The IMAX of VR headsets announced by Starbreeze
StarVR is at E3, demonstrated by tailored The Walking Dead game.
There's another virtual reality headset ready to step into the ring, and it comes from an unlikely source: Starbreeze, the Swedish company responsible for the Payday series, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and The Chronicles of Riddick.
Introducing Project StarVR, a headset claiming to be a kind of IMAX of VR gaming. In other words, it offers a much larger field of vision - one that incorporates your peripheral vision.
It's being demonstrated at E3 courtesy of The Walking Dead shooter game that Payday developer Overkill is making for it.
Whereas "other" headsets offer around 110 degrees of horizontal and vertical viewing range, StarVR offers an impressive 210-degrees horizontal and 130-degrees vertical.
That's a combined viewing area of 5120 x 1440 pixels - 2560 x 1440 per eye.
There's position tracking, too.
StarVR is made by specialist VR company InfinitEye, which Starbreeze acquired along the way. According to a timeline on the StarVR website, this is an idea that's been in development since 2011.
"Gamers worldwide are going to lose their minds when they see what we've got coming up," promised Starbreeze producer Tyler Sparks in the StarVR video.
"This," he emphasised, "is impressive. StarVR is innovating in a way that no one else has or really will. We're cornering the market in unique hardware, software and engine in Valhalla. And Valhalla has some really amazing capabilities and potential."
Valhalla is the name of Starbreeze's proprietary game engine, which supports the Steam OpenVR framework.
