Golden Kingdom VR
Golden Kingdom
We Have High Goals
Have you ever played a VR game and felt confined? You walk around, encountering a fence or a large stone, quickly realizing the limits of your virtual world – It’s just a few square meters in size! You might see a city or mountain in the distance but know it’s just a backdrop – something you’ll never reach. Wanting more, you try an open-world VR game. While some of those exist, the graphics are often rudimentary, visibility is limited by fog, and the sense of realism is lacking. The reason for this are often technical boundaries and production costs.
That’s why we set ourselves an ambitious goal: to create a fantasy action RPG with an open world offering realistic graphics.
In Golden Kingdom, the mountain you see two kilometers away isn’t just scenery—it’s accessible. Our maps span 16 square kilometers each and combine procedural generation with 3D-scanned textures and assets. Leveraging the revolutionary Unreal Engine 5, we achieve the kind of realism that brings our vision to life.
What Makes Golden Kingdom VR Special ?
As the first open-world action RPG to offer infinite visibility and realistic graphics at the same time, Golden Kingdom VR sets a new standard. Across several 16-square-kilometer maps, players can embark on epic adventures through meticulously designed fantasy worlds, with up to four players in co-op mode. Our goal is to eliminate the feeling of boundaries, immersing players in a world that feels limitless.
Photorealistic graphics further enhance the experience, allowing players to truly feel as though they’ve stepped into another realm.
Procedural Workflow
Our procedural workflow enables us to craft landscapes shaped by millennia of erosion, creating terrain that is natural and immersive. Textures maintain sharpness even up close, and algorithms distribute vegetation, stones, and other elements to mimic their natural arrangements. This approach lets a small team of artists design expansive worlds, reducing the need for manual placement while delivering more realism and regional variety.
Building Our Worlds
We chose Unreal Engine 5 because it offers next-generation technology, including:
-
Lumen: A realistic lighting and reflection system.
-
Nanite: Displays thousands of objects simultaneously without noticeable LOD (level of detail) transitions.
-
Nanite Tessellation: Adds even greater detail to landscape surfaces.
-
World Partition: A system that allows us to create and manage massive worlds.
For scattering vegetation, stones, and other objects, we use the PCG system (Procedural Content Generation). Only key elements are placed manually. For more complex needs, we rely on the Houdini Engine. Landscapes are crafted using Gaea, which provides procedural methods to enhance realism and allows us to export masks for texturing and distribution.
Our assets and textures are sourced primarily from QuixelStore and other high-quality platforms, though we plan to create custom assets as needed.
Inspiration
We’re children of the 80s, a generation raised on VHS tapes and early video games. Titles like Golden Axe and Dungeons & Dragons shaped our childhoods, while epic fantasy adventures such as Conan the Barbarian left a lasting impression. We draw inspiration from that era, where creativity thrived without reliance on heavy visual effects and formulaic plot building blocks that aim to satisfy a mass-market audience with as little friction as possible.
Challenges Over the Last Three Years
Developing Golden Kingdom for VR with Unreal Engine 5 has been a significant technical challenge. While UE5 offers incredible tools, VR support is still underdeveloped. Achieving the graphical quality of flat-screen games in VR demands immense performance, requiring the top line GPUs of their generation, like an RTX 4090.
Features like Nanite, Lumen, and PCG have been adapted for VR, but optimizing the environment for stable frame rates has been a constant effort. We’ve tested numerous settings, VR headsets, and OpenXR standards to overcome limitations. Ultimately, we chose to use the Quest 2/3/Pro on our high-end PCs, for their wide adoption and high-quality visual performance.
Demo Download
This download contains the latest demo version of Golden Kingdom for additional info have a look at the release notes in the blog area
Getting Started
The game launches with medium graphics settings by default. To adjust these settings:
-
Open the menu (left menu button).
-
Use the Quick Settings tab or adjust settings in the Graphics tab.
Recommended Hardware: RTX 3090 or higher, Oculus Quest 2/3/Pro.
To disable ASW (Asynchronous Spacewarp), press Ctrl + Num1 (ensure Num Lock is on) or use the Oculus Debug Tool. ASW could cause micro jittering and rendering artefacts.
To check your current frame rate, press the F key.
Caution: When you encounter Runestones, take an alternate route. Continuing past them will lead to the edge of the world, where even the bravest warriors may fall off.
Meta Quest Settings
Please use Meta Quest Link as the OpenXR Runtime, other API´s causing Problems like SteamVR has weak FPS and render artefacts.
Set your Render Resolution in the Meta Quest Link App at the native resolution of 1x and switch it to 120 Hz on Quest3 or 90Hz on Quest Pro.
Its also recommend using a link cable and set the Encode Bitrate to 950 Mbps this will give you the maximum quality.
Meta Quest 3, Meta Quest 3s - Quest Link settings
Known Bugs
-
Frame Drops: You may experience frame drops after running for an extended time. This occurs because the PCG system recalculates object placement despite pre-caching. We’re working on a fix and have reported the issue to Epic Games.
-
Shadow Artifacts: On higher graphics settings, increased VR pixel density can cause shadow artifacts with virtual shadow maps and Nanite Tessellation. Reducing settings can mitigate this issue.
We’re continuously improving performance and welcome your feedback as we move forward.
Meta Quest Pro - Quest Link settings
Meet the Team
We’re a dedicated team of two passionate VR enthusiasts, seeking artists, investors, or even other VR studios to collaborate with us.
-
Tom Hiebler: A senior environment artist with 25 years of experience in the film industry, Tom has also worked on concept art for games like Horizon Zero Dawn. He led the art direction for VR titles Rainbow Reactor and Rainbow Reactor Fusion, and since 2021, he’s been pushing Unreal Engine 5 to its limits while developing Golden Kingdom.
-
Kalle Max Hofmann: A senior VFX supervisor who also has 25 years of experience under his belt, also working as writer and director of his own movies, like Our Universe 3D, which was published world-wide by Universal Studios.
If you’re excited by our vision and want to help bring Golden Kingdom VR to life, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us at tyris@tunermaxx.com.
Our Ambition
Blogfeed
Golden Kingdom VR The Story
We’re developing a storyline that takes players on an epic journey through several huge open-world environments, designed for solo or cooperative play.
Six open world maps are planed before you reach the final map
In the final level you will be guided through a diverse environment that once again reflects individual themes from the previously played open world landscapes. Through the choreographed paths we can go one step further in terms of graphics in the big finale until you meet the final boss in the castle.
16 square kilometre open world maps
Dryland
Open World Level 1
AVAILABLE IN DEMO 1.0 - AVAILABLE IN DEMO 1.0
A vast steppe and stone desert. You won't find water here. Dead trees show that little survives here. In the distance there is a castle on a hill.
Grass Hills
Open World Level 2
Under Construction
UNDER CONSTRUCTION - UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Untitled
Open World Level 3
...
Untitled
Open World Level 4
...
Untitled
Open World Level 5
...
Untitled
Open World Level 6
...
Teaser Trailer Demo 1.0
