Epic Games’ efforts to pursue the perfect virtual reality (VR) development platform in Unreal Engine 4 seem to be showing no signs of slowing down, as it appears that a new locomotion system is set to be added to the suite as standard. Teleportation in VR has often been cited as a movement system that can help to reduce the possibility of simulation sickness incurring in users, and that’s exactly what Unreal Engine 4.13 aims to provide.

Revealed by Tom Looman, Developer Support Engineer at Epic Games, via his personal Twitter account, a simple teleportation system designed for mobile VR platforms accompanied by a gamepad (namely Samsung Gear VR or Google Daydream) is set to be added to Unreal Engine 4’s VR Template selection in the next major update to the engine. According to Looman:

“#VR Locomotion for Mobile or VR w/ Gamepad in @UnrealEngine coming to the VR Template in 4.13!”

The above was tweeted alongside the animated image below, which demonstrations a gaze-based positional system and what is presumably a control pad dictated directional input to allow users to decide not just where they will be teleporting, but also the direction they will be facing upon arrival.

The visual design is typically minimal for a template offering, but of course developers will be able to customise this however they choose; one such example of inventive teleportation signposting comes in the recently released The Assembly, wherein the player is given a silhouette of their character to showcase not only landing position but whether or not they’ll be able to directly interact with an item upon arrival.

No official release date has yet been revealed for Unreal Engine 4.13, though other significant updates for VR development are also expected. VRFocus will of course keep you updated with all the latest details including any announcement regarding a release date.