Kayak VR TEST: Mirage, no you’re not dreaming, paddle like in reality!

Kayak VR: Mirage is the most accomplished kayaking simulation to date in virtual reality.

We have in front of us a nugget and we weigh our words. The experience is enough to convince kayaking enthusiasts as well as the most seasoned. And that’s good, because the title was refined with feedback from the community, including professional kayakersin order to perfect the sensations and behavior of the boat. The game’s physics engine has thus been fine-tuned to make us feel, identically, the sliding sensations of a kayak and its navigation. Whether in arcade or simulation mode, our boat behaves like in reality. The power given, as well as the angle or the depth of the paddle are important. But that’s not all, the game offers when it comes out four environments (Norway, Costa Rica, Antarctica and Australia) that it is possible to discover day and night, but also in the middle of a storm or in the currents.

The experience is therefore clearly different depending on these areas and the settings applied. The water is more or less choppy and makes our frail boat react. In addition, physics has been pushed even further and allows you to interact with the environment such as rocks, beaches, marine debris or even foliage so that you never get stuck. Designed above all for virtual reality, this simulation offers a natural and authentic means of locomotion and involves us physically in virtual reality. It’s about paddling like we would in real life. The feeling of motionlessness is in fact almost erased, because our body is not in motion, only our boat, and our gestures are the same as those we would do in real life.

The other strong point of the game is its extremely neat graphic design. We have in front of us one of the most beautiful experiences VR nowadays. With Kayaking VR: Mirage, it’s a huge graphic slap that we take ourselves. It’s simple, spend a few minutes paddling around and observing the reefs, the extremely faithful rendering of the water, the beaches and all this underwater life (you may come across Moby-Dick), the virtual becomes difficult to discern from the real. Developed using the engine UnrealEngine 4 (upcoming transition to version 5), the title takes advantage of what is currently best in terms of renderingin particular thanks to the large bank of images and photorealistic textures using the photogrammetry proposed by Quixel.

The game uses the technique of photogrammetry to offer a photorealistic rendering.

This excess of realism has a cost, but is rather very well managed by the application which offers many graphic settings. The icing on the cake: the presence of technologies FidelityFX (AMD) and DLSS (NVIDIA) which will relieve your graphics card. The principle is simple: the image is calculated at a resolution lower than that of the screenthen an algorithm willupscaler (scaled), with a visual result closer to the native resolution. The performance gain obtained therefore clearly improves fluidity and makes it possible to use greedy graphic effects without making the computer flinch. Our configuration based on i5-9600k32 GB of RAM and RTX-3080 allowed us to increase the rendering resolution of the software Oculus Link at 5408 x 2736 pixels with all settings in epic mode.

Environments all have their own identity and look like a postcard. Photogrammetry takes virtual reality to its climax. The rendering of the reefs, the vegetation could be confused with reality. The four cards are teeming with details, hidden or not, but also with life. If you allow yourself to contemplate and listen, you will be able to feel the soul of the place, the flora, but also the fauna, present as much on land, under water as in the air. Each environment has its own soundtrack, realistic, captivating and intoxicating. Listen carefully, close your eyes and listen to the lapping of the water, the sliding of the kayak, the echo under the arches, the cry of the seagulls, the song of the Norway whales or the violence of the storm.

Kayak VR: Mirage is a game that lends itself to contemplation and wonder, but not only. The developers have thought as much of Sunday kayakers as of professionals and competitors.

The game features free navigation, time trial mode and more…

The game starts in the main hub which is nothing but an Olympic swimming pool in which it is possible to train in the handling of the paddle by following several tutorials. It is also the best place to fine-tune the various navigation parameters, the positioning of your controllers, the behavior of the boat, etc. It is advisable to learn to kayak in this space, but also to play with the pink flamingo buoy, which is not only there to amuse the gallery. You will find other animal-buoys throughout your escapades, but we will not tell you more about them. Of course, we invite you to leave the tranquility of the footbath to throw yourself into the deep end. Explore the world in the fashion Free for your daily ride from your Parisian apartment, or practice your skills as a seasoned kayaker in timed races. Several levels of difficulty are available to you in which you can beat your own time or confront those of your friends, an AI, or the best players in the world. And things get tough at this level, because it’s no longer a question of sailing peacefully, but of giving it your all, and believe us, your arms and shoulders will heat up as if you were going paddling in the local river. On the courses, you will have to pass many gates and negotiate certain turns with more or less style. As we progressed, we enjoyed it a lot. Earn points that you can then spend in the shop of skins.

Kayak VR: Mirage signs a revival in the PC landscape VR, a thousand miles from a shoot or a racing game. The experience that this small team made up of only three people has been able to offer us in the space of two years is an authentic and glaringly realistic navigation simulation, undoubtedly the most successful to date in virtual reality. There’s something for everyone: learn to paddle simply in your living room before embarking on real life, discover real postcard landscapes, or give it your all on the lap times. Only available on the Steam VR store initially (the version Rift coming later), the studio plans to release new environments, real-time multiplayer, body representation, integration of yur and of Strava for activity tracking, etc. Note that the support of LIV is already taken into account.

TIP: for more realism and sensations, consider attaching your controllers to a broomstick (it’s not a joke), it’s a game changer!