What is it and how much does it cost? What if I feel dizzy playing a VR game? This and more — here’s our FAQ on The Vanishing of Ethan Carter VR!

What is The Vanishing of Ethan Carter VR?

It’s The Vanishing of Ethan Carter redesigned for VR gear like Oculus or Vive.

This was not a small task. It’s not about ticking off the “enable VR” checkbox. Virtual Reality is a whole different design game. We worked for six months on the VR Edition, both redesigning portions of the game and optimizing the game (e.g. Oculus requires 90 fps in a resolution higher than full HD – if you know how our game looks like, you know it was a very hard task).

On top of that, we have added a whole new play mode called the Comfort Mode. This is for people who experience any discomfort while playing the regular VR version. Creating that mode kept us quite busy as well. Just imagine having to put well over four thousand traversal arrows in the game, each with manually set direction, size, and behavior. And that was after months of research of how to achieve true comfort in the Comfort Mode.

Is this why you actually charge money for The Vanishing of Ethan Carter VR?

Exactly. After we released The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (made on Unreal Engine 3) we worked for a year on an Unreal Engine 4 remake called The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux. We gave that game to every owner of the original for free. But at one point we need to start making money again, if we are to continue making games.

We feel that the hard work and the VR content of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter VR justify the price. We’re ecstatic to see a lot of people understand it.

What’s the price of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter VR?

On the Oculus store the game is sold as a bundle: it contains both Ethan Carter 2D and Ethan Carter Oculus VR, and it costs $29.99.

If you have the game on Steam, you can purchase a VR DLC (supports Oculus and Vive) for $9.99. If you don’t have the game, you can buy the 2D/VR Steam bundle similar to what’s on the Oculus store.

Explain this pricing a bit more…

Like, why aren’t we selling just the VR version on the Oculus store or Steam?

Oculus wanted one SKU from us, not two (VR and 2D/VR separately). They wanted just the 2D/VR bundle SKU. We get it: less confusion and also customers have the 2D game just in case the VR is too much for them (although our Comfort mode eliminates the issue, we hope). So what we are selling is a 2D/VR combo, hence the $29.99 price.

Our policy is to have the same price everywhere, and the easiest solution for Steam was to have the VR Edition as a DLC. So if you prefer to get the bundle from Steam, you’re basically paying the same price ($19.99 core 2D game plus $9.99 for the VR DLC) as what’s on the Oculus store.

Are there any differences between the Oculus and Steam versions?

If you buy the game from the Oculus store, the game will be integrated with the Oculus ecosystem. For example, it will show up in your Oculus library.

If you purchase from Steam, it will show up in your Steam library instead and will feature Steam achievements. To run it on Oculus you have to enable “Unknown Sources” on Oculus options (here’s how).

Other than this, both versions are identical.

Can I get the Oculus key if I buy on Steam, and vice versa?

Here is the thing. A lot of people think of Oculus as a cool PC peripheral. Meanwhile, Oculus is a new platform, not a new peripheral. Oculus store is a competition to Steam in a way Windows 10 store is a competition to both of these. In other words, the above question is sort of like a “Can I get the Xbox key if I purchased the game for my PS4 and vice versa?”

Now, that would actually be cool, but it’s not something we have any control over.

Some developers do want to offer the Oculus key for Steam owners, but no one really knows how to do it. Because there’s just no link between these two separate platforms.

Do you plan on having the VR Edition DLC on GOG?

Not at the moment. We love GOG, but as far as we know GOG does not support the VR environment the way Oculus or Steam VR do.

What about Vive?

UPDATE: The Steam VR DLC now fully supports Vive!

What about PlayStation VR?

We asked for a devkit and we will definitely take a look. Again, no guarantees.

I feel fizzy playing The Vanishing of Ethan Carter VR…

The growing pains of VR… Most of the team here play VR games with no issues, but two of us get dizzy as well. Issues like that are exactly why we made the Comfort for our game.

Try these two things:

1) You can change the turn around speed/look sensitivity in Options

2) Start a New Game and choose Comfort Mode instead of Normal Mode

The first thing might not help you, but the second really, really should. We had no reports of anyone suffering any discomfort playing in the Comfort Mode.

The game looks a bit soft in VR…

You can change the pixel density from the default 0.8 to 1.0 in the options. We recommend nVidia 980 or better for that, or the framerate might suffer (you won’t see that right away due to clever frame-rate doubling tech in the drivers, but you might feel it).

I have another question…

Please talk to us on Twitter, and we will either reply right away or update this FAQ.