I’ve seen many gamers going all out to achieve a surround view setup in games such as Microsoft Flight Simulator or F1 2020. Microsoft Flight Simulator is available in VR too. But gamers still spend big money on ultra wide screen with powerful GPUs to drive their setup. A VR setup cost way less and could possibly provide full FOV for the player. I think the VR pick up rate is non ideal due to the lack of motivation to drive this new game genre. Gamers are happy with their current setup and may not want to try something new. Perhaps we can loan VR setup to try games and experience it for ourselves.

One of the biggest issues with regards to locomotion in VR is that players are limited by the size of their play area. Without using teleport or slide locomotion, players are limited to movement the size of their play area. This constraint limits game designers as well as levels in the game need to be designed small enough, as players don’t have infinite play area.

An interesting idea I think we can use to solve this limitation in VR games is through the method of Redirected Motion, which mimics the sensation of an infinite play space. Essentially, this method rotates the virtual world by a small degree whenever a player takes a step. This forces the player to redirect his physical motion to avoid walls and walking out of his play area. In order for a player to travel a straight line in the game, he would have to walk the path of a curve in the real world as illustrated in the image below.

In larger play areas like playing in an open field or large room, the rotation of the virtual world would be so minimal that players would not notice it, giving the sensation that they are playing in an infinite open space. However, this method would not necessarily work in smaller rooms as players would need to run small circles in order to walk a short straight line, which can be quite disorientating.