Distance Brings Survival Racing to PlayStation VR

Hi there! I’m Jordan, one of the developers at Refract. Last year I announced that our survival racer Distance is coming to PS4. Since then we’ve been working hard to add things like random track generation, new story mode content, improved car customization, improved multiplayer features, and we spent some time optimizing so that Distance runs as smoothly as possible.

Today, I can finally announce that we’ve also been working hard to bring Distance to PlayStation VR! This weekend we’ll be showcasing a playable version for the first time at PlayStation Experience in San Francisco!

If you’ve never seen Distance before, it’s a survival racing game. Distance takes the intense action of arcade racing and places it in a mysterious, atmospheric world. The road is deadly with treacherous obstacles around every corner. Instead of doing laps on a loop, you’ll be trying to survive from point A to B.

You pilot a unique car that allows you to boost, jump, rotate, and even fly. Instead of being constrained to the track, you can break away at any point and find your own path. You can even drive upside down or on buildings and walls.

Virtual reality amplifies this by adding another dimension. You can now race through these chaotic tracks from the seat of the driver. PlayStation VR gives you an amazing sense of scale as you’re able to look into turns or glance over at other players in multiplayer. Once we started prototyping VR gameplay in Distance it was undeniable that getting a true feel for the jumps, flips, and flying is exhilarating.

From a story-telling aspect, VR is thrilling since we can explore the game from the perspective of the driver, and who (or what) that is. We’ve redesigned our UI to work with a cockpit dash, and we added an “upside-down” moonroof to help when landing. Getting sliced by a laser is also (not surprisingly) even more exciting.

We can’t wait to unleash Distance on PS4 in 2016. If you’ll be at PlayStation Experience be sure to drop by booth #2172! We’d love to have you be one of the first to try Distance on PlayStation VR. Feel free to toss out any questions in the comments!