Virtual Reality

Final Fantasy XIV in Virtual Reality

Before I get started, let's just say that it's safe to assume that eventually this day was going to come: virtual reality inside of an MMO or an MMORPG. This idea has been on the minds of gamers for years now and with VR technology finally starting to reach that point in its lifespan to actually be worth the time and effort it takes to create a true VR experience, it's no surprise that an MMO would get the chance to try it out first-hand.

What is quite surprising, however is that Square Enix are the ones to dip their foot in the “MMO in VR” pool first and that's with their flagship MMORPG, Final Fantasy XIV. Even though it may be a surprise to many, it's always worth a shot to see how the game would pan out in a virtual reality perspective for the first time.

Back in 2015, there was an event taking place known as the Tokyo Game Show in September of that year, and one of the demo's in that particular show was a demo for Final Fantasy XIV in virtual reality, and as you can imagine, it worked exactly as you would expect. You would look around for the most part using the VR headset provided, looking around the in-game world and enjoy some of the scenery around the place. Unfortunately, at the time it was little more than a demo and wasn't the most refined experience to grace the VR platform, due to the fact you still needed to do a lot of the mobility using a controller – as the game was currently being played on the PS4.

To keep things interesting, exploring and looking around one of the houses in-game wasn't all the demo showcased at the show. What was also introduced to the general public was how combat would play out and while it does look pretty interesting to some degree, it is fairly lacklustre all at the same time.

Obviously the cool part about all this is getting the chance to take on some popular raid bosses, look at integral details and the scale of the monsters and enemies that otherwise you wouldn't get the chance to experience. The main problem the demo brought up was that you only ever saw the spell and skill effects go off when you activated them and little else. You would be able to see the effects, but you wouldn't see any impact from your weapon when casting and that's an integral part of any MMO; let alone a necessary element of VR gameplay. Without that added extra it removed a part of the game that made it what it was and while initially it would have been cool and fun to see and look at; after a while I can see it quickly becoming relatively stale.

I believe the main problem with FF14 having a VR perspective is the fact that the game isn't built from the ground up for VR support, hence why on the offset it looks fairly weak in comparison to other VR projects. Not to say that the game would be better or worse with VR, it's just the fact that the game isn't originally built with virtual reality in mind and because of that, any future development for it would hinder the entire experience to some degree.

In general, though, you have to give Square Enix some props for being one of the first developers to actually give VR in MMO's a chance. Back then it might not have been exactly perfect and even now it may not necessarily be to the same degree other genres in the VR area of gaming may be at, but it is definitely a step in the right direction. But from the looks of this original footage; while it is definitely an interesting idea, it seems to be one of those things where it's best to create the game from the ground up with the intentions of porting it in to VR, rather than forcing it to some small degree.

Whether or not Square Enix decides to focus on VR MMORPG's in the future is something that we as an industry will need to wait for to find out, but so far it is definitely a step in the right direction. Again, while it does seem like something that could work in the future, it appears to be one of those things at the moment that's been chocked up as little more than a demo; an experiment for Square Enix to see how well it could be done.

The reason I say this is down to the fact that wherever you look online, there's only the one real demo video out online showcasing how the game looks in VR. Looking at all of this evidence compiled into one, it's not exactly looking good for VR to ever officially get released for FF14. While it may be a shame to say the word cancelled; there is hope that Square Enix will use these newfound knowledge and development and put it into one of their future releases – preferably one that is going to be built around the entire idea of VR. Now that right there is something I'm sure many, many people are going to want to see; especially from a developer as renowned as they are!