Launching a VR game these days is "A perfect storm of shit"
Brendan Sinclair
Managing Editor
Tuesday 11th January 2022
With 2013's Skulls of the Shogun and 2016's Galak-Z, Kyoto-based 17-bit was establishing itself as a boutique studio for retro-inspired 2D games. But as development on Galak-Z wound down, 17-bit CEO Jake Kazdal tells GamesIndustry.biz he had developed a "burning passion to check out this new medium that was VR and see what it was all about."
"I'd long wanted something that was completely absorbing of all your senses and I think in terms of interactive media, there's not much higher to shoot for than something really engaging in VR," he says. "It really is an incredible next step as a gaming medium."
That was how 17-bit got started on Song in the Smoke, its third title and first VR game, which launched last month. When we ask what it's like to launch a VR game in late 2021, Kazdal doesn't mince words.
"It's a perfect storm of shit, to be frank," he acknowledges. "As a studio, we are so focused on gameplay and the experience as a whole. And a huge part of that experience for us as developers is this overlap with the users and this communication with the outer world.
"Normally, with Skulls of the Shogun and Galak-Z, we're showing at multiple PAXes, TGS, E3, and all these shows. We're getting tons and tons of feedback. We're watching 1,000 people play the first hour of the game. We're getting so much great feedback on where the game is at, what we need to work on and the speedbumps that are preventing people from really being able to understand the experience and digest it.
"With VR, it's a lot harder on a good day because it is such a solitary thing... And then you couple that with this whole COVID bullshit and no trade shows. And even if there were, it's not like people
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