CCP is taking a hiatus from VR development, the company announced this week, and will shutter two of its five studios as a result. But CCP says it will continue to support both VR games it already released, EVE: Valkyrie and Sparc . The company just won’t say how long that support will continue.
CCP’s departure from VR development came as a surprise. It was one of the first companies to explore virtual reality games and even brought an early build of Valkyrie (known then as EVE VR ) to E3 2013. So it’s a bit shocking to hear a lack of investment forced CCP to shift its focus when the studio had a prototype for a financially-viable VR game roughly three years before the first consumer headsets shipped and more than a year before the DK2 (which really helped spread the word about Oculus) entered production. Even if Valkyrie was re-launched, and no longer required a VR headset, back in September.
CCP told Polygon it’s hoping to sell its Newcastle, U.K. studio and will also close its Atlanta office. The company says those decisions will affect around 100 people, all of whom have been offered severance packages and job placement services. The lone bit of good news in this week’s announcements is that neither closure will impact the communities that formed around Sparc and EVE: Valkyrie. Both will be supported by CCP’s London office going forward. The company also says its upcoming first-person shooter, Project Nova, won’t be impacted by the closures. The ongoing support is unlikely to make anyone feel better about the lost work. But it’s unlikely that another outcome was possible if VR investment is truly drying up, as CCP Games CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson claimed in his own statement to Polygon.
If you aren’t familiar with EVE: Valkyrie, and want to find out what you’ve been missing, check out the launch trailer that debuted last year. Then head down to the comments and share your thoughts on CCP’s departure from the VR marketplace.
EVE: Valkyrie is currently available on PC and PS4.
