‘Smalland: Survive the Wilds VR’ is Now Available on Meta Quest!
Posted on May 2, 2024
Maximum Entertainment is thrilled to announce the release of its first in-house VR title, ‘Smalland: Survive the Wilds VR’ on Meta Quest! A brand new standalone adventure specifically designed for VR, the game is available for now on the platform’s official store.
“We are excited to build upon the success of ‘Smalland: Survive the Wilds’ and deliver a brand new standalone VR adventure to Meta Quest” said Christina Seelye, CEO of Maximum Entertainment. “Developed internally and released on schedule, this new title demonstrates that we are now ready to deliver on the synergies we’ve built during our integration phase.”
The game will take ‘Smalland’ fans and newcomers alike on an entirely new single player adventure where they will need to explore, scavenge, craft, and build to survive.
To mark the occasion, we sat down with Ben Averley, Senior Producer on Smalland: Survive the Wilds and its brand new VR adventure.
Can you tell us more about Smalland: Survive the Wilds?
Smalland: Survive the Wilds is an epic adventure on a grand scale, where you take control of a ‘Smallfolk’ only about an inch tall. As you emerge from an underground dwelling, you must face the challenges of being so small in an environment where every challenge is gargantuan. Every ant, a predator, every hill, a mountain. As a vanguard of your people, you must explore, craft, develop and help your fellow Smallfolk to discover new secrets and tame the ‘Overland’.
Were you impressed by the success of Smalland: Survive the Wilds?
Smalland: Survive the Wilds had always been a project that we put a lot of passion into and hoped would be a success. It was a big undertaking as one of our first own IP games, one of our first Early Access titles and a small development team. After working with the community during early access for so long, we had hoped that the wider community of players would enjoy it too, but you never can be sure. You can never take any success for granted and I think it would be fair to say that we were all very impressed and happy with the reception at launch. We’re pleased to have made something that people can enjoy – that’s the whole point of what we do.
Why did you want to take Smalland to VR?
We thought the unique mix of RPG and Survival could make for very fun and immersive gameplay. The opportunities for combat allows us to integrate gesture input that which is by now tried and tested in VR titles, the first-person perspective in VR will emphasize the scale of the world and only make you feel even smaller in VR. This is an opportunity also to make the crafting and building system rewarding: crafting with gesture input where you wave the controller to strike with the hammer, and building your own house is all the more rewarding when you can actually visit the environment you built.
This is a standalone game, not just a redesign of the original Smalland: Survive the Wilds into VR. How does it fit within the lore of the original title?
Smalland: Survive the Wilds was released in early access last year, and at the time the lore and story was still being developed. Between that time and the official release of the game on February 15th of this year, we actually took in a lot of input from the community to develop a lore and story that would match their expectations. We started working on VR as we were still developing the PC version, therefore Smalland: Survive the Wilds VR is in a way an extension of the original lore based on the biomes we were developing for PC at the time. The VR version is therefore a prequel of Smalland: Survive the Wilds with elements of alternate reality.
What do you think sets Smalland: Survive the Wilds VR apart from other VR titles?
First of all, it is based on a successful, fully fledged non-VR game that has a very strong fan base, and isn’t just a VR re-edit. This means it stems from a strong IP, while also being built from the ground up to take advantage of VR’s immersive gameplay mechanics such as gesture controls, immersive environments, etc. Fans of the series can therefore rediscover from a new perspective the world they have come to love, while newcomers will enjoy a fully standalone game that introduces them to a deep lore and polished gameplay loop built upon years of communication with the game’s community. Smalland also blurs the lines between RPG and survival. This unique mix makes it a really compelling title for VR players, with aspects of character development alongside scavenging, crafting, and base building. Add to this an environment where you are surrounded by gigantic mushrooms, trees, insects and animals of all kinds, and you have a title that should keep players engaged for hours as they delve deeper into the world of Smalland: Survive the Wilds VR.
So get ready to put on your VR headset, dive into the perilous Overlands, and face the elements and the many colossal creatures that reside in the forest. Construct and design your encampment, tame creatures, and craft unique weapons, armor sets, and more in this deeply immersive VR experience.
‘Smalland: Survive the Wilds VR’ is developed and published by Maximum Entertainment. Fans can pre-order now on the Meta Quest store.
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