Dear Players:exclamation_mark:
We are thrilled to announce that as of August 1st, we officially release the playable prologue "The Riese Project VR"! You can find the link to the game below ⬇
Your support through purchasing the game is a sign of trust and above all - motivation for us to continue working. Therefore:
:white_heavy_check_mark: Besides the fact that the Prologue is already playable, every 1-2 weeks we will publish a Devlog with information about additional improvements and developments.
:white_heavy_check_mark: Your comments and feedback are very important to us. They will influence further improvements to the Prologue and the work on the full version of the game. The most involved individuals will be rewarded with free copies and acknowledgments in the game credits.
Fasten your seat belts 💥 and join us in this incredible adventure! This is just the beginning, many more amazing moments await us. Are you ready to start this journey?
Best regards, The Real Invented Studio Team.
I've got white flicker in right eye with Rift CV1 - and performance is really bad with a RTX 3090 and i9 10900K (10cores/20threads, 5.3Ghz) and 32GB 3200 Mhz. Not even 90 fps with low details using ss 1.5. I'm not joking saying you may need to increase performance by a factor of 4 to get acceptable performance. Using a RTX 3090 the game should run in at least 90 fps using epic settings using Quest res 100% (default) or Rift CV1 ss 1.5.
I'm aware only Quest 2 is supported, but Quest 2 games usually work flawlessly with CV1 - and seems several Quest 2 owners cannot even start the game, but get a black screen. At least I can play the game 🙂
Talked to some dude in the bar - but he did not look at me when he talked - I'd recommend that npcs turn towards you when they talk to you - otherwise the conversation feels very awkward (uncanny valley-ish).
Tried the game with the Index, it did work, just not the controls. Performance was very bad there too - and the game looked extremely blurry.
Seems like you use temporal antialiasing witch looks great with Rift CV1, but very blurry with lcd panels. For lcd, you'll want to use MSAA, not TAA.
Tried to capture the flicker - but it's not in the screenshot, sigh - at least the nice graphics can be seen:
I stand corrected - the game works perfectly with Rift CV1, just do not go higher than ss 1.8. Same for Index, the game works perfectly using res 150%. But beware of using CV1 ss 2.0 and Index res 200%, this will cause flicker in the right eye.
The game is blurry using TAA, but not using Rift CV1. I greatly prefer Rift CV1 ss 1.8 compared to Index res 150%, the latter is much more blurry.
Here are some shots from the awesome - and extremely demanding - game:
Dynamic shadows and great wood textures - looks real, right?
Great fog and water condensation effects on the mirror
Very detailed skin textures
The wall looks tessellated - as if the bricks are sticking out of the wall (=high surface complexity)
The protruding 3D-like wall bricks are easier to spot here
Awesome dynamic shadows - and you got a fully working smart phone in the game
I got the safe open 🙂
Impressive art - this is a painting in the game
Found Teddy 🙂
Went for a drive yesterday...
There's nothing better than hiking - so I parked the car:
There's just something about being surrounded by nature 🙂
Strange place to leave a bus...
- and let's not forget I'm on a mission 😎 I think I found the right house 🤔
- but I also need to go here - if only I can find something to open the entrance - I'll get back to that later today 😇
The game uses the new Unreal Engine 5 (Lumen & Nanite) to produce very realistic graphics. It's also extremely demanding, feels like my oc'ed RTX 3090 is the bare minimum for this game - I'm not even close to 90 fps using Rift CV1 ss 1.8. Not sure a RTX 4090 will be enough, but it's probably close 🤓
As I said to myself: "ASW 2.0 is my friend, not my enemy 🤗"
Hint: https://www.meta.com/en-gb/blog/quest/introducing-asw-2-point-0-better-accuracy-lower-latency/
I completed the prologue yesterday, probably took 3-4 hours, but I took the slow route checking out textures, trees and more 🙂
This will probably be my last shots from the game - also to show some vegetation. I don't think Green Hell PCVR has competition here, but Riese does shine with the pine needles - I don't think I've seen better pine needles on a tree in VR before - see the detail:
Highly detailed pine needles
- and leaves look surprisingly great too:
Here are some shots from a nature scenes with trees and vegetation:
Trees and vegetation are some of the hardest parts to do in computer games, as the polygon count easily explodes. Compared to Green Hell PCVR, there aren't many trees in Riese Project, but it does look nice. More wildlife and maybe insects count be great, but did see some birds in the sky.
A few more random shots from the game:
A minor glitch - a floating valve handle - but I did not find many such errors in the game
A nice big room without spoiling anything 🙂
Found this strange inscription - I guess more won't be revealed before the full game in 2025...
Btw, I also made 2 posts on Reddit to give the game more attention:
Both posts have gotten more than 60,000 views - especially the latter, but many seem to appreciate the effort of taking screenshots more than posting a trailer made by the devs:
As usual, most on Reddit are just tire kickers, and may not buy unfinished games or games with high system requirements, but I do hope more will remember and buy the full game, when it's done. Hopefully devs can get some feedback to improve the game or for inspiration, although Reddit is a tough crowd to please and impress.
Surely some will be disappointed if they are expecting to see Unreal Engine 5 graphics like this in Riese Project:
Epic may have set the bar and peoples expectations too high with such rendering demos - especially if devs are unable to just remotely approach such quality.
My approach to evaluating new games and experience is not to compare with how I think an optimal game should be, but to compare with what's out there. That's why I consider Alyx 98% and reference, because nothing is better. I would not compare Riese to Alyx though, because these games represent two different genres. Riese is an adventure game with full locomotion much like The Vanishing of Ethan Carter - and we do not have many such games in VR. Within it's genre, I'd consider Riese Prologue like 8.0/10 - Ethan Carter still is 9.2/10 to me, but Ethan Carter is a full game, even if it's a 2D port (and the story in Ethan Carter is extremely good). Riese Project can easily be same rating when it's done - but it does need more polish to shine and impress. Nvidia also just postponed RTX 5090 to 2025, so we might not be able to buy more gpu speed to make Riese Project fly for some years - thus optimizing the game may be key for better performance. 2c.
UploadVR also just published a small piece about the game:
https://www.uploadvr.com/the-reise-project-prologue/
A few last screenshots:
Nice lighting
Best pine needles ever! 🙂
Nice terrain with the stones
More terrain
More nature 🙂
Just for fun - The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is a nice example of an Unreal Engine 4 VR game - maybe still one of the most impressive - I just took some screenshots of the Oculus VR version:
For an old game from 2016, graphics still continue to amaze, really jaw-droppingly great graphics - not sure I recall any game with more pine trees. And it's solid 90 fps even forcing CV1 res 2.5 (27 million pixels per frame).
Some might think the game even looks better for the trees than Riese Project - but here it's important to check the good ol' pine needles - and why I care so incredibly much about pine needles 😎 - this is Riese Project:
Pine needles in Riese Project - Unreal Engine 5
This is pine needles in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter - all fake and flat 2D:
The difference between Riese Project and Ethan Carter is massive - if you know what to look for. But playing the game many may not notice the difference.
Ethan Carter also has no Lumen, but check out the lighting in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter:
So surely it may not be easy making more impressive lighting than Ethan Carter, even if lights aren't dynamic in Ethan Carter - will be interesting if Riese Project can make some more awesome lighting to impress the Reddit non-believers 😉 Compared to Ethan Carter, Riese Project is made ground-up for VR and you can interact with (and pick up) most objects - you can do none of that in Ethan Carter where interactivity is extremely limited, and Ethan Carter is ported to VR using a 2D game. Differences are many - even if the games can look similar in screenshots.
For those who never played The Vanishing of Ethan Carter in VR, now is the time - even with limited interactivity, the story in that game is beyond awesome. Then again, maybe there's no hurry if Riese Project won't be here until 2025... 🙂
