One of the reasons put forward as to why VR headsets could struggle to make a mark is because they aren’t suitable for playing many existing titles. But judging from a teaser video from Valve, virtual reality could become one of the best and immersive ways to watch games.
To promote yesterday’s launch of the HTC Vive, Valve showed off a series of games and demos on the SteamVR page, and one of them appears to show a VR spectator mode for Dota 2.
The 18-second clip shows a professional Dota 2 match taking place on a virtual theatre screen while the audio commentary plays alongside the action. Users aren’t limited to just watching, though; on either side of the screen stands statues representing the selected heroes from each team. Selecting one appears to bring up information on that particular player.
An even better feature of the experience looks to be the virtual 3D minimap. It seems this is where you can pull up stats for the game. In the video, the Vive user brings up two graphs that show 'Difference in Experience Gained' and 'Difference in Team Net Worth.’
Should the final version of this mode turn out to be as good as it appears in the video, then it could help increase adoption of VR headsets. A limited amount of virtual reality content is still putting people off buying a Vive or Oculus, but as the manufacturers come up with an increasing number of ways to use the technology, more consumers may be tempted to splash out.
There’s no word on when the VR Dota 2 mode will arrive, but it could lead to more competitive multiplayer games turning to virtual reality as an innovative way to watch matches.
https://www.techspot.com/news/64360-check-out-valve-amazing-dota-2-virtual-reality.html
