With Oculus Rift support creeping onto the gamut of games, from Euro Truck Simulator to Half-Life 2 to creepy psychodrama Ether One , it's a little surprising that MMOs haven't been given the high-fidelity 3D treatment yet. I mean, isn't that why we play MMOs? So we can live secondary lives as ridiculously graceful elves nibbling, rodent-like, upon Conjured Mana Cakes? It's OK—someone's finally seen fit to repair the flaw of flatness in MMO worlds, but surprisingly, it's not Blizzard taking that step forward with World of Warcraft.
Instead, space MMORPG Vendetta Online claims that honor. Guild Software creative director says, "We're thrilled to help our players experience the next level of immersion in a virtual world."
First generation support is limited to just Windows users at the moment, though Guild promise they'll be expanding to other platforms in the future. The make the best of the fancy new hardware, the Rift support is also coinciding with a new graphical update, giving you detailed planets and procedural nebula for you to use your freshly attained sense of depth perception on.
There are some things to be wary of before venturing into the everlasting darkness of space—a detailed post on the Vendetta Online blog mentions that the Rift's integrated compass isn't supported yet, instead relying on the accelerometers in the meantime. Basically, that means you might need to recalibrate every once in awhile. Additionally, some effects such as full-screen lighting are not yet enabled on the Rift version, as Guild have chosen to go for functionality over glitz. Finally, you'll probably need a "fairly decent video card" to run this thing.
If you can shrug off all of the above and have an Oculus Rift at your disposal—unlikely, we know—you can try out a free trial of the subscription-based game for the first eight hours. Though Rift still isn't ready for sale as a consumer product, more developer support helps it prove its viability.
