With a height of 8,848 meters above sea level, Mount Everest is the tallest mountain on Earth, a challenge for anyone to climb, and soon you'll be able to experience it with Everest VR, climbing the mountain in virtual reality.
The Premise
Sólfar Studios and RVX are jointly developing a virtual reality experience like no other. It's an epic feat that most people will never attempt in the real world, but now they'll have the chance to experience it virtually. The premise of Everest VR is simple: you start by preparing for the expedition at base camp, make your way across the Khumbu Glacier, then climb the western shoulder of Lhotse, also known as the Lhotse Face, ascend the Hillary Step, the most challenging part of the climb, and finally reach the summit of Mount Everest. Simple, right?
The developers of Everest VR claim that users will feel as though they are actually climbing, learning to respect the mountain during the challenge. Here, the user is the protagonist of a story where they control their own pace and interaction with the experience. Technically speaking, this virtual experience uses an NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN X GPU to create over 300,000 high-resolution images of the mountain to generate a 3D mesh along with textures that confirm we are looking at the definitive CGI model of Everest.
Release and Platforms
So if you're not planning to climb Mount Everest, Everest VR is the ideal way to discover how realistic the simulation is, with a level of interactivity that promises to become the definitive experience of its kind. Everest VR is being developed by Sólfar Studios alongside RVX and will be available on virtual reality platforms sometime in 2016.
