Minecraft makes its VR debut
The game John Carmack called his "grail" is now available for Samsung Gear VR
Minecraft has made its VR debut, with Mojang choosing to launch the game for Samsung Gear VR with virtually no fanfare.
The Gear VR Edition has the same feature-set as Minecraft Pocket Edition, arguably the most popular premium game on both iOS and Android. The key difference is viewpoint: a "more comfortable" theatre view, and a "more intense and immersive" first-person perspective that is surely the reason this version exists at all. Minecraft Gear VR Edition requires a gamepad to play.
In a statement published on the Oculus blog, John Carmack claimed that his, "strongest memories of being inside VR are from the time I've spent exploring Minecraft on Gear VR."
This is very much in line with comments Carmack has made about Minecraft's importance to VR in the past. Indeed, compared to his keynote at the Oculus Connect conference last year, Carmack is almost restrained.
"I've called this my grail," he said. "I think it's the single most important application that we can have to ensure we have an army of fanatic, passionate supporters that will advocate why VR is great. It's part of this infinite playability that our current ecosystem is missing."