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Electronic Arts & # 39; Medal of Honor A first-person military shooter series is back in action, although it's not what you'd expect: it's a revival as a virtual reality game for the Oculus Rift, courtesy of Apex Legends and Fall of the Titans Respawn developer, coming in 2020.
Respawn and Oculus announced that they were working together on a "Triple A VR" game two years ago. Shortly after this announcement, EA bought Respawn. Announced in today's keynote address at the opening of the Oculus Connect conference, Medal of Honor: Beyond takes place during the Second World War. A demo will be playable this week at Oculus Connect.
Lead the development of Beyond is a figure of Medal of HonorPeter Hirschmann, producer and screenwriter of the original 1999 game, which was produced in collaboration with Steven Spielberg's Dreamworks Interactive. In fact, Hirschmann said during a presentation at a special evening in San Francisco that he was in the "hall where it happened" in November 1997 when Spielberg was presented the original. Medal of Honor the team on the idea of teaching people the Second World War through an interactive game.
Hirschmann joined Respawn in 2016, leading a third team at the studio. "Many of us have always had that emotional connection, that emotional desire" to come back Medal of Honor, he said. "At the same moment, Oculus arrived at a callin '. The Rift manufacturer wanted a triple-A experience for their helmets, and Respawn told them that what was needed was not just money, but time. Oculus agreed, and years later, Medal of Honor is almost ready for launch in 2020.
It's not just in the personnel department that Beyond dates back to Medal of HonorThe past. Like the original collaboration with Spielberg, this version contains an important educational element. Respawn conducted new interviews with many World War II veterans, the youngest of whom was 93 at the time of filming. (You can access these interviews in the Gallery section of the game.) They even went so far as to associate with the Honor Flight organization, which organizes veterans memorials in Washington, DC, in order to bring some of these veterans back to Europe and allow them to return to the scene. places where they fought for the first time.
The 360-degree virtual reality videos from some of these places also allow you to get personally close to them. Respawn also digitizes archival footage from the Library of Congress in 4K for the first time.
"We are trying to create the most authentic game possible of the Second World War," said Hirschmann. "It does not mean that we are trying to create the most realistic possible." You will use Oculus motion controllers to grab, hold, aim and fire your weapons. Need more ammo? You will have to reach for your left hip, place it in the gun, and then pull the slide back. This part is fun. "Do you know what's not fun?" Hirschmann said. "Try to put it back in the holster." If you let go of your weapon, it will come back to your hip. It is emblematic of the difference that Respawn draws between "authentic" and "realistic".
While Beyond "A full suite" of multiplayer modes, Respawn does not talk about that at Connect. It highlights the solo campaign, which will last about 10 to 12 hours and will span 50 different levels. (Players who want to explore each level of the levels and find all the hidden details and secrets could see their playing time double, Hirschmann said.)
The three acts of the game are: One is the Resistance, placing you in Nazi-occupied France before the invasion of Normandy. The second is the invasion, which begins with a level at Omaha Beach. Thirdly, it is necessary to destroy the "secret weapons" of the Nazis, like the hydroelectric plant of Norway.
Playing a Nazi shooter in the first person is, frankly, terrifying. There is a big difference between the tutorial area, a shooting range where you can play with guns and try to shoot enemies from a distance, and the first level demo, where you end up in a tiny room at the back of the kitchen. the Gestapo HQ and you are supposed to start walking and finding Nazis. It's a certain feeling of "Oh shit, I do not even want to go through that first door; And if there is a Nazi there? "
Making things more difficult is the fact that it's not easy to aim the barrel of a gun with virtual reality motion controllers. This so natural action with twin sticks causes a long learning curve when you hold your hands in front of your face. Fortunately, the Nazis balance this by being extremely stupid. Most of the time, they keep themselves open and sometimes shoot at you, like big easy targets. Even with all these advantages, it is always very difficult to engage each enemy. If you need to heal, remove a syringe from inside your left forearm and insert it into your chest. If you want to throw a grenade, remove the pin with your left hand or teeth.
At the beginning of a level on a snowy path, I found myself at the top of a hill, near a rock at the waist, and I knew that I had to bend down physically to put myself in the shelter. At that time, one of the Nazis made decides to fill the gap that separates us by running around the rock, while remaining respectful of me. Meanwhile, I'm on my knees and I'm looking for ammunition forceps in the waist hoping that guy gets up and looks at me a little before deciding to shoot me and stop everything.
Respawn does not want to "over-resorb" the scenes. Dead soldiers tend to collapse on the ground without much carnage. "We do not need excessive amounts of free blood," said Hirschmann. "Let's hope that the horror of the fight goes into the role play."
There will also be dead times, including segments in which you are disguised as a German soldier and therefore able to walk around and get closer to the enemy, to watch him closely and see him fend for himself, listening to the conversations. Puzzles and interactive elements will also allow you to do more than shoot, like having to press the keys of a piano in the right order to access a secret area.
Responding to questions posed during the roundtable that followed the demonstrations, Respawn and Oculus were warned of the possibility of Beyond come on Oculus Quest, the autonomous wireless platform that makes virtual reality much more comfortable and accessible. They would only say that Respawn "loves the quest" and that the game is "exclusive to Oculus", which seems to imply that it is not exclusively about Rift material.
For the moment, it is clear that Medal of Honor: Beyond This is the most important game of Oculus to date: encourage players to buy a Rift helmet. Based on a short demo, it's hard to know if the full game will really be a turning point for players to buy a Rift, but that's the idea.
"Good software sells good hardware," said Hirschmann. "You can have the most amazing doohickey, computer or console, and if there's nothing fun to play on, who cares?"
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