By Grit Alone wants to be Dead Space in VR, and we interviewed the studio to find out more about this upcoming action-horror game.
Unveiled at the UploadVR Summer Showcase in June, Only by Grit is a new, story-driven VR horror shooter set in the “Bermuda Triangle of space.” The anthology approach is taken by a variety of writing talents, including Antony Johnston (Dead Space, Resident Evil Village) and Emma Beeby (Judge Dredd, Doctor Who) explore a graveyard of abandoned spaceships in a fight for survival.
In our recent hands-on preview we got an early look at “the creepy atmosphere on board the Agapemonan abandoned spaceship filled with burned corpses and nasty insects.”
Before that preview, UploadVR also interviewed Crooks Peak's Charlie Cochrane via video call. After previously RacetronicVRCochrane saw the VR market grow after the launch of Quest 2 and believed it was time to return. After success with Alien extractionCrooks Peak was already looking forward to its next project about two and a half years ago.
“We thought, ‘Okay, we’ve got our feet in the VR market. What do we really want to make?’ I’m a huge Dead Space fan, so I thought, ‘Dead Space in VR.’”
By Grit Alone aims to offer a similar kind of 'frantic combat' as Dead Space, but the story is also a major focus.
“One thing we love about the Dead Space setting and games like Bioshock or SOMA is that you’re stuck in this situation, but you’re also learning about the world as you go. There’s an absolute mountain of lore, but if you’re just there to blow stuff up, you don’t need to delve into it.”
Lore is shared in a variety of ways, including written and audio logs. Even more prominent are the holographic logs that move characters around you, giving clues to the ship’s environment and history. Cochrane didn’t want to give too much away, but I’ve also heard that splitting this adventure across different ships allowed for different stories to be told. They hired different writers for this.
“That was really good, because we could say to the writers, 'It's a spaceship, you're stuck in a horrible area with aliens, but otherwise you can do whatever you want.' They were all excited when we got them on board, because they could do whatever they wanted.”
By Grit Alone was designed as an anthology because Crooks Peak wanted the variety that such an approach offered, so I wondered how the studio would keep the overarching storyline coherent with writers given so much freedom. Cochrane admitted that this was a challenge, as the team didn’t want the game to have a “shopping list” of things to do, so each writer had a “lore bible” to work from.
Your main goal is to understand what is going on and survive, and these mini-stories on each ship help you discover what is going on. You do not play as a specific person; the character you embody has no voice lines, and Crooks Peak has taken this approach to maintain immersion.
“We don't want players to feel like they're doing things in the story that they don't want to do, because that breaks the illusion that they're in a survival situation… we're really trying to make it feel like it's about you.”
Given the vast differences between the ships, it’s not so easy to ask what we can expect from the gameplay. However, Cochrane explained what you can expect when you first step in.
You come across these really dark corridors and a big thing for us is these aliens. The player will travel semi-cautiously because you’re quite vulnerable, but then you might come across a fantastic environment with these holo logs that you can activate with a button. It then goes into an almost investigative mode where you figure out what’s going on.
There might be a puzzle, there might be some lore… at each point we also try to introduce new aliens. You might leave a more narrative area for the next zone, and then something comes out of the wall, or you try to figure out what's going on. It's a mix between this really hectic combat situation and little narrative vignettes.
You won't encounter any jump scares and aside from the Dead Space influences, By Grit Alone focuses more on action horror like Resident Evil 4 VR then hardcore titles like MADiSON VRCrooks Peak also wanted to embody classic 80s and 90s action films like Terminator 2 and Aliens, where you're put in a terrifying situation but the hero perseveres anyway.
By Grit Alone doesn’t use loading screens, and I’m told the game plays as one continuous scene. Given that many VR games take a more bite-sized approach to campaigns, whether that’s a mission-based structure or simply offering frequent saves, I asked how Crooks Peak handles progression.
“Each individual ship will probably take you anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. We want players to be able to say, 'Okay, I've reached a good point in the story where I can take a breather.' But you can play through this all the way through, and it's really important to us that there are no breaks.”
I believe that one of the biggest immersion breakers of VR can be loading screens or fades to black, and Cochrane agreed with this sentiment. He feels this is especially true for horror games, explaining that it’s something to avoid if you’re trying to build tension with players.
Quest 3 owners can expect “improved” visuals compared to Quest 2, but are other VR headsets being considered? Cochrane didn't confirm any plans, though he sees Steam as a “natural next step” following the release of Alien Extraction's PC VR, and By Grit Alone with OpenXR makes that port “not easy, but it is doable.” PSVR2 is a matter of “wait and see”, although he is a fan of Sony's headset.
Only through Grit does the Meta quest platform in September.