In January The Climb developer Crytek announced a new initiative to nurture grassroots virtual reality (VR) development worldwide called VR First. Bahçe?ehir University in Istanbul became the pilot destination for the scheme and today the company has announced six more universities have joined.

The six to have joined are: The University of Canterbury (New Zealand), Kajaani University of Applied Sciences (Finland), University College London (UK), Manchester Metropolitan University (UK), Oklahoma University (US) and Tallinn Technical University (Estonia). This brings the total number of participating schools to fourteen.

The aim of VR First is to establish VR dedicated labs in institutions around the world by partnering with Crytek and other VR industry innovators. As part of the initiative participants will have access to Crytek’s videogame development middleware, CryENGINE as well as other VR technology needed for development.

Crytek is getting heavily involved in pushing VR in various areas. Alongside VR First the developer has several of its own VR projects, the latest to release is mountaineering title The Climb which launched for the Oculus Rift head-mounted display (HMD) in April. And at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2016 in March showcased a range of new VR-centric features for CryENGINE V.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of Crytek and all of its VR related projects.