Hey everyone,
Long time no see, huh.
Those who follow us on Twitter might have seen our recent "PCVR bulletin" tweet - it's time to share it with y'all here as well.
We're quite behind on updating you all on what's going on with Zero Caliber's original PC version here on Steam.
We understand that seeing the birth and ascension of the game's standalone version coupled with the lack of PC updates might give the impression that we have abandoned the original game. Well, it's 100% not the case, we love all versions equally! <3
To keep you in the loop, this is what happened in the past few months:
We underestimated how much work and resources it'd take to properly port Zero Caliber to standalone headsets. We had to fix a lot of QoL issues the PC version suffered (well, suffers) from, and also had to rethink how the game works under the hood.
After overcoming countless unforeseen obstacles, we were ready to launch it in that other store with the intention of implementing all the optimization, improvements and features back into the PC version alongside the PvP right away, but...
...but we weren't happy with the port's state at release. We had to fix and improve things so we could say: "Yeah, this is a Zero Caliber version worthy of the name."
So we started doing just that as you can tell by the number of standalone updates.
Now, we have a standalone version we're happy with with all the benefits the porting process brought and a PC version in dire need of an update.
We decided it's time to finally smash all of that together as we originally intended to do.
And that's where we are at right now with the PCVR version. We're:
- upgrading from UE 4.24 to 4.27 to keep core mechanics and plugins up to date (and to leave a few unpleasant engine bugs behind)
- moving all the optimized code and features from the standalone version back to the PC version
- upgrading some of the standalone version's new maps to PCVR standards so we can finish the story
- fixing all the things we break while updating the engine and migrating the goodies from the standalone version
As you can imagine, the game's backend is currently in ruins - piecing everything back together is a painfully long process, but rather than having to downgrade the PCVR version we're plowing through the difficulties no matter what.
We're working hard to bring you an update as soon as possible, and we hope all parties involved will be satisfied at the end.
I'll also be going through the Steam Community Hub next week to get back to y'all.
On behalf of the whole XREAL Games Team,
Daniel Nyirfa
Head of Communications