Hi! We’re announcing our first major VR game today for PS4 with full support for the fantastic Project Morpheus VR headset. You probably haven’t heard of our studio (nDreams) before unless you use PlayStation Home, but we’re a fast-growing team of around 28 based in Farnborough in the UK, and we’ve been developing and publishing for around seven years. The Assembly is a mysterious VR adventure game that we have designed for VR from day one.
We were fortunate enough to start using VR headsets in the middle of 2013. Since then we’ve been experimenting, prototyping and trying all sorts of unusual ideas out. The Assembly includes lots of the gameplay mechanics that we found worked well in VR. For example, you get to control two different characters at various points, and in VR, you really notice details like their different heights, sounds and voices. Rather than playing as a silent character, we found that playing the role of characters in the story works really well, and helps make The Assembly feel quite different to most other VR projects.
The game has a rich story written by Tom Jubert, a talented young writer behind indie hits like FTL, Penumbra and The Swapper. Players are flung into the underground world of The Assembly, a secretive collection of scientists, academics and engineers who believe morality in society is preventing scientific advancement and are committed to discovering a universal theory of everything, at any cost.
We’re showing off an early playable demo of the game to press at E3, and we’ve created a trailer to give you a better idea of the game world – we hope you like it! If you want to find out more about the game and follow our progress, go to TheAssemblyGame.com and sign up for our newsletter, where we’ll give out behind-the-scenes information and tell you more about the game as it is finished ready for release.
Looks very interesting and I have enjoyed your PS Home creations. Any word of Home coming to PS4?
The link to the page is mis spelled as http://www.theassemblyaame.com/
Rob
Correct URL! http://theassemblygame.com/
Broken link!
(Quick heads up, your link is broken… it goes to http://www.theassemblyaame.com/)
Definitely interested in this! If only Sony would now give us an update on Morpheus’s progress, and when we’ll get to experience this stuff!
Links to http://www.theassemblyAame.com/ change the A to G
Looking real good. Had a good time with Xi so looking forward to this.
Can it only be played with an Oculus or Morpheus?
If so, I’m afraid I’m out.
Intriguing. Would love to see more. VR is real this time! I got a chance to play with Morpheus yesterday. The holy grail of gaming!
this would be great news if Morpheus was close to being release as a product… would be a day one purchase for me. My PS Move controllers and PS4 Camera are collecting dust right now.
Patrick, good fortune and after watching your long time contributions to Home I am very happy for nDreams and Project Morpheus! The demo looks amazing. Best of day’s ahead for you guys.
lol of course we’ve heard of nDreams. Xi was the best thing that came out of Home.
Hey Sony, heres a idea. No Mans Sky (sorry if wrong name), project morpheus support.
That does seem cool, with the Golf game that’s gonna be released with PS Move and Project Morpheus, that makes more game to the fold.
But Sony should know to support their Vita as a console before it being just an accessory for the PS4.
Wow, you guys are making an experience about making people, I’m so down. FYI your hyperlink needs to be changed, it is currently http://www.theassemblyaame.com when is should be http://www.theassemblyGame.com. You guys put an A instead of a G for Game lol
nDreams, wat r u doin? nDreams, stahp makin me want PS4orpheus.
Any specific hype aside (for which I’m sure you want to know what most excites prospective players), I’m compelled to request a pirate chainsword easter egg.
I believe Project Morpheus is a bad move for Sony…they assume everyone is rich so that’s all they know but the masses are not going to be able to afford this.
This Sounds SO AWESOME
Now we just need a release date for Project Morpheus. Let me at that pre-order!
Beginning makes me think of Breaking Bad.
I hope to see more developers from ps home making games for ps4 this video was excellent because it gave insight into the game itself.
still waiting to see what the per-eye resolution is going to be, and if OLED will be the default display tech before I get too excited about Morpheus. I liked the demo I got at GDC, but will be waiting on final specs. Also, am curious if it will be sharing the semi-proprietary link with the PS4 Camera in order to get decent bandwidth and latency.
I, and a lot of my friends, were big users of Home in its first few years. We all bought quite a number of great items (Monkey Island ship, Ghostbusters Firehouse, and BioShock apartment were some of my favs). I met quite a number of other players who liked experimental games and experiences. At some point, Home got overrun with thugs, crazy girls, and homophobes/racists. The lack of intelligent sharding based on player similarity (trophies, time playing specific titles, TV/movie purchases, etc) made Home unusable for me.
The hints we got earlier in the year that Home “would not come to PS4 in its current form” made most of us realize the new Home would be the leaping-off point for the virtual tourism aspect of Morpheus’ revenue streams. I just hope that Morpheus has sensors to approximate mouth movement and other facial expressions in avatars as we are making them. (I hope galvanic response sensors in the forehead piece are already locked in for the retail unit.)
Anyway, this game looks cool and I’m looking forward to Morpheus games that include the environmental light detection shown off at GDC so that in-game lighting reasonably matches the real-world lighting (color temperature, some directionality).
Will this game use the Move? have TV or Vita display/controls for co-op?
Looks great. Depending on Morpheus price, I might have to pick it up.
I also miss Home. :( It would be amazing on PS4.
Cant even make non multiplat for ps4 and VR is supposed to change that somehow. Holy Grail of gaming, lol. Keep dreaming.
I’m interested. Now time to get back to hibernation until Morpheus hits the streets in 2019.
@ SmokeAdellic – They’ve already said that, Morpheus is built around the PS4. It is what will be driving the whole thing. Shoot, the DualShock 4’s lightbar and, the PS Camera were made with Morpheus in mind, the whole time. Sure, it’s going to have a hefty price tag but, with most people already using the PS4, controllers, and camera in their homes, I just don’t think it’ll be as hefty as you think it mightl be.
Cant wait to try this out, nDreams always makes good content on Home so im sure this will be just as good if not better.
This is really mysterious in a dark kind of way….I’m really curious about this game…I’ll end up buying Morpheus anyways.
These games will need to look very simple in order to work for VR. I think 75fps is the minimum for a proper VR experience that doesn’t cause nausea… and that will be very hard for the PS4 to pull off considering lots of games so far can barely manage 60 or are locked to 30 especially at higher resolutions which are also essential to an immersive VR experience.
@ MakoSoul Seriously! I was hoping to get a date for Project Morpheus at this E3 but I have a feeling it’s still a long ways out.
I always wanted to try VR but I have not had the opportunity, who here would like morpheus progect was released this in late 2014 at least, I know that sounds stupid to ask such a thing but if all we ask to sony do this maybe sony try to do something, I believe if nobody try this will never result,someone agrees with me in doing this?