Skydance’s BEHEMOTH was released on December 5 for Quest 2, 3 & 3S, PlayStation VR2, and Steam. Skydance’s BEHEMOTH saw a December 5 release on Quest 2, 3 & 3S, PlayStation VR2, and, in a surprise perhaps even to the developers, also Steam.
Skydance also delivered a day 1 patch for PlayStation VR2, a week-of-release patch for Quest headsets, and a patch for PC as well. When Don Hopper played for a couple of hours on stream on launch day, multiple developers helped in the audience before heading back to work on updates.
By Friday last week, Don was back inside Skydance’s BEHEMOTH with an updated version of the game, defeating the first of three giants across its narrative.
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“There was overtime,” Kittelsen acknowledged. Kittelsen said, “We never imposed a deadline on this project. We only asked people to work extra a handful of times, at the end, when they had commitments they could not cancel. So, this team worked really, really hard.”release party“Everyone’s on break through the end of the year. We gave people some additional comp time as a way to say thank you for all the overtime they had put in. We learned a lot over the course of developing this game, and we’re excited to get started on some new titles. But we’re also excited to keep going with this one… Arena Mode is something that will be built out into a much more robust feature for 2025. And then we would like inject even more content in there.” We learned a lot over the course of developing this game, and we’re excited to get started on some new titles, but we’re also excited to keep going with this one… Arena Mode is something that we’re going to build out into a much more robust feature for 2025, and then we’d like to inject even more content in there.”
Kittelsen said he had originally committed to his team, upon positive reviews for the game, that he would inscribe the following symbol to his flesh.
“The night before launch, I told them that, regardless of how the game got reviewed, I was going to get the tattoo,” Kittelsen said on the call. “And I am, I’m going to get it on my shoulder.”
Developers can confirm via [email protected].
“We didn’t get the word that we could launch on Steam until an hour and a half after we launched the game on December 5th,” Kittelsen said.
Skydance had started referring to the game as “Skydance’s BEHEMOTH” rather than “Behemoth” due to potential “trademark liabilities.” In the days leading up to December 5th, the studio couldn’t confirm the Steam release due to an “administrative issue” associated with the naming.
“It was 9:27 AM, I think, we got the email,” Kittelsen said. The app was launched on Steam by 9:32 am. And the game went live.”
With the prospect of
and visionOS joining the VR gaming market, I asked Kittelsen if he had any advice for developers looking to release games for more than two platforms simultaneously during the holiday season in 2025.
He replied, “don’t.”Android XR“We’re 10 years in to really modern, sophisticated VR development, but this is still a nascent experimental pioneering medium,” Kittelsen said. “So if you can focus on one or two platforms, instead of three, four, or five platforms, my advice would be to do that.”
Skydance made a major investment in this title, but it is also an extraordinarily difficult year for VR developers. Survios delayed its Quest 3 release of
to focus on PS VR2 and PC VR release in 2024, a decision Kittelsen noted must have been a “big benefit” to Survios while also “probably a very difficult decision.”
“There is a budget, there is a schedule, and running over that schedule has serious financial implications for any studio,” he said.Alien: Rogue IncursionWe’ll have our review of Behemoth soon – we waited to assess it until after its post-launch bug fix was applied – and have had UploadVR viewers and Skydance devs sideseat with us through multiple Behemoth livestreams already.
Stay tuned for more.