CARY – In about a minute, a heavily armed “agent” emerges from a “Bullet Train” and kills 20 or more equally heavily armed opponents with a variety of weapons – including handguns, shotgun, explosives and assault rifle. To cap the killing spree, the bullet-filled virtual reality demo video from Cary-based Epic Games shows the player taking out a drone.
Facebook made the video part of its Oculus Rift virtual reality demo at the conservative group Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) meeting on Friday – and then yanked it after protests erupted across social media.
But you can still watch it. Epic continues to make a version available at YouTube.
Facebook pulled the demo when people complained that showing it was insensitive, given the massacre of 17 people at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. earlier this month.
In a statement to Variety, Facebook explained its decision.
“There is a standard set of experiences included in the Oculus demos we feature at public events,” said Hugo Barra, a vie president for virtual reality at Facebook, in a statement published by Variety. “A few of the action games can include violence. In light of the recent events in Florida and out of respect for the victims and their families, we have removed them from this demo. We regret that we failed to do so in the first place.”
Facing “Enemy hordes”
The video is hardly new.
Epic, one of the world’s best known video game developers and a cutting edge creator of new technology tools for game developers such as VR, published “Bullet Train” in 2015 to promote its Unreal game development engine.
“Bullet Train puts you in the role of an agent undergoing an infiltration simulation set in a modern day train station. Once you learn how to wield an array of weapons you move on to proving your skills against enemy hordes,” Epic said in announcing the video.
Wired magazine praised the demo’s VR capabilities.
“Epic Games just showed off a new tech demo at Oculus Connect that uses the Oculus Touch dual-handed motion controllers to let you shoot people in a way you have never shot them before,” the tech magazine reported when Bullet Train launched. “Bullet Train also features “teleportation” and “time manipulation,” according to Epic, but let’s be honest, you mostly want to use Touch’s freakishly good hand-mirroring abilities to fire bullets every which direction.”
Violence-filled games have been a trademark of Epic, which is privately held, since its launch in 1991.
Its current big hit is Fortnite, an online multi-player game that has drawn millions of players worldwide. It features zombies in a violent post-apocalyptic world.
