Icelandic developer CCP Games is working on a game for the Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset titled Eve: Valkyrie. Now, CCP is bringing in an industry veteran to oversee production of the space dogfighting sim.
The developer revealed today that Owen O’Brien is joining the company as executive producer on Eve: Valkyrie. He will report to CCP senior vice president of production Sean Decker, but O’Brien is now the person primarily in charge of the studio’s next big game.
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“I worked with Owen for many years at DICE,” said Decker. “His experience bringing Mirror’s Edge to market will be invaluable as we work to make virtual reality an actual reality for gamers worldwide.”
Mirror’s Edge is known for making players feel like they are in the game’s world. That know-how is especially important to a VR game like Eve: Valkyrie.
“The opportunity to work with a focused, talented, and passionate team at the forefront of game-changing technology is a dream scenario for me,” said O’Brien. “But it’s not just about the technology. This was a project born out of a genuine passion for gaming, and that shows in what the team has already achieved.”
CCP began Eve: Valkyrie as a tech demo known as Eve-VR. The company decided to expand that into a full game that will compliment and work with its Eve Online massively multiplayer online role-playing game.
The Oculus Rift headset is a VR visor that completely wraps around a player’s vision. The device uses head tracking to then enable gamers to look around inside a gaming world. Oculus is still in development, but the Oculus VR company hopes to release it as a consumer product in the near future.