Far Cry VR: Dive into Insanity offers great virtual reality effects

Zero Latency’s latest free-roam VR adventure is based on a popular gaming series. With VR you’re inside the game.

Australia’s Zero Latency VR has brought the legendary Far Cry series to free-roam virtual reality in its first collaboration with Ubisoft, the game’s creator.

If you don’t know about Zero Latency VR, it is a Melbourne-based company that has achieved success around the world by building spaces with amazing VR environments. The company has been so successful, it has 52 venues in 24 countries.

The Far Cry series has been extremely successful as a video game. The first Far Cry was produced in 2004 and since then there have been six main series games and eight spin-offs. The series sales when measured in 2019 before the pandemic was 50 million games sold.

Players usually find themselves catapulted into a hostile environment with crazy people and threatening animals. You have to shoot your way out of trouble to survive. In some cases that involves co-operating with other players.

I can see why Zero Latency VR would choose such a popular game to virtualise. Players in Far Cry VR: Dive into Insanity are not just playing a shooter game, they are actually in the game environment; that’s the difference.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of shooter games. The company’s Engineerium experience where you walk in VR along pathways that twist sideways and have you walking upside down is in my view a better use of the VR form factor. It’s probably a case of what the general public wants.

However, Far Cry VR has amazing VR effects that indicate VR realism is getting better and better.

Far Cry VR is based on Far Cry 3. You start in a cage being confronted by a madman called Vaas who you feel is about to unleash terror on you at any moment. It’s frightening to be alone with a psychopath. At this stage of the game, you are alone.

Eventually you meet up with a partner/collaborator and make your way across the jungle and past buildings. It’s eerie with your attackers well secluded above and behind you. You have to pick-up their locations quickly before they charge towards you with guns blazing. You have the choice of a powerful rifle or a crossbow to take out enemies further away.

Game play: Far Cry VR

The best part of this game is travelling in a cable car down a mountain side. You’re not travelling anywhere in real life, but in virtual reality you do feel that the cable car is moving downwards; the manner in which VR creates this illusion is amazing.

At the end, you make your way along a series of unstable looking pathways through caves in your bid for freedom – again a great VR illusion.

Sadly, you can’t avoid the barrage of madmen shooting at you all the time. You occasionally die. When this happens, the environment around you turns white for six seconds and you are then reborn and back in the game. The death experience counts against you point-wise.

Tim Ruse, CEO of Zero Latency VR, says his company and Ubisoft have worked closely to ensure the world of Far Cry feels authentic for fans and entices new players.

The cost is $49 per person and up to eight people can play in the one game. If you live in NSW, you can use a Service NSW entertainment voucher to knock $25 off the price.

There’s no doubt that Zero Latency VR offers an amazing virtual reality gaming experience while you roam around an especially-purposed room. It’s such a pity that so many prefer games centred around blowing each other’s heads off.

The participants