Gallery: Crytek's 'Dinosaur Island' shows VR gaming at its best Gallery Gallery: Crytek's 'Dinosaur Island' shows VR gaming at its best + 5

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Virtual reality can sometimes feel like something that's perpetually on the cusp of happening. Much of the discussion to date has been on the hardware itself, be it Oculus Rift, Sony's Project Morpheus, or any one of numerous other headsets that exist to serve a market that currently doesn't exist. Less common is what you'll actually be using VR for, but Gamescom 2015 has shown a tipping point, with more VR vendors showing off gaming content than ever before.

Case in point: Crytek's Back to Dinosaur Island 2. As the name implies, it's the second go around for a dino-fuelled tech demo from the developer. But unlike its predecessor it has enough depth to show how VR can deliver a hugely immersive gaming experience and massively enhance the opportunities for environmental storytelling.


The game is simple enough -- you start at the bottom of a cliff face, and must ride zip lines to reach the top. But looking around before you begin your ascent, you get the first hints of story. Something has crashed deep in the ravine below. Your hands, the only visible part of your body, are wearing some sort of astronaut gloves. Something else is howling, the sound echoing down from high above you.

Played with a controller, input is simple, with the left and right triggers opening and closing that hand's grip. Look where you want to hold, squeeze the trigger, and begin moving up. As you reach your third or fourth zip line (more questions asked by the environment -- who anchored them? When? Was it you? How?) something moves on the rocks next to you. A creature not unlike a pteranodon releases its grip and flies off, squawking at you for invading its territory.

And so the climb continues. The gameplay, such as it is, maintains that basic progression of methodically shifting from line to line, the flying beasts getting more and more agitated as you edge closer to their roost. As you look around, you're treated to stunning views of an alien territory, as the flying lizards swoop and swirl around you. Near the top, they begin throwing rocks, that can be dodged by moving your head around. A simple touch, but one that shows there's more to it than just virtual grip action.


When you reach the top, after a breathtaking view of a herd of Brontosaurus-like titans, Back to Dinosaur Island 2 adds in a final touch. More spacecraft wreckage lies in the distance; using the Oculus Rift's head tracking features, you can focus on any of the pieces to scan it, logging information on it and marking its location. It's just a taste of deeper features, but enough to hint at far greater things ahead. You immediately want to continue, and head off to investigate the downed ship. This is a world that absolutely begs to be explored.

Those greater things are, in all likelihood, the just announced Robinson: The Journey. Crytek won't outright confirm that Dinosaur Island has evolved into Robinson, but playing the tech demo shows an undeniable link. Most tellingly, the crashed ship seen in Robinson's key art is spotted towards the end of the playthrough here. The pteranodon-like creatures are a bit of a giveaway, too. It's not a guaranteed link, but it's likely that concepts and designs at the very least are shared between the two.

Despite its simplicity, the sheer intuitiveness of Dinosaur Island 2 makes it one of the most engaging VR titles we've played. If it does see consumer release, be it as Robinson or something else entirely, it's a prime candidate to become one of the format's first break out hits.