Catch Waves in Virtual Reality in ‘True Surf,’ Launching Today on Meta Quest

Virtual reality lets us experience things we might not ever be able to do otherwise. True Surf lets you drop in on waves from your own living room, while also teaching you skills that can help you ride in the physical world, too.

True Surf channels the feeling of surfing with the use of its physics engine, recreating the science of waves with realistic graphics. But developer True Axis Pty Ltd goes further, using actual wave data drawn from the physical world — both historical and current weather details — to bring the most realistic waves possible into the game. That allows them to accurately recreate some of the gnarliest surf spots on the planet. And you can surf the waves that are rolling up to the beach right now.

Authenticity is the focus for True Axis, though, and that means bringing actual gear into the game. You can find boards and apparel from real surfing brands in the game, bringing a key element of surfing culture into the game, as well.

True Surf began its life as a mobile game, but True Axis’s transition to VR has created a very different experience. To celebrate the game’s launch, we sat down with Founder and Managing Director Luke Ryan and Chief Operating Officer Nick Barry to talk about how the game evolved and what players can expect from the VR surfing experience.

Luke Ryan: A lot of hope is, if you simply base the physics on realistic-enough models, the fun of real-word surfing is going to transfer into the game naturally. Of course, the visuals are also important. There was some thought in pre-development, where we thought that if we couldn’t get the white water to look okay with a realistic rendering style, we might fall back to making everything look cartoony — but everybody seemed okay with what we managed to achieve.

LR: I’d been keen to make a surfing game since the 8-bit era and spent a lot of time thinking about it. With True Surf, I was particularly interested in trying to have a wave that could change shape as it peels from a spilling wave with no tube to a plunging wave where you can get in the barrel. The idea came to simply create a series of 2D animations of vertical slices of waves and blend between them. I sat on that idea for years before finally deciding to do a prototype, which, after thinking about it for so long, I put together really quickly using placeholder animations to prove the concept.

The game was instantly fun. However, the wave animations were far from realistic. The next step was to figure out how to somehow produce all the animations for different-shaped waves, which turned into an enormous research program with many different things tried. There might be some better off-the-shelf tools to do this these days, but in the end, we created a custom 2D water simulation to create all the reference we needed for animating and a specific animation tool to do the animation. On top of that is all the physics of how the beach and the weather interact to choose the right wave animations at the right place.

LR: What drew me to game development as a youngster was to create experiences that don’t exist in games yet, that aren't so easily had in the physical world. VR is pretty demanding on tech. Having a custom engine targeting mobile gave us a good starting point performance-wise, and we have a heap of experience with technically challenging projects. We were excited by the opportunity to try to do something beyond what has been done so far.

The mobile game was completely focused on a telephoto lens perspective, so for VR, we did have to overhaul everything to handle viewing from everywhere, camera going in the barrel, duck diving, and viewing from any angle. In particular, we needed a new way of rendering all the white water, looking okay from any angle, and not killing performance while covering most of the screen.

Nick Barry: Yes — the game begins in Hawaii at Waikiki, recognized as the birthplace of modern surfing, with gentle rolling waves suited for surfing and VR beginners. To ease players into the environment and the wave dynamics, they start with a longboard, which is heavy and slow to turn.

A progression system guides players through a series of skill-based missions. These missions have specific unlocks and requirements, carefully designed to mirror a surfer's learning curve, covering the full range of maneuvers and different board types.

Missions are played in past conditions using swell data that dates back to 2018. Once a surf spot is unlocked, players have the option to switch to Live Conditions, which are powered by real-time surf forecasting data from Surfline. Data is updated hourly and includes swell height, swell direction, wind, tide, and water temperature.

The interactive world map allows players to engage with a core aspect of surfing: tracking global swell charts. And then it gives them the virtual capability to join surfers on strike missions to the most epic locations on earth.

We’re also optimistic that the game can serve as a useful training resource for pro surfers. It offers the potential to study the specific characteristics of a wave a surfer hasn’t yet experienced or function as a visualization tool to enhance their surfing. This concept is already proven in other sports, with skateboarders having used video games to visualize complex flips and spins for over a decade, and NFL player Jayden Daniels utilizing VR to improve his quarterback decision-making.

Wave pools are currently accelerating air progression by offering consistent, repeatable sections. Airs are the most challenging maneuver in True Surf, much like in the physical world. Drawing on our experience in skateboarding games, we’re enthusiastic about the potential visualization in VR offers pro surfers in the air.

NB: Surfing brands are born from truly experiencing the lifestyle of surfing and creating products essential for surfers. A prime example is starting the game with a Shane Stedman longboard. Shane notably evolved and popularized the “Ugh-Boot” — a sheepskin boot used by surfers to warm up after a cold winter surf.

Surfing is always evolving, and the brands play a big part of the progression. The first shortboard you receive in the game is the Mollusc from Simon Anderson. Simon revolutionized surfing in 1981 by inventing the three-fin “thruster.” This design combined the speed of twin-fins with the control of single-fins and is now the standard for most surfboards.

Players will be able to surf with gear from the world’s leading surf brands and apparel, with the objective to experience the true performance of the equipment.

Players can expect the game to evolve as surfing does. As an example, players will be able to foil in-game, an exciting recent development, which is riding a surfboard with a hydrofoil attached allowing the rider to fly above the water, offering a unique gliding sensation.

NB: The progression system is a skill-based mission system that takes players on the ultimate surf trip, unlocking the world’s best surf spots and high-performance boards, with some fun Easter eggs along the way.

There are a handful of missions to complete at each surf spot, based on past conditions with the waves increasing in size and power, and mission feats increasing in number, variety, and difficulty.

Players begin in Hawaii at Waikiki to learn the basics in gentle rolling waves.

Next stop is Bells Beach, Australia, where players get a taste of bigger spilling waves, perfect for finding flow by laying down some drawn-out, carving turns.

From there, players head to Hossegor in France, renowned for powerful barreling beach breaks. Here, the waves move fast, so players need to learn to make decisive conditions, trust their instincts, and surf quickly.

Players are then rewarded with a trip to Skeleton Bay in Africa, the world’s longest barrelling wave and the perfect spot to learn how to ride barrels.

After that it’s off to the cobblestones of Lower Trestles, California, to learn how to do airs at the LA28 Olympic venue, the most high-performance surf spot in SoCal.

Players have now gained the skills to perform major surfing manoeuvres and travel back to Africa to put their learning to the ultimate test: conquering the fastest wave on the planet at Jeffreys Bay.

With three of the five JBay missions completed, players are four locations away from unlocking the rest of the map. These locations feature a true wave of consequence, the world’s best left-hander, a true paradise, and the most iconic wave in the world.

LR: It was probably a better starting point for the tech then if it has been a PC game trying to push high-end hardware. We have to render two eyes, to a really high resolution, consistently high frame rate, but we’re still able to improve on the visuals, which were pretty solid to start with. We also get plenty of feedback for a very passionate user base wanting us to make things better. We’ve been iterating on updates for that for years. I expect the two games will keep feeding back into each other.

Grab your board and catch a wave — no wetsuit required. True Surf is available on the Meta Horizon Store for $19.99 USD.