nDreams Unveils Next-Level VR Immersion for ‘Reach’

Man, so nDreams is at it again. You know, they’ve been around the VR block a few times, and now they’re teasing us with this new game, Reach. It’s coming from nDreams Elevation, their latest brainchild, and apparently, it’s gonna be a mind-bender. No clue why I got sucked into their developer talk, but here we are.

I caught wind of Reach last week. They threw out some gameplay snippets, kinda cinematic with a lot of parkour antics and VR-exclusive moves. And man, I gotta say, it looked pretty wild, jumping all over the place. Like, you know, you’re reaching out, grabbing onto stuff, and pulling yourself around. It’s like virtual monkey bars or something—did anyone else have those as a kid? No? Just me?

Anyway—or wait—so Matt Duff, one of their design guys, was dishing out the philosophy behind it. He’s all about action, adventure, and… what was it? Presence. Right, they want you in the moment, like, truly there. And listen, VR movement’s always been hit-or-miss, right? But they’re swirling around this magic, making you think you’re leaping for real. I’m sure there’s some wizardry behind it or just trickery, really.

And the player’s got their agency, too. If it’s climbable, you’re scaling it. If it looks touchable, well, go ahead and touch it. There’s this thing they call Full-body Awareness (FBA)—no floating hands nonsense. You got a full-body, moving like it’s got purpose. Floating hands were always a bit eerie, don’t you think?

Ah, and combat’s on the menu, too. You like going loud or sneaky-sneak? Both work. There’s bows with bombs and freeze arrows and, I dunno, stun stuff. Sneaky folks can draw baddies to their arrows and do their thing. Someone needs to tell them ninjas are forever cool.

So yeah, Reach is dropping on all the big VR headsets, later this year if you believe their timeline. Go slap it on your wishlist, or don’t—it’s your life. They’re talking Oculus Quest 3, PSVR 2, Steam for PC VR… all the usual suspects. Kinda stoked. I might just disappear into VR when it drops. Until then… waiting’s the name of the game.