| The Climb | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Crytek |
| Publisher(s) | Crytek |
| Engine | CryEngine |
| Platform(s) | |
| Release |
|
| Genre(s) | Platform |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
The Climb is a first-person virtual reality game, developed by Crytek and Oculus Studios. In it the player climbs cliffs in locations around the world. The game released for Microsoft Windows on April 28, 2016, while a Oculus Quest port was later released in 2019. A sequel, The Climb 2 , was released in 2021.
The player's task is to climb up to a summit using Oculus Touch [lower-alpha 1] , moving their hands to grab the next ledge. Both hands have independent stamina-meters, which deplete if the player is only holding on with one hand - the player may attempt to hold the trigger half-way to maintain a grip without losing stamina, at the risk of accidentally letting go. To increase available stamina, the player may chalk their hands to maintain grip, which they can do by holding a button and shaking the controller, but this motion requires the player to let go their grip with that hand. If the player reaches a gap too big to the climb across, they can push themselves off the ledge to jump across. Paths occasionally branch out; the player also may press a button to display a hint for a possible path towards the goal. Paths occasionally contain dangling carabiners which serve as checkpoints, should the player fall off, and each map has two in-between resting platforms the player can stand on without a grip which also pause the timer.
Later ("advanced") maps contain additional hazards: Toxic Grips that temporarily lower the maximum stamina, Crumbling Grips that only last a few seconds, Technical Grips that are smaller ledges that deplete stamina faster, and Dirty Grips that are covered by rocks which the player needs to brush off with the controller before they're able to maintain a grip on it. Some levels contain additional elements such as ladders and ziplines, as well as unusual grips like a giant mammoth skull's tusks sticking out of a block of ice, or a downed airplane's propellers.
The game features four different environments: Bay, Canyon, Alps and North. Each of these contains five levels which are: Easy, Medium, and Hard, alongside two bouldering maps: bouldering maps are shorter but more difficult, with chalking and path hinting both disabled. The Climb additionally has an endless mode called "Practice Wall", that randomly generates sections of an infinite wall for the player to climb. [1]
The Climb started development as a demo called Return to Dinosaur Island. They first built the demo in a cave, before moving it onto a cliff. After discovering the performance was still good while looking at landscapes from the cliff, they started to develop a game around the view. A developer said, "And even there, at the top of a cliff, everything was running smoothly. Looking out over the vistas, the render calls were all good, we’re getting 90 frames per second, sub 20 millisecond response times. So now we’ve got the epic beautiful vistas, how do we do something fun in that experience?”. [2]
| Aggregator | Score |
|---|---|
| Metacritic | 71/100 [3] |
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| Destructoid | 8/10 [4] |
| Edge | 6/10 |
| Game Informer | 5.75/10 [5] |
The Climb received "mixed or average reviews” according to Metacritic.
Destructoid praised the visuals of The Climb, writing that “The commitment to a 60fps (90 for Climb) minimum frame rate and the power of the latest CryEngine build really helps suck you in”. Rock Paper Shotgun liked how the game made the player feel like they were climbing, feeling that "It’s the strangest thing: I barely move but I feel sweaty and achey after reaching a summit.” [6] While Game Informer's Kyle Hilliard enjoyed some of the mechanics of the game, he felt that playing the game for extended sessions could tire the player’s neck. He wrote, "Leaning and stretching your neck to progress is necessary, even in the early climbs, and it became tiresome quickly. It added to the tension on my head and neck, which could be a problem for people already prone to discomfort in VR.”
In July 2017, The Climb was declared by Oculus as the most commercially successful game on the Oculus Rift, grossing more than $1 million. [7]
A sequel, The Climb 2 , was released by Crytek for Oculus Quest and Oculus Quest 2 in March 2021.
Reality Labs, formerly Oculus VR, is a business and research unit of Meta Platforms that produces virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) hardware and software, including virtual reality headsets such as Quest, and online platforms such as Horizon Worlds. In June 2022, several artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives that were previously a part of Meta AI were transitioned to Reality Labs. This also includes Meta's fundamental AI Research laboratory FAIR which is now part of the Reality Labs - Research (RLR) division.
Thumper is a rhythm game developed and published by Drool and released in October 2016 on Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4, with optional virtual reality (VR) support for the Oculus, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR headsets. It was later released on the Nintendo Switch in May 2017, the Xbox One in August 2017, iOS in January 2018, Oculus Go in September 2018, Android in February 2019, Oculus Quest in May 2019, and Stadia in November 2019. The game was shown at the Experimental Game Workshop during the 2015 Game Developers Conference.
Edge of Nowhere is an action-adventure virtual reality video game developed by Insomniac Games and published by Oculus Studios. The player controls adventurer Victor Howard as he ventures into Antarctica in order to find his fiancée's lost expedition while encountering unworldly beasts. Edge of Nowhere is based on the work of H.P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness. The game released on June 6, 2016, exclusively for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset on Microsoft Windows.
Oculus Touch is a line of motion controller systems used by Meta Platforms virtual reality headsets. The controller was first introduced in 2016 as a standalone accessory for the Oculus Rift CV1, and began to be bundled with the headset and all future Oculus products beginning in July 2017. Since their original release, Touch controllers have undergone revisions for later generations of Oculus/Meta hardware, including a switch to inside-out tracking, and other design changes.
Job Simulator: The 2050 Archives, commonly referred to as simply Job Simulator, is a virtual reality simulation video game developed and published by Owlchemy Labs for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Apple Vision Pro, Oculus Quest, Oculus Quest 2 and Meta Quest 3, in which players participate in comical approximations of real-world jobs. A sequel, Vacation Simulator, was released in 2019 and has a completely different premise.
Tilt Brush is a room-scale 3D-painting virtual-reality application available from Google, originally developed by Skillman & Hackett.
Robo Recall is a virtual reality first-person shooter game developed and published by Epic Games for Oculus Rift and Oculus Quest platforms. The game was released for the Oculus Rift on March 1, 2017, and an Oculus Quest version titled Robo Recall: Unplugged was released on May 21, 2019. Players that activate their Oculus Touch virtual reality controllers with its software are able to download the game for free.
Survios is an American virtual reality game developer and software publisher based in Los Angeles, California. The company develops virtual reality software and games, including the titles Raw Data and Sprint Vector. Survios was created by graduates from the University of Southern California's Mixed Reality Lab, where they worked together on Project Holodeck. The company has raised over $54 million in venture funding led by Shasta Ventures, Lux Capital and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Robinson: The Journey is a virtual reality video game developed and published by Crytek. The game released for the PlayStation 4 in November 2016, and for Microsoft Windows in February 2017. The game uses the PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift or SteamVR Compatible virtual reality headsets respectively on each platform.
Lone Echo is a 2017 virtual reality adventure game developed by Ready At Dawn, and published by Oculus Studios. Set aboard a space station orbiting Saturn, it allows players to move in zero-gravity by grabbing and pushing off of the environment. In addition to the narrative single-player game, the title includes a team-based multiplayer sports mode called Echo Arena, which was also released as a stand-alone game. A sequel, Lone Echo II, was announced in 2018 and released on October 12, 2021.
Ghost Giant is a virtual reality puzzle game developed and published by Zoink for the PlayStation 4 through PlayStation VR and Oculus Quest. It was released for PlayStation VR in April 2019 and Oculus Quest in February 2020.
Gunfire Games, LLC is an American video game developer based in Austin, Texas. The studio was founded by David Adams in July 2014, bringing with him the core team of Crytek USA just before that studio's closure. The company was acquired by THQ Nordic in August 2019.
The first-generation Oculus Quest is a discontinued virtual reality headset developed by Oculus, a brand of Facebook Inc., and released on May 21, 2019. Similar to its predecessor, Oculus Go, it is a standalone device, that can run games and software wirelessly under an Android-based operating system. It supports positional tracking with six degrees of freedom, using internal sensors and an array of cameras in the front of the headset rather than external sensors. The cameras are also used as part of the safety feature "Passthrough", which shows a view from the cameras when the user exits their designated boundary area known as "Guardian". A later software update added "Oculus Link", a feature that allows the Quest to be connected to a computer via USB, enabling use with Oculus Rift-compatible software and games.
Oculus Rift S is a discontinued virtual reality headset co-developed by Lenovo Technologies and Oculus VR. Announced in March 2019 and released that May, it is a successor to the original Oculus Rift CV1 model, with noted changes including a new "inside-out" positional tracking system with cameras embedded inside the headset unit, a higher-resolution display, and a new "halo" head strap.
Stormland is a 2019 action-adventure game developed by Insomniac Games and published by Oculus Studios for the Oculus Rift virtual reality (VR) headset. The game put emphasis on both exploration and combat as the player character, an android gardener named Vesper, traverses an alien planet from a first-person perspective. The game received generally positive reviews from critics upon release.
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is a virtual reality first-person shooter survival horror game for Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Oculus Quest, Oculus Quest 2, and Oculus Rift, developed by Skydance Interactive in partnership with Skybound Entertainment. It is based on the comic book series The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman. Initially released on Steam and Oculus platform on January 23, 2020, it was released on PlayStation VR in May 2020. Additionally, the title was ported to Oculus Quest in October 2020, alongside PICO 4 in January 2023.
Death Horizon: Reloaded is a first-person shooter for virtual reality devices. The game was released on September 26, 2019. The game is available for Oculus Quest, and there is a version in development for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR. It is a sequel to the game Death Horizon, which came out on September 21, 2017 for the Oculus Go and Samsung Gear VR platforms.
The Quest 2 is a virtual reality (VR) headset developed by Reality Labs, a division of Meta Platforms. It was unveiled on September 16, 2020, and released on October 13, 2020 as the Oculus Quest 2. It was then rebranded as the Meta Quest 2 in 2022, as part of a company-wide phase-out of the Oculus brand following the rebranding of Facebook, Inc. as Meta.
Gorn is a 2019 virtual reality game developed by Free Lives and published by Devolver Digital. The player is a gladiator who fights opponents to death in arena using weapons at their disposal. The game was launched in early access in 2016, and had a full release on July 18, 2019 for Microsoft Windows. A PlayStation VR version released in 2020 and an Oculus Quest port followed in 2021. An updated version for the PlayStation VR2 was released March 16, 2023.
The Climb 2 is a virtual reality platform game developed and published by Crytek. As the sequel to The Climb (2016), the game was released for Oculus Quest and Oculus Quest 2 on March 4, 2021. In the game, the player needs to climb different cliffs and skyscrapers. The game received generally positive reviews upon launch.