However, the skeletons of the game product are already set and offer glimpses of a fully immersive future across sports games.
Kickin’ Around
Rezzila’s top priority Premier League player was to make the game something that appeals to the general public and not just players familiar with the mechanics of football.
“Someone’s grandmother could play this,” says Adam Dickinson, Rezzil co-founder and design director. “You don’t have to be an athlete.
Achieving this accessibility required a few compromises, particularly in the game’s kicking mechanics: Players “kick” by swinging their arms while holding standard VR controllers at their sides, trying to approximate natural leg movements as best they can. The default foot in the game appears at a 90-degree angle from the leg as if you were standing flat on the ground, which is ideal for creating and receiving passes; holding down the trigger button bends the ankle and straightens the player’s foot, mimicking the ideal position for a harder shot or volley.
Like all game modes, kicking drills will transport players to the digital pitch of the Premier League. Players are challenged to kick and receive passes to and from various goals. The simpler settings include “aim assists” and similar player aids to help modulate the speed and direction of the kick, while the higher levels lack these crutches almost entirely.
Dickinson told me that Rezzil had already built and tested versions PLP where players kick with real feet. However, these versions require additional VR sensors purchased separately from the headset itself; Even VR headsets with “inside-out” surveillance cameras pointing outwards aren’t up to the task yet, Etches tells me. Many popular dance or spatial VR games use up to a dozen such sensors to track the entire body, but Dickinson says Rezzil users would only need a few. But even that additional cost (around $300, Etches says) seemed too prohibitive for the first launch of the game. By this time next year, however, expect to be able to kick a virtual ball by moving your real feet.
“We can flip a switch and put it into play,” Dickinson says.
In their current format, PLPThe least realistic are kicking exercises. But other features of the game are much more natural.
As mostly a goalie in my short time on the youth soccer field, I was particularly excited about the goalie drill. They won’t disappoint. The shots come from a combination of ‘shot guns’ created by Rezzil (tiny objects that can be placed anywhere on the pitch and programmed to fire balls at different speeds and spin rates) and actual 3D renderings of Premier League players appearing on the pitch. in various places such as the penalty and longer free kicks.
