EVE Online devs announce Tron-y futuresport Sparc
Tron-u-like
Taking a break from their usual obsessions of spaceships and zapbeams, EVE Online developers CCP have announced a full-body virtual reality futuresport. Sparc [official site] looks a bit like Tron's murderfrisbee or two-ball Pong, plopping two players in a corridor to fling deathdiscs with one hand and shield with the other while moving their body to dodge discs. CCO say Sparc is their first game outside the EVE universe but it still looks all futuristic and cyber-y to me. Here, watch the announcement trailer, which CCP seem to have accidentally cut into a cologne commercial:
Hai Karate will freak when they see that.
Sparc is made for two-player competitive multiplayer, with features like a built-in spectator space for folks to watch matches and queue. It will have singleplayer training and challenges too, mind.
CCP plan to release Sparc some time this year for both HTC Vive and Oculus Rift cybergoggles. This is their third VR game, following the two EVE spin-offs of EVE: Valkyrie and Gunjack for Samsung's Gear pocket cyberspace.
Sparc is what became of Project Arena, a prototype CCP showed off last spring. Here's a 'mixed reality' mockup of how it was back then. Given that the announcement trailer is a load of guff, this might be more helpful for a sense of what the game actually is:
