Until Dawn Studio’s PSVR2 title will feature enemies which respond to you blinking

Sony’s PlayStation VR2 headset is set for release in a few short months, and while the hardware’s £529.99 price tag might be hard to swallow, it is with good reason as the headset features many advanced technologies including eye tracking. We now know one of the ways this tech will be used to enhance gaming immersion, with Supermassive Games’ upcoming VR title set to include enemies which react to your blinking.

As reported by Edge Magazine (and shared by MP1ST), one of the PlayStation VR2’s headlining titles – The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR – will make great use of the headset’s hardware, with the team sharing just one of the many unique interactions available in-game, saying:

“A door painted with the instruction ‘don’t blink’ opens up into a room of blood-smeared mannequins in harlequin masks, their bodies twisted into unnatural poses. Eventually we can’t help it any more, and let our eyelids flutter closed. When they open again, the mannequins have been rearranged – or have rearranged themselves. Another blink, and it happens again, except that one of them has now come to life. As we repeat this process, we learn to use our eyes tactically, only blinking once our guns are readied.”

While for some, this may seem like a gimmick which could take away from the overall experience, the team at Supermassive Games explained their mentality behind the approach to development on Switchback, saying “We were basically creating the design of the level itself and then asking: how can we make it more real, using everything that we have at our disposal?”

While VR continues to be somewhat of a niche in gaming, it is exciting to see all the many technologies put into PSVR2 actually being used to make for a more immersive and realistic experience. Hopefully more developers follow suit.

KitGuru says: What do you think of the PSVR2’s eye tracking? Is it a gimmick? Will PSVR2 revitalise the market? Let us know your thoughts down below.

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