Kite & Lightning are a studio which has developed a strong following amongst the earliest adopters of modern virtual reality (VR) thanks to their regular output of high quality titles and experiences. Senza Peso has often been cited as one of the best ‘first steps’ for people bringing their friends into VR, and Kite & Lightning have recognised this with an effort to revamp the experience for consumer hardware.
Having made its debut in June 2014 on the original Oculus Rift development kit, aka DK1, Senza Peso was an instant favourite amongst VR early adopters. This lead the then two-man team at Kite & Lightning, Cory Straussberg and Ikrima Elhassan, to re-engineer the title for successive hardware, the Oculus Rift DK2. Now, more than two years later, a new version is in development for the consumer VR hardware: both Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.
An early preview of what the team are referring to as ‘Senza Peso 2.0’ was offered at the Toronto Film Festival last week, with the final edition coming to Steam and Oculus Home in the near future. Developed using Unreal Engine 4, Straussberg is poignant about his love for the piece and the technology used to create it:
“It’s funny how the “quick pass” of getting it working on the latest UE4 turned into rebuilding assets, textures, timings, and other things that I shouldn’t be spending time on but it looks a lot cooler and stands up to the new tech,” states Straussberg in an official Kite & Lightning communication. “We hope you guys enjoy it… and with some effort I think I can convince Ikrima to brush the dust off his UE4 Plugin and capture it for Gear VR! Of course we’re talking 3 levels deep of Inception time so it might be a while!”
Kite & Lightning are now working on their new project, Bebylon: Battle Royale, for which the studio recently announced a successful round of investment. Though no specific release date for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift version of Senza Peso has been confirmed the studio state that users should expect it ‘within a few weeks’. That potential Gear VR version however? VRFocus will certainly keep you updated.
