The Great Ocean VR

Student's Choice

What is it?

The Great Ocean is a VR game that allows you to dive into real oceans in the world, including the Galapagos, the Arctic or the Deep Sea, and discover deep-sea creatures and WW2 wreckage. Each level features its own set of unique set of quests which are based around real sunken submarines, WW2 battleship wrecks and underwater ecosystems. You can explore the different areas and learn about the history, information about the aquatic lifeforms while clearing the missions. The goal of these missions is to help protect and save the oceans, like cleaning up oil spill and picking up trash.
The game is still currently in development and is set to be released on 22 December 2022. It will be available on Steam and Oculus Store. Obviously, in order to experience the game fully, you would need to play on a VR headset with a controller. Currently there are only two areas available for early access: Galapagos Gordon Rocks and Cozumel Deep. The next area they plan to add is the Artic Ocean and they will continue to add more maps with more missions.

Videos

Trailer

Gameplay demo


Why is it a good use of VR or AR?

The Great Ocean is a very good VR game because it utilizes almost everything that current VR tech has to offer. It provides an immersive way for users to learn about history of wreckages, the underwater ecosystem and the environmental issues that we are facing, topics that people will usually find boring, through interactive quests.
Although other VR applications that are set in the ocean already exist, The Great Ocean is still very unique. Some VR applications that are set in the ocean includes Ocean Rift VR, Titanic VR, Subnautica and theBlu.
The Great Ocean is like a combination of all of these existing VR applications. The ideas behind Ocean Rift VR and Titanic VR are both incorporated into The Great Ocean. However, with Ocean Rift, there are no prompts of any sort, it just allows users to use interactive actions to swim around and learn about aquatic life. Titanic VR allows you to explore the shipwreck of RMS Titanic in great detail, but it only features the Titanic. theBlu is visually stunning, with realistic graphics and immersive sound, but it there are not much interactive features. As a game, Subnautica is the most similar to The Great Ocean but Subnautica is set in a fictional alien underwater world, while The Great Ocean is set in real oceans.

Who are its intended users?

The target audience of The Great Ocean would be the anyone with access to a VR headset with a controller. The game serves as a very good way to promote awareness on the environmental issues in the oceans. Whenever people talk about environmental issues, what they usually think of is air pollution and throwing trash into the ocean, but it is more than that. In that sense, the target audience would be everyone as everyone should be informed of these issues. According to Steam and Oculus Store, there are no age restriction for the game, so it could be used as a way to teach WW2 history or aquatic life for parents and teachers.

What are the issues with it?

Positive

  • Interactive. There are a lot of points of interest to scan and interact with while providing information about them.
  • Accessible. We can play the game without needing to stand up or walk around, you can control the movement of the ROV from your controller.
  • There are missions to complete, so it does not feel like you are just randomly exploring, although you can do that.
  • Educates people about the ocean, and more.
  • More maps to be added, would be good if user do not need to pay more to unlock the new maps.

Negative

  • UI is cluttered. There are a lot of things on the screen and the menu blocks part of the screen.
  • Currently, the game is not supported on any other platform, so it requires users to already have headsets with controllers, which are expensive.
  • The yellow dots that show the edge of the map is not very good looking and also breaks immersion.
  • Very little info provided for the points of interests when you scan them. Maybe they could add a sort of collection which provides more information on the things the user has scanned.
  • Missions are simple and repetitive, so they may need to add something more challenging or different for other maps.

More Gameplay Videos

Credits