On Thursday, Leap Motion shared a play-through video of its virtual reality game called Weightless, and it looks magical. Weightless lets you hurl projectiles at floating targets in zero gravity, and Leap Motion’s hand-tracking technology is at its best here.
If you’re still trying to understand why everyone, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, is excited about augmented and virtual reality, look no further than playing catch in zero gravity.
Last week, the company shared footage of the actual gameplay, but this new video takes things up a notch. Now, we’re able to see just how precise the player’s hand movements can be. The video makes clear just how intuitive an experience Weightless, and Leap Motion technology in general, can be.
On Wednesday, Tim Cook spoke about augmented reality, and explained why he thought it would trump virtual reality. Leap Motion’s CTO, David Holz, has also waxed futuristic about this dogfight, and he’s positioned his company nicely: It doesn’t make such headsets, but offers the best hand-tracking capabilities of any company thus far. Companies that do make headsets, like Oculus, for instance, only benefit from allowing Leap Motion integration.
The hand-tracking company’s other demos are just as enthralling (and what’s soon to come may blow everything out of the water), but zero gravity sets Weightless apart. It does what a VR game should do — it immerses the player in a completely foreign environment and experience, and yet remains intuitive. The foreign environment, in this game, is a nondescript space station wing overlooking Earth.
HTC Vive and Oculus Rift owners can start playing the game today. Watch:
