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The Meta Quest 3 is the de facto standalone VR headset, although some already believe the portable gaming machine isn’t a substantial enough jump in rendering capabilities over its predecessor. However, for Alien Rogue Incursion developer Survios, the technology is an “amazing” piece of tech to work with.
Alien Rogue Incursion devs on Quest 3 power
In an interview for an upcoming episode of the VideoGamer Podcast, Alien Rogue Incursion lead engineer Eugene Elkin explained that the studio would love the extra power afforded on more powerful hardware, but the Quest 3 is more than good enough for now.
“We’ll be very happy anytime, you know, if they say ‘here are some cycles you can use’ we will use them,” Elkin explained. “That being said Quest 3 is still an amazing piece of hardware, right? The fact that it’s able to run the game mobile, anywhere, you can play it in an airport waiting for your plane if you want.”
The jump in power from Meta Quest 2 to Quest 3 has opened up a brand-new generation of games for VR gamers to explore. Titles like Batman: Arkham Shadow and Alien: Rogue Incursion are only possible because of the headset’s additional power. However, for Survios’ Alien game it was still a challenge to bring a huge PCVR experience to the standalone machine.
“The fact that it’s mobile hardware and the leaps and bounds… we’re glad the Quest 3 gave us so much more power over Quest 2, and, yeah, it was absolutely a challenge to get the exact same game, the way the game plays, nothing was sacrificed.”
It’s still a big challenge
For Alien Rogue Incursion, the team had to use “some tricks and lots of optimisations” such as making use of Asynchronous SpaceWarp, a form of framerate generation used to duplicate the game’s internal 36fps up to 72fps, to free up the mobile CPU.
“[ASW] gave us some some headroom on the CPU to make sure that we’re able to run the entirety of the game, that the number of Xenomorphs that can potentially come out and engage with a player is exactly the same [as PC and PSVR],” Elkin explained. “Of course, on the GPU we had to take more drastic changes… it’s using dynamic res as well but the way the fog is made, the way the blood decals [work], the way the lighting works, right? Everything has to change to represent the same feel.”
While Alien Rogue Incursion is currently available on Quest in a finished state, Survios isn’t done improving it. With new updates coming to improve visuals, performance and fix bugs, the already-great Alien game will get even better. Alongside a brand-new development pipeline for its upcoming sequel, Alien fans will continue to eat well in VR—no matter the platform.
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