CCP Games’ annual EVE FanFest 2017 began yesterday and the big virtual reality (VR) news from the event has focused on EVE: Valkyrie and its upcoming update, Groundrush. VRTV’s Nina sat down with the title’s Lead Game Designer, Andrew Willans to find out more.

Set to launch next Tuesday, 11th April across all three platforms, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR, Groundrush features a brand new map called Solitude. Changing the dynamic of EVE: Valkyrie’s usual space-based gameplay, Solitude takes players planet side, fighting in the skies above a large installation.

In the video Willans describes the difficulties the studio faced creating a level that now had a floor and a horizon line. He reveals how this type of level wasn’t possible for the team to make around six months ago, it’s only through continual development and learning what can be achieved in virtual reality (VR) that the studio built Solitude.

As these past couple of weeks have been fairly reflective, with the anniversaries of HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and EVE: Valkyrie itself, Nina got Willans opinion about the last year in VR and what the future holds. VRFocus also spoke with several other team members located around the world for their thoughts on the matter.

Checkout VRFocus‘ hands-on with the level and come back for further EVE: Valkyrie updates.