Today in a slew of indie game-related announcements, Sony revealed that 3D jigsaw puzzle VR game, Puzzling Places from realities.io, is now coming to PSVR. Here’s the official PlayStation webpage.
Puzzling Places is a laid-back puzzle game in which you manipulate real-life 3D objects and locations that have been exploded into dozens of pieces and then gradually stitch them back together. The puzzles themselves are based on photogrammetry data of actual buildings and locations from the real world that were 3D-scanned specifically for the game.
You can try the beta version of Puzzling Places right now for free on Quest via Oculus App Lab, or subscribe to their Patreon for access to additional monthly (or weekly) test puzzles. It’s still unclear what the exact payment model will be for Puzzling Places on PSVR, but I’d expect a flat fee price to download the entire game is likely.
According to the PS Blog post there will be “a whole bunch” of puzzles at launch with “a lot more content” to be released after release—so take that for what you will. Every puzzle is scaled to different difficulty levels, such as only 50-pieces for something quicker and easier, or if you want way more to really challenge yourself.
There is no release date yet for Puzzling Places, nor a price, but it is expected to hit this year. Perhaps around the same time the game will reach 1.0 status on other platforms as well.
Let us know what you think of Puzzling Places and if you’ve tried it out yet on Quest for yourself.
Today during a GDC Showcase digital event talk, Cloudhead Games CEO Denny Unger revealed that Pistol Whip is getting a new story-based campaign similar to Pistol Whip 2089, except this time it will “revolve around the past” instead.
New Pistol Whip Story Mode
Unfortunately the talk is not publicly available yet, but if you have a GDC Showcase registration it aired today at 9AM PT during the ‘Developer Spotlight’ segment of the “Future of Gaming: Quality and Connection” fireside chat.
Here is what he had to say, the relevant announcement details are bolded:
We have plenty of updates we’re doing to Pistol Whip…but something we’ve always wanted to do is a thing called Labs, it’s a division of Cloudhead that lets us experiment more deeply with VR as a technology.
Back in December 2020 we released our first cinematic campaign and it was called Pistol Whip 2089 and it was set in the future. It had a snappy story mode tying it all together with new weapons, new modifiers, a boss battle, and it was really well-received. We’re working on another one, no surprise there. Again it’s five scenes, new modifiers, new weapons, new bosses, and it takes us into the past. It revolves around the past and it’s gonna be a ‘Wild ride!’ and you can infer whatever you want from that.
We’re also working on ‘concierge’ which is a system that dives really deep into modifiers and making Pistol Whip an even more accessible experience with a ton of different ways to play the game. We have so much more to push into Pistol Whip over the next year, and likely beyond that, that’s one great thing we’re seeing about the VR market in general is that when titles do well they do well for a really long time if they’re well-supported.
It certainly sounds like Pistol Whip isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. At the end, Unger mentioned there are other projects as well that he cannot discuss yet.
Today Sony revealed the next iteration of its “Play at Home” campaign with a slew of free games for users to download and play starting on March 25 until April 22.
This is a very welcomed surprise! So far this year as part of PS+ Sony has given out Concrete Genie, which of course includes optional PSVR support, and Farpoint, the PSVR-exclusive sci-fi shooter with fantastic PS Aim Controller support. And now, starting next week, five more PSVR games are dropping for users to claim — including some of the platform’s very best.
These games are all part of Sony’s “Play at Home” initiative that it started as a result of ongoing lockdowns during the global COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Right now, you can get Insomniac’s latest Ratchet & Clank game on PS4 for free as part of “Play at Home” if you’d like.
Hopefully when Sony releases PSVR 2 (or whatever they decide to call it) after this year, it will be fully backwards compatible with the entire PSVR library. If that’s the case, it certainly feels like Sony is trying to help prospective users build up a library of PSVR titles that they can bring forward with them onto the new headset for PS5. Imagine playing a game like Rez Infinite with an even sharper display—that sounds pretty great.
What do you think of the move? Let us know down in the comments below!
You know what’s scarier than playing ghost hunting co-op game, Phasmophobia, in VR? When the ghosts can almost physically touch you, while you’re wearing a haptic vest, that’s what.
Phasmophobia bHaptics Suit Support
According to the official Phasmophobia Twitter account, the next Beta update for the game will have bHpatics suit support, bringing an even deeper level of immersion to the already incredibly intense co-op horror adventure. Phasmophobia of course only has optional VR support and is fully playable outside of VR, but as someone that has tried both versions, I can say with confidence that it’s a far better game in VR—even if a bit jankier.
We don’t know any other details about the upcoming bHaptics suit support, but if it works like it does in other VR games, then you can expect to be even more terrified while playing than before.
The bHaptics suit is a haptic vest that transmits vibrations and haptic feedback to your body based on what’s happening in the game. The accuracy isn’t on the same level as things seen in movies such as Ready Player One, at least not yet, but it’s technology that is working towards that type of support.
I have not personally tried a bHaptics suit, but I’ve had great experiences at physical VR arcade locations when wearing their vests. They really do help sell the experience far more than just a VR headset and a horror game is the perfect application. Games like Beat Saber deliver a constant flood of stimulation, but slow-paced horror games like Phasmophobia work well for suit haptics because of how absolutely devoid of input they are 99% of the time. Then, just when you least expect it, you’ll get a jolt from the suit to amplify the scares even more.
Check out Phasmophobia over on Steam for $14, where it has PC VR support in Early Access, and visit the bHaptics website for more details on their haptic suits. You can grab one for either $300 (16 haptic points) or $500 (40 haptics points) as well as additional haptics for your face, hands, arms, and feet for even more feedback. There is already official support for games like Half-Life: Alyx, Blade and Sorcery, Onward, Boneworks, Skyirim VR, and more.
Let us know what you think of this news down in the comments below!
[Update 3/18] OST 4 is now available in Beat Saber for free on all platforms. The update includes four new songs:
It Takes Me (ft. Waylon Reavis) by Boom Kitty
Spin Eternally by Camellia
Into the Dream (ft. Jakub Tirco) by Jaroslav Beck
LUDICROUS+ by Jaroslav Beck
[Original 3/15] Beat Games revealed today that the fourth Original Soundtrack DLC for Beat Saber (OST 4) is slated to release this week on March 18th. The update will be free.
Former Beat Games CEO and current Head of Music revealed late last year during a video livestream (more details here) that the “theme” for OST 4 will be “guitars and synthetic guitars” with “metal-ish” music. According to Beck there is a lot of electronic music and he has always wanted to do a metal song.
On a personal level, this is great news. The Linkin Park DLC is my favorite paid music pack across all of Beat Saber so I whole-heartedly welcome more guitar-focused music for the game. As someone that played Guitar Hero and Rock Band religiously in late high school years and college, I am extremely excited to tap back into that mindset again.
In the video above you can hear a quick preview of one of the tracks. There isn’t much more to go off of, but the previous official release, OST 3, was a free download so fingers crossed this new pack will be free as well. According to some follow-up tweets from the official Beat Saber account it sounds like this pack may also include a new environment. Perhaps that’s what is teased when the ‘4’ shows up on-screen in the video teaser within the tweet embedded at the top of this article.
Let us know what you think of the news down in the comments below! We won’t have to wait but a few days before diving into the new music tracks for ourselves.
The Pink Cassette Edition is exclusive to the Perp Games Online Store and only 1,500 will ever be sold. This makes it a must-have for collectors and a very rare giveaway option for fans of the series and fans of VR in general.
This extremely limited Pink Cassette Edition includes an exclusive, limited-edition retro-styled 1980s game box with a physical boxed edition of Pixel Ripped 1989 on PlayStation VR inside, a limited edition retro pink cassette USB drive which contains the digital soundtrack, wallpaper, exclusive art, and three limited edition postcards, including one signed by Pixel Ripped’s creator, Ana Ribeiro.
Pixel Ripped is a love letter to all things classic gaming. From the inventive melding of retro graphics with a modern VR game setting to the way it subverts medium stereotypes by putting you in the dress and shoes of a grade school girl with a trusty Gameboy, it’s hard not to smile while playing this nostalgia-fueled adventure. A few minor hiccups hold it back from truly transcending the medium as a whole, but anyone that has fond memories of video games from the 80s and 90s absolutely needs to check this one out.
And if you love Pixel Ripped 1989, definitely check out the sequel, Pixel Ripped 1995, which builds on everything that made 1989 great and delivers an even better (in my opinion) nostalgia trip that’s dripping with charm.
To enter into the giveaway fill out the form above or at this link here. A winner will be randomly selected and contacted via email on April 9th. You’ll send us your shipping information and we’ll give that to Perp Games so they can ship you the physical Limited Edition.
Let us know if you have any questions down in the comments below!
Community Download is a weekly discussion-focused articles series published (usually) every Monday in which we pose a single, core question to you all, our readers, in the spirit of fostering discussion and debate. For today’s Community Download, we want to know which game genre you think is missing most in the VR market?
Did you miss the latest episode of our VR Download podcast show? We ranked every single PSVR exclusive. Check it out in the video above or on your preferred podcast platform.
Over the last 5+ years VR has slowly grown into its own format for computing. More and more we’re seeing big made-for-VR games or seeing big publishers fund VR ports of existing games that deliver deep, immersive experiences for players. Now more than ever it’s a good time to be a fan of VR if you’re also into gaming.
But it also seems like most developers cater to very specific types of gamers with their VR experiences. Horror games release in droves, zombie-related content is well-represented, and if you like shooting things with guns then you’re absolutely covered. The action-based FPS, competitive online shooter, and wave shooter are all three of the most popular genres in VR.
Don’t get me wrong, it totally makes sense, but there are lots of underrepresented genres in VR I’d love to see more of. For starters, more strategy games would be great. Brass Tactics is really one of the only solid VR strategy games and there haven’t been many sense. I’d also love more action-adventure fantasy-themed games like Asgard’s Wrath, but I fully accept those take years of development to make properly.
Missing VR Genres?
What kind of VR games do you want to see more of? Which genres do you think are missing most or are most underrepresented in the VR space?
Hyper Dash is out now on Quest and PC VR with full cross-play and after spending a couple of weeks with the full release version on Quest 2, we’re excited to report it’s a great competitive VR shooter. Read on for our full Hyper Dash review!
At its core, Hyper Dash is a game about speed. Solaris does a good job of tapping into that straight-forward arena shooter feel, Onward feels like a great compromise towards a realistic military shooter, and Contractors really does play like Call of Duty in VR—but Hyper Dash is wholly unique. It’s a game about blistering fast movement and pure chaos that feels at once both overwhelming and supremely satisfying. Not to mention it’s extremely difficult with a skill curve that feels completely new, even if you’ve got extensive VR shooter experience.
You don’t want to miss this one.
Hyper Dash Review – The Facts
What is it?: 5v5 team-based competitive VR shooter with PC VR and Quest cross-play Platforms: Quest, Steam, andViveport Release Date: February 25th, 2021 Price: $19.99
Usually in a VR game you’ll have to choose between different types of movement. The most popular two forms of movement, or locomotion, right now across the industry is “smooth” movement, in which you direct your body through the game world using the analog sticks like in a traditional video game, and teleportation movement.
This was most prominently popularized originally by Cloudhead in the first Episode of The Gallery and dubbed “blink” movement because you would point to a spot and then the screen quickly fades out and back in with you in the new location. It was a great and effective method to prevent motion sickness that developers still deploy to this day.
Hyper Dash however builds its foundation on a hybrid system at the very core of its identity that has you mix and match both smooth movement and a hybrid movement called dashing. If you played Raw Data from Survios, you might remember a “dash” mechanic there as well in which you will zoom forward with blurred vision to a new location, or in other words, dash.
So in Hyper Dash, as you can assume by the name, you’ll be expected to do a lot of dashing. All the time. It not only makes traversing the maps quickly a ton of fun, but it’s a tactical maneuver that makes you really hard to hit. Quick dashes were popular in the old Quake and Unreal games as well during PvP matches and this definitely channels a lot of that old-school arena shooter charm.
In terms of content, Hyper Dash has plenty to offer as long as you’re in it for the online multiplayer. You can technically play offline against bots, but the AI isn’t really capable enough to make it anywhere near as fun as playing against other humans. Thankfully, servers seem pretty populated here thanks to the cross-platform multiplayer and I never had trouble finding a match.
After over a year of alpha and beta testing, Hyper Dash seems to have a dedicated fanbase. Although, it’s worth noting, that at least in my experience both during daytime hours and late at night that the audience seems to skew on the younger end of the spectrum. Judging from the voices I’ve heard in voice chat (which can be turned off completely, switched to push to talk, or always on) most people sound like young teenagers in most cases.
If you do have trouble finding players though it auto-fills with bots so you never have to sit there at a ‘Searching for Match’ screen. There’s also an active competitive scene known as ‘Dash League’ that broadcasts games and features tournament play already. It’s currently in Season 2, carrying forward from the alpha. If you play on PC, you can spectate matches with drones to get unique camera angles like in Onward.
Overall players seem very friendly, active, and eager to play with dozens of lobbies up at any given time. Just be prepared for lots of internet slang, meme references, and some lighthearted trash talk.
There’s good weapon variety here with your basic pistols, red-dot long range pistols, SMGs, shotguns, and so on. Nothing too exotic or surprising here. Truthfully, the majority of people seem perfectly happy just dual-wielding the starter pistols most of the time; it’s totally valid since they’re actually quite good.
Hyper Dash Review – Comfort Settings
This is one of the more intense VR shooters on the market from a comfort perspective and that’s by design. There is no option for teleportation-only movement since that would fundamentally ruin the entire premise of the game’s movement systems. You can move with the joystick, sprint, grind, and dash. The only real comfort settings are smooth vs snap turning. If you’re playing on Quest though or have a wireless PC VR headset, I just recommend physically turning your body though.
Don’t be surprised if you get blasted off a rail mid-grind from someone a football field away using dual pistols. Hyper Dash players are really good. It could benefit from smarter skill-based matchmaking since it’s not the easiest game to get the hang of, but playing against ‘Hard’ bot lobbies is a good starting point. It’s also sorely missing any kind of progression system beyond unlocking a couple of helmet cosmetics as you level up, but there’s nothing else in terms of loadouts, gun options, gear, more detailed avatar customization, or anything like that at all. It’s a big missed opportunity—something that only Population: One has really nailed out of the gate in VR.
You’ve got your basic deathmatch mode and point-capture based mode in domination, but the real standouts for me were control point, which is basically king of the hill, and payload, which works just like you’d expect if you’ve ever played Overwatch or Echo Combat. Modes that require more coordination and planning than just zipping around at breakneck speed are what I gravitated towards the most.
Triangle Factory crafted some stellar maps as well. There are only six of them, but they’re dripping with personality and feature lots of verticality. The one with the grind rails twisting across a giant water quarry seems to be extremely popular. It reminds me a bit of Lockout from Halo 2 with its large open gap in the middle. Since you can grind on rails in Hyper Dash or dash upwards or downwards, there are always a wide array of directions you can go at any given moment. It’s liberating to not feel like your feet are glued to the ground as they are in most VR shooters.
Hyper Dash Review – Final Verdict
If you’re tired of the military settings of most VR shooters (Onward, Contractors, Pavlov, Zero Caliber, Medal of Honor, and so on) and don’t care about battle royale like Population: One, then Hyper Dash is the antidote. It’s much faster and more intense than Solaris and really channels the speed and intensity you might recall from popular PC arena shooters like Quake. The learning curve is steep, but it’s got an active playerbase, full PC VR to Quest crossplay, and a good selection of maps and game modes to keep you busy.
For more on how we arrived at this score, read our review guidelines. This review was conducted using a digital release version of the game on a Quest 2 headset.
[Update 3/31/21]: Today the developers announced that the start dates for its upcoming Preview Weekend, Early Bird Alpha, and Second Alpha tests have all been delayed. Previously everything was going to kick off in just a couple of weeks, but now the Kickstarter-exclusive Preview Weekend isn’t slated until May 1-2 with the Early Bird Alpha picking up on May 3-9, followed by the Second Alpha on June 14-20. Beta dates are still TBD.
According to the update blog post, “over 100 improvements” and fixes are planned over the course of the 2-week delay to make sure it’s as polished and bug-free as possible. For more on upcoming VR MMO Zenith: The Last City, watch or read our 45-minute deep dive interview:
[Original 3/10/21]: Today, pre-orders have officially gone live for Zenith: The Last City, an upcoming MMO that will launch on PC VR, PSVR, and Quest, as well as for non-VR PC platforms. The first preview weekend and early bird alpha tests are coming next month.
There are three different tiers you can pre-order, depending on how eager you are to get into the game: Standard ($30), Deluxe ($40), and Collector’s Edition ($60).
Here’s the breakdown on what’s included in each edition:
If you are a Kickstarter backer or founder, or decide to purchase the Collector’s Edition, then you get access to all alphas and betas, no questions asked. The same also applies to the first 1,000 people that buy the Deluxe edition. Deluxe buyers that miss the “first 1,000” cutoff will have to wait until the second alpha and beta periods.
Additionally, Kickstarter backers and founders will get a two-day weekend headstart on the Early Bird Alpha with a special ‘Preview Weekend’ coming very soon from April 17-18. After that, the first ‘Early Bird Alpha’ period runs from April 19-26 with the ‘Second Alpha’ running from May 31 – June 6. Dates for the Early Bird Beta and Second Beta are not set yet and all dates are subject to change.
There is still no launch date set for Zenith: The Last City, but according to developers Ramen VR it’s planned to release this year for PC VR, PSVR, and Quest — as well as non-VR PC.
Stay glued to the Zenith Twitter for the latest news and let us know if you plan on picking the game up down in our comments below!
Beat Saber’s Update v1.13.4 released today, adding new modifiers and some other small tweaks. Beat Games also confirmed that multiplayer is still still delayed (but the “team continues to work” on it) for PSVR.
The new update adding several tweaks and improvements to Beat Saber is out now! Few highlights:
All Platforms – New Modifiers – Updated Main Menu UI with new music
You can see that the main takeaway here in the embedded tweet about are the new modifiers. Adding more modifiers is great, since they’re a popular way to extend the life of the game and add more replayability to songs you may have previously mastered.
However, I’m a bit surprised to see the main menu background UI music changed. So many people have listened to that humming away as ambient noise for years that it will be a big shift to adapt to hearing something brand new there. The badges are nice too. you’ll be able to earn them and equip them next to your name for doing things like getting a Full Combo (the “Perfectionist” badge) or having the best precision (the “Saber Surgeon” badge) in a round.
Today’s tweet doesn’t really give any clear information, but it does say that “the team continues to work on Multiplayer and will update here when we have more to share,” so there’s that at least.
Let us know what you think of the update down in the comments below!
Few highlights:
All Platforms