Oculus shows off its first virtual reality games

Oculus VR announced its virtual reality headset moments ago and wasted no time showing the games that will go with it.

These include Eve Valkyrie, which was previously announced with Rift compatibility and looks, at least on a big non-VR screen, like a full-blown space combat simulator. But they also include some other heavy-duty games from well-known developers — and the Rift will come with an Xbox One controller and adapter to play these games with.

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A whole virtual reality economy is riding on Oculus Rift, which is the premiere technology for viewing apps in VR, and games are the linchpin for it. Digi-Capital estimates that the combination of augmented reality and virtual reality will be a $150 billion market by 2020. The potential is so huge that Facebook bought Oculus last year for $2 billion.

“The headset isn’t enough without great content,” said Brendan Iribe, the head of the Oculus VR division at Facebook.

David Adams, the CEO of Gunfire Games, showed off a trailer of Chronos, a virtual reality game set in ancient ruins. It showed an explorer investigating the ruins and fighting the creatures that he runs into.

Jason Rubin, head of studios at Oculus, said that VR fulfills the dream of gaming, allowing to you “step through the window and fulfill the dream.”

Hilmar Veigar Petursson, the CEO of CCP Games, showed off his VR game, Eve Valkyrie.

“We’ve been blurring the lines between what is real and virtual,” he said. “Our mission is to create virtual worlds more meaningful than real life.”

Ted Price, the CEO of Insomniac Games, revealed Edge of Nowhere, an action-adventure game set in the frozen Antarctic wastelands.

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Other titles showing up next week at the Electronic Entertainment Expo include AirMechVR, Lucky’s Tale, and numerous others. Supporting developers include Playful, 4A Games, Climax, Coatsink Entertainment, Gunfire Games, CCP, High Voltage, Harmonix, Glu, Carbon, Square Enix, Insomniac, and Signal.

“Edge of Nowhere has been designed for VR from day one,” he said. “It has brought that thrill of new things. As someone who has been skeptical of VR, I have become a deliver.”

Oculus is making its own VR games and apps. It is also seeding money into indie game creators via game jams with big prizes. The idea is to get a virtuous cycle of hardware and software progress going so it becomes a self-perpetuating ecosystem.

Oculus is expecting to ship the Rift in early 2016.

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“There’s going to be a lot more to come,” Iribe said.