Angry Birds fans have been inundated this year with the release of Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs and Angry Birds AR: Isle of Pigs, with The Angry Birds Movie 2 coming out next month. To coincide with the movie The Angry Birds Movie 2 VR: Under Pressure now has a confirmed released date for PlayStation VR.
Being developed by XR Games, The Angry Birds Movie 2 VR: Under Pressure is all about local gameplay using the PlayStation VR social screen. The studio wants the title to be a great introduction to virtual reality (VR) entertainment whilst helping: “existing VR players to evangelize their technology to the people around them,” says Richard Boon, Senior Game Designer, XR Games on PlayStation Blog.
Designed as a couch co-op videogame, one player is in VR while three others use the TV and controllers. This time the action takes place under the sea, in a submarine in fact, with VR player as captain of the submarine. All the TV players are the crew, controlling characters such as Red, Chuck, and new Angry Bird ‘Silver’, tasked with doing repairs, crafting torpedoes and storing treasure.
Explaining more about the gameplay, Boon reveals: “The captain monitors event [sic] and grabs as much treasure as possible from the ocean, which the crew then store in the sub. [The VR player] has a gameplay tool called the Magnashot, which is a classic Angry Birds slingshot with a magnet in it. It can suck stuff up and throw it back out – including the crew players. This gives the captain a lot of power. But there are things that only the crew can do, such as load machines and move explosive crates.”
As a social videogame The Angry Birds Movie 2 VR: Under Pressure is all about communication, which can get hectic when four people are likely to be shouting. But this is a slapstick style videogame, created to be fun rather than stressful.
Rovio Entertainment and XR Games will be releasing The Angry Birds Movie 2 VR: Under Pressure exclusively for PlayStation VR on Tuesday, 6th August 2019. For any further updates ahead of launch, keep reading VRFocus.