It's betting on a VR eSports future, and we're right behind it
If you hadn’t heard, eSports are kind of a big deal right now – and getting bigger – and now Intel has announced its plan to get VR involved.
At E3 2017 it announced a partnership with the Electronic Sports League (ESL) and Oculus for an eSports league dedicated to VR, which will aim to make competitive VR a thing.
Read this: Are VR and eSports a match made in heaven?
The VR Challenger League will be comprised of two titles, The Unspoken and a multiplayer mode to Lone Echo called Echo Arena, both of which were built with competitive gaming in mind. There’ll be a $200,000 prize pool, with the finals taking place at the Intel Extreme Masters in 2018. So it’s serious stuff.
At E3, Intel said it wanted to grow the VR player base, but obviously it needs the right games to make it work. While the eSports scene continues to build momentum the pace of VR pickup is slower, and while it might be fine for spectating, whether the tech is ready for competitive money-on-the-line gaming remains to be seen. Hopefully, this will be a case of Intel proving it is.
The announcement of the VR Challenger League marks the biggest virtual reality eSports event yet. Ready at Dawn also announced the multiplayer Echo Arena available for free on Oculus Rift for a limited time at launch, which may encourage a few more people to get involved on a competitive level in what essentially looks like a five-on-five, disc-throwing, anti-gravity Tron that uses the Oculus Touch controllers.
Intel also used E3 to announce a Linkin Park Destination VR experience. But really, the less said about that the better.
