This is a rather long message but please bear with us.
Firstly, we would like to address the early reviews we've received regarding the graphical quality of Hellsweeper VR on PSVR2. We genuinely appreciate your candid feedback and understand the concerns raised.
We apologize for the shortcomings, and we'd like to offer some insight into the challenges we faced. As many of you know, our journey with Hellsweeper began more than 3 years ago, with the conceptual phases spanning over 3.5 years. The pandemic threw a curveball our way, significantly slowing our progress due to the shift to remote work and the associated communication barriers.
**The key factor as to why the graphical quality is not as good as it should be was down to a decision we made at the start of development to use what is known as the Standard Pipeline in Unity.** Many of the technological improvements such as foveated rendering have occurred in another pipeline (Universal Render Pipeline - URP). While the VR landscape enjoys many such beneficial tech these days that enables developers to utilize higher fidelity graphics, this was very much experimental, less stable and reliable years ago, and the frenetic and fast paced action of Hellsweeper made it difficult for us to work with it. This decision was rooted in our belief that action and gameplay are the heart and soul of Hellsweeper.
**With that said, teams change and adapt, and we are committed to making this shift in a future update.** It was regretfully something we could not prioritize at launch given how deep in the development cycle we already were, and with an already existing focus on developing the mechanics and gameplay in mind.
Another point we’d like to address is the blame directed towards Unity as suggested by some. Recent criticisms of Unity, especially after their pricing announcement (which, for the record, we are also against), have muddied the waters. In truth, our challenges with adapting Hellsweeper VR to PSVR2 were largely independent of Unity.** It boiled down to the unfortunate timing of PSVR2's announcement during our development phase and our subsequent decision-making. In this, we are blaming ourselves more than anybody. **
**We want to reassure you that our commitment to improve the graphics for PSVR2 remains unwavering. Those who have known us since our Sairento days will know that we listen to the community and are tenacious in our dedication to constantly improve our games.** While I don’t wish to over promise on timelines, we have 2 phases planned out for graphical improvement patches within the next 3-6 months. This was always part of our roadmap.
**Some of you might wonder why we chose to release the game despite being aware of the graphical discrepancies for the PSVR2 version. **The answer is a complex mix of obligations and strategic decisions. In truth, our QA with Sony only ended barely a week ago and while we were very optimistic at the start, we realized towards the end that a lot of compromises had to be made to fulfill the vision we had for Hellsweeper VR and to be able to support crossplay across the different devices with varying graphical fidelities. As such, we resolved to first release the combat-centric Hellsweeper experience we envisioned and follow up with graphical updates post-release.
**To our PSVR2 players**: If you're eager for an exhilarating spiritual successor to Sairento and can look past the current graphical limitations, dive in now. But if top-tier graphics are integral to your experience, please bear with us a little longer.
In closing, I want to express our deepest gratitude for your support and understanding. We're in this for the long haul, and your feedback and support propel us forward.
Crafted with love,
Mixed Realms Team