Watching games in VR can be just as big as playing them.
With the HTC Vive powered by Valve’s SteamVR launched and shipping this week, the company has unveiled what can be called as VR spectator mode for the extremely popular Dota 2 game.
On Valve’s Steam VR website, the company teased in-headset video footage very briefly of the feature stating “look forward to more VR features coming to your favorite games.” The VR spectator mode of Dota 2 shows a standard e-sports like stream floating on a screen, a 3D minimap of realtime gameplay, and full-sized avatars of each player in the game.
The feature has yet to be launched, but Vive owning Dota 2 fans may get a big kick out of this new way to spectate gameplay.
Dota 2 is already an extremely popular title when it comes comes to audience spectating. You can currently watch pro and amateur games from inside the Steam game client, giving you freedom of camera movement and visualization of stats.
The next evolution we would love to see is the ability to actually spectate within VR instead of watching a giant 2D theater screen mode. Imagine being able to follow along with your favorite player’s hero as you rush down a lane getting the full 360° perspective. We have to start somewhere, so kudos to the team that made this happen.
