Striker VR Arena Infinity Haptic VR Gun Prototype Shows Off

When we think of virtual reality today, we mostly think of VR headsets that are designed to hold your smartphone and meant to be worn at home when you play games or watch videos. There are several firms that see VR as a new way to entertain people out of the home as well. Striker VR is one of the firms that are working on these out of home VR experiences and the company is showing off a working prototype of the Arena Infinity haptic VR gun.

This haptic VR gun is able to simulate the fire of various weapon modes and to provide other haptic effects to the player. The device was shown off back in April, but this is the first time a working version has been seen. The wireless peripheral uses a linear accelerator to provide the haptic effects and is said to offer players a powerful kick to simulate recoil of their weapon.

The haptics can simulate a single round fired, bursts, and full automatic firing modes. The effects can also be used for things like simulating a railgun that needs to be charged before it can be fired. It can even simulate the feel of a chainsaw if you want to get up close and gory with your in-game kills.

The prototype is using a tracker that is fixed to it temporarily. Plans are to allow the final version of the gun to use various tracking devices to give flexibility to users. Right now Arena Infinity supports PhaseSpace and Sixense STEM tracking. The developers also have plans to make it work with the Valve Lighthouse, Oculus constellation, and PS Move. Development kits for the weapon will be delivered to partners in Q4 2016 and those kits include the haptic gun, SDK, and haptic sandbox game.

SOURCE: RoadtoVR