One of the PlayStation VR titles at Sony’s E3 booth this week is RIGS: Mechanized Combat League, which is a competitive, 3 player vs 3 player game that is like a mixture between a FPS and basketball. The overall goal is for you team to run up a ramp and jump through a hoop, but you have to kill a member of the opposite team before you can do that. I had a chance to catch up with Guerrilla Games Lead Designer Gareth Hughes at Sony’s press event at GDC to talk to him about the game design process, some of the motion sickness from VR locomotion issues that came up for me, and the process of cultivating an eSport within VR.
LISTEN TO THE VOICES OF VR PODCAST
Only time will tell whether or not people are able to cultivate enough individual and team skills within RIGS to the point that competitive leagues are formed. But from what I’ve seen so far, RIGS does have a lot of the key components in it’s 3Pv3P gameplay that make it perfectly primed to become one of the first major eSports in VR. If that’s the case, then either the future of competitive VR eSports will be populated with professional VR players who are immune to motion sickness or there will need to be some VR design compromises that make this type of intense VR locomotion experience comfortable for everyone.
Another key component for the future of eSports is whether or not it’s interesting and exciting to watch for spectators. Forbes recently reported that “The studio is working on a spectator mode for virtual reality viewers to watch the action when they’re not one of the six players competing in the arena.” This is a game where the audience would probably have a better view on everything that was going on rather than an individual player who can’t see the entire playing space from their first-person perspective.
RIGS: Mechanized Combat League is currently slated to be a launch title for the PlayStation VR in October.
Donate to the Voices of VR Podcast Patreon
Music: Fatality & Summer Trip
Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.452] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. My name is Kent Bye, and welcome to The Voices of VR Podcast. On today's episode, I have Gareth Hughes of Guerrilla Games talking about RIGS, the Mechanized Combat League game that's launching on the PlayStation VR in October. So RIGS is kind of like a first-person shooter mixed with basketball. So it's essentially a competitive three-on-three game that's launching for the PlayStation VR. So I talked to Gareth about the game design process as well as the cultivation of eSports and virtual reality and what that's going to look like. So that's what we'll be covering on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. But first, a quick word from our sponsor. Today's episode is brought to you by Unity. Unity is a great way to get involved into virtual reality development, even if you don't want to become an expert on every dimension of creating a VR experience. The Unity Asset Store has a lot of different 3D models and scripts to get you started. For example, Technolust's Blair Renaud has won artistic achievement awards using a lot of the assets from the Unity Store. I'm not actually doing a lot of modeling and art for the game. It's a lot of kit bashing, taking Unity assets, tearing them apart and putting them back together. Get started in helping make your VR dreams come true with Unity and the Unity Asset Store. So this interview took place at the PlayStation event happening at GDC in March, and I had just had a chance to play a three on three match with other journalists. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:01:43.124] Gareth Hughes: Hi, my name's Gareth Hughes and I'm lead designer on RIGS from Guerrilla Cambridge studio in the UK. And here today we're presenting RIGS on VR. It's a PlayStation VR exclusive. We're looking to launch in the launch window, hopefully day one. And to describe RIGS, I would say that it's a competitive arena-based online shooter infused with the spectacle and drama of real sports. So it's set in 50 years in the future. where motorsport and combat sports have kind of come together to create the Mechanised Combat League where the top sports stars of the day compete for fame and prizes and trophies.
[00:02:22.446] Kent Bye: Great, so talk a bit about the format in terms of how many different players and what the kind of goals and objectives are.
[00:02:28.051] Gareth Hughes: So the format is three on three and the game mode that we're showing today is called Power Slam. And the idea is like it's a fusion between FPS and basketball. So the tagline for it is you are the ball. So you score points for your team by jumping through a giant hoop in the center of the arena. It sounds very simple, and it is, but there's a little wrinkle to it. So in order to score the point, you must go into overdrive. And you go into overdrive by taking down the opposition players. So there's kind of two phases to the game. There's the hunting down and taking down the opposition. And then once you hit overdrive, there's the mad dash to goal to score the point.
[00:03:06.129] Kent Bye: Great. So, I guess in the process of developing this, how did you make it so that it was actually kind of like a good balance of having skill and challenge but also be fun?
[00:03:15.553] Gareth Hughes: So, what VR has allowed us to do, I think, is level the playing field in terms of direct control. So, in traditional FPS, you require a certain degree of pad skill to be able to compete and, you know, some people just don't have that. What VR's allowed us to do in the aiming system, because you're basically aiming with your face, it becomes completely intuitive and it allows people that perhaps couldn't have competed in traditional FPS's, they can play our game and be competitive. So it places the emphasis much more on positional play, tactical play, strategy with your other team members, the rig that you choose to pilot has a massive bearing on how the gameplay is out for you personally. So yeah, it's a shift really, I think, is what we're doing. We're trying to open up the genre and make it more appealing for a much wider audience.
[00:04:03.998] Kent Bye: So are the players able to communicate with each other at all while they're playing?
[00:04:07.179] Gareth Hughes: Yes, absolutely. So there's a microphone built into the system and we have voice chat. We support party chat on the platform. So as you're playing with your team, you'll absolutely be able to communicate as you would in any other FPS.
[00:04:19.896] Kent Bye: OK, yeah, I didn't know if that was enabled here, or if I just really didn't know what to even say.
[00:04:24.277] Gareth Hughes: So we don't have it enabled here, because obviously it's just random press people today that are playing the game. And we generally find that some people just don't like other people shouting at them, and they're completely randoms. And we don't really want to have to tutorialize people muting other players and all that. So it's just a simpler proposition. And it also allows people to absorb in this demonstration scenario. They can hear the audio much more clearly. It's not being overridden by chat. So that was why we made that decision for this particular time, but we do support full communication.
[00:04:56.446] Kent Bye: I can imagine this RIGS game seeding a lot of the eSports leagues in terms of people who are playing competitive. Is that part of the intention is to create a game where professionals could compete at a professional level?
[00:05:07.878] Gareth Hughes: Absolutely, so we totally understand that you don't create an eSport, you create a game that people want to play competitively and if the skill ceiling is high enough then it can be played at an eSport competitive level and I certainly think that what we are providing will provide that level of engagement and that skill ceiling will be there but it will just be slightly different to a traditional FPS. Like I said earlier, rather than raw pad skill, the focus becomes much more on which rig are you in? How are you working as a team? How are you positioning yourself in the arena? What role are you taking on? Are you defensive? Are you offensive? So it draws a lot from team sports in terms of how the team needs to operate together to be successful.
[00:05:49.486] Kent Bye: And one of the things that I've noticed in the game is that I'm fairly sensitive to motion sickness and so there is a cockpit which actually helps moving around. However, sort of rotating and turning with the yaw rotation was something that's a big trigger for me and that I wasn't able to really even turn without having to like shut my eyes or kind of induce some motion sickness.
[00:06:08.654] Gareth Hughes: So again, in a demonstration scenario like today, we're using what we call right stick turn. So you're basically turning the rig with the right stick and then you're aiming with your face with the VR unit where you look. We have other control systems that I find personally much more intuitive, but they do have a slightly more long lead time before people are comfortable with them. So we have one called aim, look and turn. So that completely disables the right stick in terms of turning and you basically have a dead zone in which you find aim and then as you push your look beyond that threshold it will actually start to turn the rig. That becomes much more intuitive and actually I think some of the sensations that you were feeling today from the right stick turn perhaps wouldn't be there with an alternative control system. We will certainly be offering in the release package.
[00:06:56.158] Kent Bye: Yeah, I know that one of the ones that is becoming more and more popular is the VR comfort mode where you kind of jump like a 15 degree angle. And I know that the Sony social VR actually implemented that as a kind of their solution to be able to turn in a comfortable way. But is that something that you're going to continue to refine and get feedback on in terms of creating comfortable VR locomotion schemes?
[00:07:16.290] Gareth Hughes: Yeah, absolutely. So we're currently pre-alpha, just heading into alpha, so we're absolutely still looking at control, we're still looking at comfort, we're still working out what the optimum structure of the game is to bring people in and acclimatise them to the experience so that The controls and the options and the intensity of the experience is really layered in, so people can build up and feel comfortable with what they're playing. Obviously, like again, in a scenario like today, we have to kind of have a one-fit-all solution, and that's not going to be optimal for some people, which is unfortunate. But yeah, with the full release, we're really looking at comfort is absolutely a primary concern.
[00:07:55.277] Kent Bye: Another trigger for me for motion sickness is going up and down. So jumping was actually a thing that when I do it I kind of have to like just shut my eyes just so that when I do it I don't get sick.
[00:08:06.340] Gareth Hughes: So the different rig classes all have different abilities and that includes the way that they jump. Some of the rigs have a double jump, some have like a boost up into the air and then they hover and glide and then others are much more ground based. So I think if you suffered difficulties with rigs that did a lot of jumping, then gravitating towards the rigs that are less about jumping, more about speed and maneuvering, then they'll perhaps be a better fit for you.
[00:08:29.857] Kent Bye: And so, in terms of strategies, has some specific strategies been developed by people like the developers that end up playing this game a lot?
[00:08:37.687] Gareth Hughes: Oh, absolutely. So we pretty much frag the game every day. We've obviously got more game modes than we're showing today, all leveraging different kinds of sports. But yeah, the strategies are definitely developing. Some people prefer a defensive role. They'll take some of the more heavily armoured rigs with, say, impulse weapons so they can push people away from the goals, where others prefer the much speedier, lightly armoured kind of attack rigs where they're pushing to score the goals themselves. And we've reworked the scoring system in the game so that no matter what role you take on, you have a chance to be the MVP. If you put in a great defensive performance, that's as valuable to the team as putting in a really good offensive one.
[00:09:18.622] Kent Bye: I see. So there's other kind of milestones to get, even if you're on the winning team, you can sort of be competing individually.
[00:09:24.105] Gareth Hughes: Absolutely. And even if you're on the losing team, if you put in a really good performance, you can still be the MVP for that match and take all the bonuses and benefits that come with it.
[00:09:33.805] Kent Bye: Great. And so, because this is a multiplayer game, do you foresee having a mode where a single individual player could play with AIs, or is this really something that requires other humans to play it?
[00:09:43.048] Gareth Hughes: So, absolutely we're going to support single player. We have bots up and running now. I'm pretty sure that at GDC there is a playable version of this with bots, where it's single player experience, and that will be supported with game structure like leagues and tournaments and all the rest of it. We certainly don't see this as a multiplayer-only title. We're absolutely going to support single-player as well.
[00:10:04.606] Kent Bye: What are some of your favorite memories or stories of either yourself or other people playing the game?
[00:10:09.566] Gareth Hughes: I think one of our favourite ones is probably right back at the beginning we developed the mechanic of when you get taken down by an enemy rig, you basically eject out of your rig up into the sky, then you can pick your spawn point and deploy. And the first time we showed that to Shuhei, he just basically sat there ejecting, getting back in, ejecting. He just loved the sensation of rushing up into the air. And it was like, yeah, you could see that there was something really good there. And the second one for me really was last year at PSX. Because you know, when you're a developer, you're kind of in your little developer bubble and you're just burning away and making the game. And you know, you think, how good is this game? You kind of lose track a little bit. You know, you think it's good. You think you're doing the right things. Then we went to PSX and watched the reactions of people playing. And that for me was just magic. You know, just seeing how engaged and excited the players really were.
[00:11:00.565] Kent Bye: It was just awesome. What has been the reactions of people? Like, what do they like about it?
[00:11:05.048] Gareth Hughes: I think people like the fact that they can just get in there and have a really cool experience straight away. The learning curve, like, it's a bit of a cheesy one to say, but it's, you know, easy to learn, it's difficult to master. And I think that really sums the approach to rigs up. We want that high skill ceiling, but we don't want the barriers to entry to be there. We want people to just get in and have a good time.
[00:11:27.477] Kent Bye: And so what do you want to experience in VR then?
[00:11:30.113] Gareth Hughes: I don't actually know yet, and I don't think a lot of us know. It's such a young, growing part of the industry. I think we're only starting to now understand the possibilities that we can create, the places that we can take people, the interactions that they can have. And although RIGS is based on a fairly traditional concept, you know, we're leveraging the VR in some quite interesting ways, but I think as time goes on and people understand the capabilities more and more, we're going to see some really, really, truly amazing experiences develop.
[00:12:00.941] Kent Bye: And finally, what do you see as kind of the ultimate potential of virtual reality and what that might be able to enable?
[00:12:07.424] Gareth Hughes: So one of the things I think is quite interesting is that at the moment, you know, people see people with the headset on and headphones on and they're like, oh, it's a really insular experience. But it doesn't have to be. You know, we're already seeing some demos internally. And certainly when people are playing rigs, they feel like a team. They're in the same space and it's different to watching it on TV when you've got your buddies right there next to you and you can kind of look across and see him and he's emoting and stuff. It's really powerful.
[00:12:38.140] Kent Bye: Anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say?
[00:12:40.688] Gareth Hughes: I guess I'd just like to thank Sony really for providing us the opportunity to do this stuff. I mean I've worked in games for 20 years, I've worked on all sorts of different games but this feels different this time. VR has really changed the way that we're looking. The orthodoxies of how we design games has had to change. Lots of the things that we were kind of like, this is how you do this, this is how you build a HUD, this is how you do a control system. It's just like, no, you're going to have to learn all this stuff again, but in a good way. It's fresh and it's a new experience.
[00:13:13.445] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, thank you.
[00:13:14.486] Gareth Hughes: No worries. Great. Thanks.
[00:13:16.263] Kent Bye: So that was Gareth Hughes of Guerrilla Games, and he's working on RIGS, Mechanized Combat League, which is a launch title for the PlayStation VR. So a number of takeaways about this experience is that, first of all, the thing that was most striking for me is that this is a game that's a little intense for me who's got a little bit of sensitivity to motion sickness. And so I'm sure for people who aren't sensitive and can run around and jump up and down, it's It's going to be a pretty exciting game to be able to play. I think there's a lot of room for the combination of your own skills to be cultivated, but also to develop different types of strategies with your teammates, as well as different types of robots with different strengths. And I can see how that people would have fun playing this, but for me, I don't think that it's going to be a very comfortable experience, especially with the yaw stick rotation controls that they had in the game. It's possible that some of the other control mechanisms where you're actually turning to look could be a little bit better. I'd imagine that the PlayStation VR does have the capability to track you 360 degrees. There are some markers on the back. But you should either be standing up or sitting in a swivel chair, I think, if you're going to be using that VR locomotion method. So aside from that, I think the other interesting thing about this game is that it really does push you to have this extra situational awareness within a VR game when you're running around and trying to locate and find the other opposing team. So it's an interesting mechanic that you can only score points by killing the opposite team members. So it does give that combat a purpose so that in order for you to score points, then it's not just about killing them. You have to then run up this ramp and jump through the hoop So it'll be interesting to see, you know, how the gameplay works out with, you know, getting six people together, whether or not you'll have to get two of your friends or if you'll just be matched up randomly. And then there's the issue of, you know, when you're randomly paired up with people, the communication with your teammates to be able to actually coordinate and to be able to have a coherent strategy. It's something that'll be interesting to see how well that works out. Either you're going to get rigs and there's going to be nobody to play with because it's too high of a barrier, or there's going to be enough people and it's going to be easy enough to kind of ad hoc be able to cultivate some of those strategies as you're playing the game. At GDC, I was just playing it for the first time, as well as other people, so everybody was just kind of trying to figure out what was going on. I'm not quite sure if there was communication going on between the different players, if we'd be able to really coherently have a language to be able to coordinate with each other to both describe what you were doing and to talk about where you're at in this space so that you can orient yourself relative to other people. I think it was a little confusing just to get oriented to the gameplay and there is a little bit of a learning curve, but like Garrett said, it's overall pretty simple and we were able to still figure it out. Easy to initially figure out but perhaps difficult to master. So the other thing that comes to mind when thinking about esports in VR is that to be able to actually look with your head and aim You don't have as much control as you do using a mouse and keyboard, actually. I think that using a mouse and keyboard is something that is very highly tuned to be able to very quickly and precisely be able to aim. And there's people who have entire esports careers based upon their reflexes and ability to do that with a mouse and keyboard. Now, with your head and using your head to aim, it's a lot more intuitive to do, but it could potentially be fatiguing over time, and it actually may be a little bit more difficult to get to the same level of precision as you have with your hands, because your hands are much more adept to be able to have that fine-grained control than your neck or your head. So, it'll be interesting to see how, over time, whether or not they use a head-based aiming mechanism, or if they'll have other ways of doing motion track controls where you're able to use the Move controllers, which I saw some pictures this week of a next generation of Move controllers that have actual D-pads and buttons and something that goes beyond just the existing Move controllers. So that's all that I have for today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So thanks for listening. And if you do enjoy the podcast and would like to support it, then consider becoming a patron at patreon.com slash Voices of VR.
