[andybak]

Their VR product is tragically disappointing. It's all prerendered 360. I can't work out why as the poly count doesn't seem so high to have prevented working in real-time.

I could forgive the crude, flat lighting if it was true VR but we get the worst of both worlds - low-quality rendering and the lack of presence you get from non-volumetric content.

Hopefully they will improve their offering in future as this is exactly the kind of thing that VR was made for.

https://www.romereborn.org/

EDIT - addressed in their FAQ:

Q: Do you plan to offer open-world VR?

A: Yes. "Open world" means that the user can move at will through the virtual space. At the moment, our users are fixed to a single vantage point, around which they can pivot at will to obtain a 360 panoramic view of the scene. We consider this a temporary expedient necessitated by the frame-rate requirements of the VR stores we use and by the computational limits of some of the VR headsets we support (e.g., GearVR and Go). As soon as the stores change their minimum hardware requirements to the point where our open world apps can meet their frame rate benchmark, we will release our apps in both the current panoramic flavor (which will probably continue for some time to be needed for headsets not reliant on external computing resources) and in the open-world flavor. We definitely want to be the first to realize Palmer Luckey's original motivation in creating consumer-level VR headsets of making it possible to walk down the streets of ancient Rome.