A Boundless Adventure: Co-Op RPG ‘Dungeons of Eternity’ is Out Today on Meta Quest 2 + Pro

Dungeons of Eternity is more than just a cool name for an action RPG—it’s also a very succinct description of the game itself. In this fantasy adventure from Othergate, you can either play solo or with up to two other friends as you explore an infinite amount of randomly generated dungeons. No two runs are the same, which also means that you’ll always find new loot and weapons to customize your character with as well. And you can check out the game today on Meta Quest 2 + Pro for $29.99 USD.

Dungeons of Eternity uses procedural generation to assemble a new dungeon every time you play, and each contains a different mix of combat rooms, traps, puzzles, and other types of chambers. You’ll find monsters of all shapes and sizes lurking within the shadows, and this is where the game’s physics-based combat comes into play. It makes every sword swing, parry, and axe throw feel incredibly satisfying, and you’ll constantly be changing your strategy depending on what kind of weapons you discover in each run.

To celebrate the launch, we talked to two of Othergate’s co-founders—Designer Ryan Rutherford and Programmer Andrew Welch—about creating their own unique fantasy mythology, the challenges they faced while building the game, and how they plan on updating Dungeons of Eternity in the future.

Ryan Rutherford: Othergate was founded in 2021 with the goal of building highly immersive VR experiences that anyone could enjoy. We felt the best way to do this was through a cooperative game, and that’s why Dungeons of Eternity was created.

We’re a small and tight-knit team of 6 core devs who have all worked together for well over a decade. Before Othergate, several of our members worked at Oculus for nearly seven years developing prototypes and games, most notably the Herobound and Dead and Buried franchises. Seeing the incredible advancements in VR technology and increased adoption, we felt it was the right time to start a VR company.

RR: There are so many inspirations for Dungeons, from classic video games and mythology films to more recent gaming experiences and modern fantasy films. Much of it comes from wanting to experience these fantasy worlds ourselves.

VR’s superpower is that it allows people to bring themselves into another world, to truly step into the role of the character. Classic Zelda games were a big inspiration for the dungeon layouts and flow—we asked ourselves, “What would it be like to become Link?” Or the scene in Lord of the Rings when the Fellowship is trapped in the tomb with the orcs and cave troll—“Can you imagine doing that with your friends? Yes, let's make that!”

As we built the game, we noticed more influences came about almost automatically through iteration. The game feels very Gauntlet-y, but now we can step inside the dungeons and explore every dark corner for loot. Even co-op SNES games such as Secret of Mana, which let players choose what weapons they can use (rather than lock them to a class), would be considered an inspiration.

The sci-fi element came about almost by necessity. It gave us the creative freedom to streamline many game systems which would be cumbersome in VR, and allowed us to integrate the UI into the virtual world making for a more immersive experience. Plus, it was interesting to us and gave the game something unique. Several people have commented on the game’s dungeon teleporters as something straight out of Star Trek.

RR:Dungeons of Eternity launches with three game modes. Each mode features randomly generated dungeons so no two play sessions are the same.

Dungeon Raid tasks players with exploring a full dungeon in search of loot. Loot in this sense includes randomly generated weapons, which really adds to the replayability and variety of gameplay when playing with others. This is your bread-and-butter game mode that offers the most variety in experiences.

Crystal Hunt tasks players with finding three Cosmic Crystals and activating an ancient machine to extract the Cosmic Mana from the crystals. This mode features more trap and puzzle chambers, with more being added post-launch!

Finally, we have Soul Harvest. Players are given the Soul Staff, a magical staff capable of harvesting the souls of the undead. The goal is to collect enough souls to advance to the next round.

Andrew Welch: While the team has a lot of experience building games for mobile VR, the technical hurdles for Dungeons of Eternity were much different. Generating random dungeons from hundreds of chambers—with the visual fidelity that we wanted to deliver—required a huge investment in tool development and graphics optimizations early in development.

One of the features we aimed to deliver was dynamic lighting from various objects within the game world. Initially, we were uncertain if this would be feasible, but thanks to the advancements in Meta Quest’s CPU and GPU optimizations over the past year, we were not only able to include dynamic lighting but also ensure that the game and physics ran smoothly at 80Hz. Which is notable, because the combat physics feels much better when running at 80hz vs 72hz.

To bring the dungeons to life, we hand-optimized shaders for various elements such as the environment, avatars, enemies, and weapons, along with all the dynamic objects in the game world. We implemented real-time generated reflection probes, volume lighting for dynamic objects, optimized light flares, foliage, decals, and a custom occlusion system, all of which were crucial to achieving the immersive visuals we envisioned. Most of the game elements had to be networked also which takes the complexity to the next level.

Two very integral aspects of Dungeons of Eternity are its customizable player avatars and randomly generated weapon systems. Developing these systems consumed a significant amount of time and effort. For the avatars alone, we dedicated considerable resources to refining avatar inverse kinematics (IK) and ensuring that they rendered and responded expressively to in-game elements. The random weapon system helped play an important role in making each dungeon run unique, providing players with new and exciting loot and evolving their overall gameplay experience.

The game would be nothing without the physics-based combat encounters of the enemies inhabiting the dungeons. The enemy AI was built with a module-based paradigm that allows the AI to respond to threats, react, and attack to provide the dungeon crawlers with an exciting, challenging, and ever-changing experience.

To optimize many of these features, we utilized job-based code execution, making use of Quest’s multiple CPU cores to ensure smooth and efficient performance throughout the game.

RR: Overall very positive! We think people are looking for more cooperative games in general, but especially in VR. There’s excitement around the combat and the full-body avatars, both of which are core to the Dungeons experience and have received the most focus and iteration. We can’t wait to join the community on some dungeon runs!

RR: The element of surprise built into the game’s systems. Replayability was paramount in our early design and I’m thrilled it’s been carried through the entire game. We know every corner and system of the game, yet each dungeon run still offers some surprise moment I wasn’t anticipating. I may encounter a familiar chamber in a dungeon, but depending on my weapons, my teammates, player level, what loot spawned where, which doorway we entered the chamber from, and so on—random chance multiplies the replay value. Because of this, I still love playing the game with others or going on solo dungeon runs.

RR: Yes, we have some enhanced visuals for Quest 3 players. This includes additional bloom lighting effects (which look amazing on higher tier weapons!), a sharpening effect which gives the game an even higher resolution look on top of the improved Quest 3 optics, and we disable distant texture LODs for better environment visuals.

RR:Dungeons launches with a ton of content, but our plan from day one has been to build a game that could support adding more content and features over time. This includes more dungeon chambers, weapon types, monsters, and cosmetics. Additionally, we have new game modes, community requested features, and new Realms. Finally, there are bigger features we aren’t ready to talk about yet!

RR: We’d love to invite everyone to our community Discord server! We discuss all things Dungeons of Eternity related, share development updates, host contests, and more. But, above all, we hope you enjoy Dungeons and get a chance to experience it with some of your closest friends.

Gather your friends for an epic and endless adventure in Dungeons of Eternity, available now on Meta Quest 2 + Pro.