Among the many games revealed and showcased at this year's Gamescom, developer Build A Rocket Boy unveiled its debut title Everywhere. According to Build A Rocket Boy, Everywhere's scope makes it more than just a traditional game, as it strives to be a platform for socializing and gaming with limitless potential for different play styles and genres. Comparable to recent efforts to establish a metaverse for social media by industry giants like Meta, Everywhere seems to be attempting to expand this frontier to the gaming scene judging by its abstract yet promising reveal at Gamescom.
While this might not be the first time developers have tried to bring social media and gaming platforms together, with the likes of Second Life, VRChat, and Horizon Worlds all being good examples of these attempts, Everywhere appears to want to go beyond this. Based on its Gamecom's showcase, Everywhere will have multiple different narratives for players to experience that will cover a breadth of different game styles, with snippets of footage showing racing and even battle royale-like gameplay. But the vague comments Build A Rocket Boy made while promoting Everywhere has left audiences wondering just what exactly Everywhere will be.
Previous Metaverse Games
Getting technical, the idea of a metaverse game is difficult to properly pin down, but most agree that a metaverse would be a digital space in which users exist, interact, and "live" virtually. In addition, these games often strive for true immersion, so that the digital space is as much a parallel to real life as possible. This is why previous metaverse games such as Second Life and VRChat bear fewer hallmarks of a game and serve as online spaces users can "play" within and exercise a level of autonomy over how exactly that play manifests.
In line with this traditional interpretation of metaverse games is some developers pushing for seamless, immersive gameplay experiences, owing to subsequent games being centered around VR functionality. While the better accessibility for VR has helped make it more readily available for mainstream audiences, it still retains a high price point that prevents some players from fully embracing it. Everywhere could certainly be a response to this and a pushback on the necessity for VR, akin to how VRChat doesn't outright need VR to be played but encourages the use of it to maximize the experience.
Everywhere Will Be More Game-Like
Understanding the kind of experience Everywhere is aiming to provide is difficult to discern from what little footage was seen at its reveal. Various clips showcased a broad spectrum of game styles, so instead players should look to Build A Rocket Boy's pedigree to get an idea of what to properly expect. Founded by former Rockstar North staff, Build A Rocket Boy hails from a legacy of large-scale series such as Grand Theft Auto, which boasts a significant online community. It's likely that Everywhere could follow in these footsteps, striving to achieve an equally large online presence.
With Everywhere serving as a greater push toward a true gaming metaverse than those before, Build A Rocket Boy is laying out an expansive scope for the game. For instance, it claims that Everywhere will offer something for everyone, with multiple narratives to explore and various ways players can build their own experiences. Not only would the introduction of possible story elements be a step above other metaverse games, but similarly, a social space for online communities beyond just gaming would differentiate it from Grand Theft Auto's online services.
Beyond other metaverse games, it seems Everywhere is going to attempt to be much more game-like than previous efforts. While this could make it stand out among other like-minded titles, audiences have already picked up on the very ambiguous framing of what Everywhere will be. Though reveal trailers are often meant to leave fans wanting more, they aren't meant to leave fans guessing just what the game is about, so Build A Rocket Boy should reveal more about Everywhere soon so that players can have something more substantial to sink their teeth into.
Everywhere is currently still in development.