Motion sickness has long been the bane of virtual reality. It’s associated most strongly with first-person shooters and walking games, which create a stark mismatch between your real and virtual body. Move too fast in the game, and your stomach won’t respond favorably in the real world. Yet play a game where the movements of your virtual character match your own, and you might run into a wall or your coffee table. VR game developers know these boundaries all too well, and they’re now beginning to move beyond these limitations in unique and fascinating ways.
The results were out in full force at last week’s annual Oculus Connect developer conference. Oculus is on the brink of releasing its Touch motion controllers, which means designers building for its Rift headset are dealing with more and more realistic body motion in VR. Take, for example, Lone Echo, a new Rift exclusive which uses the physics-bending freedom of zero-gravity to overcome the hurdles of in-game motion.