About three weeks ago Ready at Dawn opened registrations for a closed alpha as it continues developer of Echo VR for Oculus Quest. This week the studio revealed a tentative road map towards the eventual launch, featuring another alpha round as well as a couple of betas players will be able to sign up for.
There will be four planned phases before the launch with the first closed alpha already underway. At this stage, the team has been sending invitations for level 50 players, both competitive and casual to evaluate higher-level play and mechanics. In the second closed alpha, the pool of players will be expanded to include levels 5 – 49. This will test public matches in Arena, disabling private matchmaking and rematches.
Once the closed beta begins everyone who signed up to test the Oculus Quest version will be able to join. “Community testers will have access to all of Echo VR, including the Tutorials, VS. AI, the Lobby, and Echo Arena. During this phase we are focused on testing crossplay between all existing Rift and Quest players,” states the blog post.
Lastly, the open beta will take place to welcome anyone interested in testing Echo VR before its official Oculus Quest launch. Unlike the recent Swords of Gargantua road map which has given specific seasonal windows for its updates, Ready at Dawn has been careful not to include any dates: “This means if testing goes well on one phase, we may immediately roll into another phase as soon as we are able, or we might stay a little longer in a phase to further evaluate feedback and address issues to ensure we make Echo VR as fun and comfortable for players on Rift and Quest,” the developer notes.
If you were lucky enough to bag an Oculus Quest before stocks ran out and want to participate in the testing then you can sign up here.
There are still no updates on Ready at Dawn’s other big project, single-player adventure Lone Echo II which is due for release this year. VRFocus will continue its coverage of both videogames, reporting back with the latest updates.