The Nintendo Labo VR Kit may not be the most high-end virtual reality experience currently in the market, but more developers may be able to unlock its full potential. According to a press release from Unity Technologies Japan, the Unity game engine will officially support the Nintendo Labo VR headset—this opens up the possibilities for VR titles running on Unity to come to the Switch, or developers can make new VR titles for the platform from scratch.
Besides including its own hardware, the VR kit for Switch also supports two of the most popular titles on the console: Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The experiences are a bit different, with the Odyssey VR update providing the game with extra missions, while the Breath of the Wild update allowed players to experience the entire game with the Labo VR headset, even including a form of head-tracking.
From third-party companies, Spice and Wolf VR is not only getting a PC release, but also a Switch release too. Spice and Wolf features an “Interactive Mode,” though the version found in the Switch will be more “limited” (via Gematsu) compared to the PC and PSVR editions of the game. Even so, having a third-party title with VR capabilities is a major step for Nintendo and its Switch hardware.
While the news is undoubtedly exciting, building games around the limited capabilities of the Nintendo Labo VR Kit should prove to be a challenge for developers. It isn’t exactly the most practical device, with no official headband available for the headset, forcing players to hold the Switch up to their face or come up with some other convoluted means to do so. While the news is meant to be inspiring to game studios, I’m mostly expecting limited viewfinder-like experiences.
Should developers be interested in accessing these new tools, they should visit the Nintendo Developer Portal.
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