyping and refining ideas ahead of their first virtual reality release.
The Climb is a rock climbing game, but one that makes you feel as if you are actually clinging to the face of a cliff, not your digital avatar. We were impressed , but making impressive games is not new to Crytek.
“Crytek loves innovating, that’s kind of their calling card or signature,” Elijah Freeman told iDigitalTimes. Freeman served as the Executive Producer on The Climb . “When VR came around for this generation of hardware, we started prototyping. We wanted to build something unique and from the ground up.” This is where employees outside hobbies started directing the course of work.
“A couple of guys on our team are actual rock climbers,” Freeman said. This led to a prototype about climbing vertically. “Many of the prototypes were very good, and there were some we didn’t like. This one felt special to us, so we moved forward with it and embellished on it.”
When most gamers think of Crytek, they think of games that push graphics to the limit, and that’s no exception with The Climb . “One thing I want to mention is that Crytek is known for doing ‘pretty,’” said Freeman. “This is a game we feel we’ve combined ‘pretty’ and ‘playable’ at the same time. We’re pretty proud of that fact.”
One interesting thing players will notice is you don’t seem to have much of a body when playing The Climb . Instead, you rely on two floating hands to make the holds in the rocks. This was an intentional decision for Crytek, otherwise the views wouldn’t be as impressive.
“When you have your full body, and you want to look around, you can’t,” said Freeman. “And that’s the purpose of this game, to look around. You’ll end up trying to look through your arm or your leg or something. It was just easier for us to do.”
As for how much content actually comes in The Climb , there are three locations available at launch. “One setting is loosely based on Ha Long Bay in Vietnam,” Freeman said. “It’s a hyper-realistic version. We didn’t go totally 1:1 on it, but we went 1:1 on the reference and then made the game playable the way we wanted it. And then there’s the hyper-realistic German/Austrian Alps setting as well.” A third setting was confirmed, but Freeman mentioned the location will be kept secret until launch.
“Within those three settings there will be three levels of difficulty,” Freeman continued. “The easiest difficulty will be during the morning, the medium will be based on the afternoon setting and hard will be at night where you have to climb with a headlamp.” The higher difficulties also add additional challenges like ledges that will crumble or areas that drain your stamina much faster.
Multiple routes for each climbing location will encourage replayability, as well as features like leaderboards and ghosts to race against. Freeman mentioned other features will be included as well, but didn’t give any specifics. There are also hidden secrets in the levels, so be sure to explore as much as you can to discover everything.
If Freeman’s ambitions rise as the cliffs players will be scaling, The Climb could even start to have other purposes outside of gaming. “We designed this so people can have this experience in their living room. It’s kind of a transporting experience,” Freeman said. “I can see something like this eventually get used for tourism, with specific parks offering their climbs to get shared.”
The Climb will be releasing as a timed exclusive for the Oculus Rift, with a release planned for the Oculus Store in April. It will be priced at $49.99.
So what do you think? Will you be getting an Oculus Rift at launch? Will The Climb be a game you get for your headset? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
