Of all the virtual reality games that have so far been revealed, EVE: Valkyrie really is the poster child. It was one of the first announced, has been designed with VR exclusively in mind, and its setting is just about the ideal one for such the medium.

Though still set in the Eve universe, one of the longest standing MMOs with a uniquely player-led form that has established itself over the last twelve years, this is a standalone experience. It drops you into the cockpit of a star fighter heading out on patrol amongst your fleet of ships.

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Instantly, there’s the overtones of the classics of the genre, from TIE Fighter to Wing Commander. Having placed the Oculus Rift on your head – or a Morpheus, with the game planned for PS4 release as well – and picked up a controller, your working day starts in a launch tube before being hurled out into the void with a magnetic catapult. It’s particularly reminiscent of Battlestar Galactica, as you’re sent flying at high speed into space and Katee Sackhoff – AKA Starbuck for Battlestar Galactica fans – comes in over the intercom to lead you through the patrol.

Of course, it all goes pear-shaped. An enemy fleet drops into the system and you find yourself in a pitched battle for survival, let alone victory. It’s fast, furious and exhilarating, but it’s also impossible to keep track of all the action and how the battle is faring. I’m essentially just haring after the first target I see, using their red trails to keep track of roughly where they are, before getting them in my sights and squeezing the trigger.

It’s here that the VR shines, as rather than having my view locked straight ahead of me, I was moving my head around to spot enemies above and to either side of me. It puts you completely inside and environment and doesn’t just give you a tiny window through which to look. I could look down and see “my” hands grasping the flight sticks, lean forwards to get closer to the controls, and so on.

It goes beyond that though, giving you capabilities not too dissimilar to those that modern fighter jet pilots have in the latest military aircraft. Sure, we’ve had heads up displays in games for decades, outlining where enemy craft are, but the head tracking at work in the headset allows you to aim and lock on with your ship’s missiles. It’s simple, fun and empowering all at the same time, as you weave your way towards one target after another, taking them down in quick succession.

Then you just die. A huge spherical weapon drops into the system before unleashing an unimaginably huge beam of energy at the ships in your fleet, with you ending up caught in the cataclysmic explosion one way or another. Your cockpit window shatters, and you’re exposed to the near absolute zero temperatures of space, killing you in a matter of seconds as Katee Sackhoff’s character signs off. Nobody said being a fighter pilot would last very long…

Valkyrie has evolved a great deal since it was first unveiled back in 2013, but with this demo, which was originally shown at the Eve Fanfest earlier this year, CCP have solidified the foundations for where the game will eventually end up. It’s still just a short demo with a minimum of exposition before dropping you into a manic dogfight, and without a grander sense of what your fleet is trying to achieve or any clear sense of objective other than to shoot things. There is a story to be told, of mercenaries, pirates and cloned fighter pilots, but this will all be fleshed out and expanded on for the final game. Up until quite recently, it’s just been vital for CCP to get the fundamentals to feel as good as they possibly could.

Right now, Eve: Valkyrie is very much deserving of its status as the preeminent VR gaming experience. There are other VR games already out there, whether it’s the support for Oculus Rift Dev kits in Elite: Dangerous or the likes of Project Cars, and there are countless developers which plan to add support at the full launch of these systems, but by being exclusively VR focussed, Eve: Valkyrie could easily be the system seller, as it were, and the game that convinces people of VR’s potential.