GTA V Gets Real – Virtual Real

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last few years, or were stranded on some island during this year's E3, you probably need no introduction to the newest fad in the gaming industry, virtual reality. The idea behind virtual reality, if simplified down to the basics, is the same that inspired motion controls way back in their time – immersion.

However, where motion controls failed miserably, VR is actually seemingly succeeding. VR works best with games in first-person (obviously), and the idea is to truly make you feel like you are in the game, by covering your eyes completely with VR goggles, and have the movement of the camera track the movement of your head. These are the basics, at least. VR has been taken further with ideas like gun-shaped controllers, pain-feedback and walking frames.

In addition to all this, some genius thought that combining motion controls with VR would be a good idea, but thankfully there's just the one.

While most VR games out there are small scale tech demos, with a few more serious indie productions mixed in, but they're almost exclusively developed for the purpose of VR demonstration. Adapting existing games to VR isn't unheard of, but it is rarely successful.

In the clip above we have the team over at Cyberith showing off their VR treadmill, the Virtualizer, and its performance in GTA V. Combining the VR treadmill with Oculus Rift means that the character walks and turns as the player walks and turns, and looks where the player looks. While the treadmills aren't nearly as popular in the VR world as the goggles are, and rarely are used without the goggles, quite a few have popped up recently as VR gains popularity even further. The two heavy hitters in the console industry, Sony and Microsoft, also want in to the VR market, which up until now was only a PC thing. The Hololens demonstration at E3 was particularly impressive, and with such a big company backing VR, adapting big name AAA productions will be getting much more focus in the future.

What do you guys think of VR? Would you play GTA V with VR equipment?