Over the past few years VRFocus has been tracking the progress of the debut virtual reality (VR) videogame from Mindfield Games, named P.O.L.L.E.N.. The first-person narrative-driven experienced promises to tell one of the tech’s first sci-fi stories, placing players on the Saturn moon of Titan. Today, Mindfield Games has finally launched P.O.L.L.E.N. on Steam as a full videogame, though support for VR head-mounted displays (HMDs) is still in Beta testing at this point in time.
In P.O.L.L.E.N. players explore the fictional Research Base M, set in an alternate 1995. A failed assassination attempt of President Kennedy means the space race between Soviet Russia and the US continues to accelerate, leading to dominance by corporations that set up mining and research colonies across the solar system. When the crew of Research Base M goes missing, players are sent in to explore the facility and the moon itself in an attempt to understand exactly what happened. The environment is richly detailed with hints and clues and some light puzzles will also stand in the player’s way.
P.O.L.L.E.N. is planned to be compatible with the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive HMDs as well as the PlayStation VR kit for PlayStation 4 later down the line. For now, though, it appears that only Oculus Rift support is included in Beta form. A release on Oculus Home will take place when full support is integrated. For now, though, the first week of sales are discounted to £17.09 GBP. The usual price of £19.99 will be put in place on 26th April 2016.
Check back with VRFocus for the latest on P.O.L.L.E.N..
