‘Metamorphosis VR’ takes Franz Kafka’s work and builds a surreal virtual reality world from it

Video games aren’t exactly synonymous with classic literature. Players will find references to works like “Romeo and Juliet”, but developers don’t often tackle novels like “As I Lay Dying” or “Don Coyote.” The two biggest ones in recent memory have been “Dante’s Inferno,” a “God of War”-like project from Electronic Arts and “Spec Ops: The Line,” a brilliant game loosely based on a Joseph Conrad novel.

Those efforts were good and showed classic literature has more ideas to mine. One of those is Franz Kafka’s novella “The Metamorphosis.” Ovid Works crafted an adventure platformer inspired by the short work in 2020, and now, Black Sun Productions is bringing that game to Meta Quest 2 and Quest 3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmsbiyx070k”Metamorphosis VR” puts players in the role of a traveling salesman named Gregor who finds himself transformed into a cockroach one day. Set in the 1900s Vienna, he has to save his closest friend and regain his humanity. Originally, the 2020 game was in first-person and had players exploring imaginative worlds full of bug philosophers, insect mob bosses and thespian arthropods. The VR project promises a reinvention of the game with high-fidelity graphics, multiple endings and a cast of more than 100 insect characters.

“We chose Metamorphosis as our debut title for Black Sun because its surreal, Kafkaesque world – some of the richest and most immersive environments imagined – offers a perfect opportunity to bring this extraordinary experience to virtual reality,” said Corbin Chase, CEO of Black Sun Productions in a news release.

He said the game’s changing sense of scale would work well on the medium. Players can find out when “Metamorphosis VR” is released on Oct. 10. It will go on sale for $19.99.