The obvious, unavoidable point of comparison for Project Morpheus is the Oculus Rift, which Sony now says it hopes to stay in friendly competition with. Morpheus and the Rift use 1080p screens and similar head-tracking technologies, but their strengths and weaknesses vary. Both headsets have gone a long way towards eliminating lag, but Morpheus is still a little blurrier than the newest version of the Rift. Conversely, its superior lenses have actually done better at removing the blocky "screen door" effect, even if the display obviously can't measure up to a 2D counterpart. It's great at blocking out light without feeling stifling, something the Rift still struggles with. Its 90-degree field of view, however, is a definite detriment. The first Oculus Rift developer kit left thin black bars in your peripheral vision, but Project Morpheus has unavoidable, often distracting black half-moons. It's still impressive, but it's got to get a lot better before I'd call it truly immersive.

Sony's peripherals create something of an ecosystem for Morpheus: the PlayStation Move provides motion control, and the console's camera peripheral tracks your head position. It's a fairly versatile system: you can lean over a railing, crouch, or turn completely around. It doesn't, however, seem to track as precisely as the Rift. What you see on the screen can progressively drift away from where you actually feel like you are. My experience with the Move controllers was more scattershot. They're a good idea for virtual reality, giving you a combination of free motion and haptic feedback, but the medieval tech demo meant to showcase them became virtually unplayable when you tried to pick up a sword and saw your disembodied hands shoot across the room.

So, games! What's it like using Morpheus to play games? It's pretty neat! Well, that's to say, "It's a lot like playing games in the Oculus Rift headset, especially the newer versions of the Rift." In The Deep, I took a trip to the bottom of the ocean in a metal cage; when I bent down, my in-game knees bent (as tracked by the PlayStation Camera). When I looked up, my perspective turned skyward and the lamp mounted to my virtual head followed (the lighting was perhaps the most impressive part, with cage bars occluding properly and all).

In The Castle, I picked up two PlayStation Move controllers to act as hands, which enabled me to bend over, pick up a sword and take a dummy down a few notches. If I moved back a few steps, my in-game avatar moved back a few steps. One major change in Morpheus compared with other VR headsets is full-body tracking, which does legitimately add to the immersion effect.

Yoshida also discussed the virtual reality version of Driveclub that Evolution Studios made using what is now known as Project Morpheus. When trying it for himself during a trip to their UK office, he said it worked well when driving at low speeds. He explained that he was able to look around the world and enjoy its scenery.

However, when he put his foot on the gas, so to speak, the experience fell apart and he began to feel the effects of motion sickness, he said. "It's kind of difficult and sickening," Yoshida said about his experiences at this level.

Right now, Evolution Studio is "not working on Morpheus at all," and is instead putting "all the effort" into finishing the game.

Explaining the Driveclub delay in October 2013, Yoshida said, "the extra time we're giving the team means the visuals and overall experience are only going to get better. We can assure you that it will be worth the wait."