It’s time to ruin a long walk in immersive virtual reality: The Golf Club VR is out now on Steam Early Access.
The Golf Club VR, an HTC Vive exclusive virtual reality half-sequel to surprise hit The Golf Club, was announced a couple of weeks ago. Now, quick as a flash, it’s available for eager early adopters on Steam Early Access.
It’s only available for the HTC Vive at present, though. The Golf Club VR‘s unique nature really wouldn’t work without motion controls, and with the Oculus touch controllers lost to the mists of time – they’re expected on December 6, almost nine months after the headset released – the Vive is really the only option.
Well, except maybe the PlayStation VR. We asked developer HB Studios if either of these platforms were on the cards for The Golf Club VR, and will let you know what they say.
What’s included in The Golf Club VR Early Access release, then?
For starters, there’s three 18-hole courses and a 9-hole mini putt course, all tailored and optimised specifically for the HTC Vive hardware. There’s also a course guide, familiar to most real world players as a Strokesaver, and an augmented reality ‘golf watch’ to keep the game’s interface within the fiction.
Players will also for the first time be able to freely explore The Golf Club VR’s by teleporting anywhere around each course’s 2km-square environments. Developers are still figuring out the best methods for motion in virtual reality so that seems like a fair compromise, and anybody who’s had a rough outward nine would probably be grateful of the ability to teleport back to the clubhouse. Straight to the bar, most likely.
One of the things that makes The Golf Club VR so realistic – and charming – is the ability to generally muck about. In the last trailer, we focused on being able to chuck away your scorecard and club in frustration:
But HB Studios have taken it one further in the latest gameplay trailer:
We’ve all been there. We feel your pain.
Updated, 21 October, 2016:
As mentioned above, we asked HB Studios if they had any plans to expand The Golf Club VR onto other virtual reality platforms, the Oculus Rift or PlayStation VR. Here’s their response:
“As much as we are very interested in other platforms, at this time we are only concentrating our efforts on completing our HTC Vive title. We will of course look into all possibilities and if we do move forward, we will post the announcement as soon as we can.”
Nothing concrete, but sounds promising.
