Do you love your b-movie sci-fi schlock? If you’re a VR gamer, chances are you do. As does Wim Buytaert, Director of last year’s VR exclusive title, Memoreum. So much so in fact, that they’re deep into the process of recreating the Starship Troopers universe in VR with Hivefall, available to play now via Patreon.
On this page:
What is Hivefall?
As stated above, Hivefall is a new game heavily inspired by Starship Troopers and b-movie sci-fi action movies. You can see much of this by the creature designs on this page. In-game however, it’s all about guns and blasting apart alien creatures, much as you’d expect.
There’s currently four playable levels in Hivefall – technically three and a bonus level – with a fifth already teased. You may feel that this is a small offering, but Buytaert has been very open about plans for the game. This is a title that is being developed alongside the community. There’s no cloak-and-daggers going on here: Hivefall is a game being made by a passionate developer hoping to find an equally passionate audience. And in order to do that, the route-to-market is a little different to what you might be expecting.
Sideloading FTW
The game is currently only available via Patreon. This means it’s not as simple as clicking ‘buy’ on the Meta Horizon Store. Instead, you’ll need to register on Patreon, sign up to support this campaign and then receive a Google Drive link to download a file which can then be sideloaded on your Meta Quest 3 headset. For you and I that may seem like a relatively simple process with just a few extra hurdles. However, there’s no denying it’s a huge leap for the more casual VR audience.
“Hivefall is built around everything I personally wanted from Starship Troopers in VR: massive numbers of enemies on screen, large bosses and flying enemies, bases with health and destructible buildings, bugs that climb and scale walls, bombardments and slow-motion moments, XP-based weapon progression and upgrades, tanks, aircraft, and more,” states Buytaert on the campaign page. “Right now, the €3.50 [EUR] tier is the best choice if you mainly want to play and test the game early. You won’t miss out on current playable content. That said, choosing a higher tier is always greatly appreciated.”
That’s a refreshing amount of honesty and clarity from a game developer in modern times. Buytaert is looking to get rich, it seems, but rather to share a passion with a similarly minded audience.
Future Plans for Hivefall
The plans for Hivefall‘s future seem quite extensive. Additional levels, weapons, environments and more will expand the content significantly. But also new mechanics, and potentially co-op gameplay, will be added in due course.
“All support goes directly back into the game, funding: new campaigns, new planets & enemies, more content, systems, and polish,” offers Buytaert.
You can check out the game on Patreon now. Be sure to let us know in the comments below if you do!
