Today, a group of Korean high school students made an amazing breakthrough by making a multi-part "Overwatch rig" that's capable of playing Overwatch in immersive, virtual reality experience, giving the player the ability to play and enjoy the game without ever touch the traditional controllers. Here's how they did it.
Overwatch VR
We've covered interesting stories in the past detailing how some players wanted to spice up their gaming experience by creating astounding yet peculiar controllers to play their favorite hero. There's this Banana controller made by Rudeism to play Winston and a Hair Dryer + Ouija board made by SSBATwerkingYoshi to play Mei. Both methods seemed like an idea conceived from idiosyncratic minds of creative players but it definitely help brought about this futuristic concept made by a group of Korean high school students.
As reported by Akshon Esports, the Korean students have developed a new 'console' called Sata-watch which provides immersive Overwatch VR experience. The platform tracks the user's movements and uses them as the basis for inputs in the game. The students had prepared a couple of tools to make the Sata-watch which according to the publisher (translated version) are:
VR Headset (Samsung Gear VR)
Smartphone (Any)
IMB Sensor
Arduino Chip
A Button
Ball-Bearing
PC
Motion detection device
A copy of Overwatch
An elaborate explanation and installment behind the process is included in the video but they are entirely made out of Korean which needs some translation. We will update this sheet as soon as we get the full translated version of the video.
But as you can see on the video, the Sata-watch works exactly the same as your typical VR in which you'll have to use your own movements as the directional inputs for your character. In the given demo, the student is playing Soldier 76 and can be seen shooting enemies, dodging and dashing forward using his basic bodily movements. He even used Tactical Visor by doing the exact same animation! How cool is that?
Now, the downside on this platform is the noticeable delay in-between inputs (receiving and executing) as can be seen in the video down below. But nonetheless, it definitely is a huge step forward which Blizzard can, hopefully, apply in the future! After all, who wouldn't love moving around like a ninja playing as Genji?!
