Eye of the Temple looking at 2020 release

Written by Jack Allin — November 9, 2019 at 11:54

Archeology may be a largely academic pursuit in real life, but the exploits of tomb raiding spelunkers and obtainers of rare antiquities have been jazzed up with a little more excitement in popular entertainment. This will be true once again in indie Danish developer Rune Skovbo Johansen's upcoming room-scale VR action-adventure Eye of the Temple.

The game thrusts players into the first-person role of an explorer venturing into an ancient puzzle-filled and trap-laden temple in pursuit of its titular "eye." In making your way "across a wide gorge, descending into deep mines, or escaping sizzling lava chambers," there are no controller buttons or even an on-screen interface to guide you. Instead, players will need to "step, dodge, duck, and whip using solely their own body and hand movements." 

Inspired by the "atmosphere of treacherous temples from classic action adventure films," Eye of the Temple is a VR-exclusive title that forsakes "teleportation, artificial locomotion, or other distractions" that might break player immersion. The goal here is to let players feel what it's like "to be an adventurer" firsthand. That means traversing this "vast and treacherous temple using your own feet." As you progress, you must "keep your balance as you step from one moving block to another, dodging traps and solving puzzles with your torch and whip in hand."

Eye of the Temple is currenly on track to launch on Steam for SteamVR-compatible headsets sometime in 2020.