According to a recent statement, the debut of the virtual reality rail shooter Switchback VR has been postponed from its initial February launch date. Supermassive Games tweeted to supporters that it was a painful choice to delay the game’s release, but that the period would be utilised to improve any faults and guarantee the degree of terror was an experience not easily forgotten.
From the 2019 release of The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan to the 2017 release of The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me, Supermassive Games is widely renowned for its dramatic and interactive survival-horror games. Switchback VR is a rollercoaster-style on-rails spin-off based in the same environment, where players will feel part of the same dread while striving to survive and shoot their way through shared sections of The Dark Pictures Anthology titles.
A Message from the Switchback VR team. pic.twitter.com/7w5PvBv7Ps
— Supermassive Games (@SuperMGames) January 23, 2023
Nearly seven years after the first PSVR headset arrived in 2016, Switchback VR was intended as a launch game for the new Playstation VR 2 headset, which is anticipated to be made available to the general public in February. Following the delay, the game is scheduled to be released on March 16, 2023. Switchback VR was the studio’s most ambitious VR effort to date, encompassing five separate realms packed with fear, according to developer Supermassive Games, who also praised fans for their patience with the game’s delay. The company also promised new gameplay features video that would be published in the near future.
In addition, the VR rail-shooter will include aspects of the original’s choice selection and consequence systems, giving players a number of game-play options. In the announcement trailer, which was published at the end of 2022, players are seen riding through a track, armed with guns and lamps, illuminating the darkness that surrounds them. As the player blasts their way over obstacles and creatures in an effort to live, enemies flutter through the darkness on each side, with numerous horrors coming on and off the road. Switchback VR will also include creatures and characters from past The Dark Pictures Anthology titles.
The butterfly effect that Supermassive Games likes to emphasise in each game has been critical to the developer’s success and has built a significant fan following that is raved about each new entry in the continuous series of tales. Although branching out into a rail-shooter may not make sense to some fans, it still enables Supermassive Games to provide the feeling of decision-making with consequences that have been a mainstay of the choice-based survival genre. Despite the fact that VR gaming has grown in popularity, price hikes in rival headsets, as well as the $549.99 price tag for the PSVR 2, have made success in VR gaming much more challenging. Losing out on being a launch title will likely harm the game’s sales, but spending the opportunity to refine and perfect different areas of the game could help the title achieve greater success in the long run.
