Not much is known about the project, though experience with CryEngine Sandbox or a “similar game engine” is required. Kingdom Come: Deliverance is developed on CryEngine, so its new project may be a follow-up, if not a new open-world action RPG. Time will tell, so stay tuned.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is available for Xbox One, PS4, PC and Nintendo Switch. Set in 1403 Bohemia, the story involves a blacksmith’s son, Henry, who seeks revenge for the destruction of his village. Despite praise for its branching story and realism, the title received criticism at launch for its bugs and other issues.

It received numerous patches and improvements, along with paid DLC over time and sold over five million copies as of June 2022. Stay tuned for more details on the developer’s next project in the meantime.

GamingBolt had a chance to speak to CRYENGINE Product Manager Collin Bishop about the current state of the technology and much more.

"Looking out across the competitive VR landscape, you can see our games on several of the HMDs."

It’s been close to two years since we last interviewed you. How far has the CryEngine come along in that period?

The CRYENGINE itself has had a radical makeover on the Editor and Engine. The old interface everyone knew, which was associated with CRYENGINE 3, has been completely overhauled and moved over from MFC to the new Qt framework. On the graphics end we have pushed forward and integrated both the DX12 and Vulkan graphics API’s to allow for increased framerates and a larger selection of potential platforms.

For the designers we have implemented a new visual scripting tool named Schematyc to help build up advanced entity and level logic. Mixed with the all new volumetric clouds and the radically improved FBX pipeline we can safely say that CRYENGINE has made leaps in the past two years in regards to catering to a large audience of developers. Along with the pushes of designer and rendering, we have opened up accessibility to the industry leaders in the VR HMD market. Along with these changes we have also opened up the engine to be royalty-free to all developers and allowed for the full engine source code to be available to all developers for free on Github.

Crytek was once known as a studio that made high end games with breathtaking graphics. Crysis is now over ten years old. When can we see the next Crysis moment from Crytek?

At the moment our Frankfurt studio’s full attention is on Hunt: Showdown, which is a tense match-based first-person monster hunting game that combines our favorite moments from first person shooters and survival games. You can sign up for Closed Alpha on our website right now.

With the VR industry growing more and more, how has Crytek’s growth keeping up in that industry in terms of support and features?

Looking out across the competitive VR landscape, you can see our games on several of the HMDs. We have tackled the realm of VR head-on and released several demos along with two extremely successful VR titles, The Climb and Robinson: The Journey. Likewise, we have also partnered with Basemark for a VR Benchmark and done numerous research studies with Oculus on latency and movement in VR. In the end, the best way to test and gauge the progression of the tech is through production-proven developments such as our games. Rounding out the focus, we have continuously maintained Oculus, PSVR, Vive, and OSVR HMDs since CRYENGINE V launched in early 2016.

The advent of iterative consoles have put more burden on developers specially given how 4K adoption is still on the lower side. What are your thoughts on this and how is Crytek dealing with it?

The notion of up-scaling is one of the topics that requires numerous perspectives within development. We tackled the upscaling of Ryse: Son of Rome years ago when we ported from the Xbox One to PC and provided users with the full Ryse 4K experience.

"The entire concept of using the cloud for processing power is something that developers have been anxiously anticipating for years."

You have worked with Microsoft before. Do you have any thoughts on why DX12 hasn’t become a huge success as initially planned?

I would say based on some of the Futuremark results that were published this year that both DX12 and Vulkan rival each other with only the separation showing on certain GPU’s. We also have dabbled with DX12 early on to show how you can lace a full cinematic trailer in our VR experience titled Sky Harbor. We found that the large amount of instancing helped not only with the numerous particle simulations triggered throughout, but also the clouds and vegetation at the end of the film performed wonderfully in the most taxing scenes.

Another aspect was clouding gaming and the so called “power of the cloud”. Do you think consoles will ever see a future where they can use the power of the cloud to improve their processing capabilities?

The entire concept of using the cloud for processing power is something that developers have been anxiously anticipating for years. The direction will inevitably be that the consumer has a viewing device and the data is streamed to the device for interaction. You can already see some of this in the technology behind SpatialOS and how they are distributing the physics simulations across multiple servers for infinite scalability. Infinite scalability is what drives this conversation and gets people excited. Scale not only the worlds, but also the resources to handle the computation while only the rendered image and your input are handled by your device.

The PS4 Pro is on the market for a year now and the Xbox One X just recently launched. Do you think the launch of Xbox One X will expedite 4K support?

Competition is always favored inside of any market. Considering the focus and push from Microsoft, it can only be assumed that their competitors will follow suit. The titles each console promotes are also quite similar in terms of performance requirements and the graphical fidelity. In the end the customers will drive the tech through the sales.

Tell us one thing about the Xbox One X that was either shocking or surprising while you were working on it?

One thing that was a delightful surprise with the Xbox One X on initial usage was the amount of raw power it had underneath. We had to adjust some texture compression settings, but overall the optimization was minimal on 4K once we were up and running. Another thing that aligned closer with our core is the HDR support. With this you can really push the style and look of your scenes without having to redo all of the assets or compromise too heavily on framerate. As you can imagine we were glad to see this delta shortening, pushing us towards consoles reflecting the same development experience over time.

"Shortcuts are a way of life, but if we look at the strategy behind the Xbox, we can see a console that was engineered to tackle specifically 4k gaming."

Do you think Xbox One X’s compatability with Xbox One hold back its true performance in any way?

This is an interesting question considering the background of CRYENGINE and how we have to approach tackling legacy systems and deprecation of tools. Every gamer has this connection to nostalgia and their favorite titles. You can also lose titles too quickly, which will inhibit the growth of franchises, and this is where I see the older titles sitting in the competitive gaming landscape. If developers were not maintaining these older systems and having a form of compromise towards the legacy content, the backlash you would receive would outweigh any of the performance gains.

How close does the Xbox One X compare to a high end modern gaming PC?

The Xbox One X is very comparable to the standard gaming PC on the GPU end. It will be on the CPU end that you will find the PC to still be outshining the console. This will always be the scenario given you can trade out and customize the hardware. We can look at the AMD Jaguar CPU and how this lines up to the Ryzen line; however, at first glance, we see that the performance is roughly one-third or one-half.

What is the impact of x86 architecture in consoles? Have they ensured they are now closer to PCs in terms of performance?

Not only the alignment to modern architecture can be accredited, but also the workforce being a larger sampling allows for greater gains in this area. Regarding these consoles in particular and their performance they have the APU design in the Jaguar chip that allows for both systems to use the CPU/GPU interchangeably and share memory.

Can the Xbox One X run most games in native 4K?

Shortcuts are a way of life, but if we look at the strategy behind the Xbox, we can see a console that was engineered to tackle specifically 4k gaming. Most games will squeeze every last bit of performance out of the hardware, so I expect trade-offs between optimization and the hardware. Fortunately, the engineers also allowed the developers to access the scaling and checkerboarding rendering to futureproof the console even further.

"The Xbox One X is very comparable to the standard gaming PC on the GPU end. It will be on the CPU end that you will find the PC to still be outshining the console."

 Which PC GPU does the Xbox One X GPU comes close to?

This will be a difficult answer to give since this will be heavily based on the core and memory clock speeds of the console. Several comparisons on the GPU have been thrown up in the air with developers likening the Xbox One X card to an AMD RX 580 or GeForce GTX 1060.

How much powerful do you think Xbox One X is compared to Xbox One and PS4 Pro?

The Xbox One X is certainly a worthy hardware upgrade. Its built-in 4k support allows us to achieve even more breathtaking visuals. Those that do not have a 4k display available to them still benefit from supersampling and the additional CPU/RAM power allowing to process more objects in the world.

Have you gone hands on the Switch? What are your thoughts on it?

Currently I have to say that I personally have not gotten my hands on a Switch console. But from what I have seen, Nintendo have managed to cater perfectly to their core gamers.

Many developers and publishers have been taken aback by its success. Do you have any thoughts behind its success?

I think one of the largest factors that has played into its success is the pricing of the Dev Kits for independent developers. They had a really good price point for indies and devs just starting out.

The other being the tradition and dedication of their fan base. Giving access to their hardware and driving the console with blockbuster titles from their own library is what makes the console accessible and inspirational all in one package.

Much as the console’s CPU has been a talking point for being underwhelming, Microsoft’s Xbox One X is still extremely powerful. A few visually impressive games like Forza Motorsport 7 have had no trouble running at native 4K resolution and 60 frames per second. Optimization is also a key component in all this though. After all, what’s the point of so much raw power if developers can’t utilize it properly?

GamingBolt spoke to Crytek’s CryEngine product manager Collin Bishop and asked what he found surprising or shocking about working with the console. Bishop responded that, “One thing that was a delightful surprise with the Xbox One X on initial usage was the amount of raw power it had underneath. We had to adjust some texture compression settings, but overall the optimization was minimal on 4K once we were up and running.

“Another thing that aligned closer with our core is the HDR support. With this you can really push the style and look of your scenes without having to redo all of the assets or compromise too heavily on framerate. As you can imagine we were glad to see this delta shortening, pushing us towards consoles reflecting the same development experience over time.”

Will Microsoft’s insistence that all titles taking advantage of the Xbox One X have to be fully compatible with the base Xbox One prove detrimental in the long run? Bishop feels that preserving legacy support is important, to the point that the backlash for not doing so would outweigh the Xbox One X reaching its full potential.

“This is an interesting question considering the background of CRYENGINE and how we have to approach tackling legacy systems and deprecation of tools. Every gamer has this connection to nostalgia and their favorite titles. You can also lose titles too quickly, which will inhibit the growth of franchises, and this is where I see the older titles sitting in the competitive gaming landscape.

“If developers were not maintaining these older systems and having a form of compromise towards the legacy content, the backlash you would receive would outweigh any of the performance gains,” said Bishop.

As time goes on, we’ll probably see another new generation of consoles emerge that will truly provide a leap forward. And who knows, maybe they’ll be playable on more powerful hardware like the Xbox One X. What are your thoughts on the matter? Let us know below.

Crytek’s Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age re-emerged as Hunt: Showdown before E3 2017 with pre-alpha gameplay showcased at the expo. That footage is now available and sees creative and level design directors Magnus Larbrant and Chris Auty providing insight.

The gameplay of Hunt: Showdown is essentially PvPvE with four teams of two hunting a demonic spider while contending with other enemies and each other. Players will have to use some “stealth maneuvering” and be aware of their surroundings in order to succeed.

It’s worth noting that even if you complete a bounty, other players can kill you take it prior to extraction. There will be progression gained from playing the game though so don’t worry about losing your bounty.

Hunt: Showdown is set to release in the Fall for PC. No news yet on whether it will come to Xbox One and PS4. What are your thoughts on the gameplay? Let us know in the comments.

TimeSplitters was probably one of the most inventive first person shooters of its time, a glorious game that a lot of fans look back upon fondly. With shooters getting a renaissance of sorts in recent times – games like DOOM, Titanfall 2, Overwatch, Splatoon, and more are far different from the ordinary expectation of what a shooter should be – now is as good a time as any for a TimeSplitters revival.

Thankfully, it looks like TimeSplitters Rewind, the previously announced remake of the original games in CryEngine, will be releasing later this year. The game is a standalone multiplayer game being developed by fans of the original Timesplitters series. It will include characters, maps, and weapons from all three games completely rebuilt in the new engine. While this is a far cry from a brand new TimeSplitters, for many fans, even this may be enough.

You can check out a trailer for TimeSplitters Rewind below.

After troubling rumours about Crytek not paying employees, the company has announced that it will be shutting down five different studios in order to reshape its priorities towards game development and CryEngine. Though Frankfurt and Kiev will continue to operate, locations like Istanbul, Budapest, Sofia, Shanghai and Seoul will be shut down.

MD Avni Yerli stated that, “Undergoing such transitions is far from easy, and we’d like to sincerely thank each and every staff member – past and present – for their hard work and commitment to Crytek.

“These changes are part of the essential steps we are taking to ensure Crytek is a healthy and sustainable business moving forward that can continue to attract and nurture our industry’s top talent.

“The reasons for this have been communicated internally along the way. Our focus now lies entirely on the core strengths that have always defined Crytek – world-class developers, state-of-the-art technology and innovative game development, and we believe that going through this challenging process will make us a more agile, viable, and attractive studio, primed for future success.”

Though Crytek released Robinson: The Journey and The Climb this year, it faced issues last year with the closure of Crytek UK (along with Crytek US being shuttered earlier). As it contemplates its next move, we wish the relieved employees the best in finding future opportunities.

From high-end PC and console gaming perspective, can you let us know about the changes you have made to the Crytek engine?

CRYENGINE V introduces a “Pay What You Want” business model, giving developers access to the engine’s feature-set and full engine source code for a fee of their choosing, and with no obligation to pay royalties or additional service charges. You can download CRYENGINE and immediately start developing for Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and any major VR platform, including PlayStation VR, OSVR, HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.

We’ve also introduced the CRYENGINE Marketplace, which gives developers access to assets from Crytek’s own library, as well as thousands of materials, sounds, and 3D objects created by the CRYENGINE community and other trusted vendors. This in combination with a more intuitive UI, a powerful launcher, more documentation and CRYENGINE Answers, a dedicated channel for community questions, makes CRYENGINE much easier to get into than it has ever been before.

Furthermore CRYENGINE is now C# enabled, so developers can chose between C++ and C# as the scripting language for their project.

With the new CryEngine, what benefits are presented for VR developers?

We support all the major VR headsets.  We have optimized our already fast renderer to better support the high frame rates required for VR.  With no need to bake lighting, there is no waiting for shadowmaps to build when you move an object, and changes to light and visibility are implemented in real-time. Being able to render a believable world in incredible detail is the fundamental, enabling factor that a game engine should provide a developer who is making something in VR.

"Our support for DX12 is not just a simple wrapper around an existing renderer.  Our engineers saw that in order to fully take advantage of the power of DX12 they would need to refactor the core of the CRYENGINE rendering system. "

With DX12 adoption on the rise, what kind of changes have you made to improve games performance on PC and Xbox One with the power of DX12 and CryEngine?

Our support for DX12 is not just a simple wrapper around an existing renderer.  Our engineers saw that in order to fully take advantage of the power of DX12 they would need to refactor the core of the CRYENGINE rendering system.  This they did, building a low overhead renderer that is much more compatible with the structure of DX12.  The results are quite impressive in terms of reduced overhead on the CPU and much more efficient handling of the large complex datasets required for a detailed and realistic game world.

Could you highlight some of the improved graphical features that the combination of DX12 and CryEngine 5 can bring to the Xbox One and PC?

We completely rewrote and redesigned the renderer, significantly increasing performance overall. Through DX12 support, CRYENGINE V drastically increases the number of possible simultaneous draw calls. While previously draw calls might have hovered around 1500, CRYENGINE V can easily support an order of magnitude more. And most of the core optimizations also increase DX11 performance.

I am assuming that you have heard about Crackdown 3, a game that uses cloud computing to deliver improved physics and graphical effects on the Xbox One. Do you think CryEngine 5 can use the cloud to improve several graphical facets on consoles and high end gaming PCs?

Yes this is an interesting area for future development, and cloud computing offers some exciting possibilities. However, today graphics quality is not the bottleneck in CRYENGINE.  We do have rendering development underway but we are also focusing more on core functionality, animation, usability and ease of access to the existing power of CRYENGINE.

"The Marketplace offers thousands of sounds, materials, and 3D objects from our own library, our community, and trusted vendors – like Boom Library, Epidemic Sound, Game Textures, and Turbosquid."

Could you explain the “pay as you go” aspect of CryEngine and how it will help facilitate easier development across a wider spectrum of studios?

Pay what you want means exactly that: If you use CRYENGINE you only have to pay what you want. If you want to develop, publish and maximize your profit from a game, and you chose to pay nothing, okay. Of course we hope that developers will give back to us proportional to how well they feel that CRYENGINE helped them achieve their goals. This model opens up the engine to all kinds of developers and we hope that it will help to grow the community more quickly.

Another effort in that direction is the Indie Developer Fund, which supports selected projects from the CRYENGINE developer community. We have seeded the fund with $1 million and we want to grow it with contributions from CRYENGINE developers, who can chose to allocate up to 70% of what they spend for our engine.

What is the Crytek Marketplace presenting in terms of assets and how is it competitive in comparison to Unity’s Store?

The Marketplace offers thousands of sounds, materials, and 3D objects from our own library, our community, and trusted vendors – like Boom Library, Epidemic Sound, Game Textures, and Turbosquid. We hope that with a growing community the range of assets offered on the platform increases as well. The Marketplace helps developers immensely during prototyping and enables even smaller development teams to create expansive worlds.

Cloud Imperium Games’ Robert Stephens may be hard at work on the upcoming Star Citizen, but he has also been working on a little something by the side, a small pet project of his – he has been working on recreating Fallout in Crytek’s CryEngine. And to celebrate the release of Fallout 4, he decided to share screenshots showing us his progress.

“[I wanted to create] interior that looked functional and well used, with the intention of eventually animating many of the assets (including the door mechanism) to tell the story of the vault in more detail,” Stephens said.

“One of the biggest challenges with this project was to put my own spin on the design of the interior while still maintaining the iconic Fallout style, this was important to me as I didn’t just want to recreate the vault entrance exactly as seen in the games.”

You can check out the screenshots, and judge for yourself if he achieved his goal.

GamingBolt spoke to executive producer Elijah Freeman about Back to Dinosaur Island 2 and how exactly it ties into Robinson: The Journey while also getting his thoughts on VR gaming in general.

"These two demos also have a spiritual connection to the first demo Crytek ever showed at E3 in 1999, X-Isle. That demo marks the start of Crytek’s story in a lot of ways, and also featured dinosaurs roaming an island created with CRYENGINE!"

Rashid K. Sayed: Could you explain the connection between Back to Dinosaur Island 2 and another Crytek-developed VR title called Robinson: The Journey?

Elijah Freeman: Both Back to Dinosaur Island 2 and the Back to Dinosaur Island demo that preceded it have acted as inspiration for Robinson: The Journey. When we were first exploring ideas for VR demos, we felt like the Dinosaur Island theme really lent itself to the medium of virtual reality and played to CRYENGINE’s strengths. We wanted to create a world that featured lifelike environments, a sense of vastness, and, of course, huge dinosaurs—all things that could really draw players into the world and generate a feeling of wonder. These two demos also have a spiritual connection to the first demo Crytek ever showed at E3 in 1999, X-Isle. That demo marks the start of Crytek’s story in a lot of ways, and also featured dinosaurs roaming an island created with CRYENGINE!

When we say the Back to Dinosaur Island demos have “inspired” Robinson: The Journey, we essentially mean that we’re working to replicate and build on the sense of presence and awe players have experienced in those demos, but on a much grander scale and with greater interactivity. The demos offer a little taste of what we hope Robinson will become, but they should be thought of as separate experiences.

Rashid K. Sayed: Tell us about some of the technology used for Back to Dinosaur Island 2.

Elijah Freeman: The “Back to Dinosaur Island 2” demo makes full use of the core rendering features of CRYENGINE, like the physically based lighting and shading which were heavily optimized for consoles already. The demo also makes use of our highly efficient anti-aliasing solution, which is a perfect fit for the performance and quality requirements of VR applications.

Rashid K. Sayed: There have been numerous prototypes showcasing VR games in the past few years but few have approached the visual fidelity of Crytek’s offerings thus far. What challenges did you face in bringing the power of CryEngine into a VR space?

Elijah Freeman: Some of the main challenges when creating VR experiences are of course technical performance, player comfort level, creating present experiences, and in Crytek’s case – getting to high graphical fidelity. Performance and clarity of the image is about meeting the platform’s target frames-per-second, as drops in frame-rate often result in physical discomfort.

On the flip side of the same coin, reducing rendering artifacts is also a must as it will also affect the player’s comfort in a positive way. Creating present experiences has a lot to do with how you design everything to feel real to the player, and also how we aim for high graphical fidelity. Both of these factors make players feel like they are in a believable world and can interact with it. As you can imagine, those elements are often fighting each other, but it’s our job to make sure that we deliver a balanced and comfortable VR experience for everyone.

"We’re certainly discovering ways to make VR environments much more than audio/visual showcases, and I believe other people who make—and play—games will refuse to let this iteration of VR become little more than a shallow, ‘on-rails’ experience."

Rashid K. Sayed: From a gameplay point of view, what opportunities does VR open up for future Crytek games? How does it offer a deeper sense of immersion beyond actually “being there” for players?

Elijah Freeman: I think the new gameplay possibilities that open up are closely linked to that sense of immersion, or “presence” that VR offers players, but it’s true that for VR games to be really compelling going forward they’ll have to go beyond the “wow” factor people experience with their first taste. For us as developers, the challenge is how to take advantage of the fact players are going to be “in” the game world. To do that we have to rethink our approach to development—things like the level of visual fidelity needed in the world, and the immersive role of audio are essential components, but they’re just the start.

The thing that will really take VR beyond an experience that’s just about “being there” is interaction—what you do there. Players will feel compelled to reach out and touch their surroundings, and we have to support that with new development techniques that let them manipulate the world. Whether this will be achieved via peripherals, or input “tricks” devs employ, or by other means entirely, will depend on the content creators. We’re certainly discovering ways to make VR environments much more than audio/visual showcases, and I believe other people who make—and play—games will refuse to let this iteration of VR become little more than a shallow, “on-rails” experience.

Rashid K. Sayed: Comparing Back to Dinosaur Island 2 and Robinson: The Journey, we’re interested to know other things we could do in the latter when it officially releases. Any hints?

Elijah Freeman: We’re still finalizing elements of the narrative and setting and can’t go into specifics just yet!

Rashid K. Sayed: When it comes to delivering this kind of visual experience, how do you ensure that it remains the same across multiple platforms? Is it as difficult as making sure Crysis is optimized for multiple PCs in the old days or easier?

Elijah Freeman: We’re in quite a unique situation on this front as we’re approaching VR not just as a game developer, but also as an engine provider. That has helped to put us in a strong position, because we have a lot of experience in adapting to cross-platform demands—both for our own benefit and for the benefit of our licensees. We keep our game and engine teams tightly coupled, so that everything we learn as we create content is rolled back into CRYENGINE. In a way, it’s hard to quantify whether one type of cross-platform optimization is harder or easier than another—it’s just a different set of challenges.

CRYENGINE’s scalability has always helped us and our licensees to deliver across multiple platforms, and our desire to ensure the engine is considered a go-to tool for VR means we have to bring that adaptability to the VR space as well. We have support for VR development in the engine now, and recently added support for AMD’s LiquidVR tech as well. Such partnerships can further enhance the engine’s adaptability.

"In terms of what lies ahead, we do believe as a company that VR has a very bright future. The technology is there, the time for disruption in the gaming market is right, and the desire for the experience, as I say, has always been there."

Rashid K. Sayed: With so many different types of VR headsets releasing in the next few years – including HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Sony’s Morpheus – what are the key differences and similarities you’ve noticed in terms of the user experience?

Elijah Freeman: Latency between head-tracking and head-movement needs to be minimal on all platforms, as this can be an uncomfortable experience otherwise. And each of these VR headsets has its own technical requirements (Sony’s Morpheus: 120 fps, HTC Vive and Oculus Rift 90 fps).

Rashid K. Sayed: How have other developers responded to CryEngine’s support for VR development? Has there been an uptick in participation for the same since the initial reveal of Back to Dinosaur Island 2?

Elijah Freeman: We’re definitely seeing a lot of interest from other developers, and have been ever since we first showcased a VR demo at Gamescom last year. We think CRYENGINE is uniquely placed for VR because of its unrivaled rendering tech, FPS heritage and Crytek’s previous work in stereoscopic 3D. We hope other developers will agree and see the engine as an optimum choice for VR.

Rashid K. Sayed: What are your thoughts on the enthusiasm and support for VR compared to, say, five years ago? Is it indicative of a popular future for the technology?

Elijah Freeman: I think people have always been fascinated by VR, and the enthusiasm today is really just relative to how close we are to seeing VR devices come to market. Five years ago was the point at which the mobile technology—at least in terms of resolution—reached the threshold that would make VR viable as a consumer product. The very first prototype for the Oculus, for example, was only created in 2011. So the excitement now simply reflects how rapidly the message has spread in that short time.

In terms of what lies ahead, we do believe as a company that VR has a very bright future. The technology is there, the time for disruption in the gaming market is right, and the desire for the experience, as I say, has always been there. VR has the potential to transform the way we play games, consume entertainment, and more—it can immerse us in new worlds and open up new modes of storytelling like nothing before it. I definitely think it’s here to stay.

" From an engine technology perspective, VR is mostly about being able to run consistently at high frame-rates, which results in some major challenges for rendering optimizations."

Rashid K. Sayed: When can we expect Robinson: The Journey to finally arrive? Will Back to Dinosaur Island be making its way to VR players in some other form before then?

Elijah Freeman: A release date for Robinson: The Journey still has to be confirmed and Back to Dinosaur Island 2 will remain a demo for now.

Rashid K. Sayed: From a development perspective what kind of changes do you think DX12 will bring into VR gaming?

Elijah Freeman: From an engine technology perspective, VR is mostly about being able to run consistently at high frame-rates, which results in some major challenges for rendering optimizations. Everything which helps to make draw calls more efficient is highly useful, so DX12 with its reduced API overhead and better parallelization capabilities can definitely play a part in helping us create more complex VR worlds than before. 

Rashid K. Sayed:Do you think there is potential of using the cloud along with VR gaming? The recent Crackdown 3 demo by Microsoft shows there is massive potential but what is your take on VR?

Elijah Freeman: Minimizing latency is essential for VR, so we will likely not see VR games being fully rendered in the cloud any time soon. However, some complex simulation code for which lower frequency updates are acceptable could well run in the cloud and free up resources on the player’s machine, helping to achieve higher frame-rates.

Rashid K. Sayed:Is there anything else you want to tell us before we let you go?

Elijah Freeman: We will be sharing more Robinson: The Journey news on http://robinsonthegame.com as we go.

Cloud Imperium Games’ Star Citizen has seen a massive leak of assets after a community manager accidentally revealed a partial URL for the same in a screenshot. After much guesswork, the URL was completed and it led to a torrent which had a whopping 40 GB of unreleased assets.

Cloud Imperium reacted quickly to shut down the torrent but some people still managed to get a hold of it, essentially making it available to all (though it’s likely that the developer will attempt to remove any duplicate torrents that arise). One major aspect of the unreleased assets of the Bengal carrier, an enormous ship which has yet to be seen. A video for the same was released, which you can check it out above.

This isn’t the most recent model for the carrier and it’s also running on Cloud Imperium’s extended version of CryEngine. Those possessing consumer versions of CryEngine may thus experience rendering issues as a result.

What’s your take on the leaks? Let us know in the comments.