Author: Dominic Brennan

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Everything We Know About Oculus Santa Cruz (so far)

Oculus Santa Cruz is a VR prototype that brings many high-end features of the Oculus Rift and Touch, most notably positional (6DOF) tracking on both headset and controllers, into a self-contained, standalone design. What follows is a brief overview of everything we know about the headset so far.

Updated: September 3rd, 2018

What is Oculus Santa Cruz?

Image courtesy Oculus

Originally announced at Oculus Connect 3 in 2016, the Santa Cruz project represents “the future” of Facebook’s long-term vision for VR hardware, positioned between Gear VR and Rift, aiming to deliver a high-end VR experience without the need for external sensors or a PC connection. Santa Cruz has many similarities in design and features to the Oculus Rift, but it isn’t the ‘Rift 2’; instead it’s a self-contained system, using an internal processor, displays, battery, and sensors for the same kind of positional (AKA 6DOF) tracking found on high-end tethered headset. That means it doesn’t rely on a host device like a connected computer or docked smartphone.

Unlike the Oculus Go, which is essentially an affordable all-in-one Gear VR, Santa Cruz is targeting a future ‘high-end’ mobile VR market thanks to its 6DOF tracking on both the headset and the controllers, and a more powerful processor.

Want to know what it’s like to use Santa Cruz? Check out our hands-on with the latest prototype for a detailed look.

What Are the Oculus Santa Cruz Specs?

Image courtesy Oculus

For now, detailed specifications are unconfirmed, as Santa Cruz is still in its prototype phase. However, it is likely to use a high-end mobile chip; specifically we’d bet on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 as the underlying SoC, especially considering that the Oculus Go is built on a lower-end version of that chip.

Looking into the capabilities of the Snapdragon 845 then gives us some high level insights into the specifications of Santa Cruz. According to Chris Pruet, Oculus’ Head of Development Engineering, who spoke about Santa Cruz at GDC 2018, the headset’s thermal design allows the processor to run at higher clock rates than any similar device he’s seen.

We went hands-on with a Santa Cruz prototype in October 2017, which already featured what appeared to be higher resolution displays (but probably running below the Rift’s usual 90Hz) and improved Fresnel lenses when compared to the Rift. At the time we confirmed that the headset is using a pair of displays, and includes an IPD adjustment slider. If we had to guess, we’d expect that Santa Cruz is using the same 1,440 × 1,600 displays that are presently found in the Samsung Odyssey and Vive Pro headsets.

The most recent Santa Cruz images from Oculus show that the latest design remains similar to latest prototype we tried in 2017, in terms of incorporating the mainboard and battery into the display enclosure, with four ultra-wide cameras placed on the leading edges that perform the inside-out positional tracking, as well as tracking the 6DOF controllers.

The device also features integrated speakers hidden in the head strap (similar to the Oculus Go), along with volume buttons on the headset, plus a headphone jack for more private and higher-quality sound. The headstrap looks similar to the Rift at first glance, but has a different shape for cupping the back of the head, and is made from a more flexible, rubbery material.

Oculus initially debuted the Santa Cruz controllers with trackpads, but has since said they’ll return to thumbsticks. | Photo by Road to VR / Image courtesy Oculus

The Santa Cruz controllers look something like an upside-down Oculus Touch, and though earlier versions have been shown with a trackpad, Oculus confirmed the final design will feature thumbsticks and buttons instead of trackpads to bring the Santa Cruz controller inputs closer to Touch parity.

What’s Know About the Oculus Santa Cruz Release Date & Price?

Oculus hasn’t officially announced a release date or price for Santa Cruz, but recent reports indicate the company is targeting a Santa Cruz release date of Q1 2019.

While price is also unconfirmed, Santa Cruz is clearly a very different proposition to the $200 Oculus Go. With Rift-level components and a self-contained design, it seems likely that it will be considerably more expensive than the $400 Oculus Rift and Touch. Competitive products give us a likely idea of pricing as well, with the Lenovo Mirage Solo priced at $400 and the Vive Focus around $525.

We’re expecting to hear more information about the Santa Cruz launch date and price at the company’s Oculus Connect 5 conference at the end of September.

The post Everything We Know About Oculus Santa Cruz (so far) appeared first on Road to VR.

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Oculus Go, Mirage Solo, and Vive Focus Standalone Headsets Compared

Standalone VR headsets represent a new headset segment that sits somewhere between smartphone-based VR devices, and tethered, high-end VR systems, while offering some notable advantages over both. In this article we compare three standalone VR devices which will be available worldwide this year: the Oculus Go, Lenovo Mirage Solo, and HTC Vive Focus.

The main appeal of standalone VR is the self-contained hardware design. By integrating the processor, battery, and all the required visual, audio, and tracking technology into the headset, they provide the tetherless freedom of mobile VR in an optimised design that breaks free of the constraints of smartphones. In the future, standalone VR could offer something closer to current high-end VR—Oculus Santa Cruz features a Rift-like design and dual 6DOF controllers, and Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 845 reference design supports dual 6DOF controllers using an ultrasonic solution—but the three headsets covered below are less sophisticated, while some have 6DOF head-tracking, all featuring a single 3DOF controller which stands as a limiting factor compared to the types of experiences you’d expect from the high-end PC and console headsets.

Oculus Go – Value Oriented

 

Image courtesy Oculus

At $200, the Oculus Go is set to be the most affordable device of the three by a significant margin. This compelling price point is the result of some key hardware decisions, most notably the omission of positional (6DOF) tracking. Using rotational (3DOF) headset tracking, and including a single 3DOF controller with a trigger, trackpad, a couple of buttons, the hardware and software essentially operates like a Samsung Gear VR, and will share the same library of games and apps from Oculus.

For owners of a compatible Samsung smartphone, the Gear VR shell remains the best value proposition, but for everyone else, the Go will be the cheapest way to access Gear VR content. And thanks to its dedicated design, the Go is also expected to offer a better experience than any Gear VR, with superior ergonomics, performance, and visuals. Its “next generation” Fresnel lenses offer a larger field of view than a Gear VR, and the 1,280 × 1,440 (per eye) “fast-switch LCD” can be clocked at 72Hz rather than the standard 60Hz, giving some applications an extra boost in visual performance. Given that this headset uses a single display, there’s no IPD adjustment available.

According to the official site, the price is “starting at $199” and the release date is “early 2018.” It has been suggested that the launch date could coincide with Facebook’s F8 conference, which begins May 1st.

Want to know more? Check out Everything We Know About Oculus Go (so far).

Lenovo Mirage Solo – Premium Daydream VR

Image courtesy Lenovo

Based on Google’s standalone Daydream VR reference design, the Mirage Solo could be seen as the Daydream version of the Oculus Go, in that it is a dedicated device, sharing the same VR app library with Daydream-ready smartphones.

The Mirage Solo’s $400 price point puts it a twice the cost of the go, and there are two clear reasons why: it uses a more powerful Snapdragon 835 SoC, and it features 6DOF inside-out headset tracking. This means instead of being limited to rotational movement, you’ll be able to lean in all directions, and even physically walk around, which could be a significant advantage if apps can be built with more movement in mind. However, the controller is still limited to 3DOF tracking, and the current Daydream library is optimised for a 3DOF tracking experience. This means that the inclusion of 6DOF might not result in a dramatic change in app design (at least in the short term), but it is a certainly a welcome feature for comfort and immersion; positional tracking simply feels more natural in all scenarios, including seated experiences.

Much like the Oculus Go, the Mirage Solo also uses a 1,280 × 1,440 (per eye) LCD operating at a higher refresh rate than the various 60Hz Daydream-ready smartphones, in this case at 75Hz. And similarly, the dedicated design has many optimisations for comfort and performance, with Fresnel lenses offering a wider field of view than typical mobile VR headsets. Like the Oculus Go, there’s no IPD adjustment available on the Solo because it uses a single display.

The Mirage Solo is due to launch on May 5th in the US, priced at $400.

Want to know what it’s like to use the Mirage Solo? Check out our latest hands-on for a detailed look.

HTC Vive Focus – Best-in-Class Displays and new Content Platform

Image courtesy HTC

Much like the Mirage Solo, the Vive Focus features inside-out 6DOF tracking for the headset, and a single, 3DOF controller. It is also based on the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC. However, HTC believes the Focus is the more “premium” option, as it uses the same lenses and displays as the Vive Pro, albeit running at 75Hz rather than 90Hz. The Vive Focus offers best-in-class resolution with its dual 1,600 × 1,440 OLED panels, and a physical IPD adjustment which lets users dial in the position of the lenses to match the width between their eyes—both notable features over the Go and Mirage Solo.

As we’ve seen on PC with the Vive Pro, these displays require serious horsepower to take full advantage of the higher resolution, which could explain why the Focus also contains a fan to actively cool the Snapdragon 835 chip, which will surely be under more strain in certain rendering situations than the Mirage Solo.

One place where the Vive Focus is likely in need of catching up compared to the Oculus Go and Mirage Solo is in the content department. While the Go taps into the pre-existing library of Gear VR content and the Mirage Solo uses Daydream, HTC is spinning up a new content ecosystem for the Focus, a mobile version of their Viveport VR app store. Only so far open to the Asian market for a few months by now, we expect it’ll take time for HTC to curate the same breath and quality of mobile VR apps seen from Oculus and Daydream.

The Vive Focus is already available in China, and based on the exchange rate could launch in the US at around $525; HTC plans a slower rollout in Western markets, initially making the headset available as a development kit.

Want to know what it’s like to use the Mirage Solo? Check out our latest hands-on for a detailed look.

The post Oculus Go, Mirage Solo, and Vive Focus Standalone Headsets Compared appeared first on Road to VR.

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New Jersey Utility Uses Augmented Reality to Visualise Underground Infrastructure

vGIS, a new geographic information system (GIS) visualisation platform from the Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri) partner Meemim, is being used to view underground infrastructure while wearing Microsoft Hololens. Piloted by Toms River Municipal Utilities Authority in New Jersey, the technology is a practical application of augmented reality, allowing the user to ‘see’ utility lines under the street in real-time.

According to the report on Esri’s ArcNews publication, the system uses Meemim’s geocalibration process to accurately align the rendered visuals to the physical world, anchoring to visible GIS features such as sewer manholes. The vGIS interface supports voice commands and hand gestures, which allows fieldworkers to operate hands free as they retrieve information about the overhead and underground utilities. This real-time view of energy and drainage lines brings obvious benefits to planning and maintaining essential infrastructure in towns and cities.

Image courtesy Meemim Inc.

“We are dealing with five or six utility lines underneath a street,” said Len Bundra, GIS director for Toms River MUA. “We have to locate our utility lines so that when we dig up a street, we are confidently aware of all other utilities around us. Given a more dynamic situation—a car hits a telephone pole, the pole collapses onto the street—seven separate agencies are on scene, each viewing [its] own GIS utilities on separate devices. What I am trying to do is provide all field personnel with one common interface to see all underground utilities beneath their feet—[so] one shared vision via a shared interface.”

Toms River MUA was the first client of Meemim, startup partner of GIS giant Esri, collaborating for eight months to bring their GIS data and the new AR technologies together. According to a report on T&D World, TRMUA already had its GIS data online through Esri’s ArcGIS platform, which Meemim could upload to its cloud service to be converted and delivered to the HoloLens in real-time.

Launched on January 14th, vGIS is a new platform for advanced visualisation of GIS across many devices, including augmented reality hardware. Its first product, vGIS Utilities, is already being used in many towns and cities to optimise essential municipal services.

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‘Catan VR’ Launches with Cross-play for Rift and Gear VR, Headed to Oculus Go

Based on Klaus Teuber’s popular board game Settlers of Catan (1995), the VR version of Catan is available now on Oculus Rift and Gear VR, and will be a launch title for Oculus Go. The game features cross-play multiplayer, and is said to be coming to more VR platforms in the future.

Described as “true to the classic but optimized for virtual reality,” Catan VR was developed by VR studio Experiment 7 in partnership with Klaus Teuber and his sons Guido and Benjamin, along with the Catan and Asmodee Digital teams. The board game takes place in a virtual room with views of the island of Catan itself through the windows.

Speaking to Gamesbeat last year, Experiment 7 managing director Demetri Detsaridis explained how VR offers a different experience to other digital versions of the game. “When you have the entire field of view in front of you – and Catan is on a big table – the pieces get to be larger than life,” he said. “The ‘screen’ is enormous. You can do cool things like have sheep run around or have water flow or have wheat blowing in the breeze without it looking like you’re peering into the inner workings of a wristwatch.”

Image courtesy Experiment 7

Classic Catan AI opponents are available for single player, and the game supports cross-platform multiplayer with friend invites and matchmaking. For now, the game is playable on Oculus Rift and Gear VR, and will form part of the launch line-up for the Oculus Go. The game was playable at GDC 2018 this week, with Rift and Go devices at the same table, as seen during Tested‘s Oculus Go video. Additional platforms are said to be on the cards, but Experiment 7’s previous titles have not jumped beyond Rift and Gear VR yet, despite Dungeon Chess (2017) being confirmed for PSVR many months ago.

Image courtesy Experiment 7

Originally due to launch in late 2017, Catan VR is the third release from Experiment 7, who specialise in bringing board and tabletop games into their ‘Magic Table’ platform, an immersive environment designed for ‘social presence’ that supports cross-platform multiplayer. The team’s long-term goal is to attract other developers to the Magic Table platform. Their first game Magic Table Chess (2016) introduced the concept, followed by the Dungeons & Dragons-themed Dungeon Chess.

“The first time I saw Catan on the Magic Table, I was fascinated by what VR has to offer,” said Teuber. “The game I made in our living room with my family 25 years ago in Virtual Reality? It’s incredible. I never imagined actually stepping into the world of Catan when we first started making cut-outs and dreaming about exploring new lands.”

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GDC 2018 ‘Day 2’ Roundup – ‘Budget Cuts’ Hands-On, Google Maps and ARCore, Squanch Games’ Exclusive, and More

Here’s a roundup of news from the second day of our GDC 2018 coverage. We go hands-on with Budget Cuts, Google presents ARCore and Maps API-enabled apps, Squanch Games’ Daydream exclusive title announced, and Magic Leap talks about developing games for a spatial computing platform.

Hands-on with ‘Budget Cuts’

Image courtesy Neat Corp

Developer Neat Corporation has resurfaced with stealth action game Budget Cuts, due for release on May 16th for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. We go hands-on with the latest build at GDC, which retains most of the core mechanics found in the impressive pre-alpha demo from 2016. The robots have been redesigned to be more imposing, and you have to be more accurate with your knife throwing if you want to take them down in one hit. Light and shadow plays a bigger role in the stealth system, and there are more objects to pick up and interact with.

Google highlights 4 ARCore apps

Image courtesy TendAR

The ARCore SDK is enabling a wide range of AR apps on flagship Android smartphones, and Google highlighted two apps that launched this week and two coming later in the year. There is a new “which box?” feature on eBay’s app, which helps a seller calculate the size of packaging required for an item, and Google just launched mobile art app Just a Line, which allows video recording of simple spatial drawings. Planned for Q2 2018 is the Google Maps API-enabled The Walking Dead: Our World, and TendAR is a game arriving in July, involving a virtual fish that responds to facial expressions.

Google Maps API for game development

Image courtesy Google

The Google Maps team has built an SDK that allows Google Maps geodata to be used in the Unity game engine. This allows for smartphone AR games to combine with real-world locations, taking the Pokémon Go (2016) style of game to the next level. The rich data available from Google Maps has incredible potential for game environment creation, particularly when combined with procedural rendering systems.

Squanch Games reveal exclusive Daydream game

Image courtesy Squanch Games

Dr. Splorchy Presents: Space Heroes is the first in a series of games exclusive to Google’s Daydream VR platform from Squanch Games, formerly known as Squanchtendo. Little is known about the project so far, but fans of Rick and Morty will likely be drawn to its comedic style, as it comes from the mind of Justin Roiland, co-creator of the animated series.

Magic Leap talk on games and AI

Image courtesy Magic Leap

Interaction Director Alessia Laidacker and Interaction Lab Director Brian Schwab from Magic Leap presented a talk on creating games for a spatial computing platform. It discussed high-level concepts relating to user context, as well as the important design elements for AR, and how AR characters need to behave. We expect a deeper dive into Magic Leap development on Thursday.

The post GDC 2018 ‘Day 2’ Roundup – ‘Budget Cuts’ Hands-On, Google Maps and ARCore, Squanch Games’ Exclusive, and More appeared first on Road to VR.

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Watch: ILMxLab’s Star Wars Real-Time Ray-Tracing Demo on Unreal Engine is Stunning

At the Unreal Engine presentation at GDC 2018 today, Epic Games CTO Kim Libreri introduced several projects highlighting the scalability and performance of Unreal technology, including a partnership with ILMxLAB and Nvidia. This was the first live demonstration of interactive, real-time, ray-tracing with Unreal Engine.

Nvidia announced RTX on Monday, a real-time ray-tracing solution designed for their latest Volta GPU architecture. Today, we were treated to a live stage demo using Unreal Engine, Nvidia RTX, and ILMxLAB’s Star Wars assets. Aside from some slight connection problems (the image was being streamed from a PC to the iPad on stage), this was a stunning demonstration, and seemed to be far less noisy than the Northlight footage from Remedy.

Tony Tamasi, Senior Vice President of Content and Technology at Nvidia explained some of the technology behind the scenes, describing ray-tracing as “the holy grail” of rendering that solves many of the fundamental problems of traditional rasterization.

“We partnered with our friends at Microsoft to deliver an industry standard API called DirectX Raytracing,” he said. “That API is perfectly integrated with RTX to enable ray-tracing through interfaces and APIs that game developers are familiar with, and on top of that we’ve layered in some GameWorks technology to give developers a kickstart for things like de-noising and reconstruction filters.”

Despite the fact that this demo was running on a supercomputer (an Nvidia DGX Station running four Volta GPUs connected with NVLink), Tamasi thinks the technology is not too far away from reaching consumers. “We are at the crux of real-time ray-tracing being a practical reality right now, he said. “I expect you’re going to see games shipping with real-time ray-tracing this year.”

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GDC 2018 ‘Day 1’ Roundup – Vive Pro Pricing, Magic Leap SDK, Nvidia RTX, and More

Here’s a roundup of news from ‘day one’ of our GDC 2018 coverage. Vive Pro date and price, Magic Leap announcements, Nvidia’s real-time ray-tracing, and Budget Cuts resurfaces.

Vive Pro headset launches April 5th for $800, original Vive drops to $500

Image courtesy HTC

HTC have finally revealed the price and release date of the anticipated Vive Pro, opening preorders globally at Vive.com and other retailers. The headset alone is $800, with orders placed before June 3rd receiving a six month trial of the Viveport Subscription content service. At the same time, the original Vive package has dropped by $100.

The improved headset is pitched as an upgrade for current Vive owners, as it works with the original controllers and base stations. It is still not known exactly when the improved controllers and SteamVR 2.0 base stations will be available with the Vive Pro as a full package, or how much that will cost.

No presence from LG at GDC

image by Road to VR

LG’s SteamVR headset prototype revealed at last year’s GDC featured 1440×1280 displays, redesigned controllers, and impressive headset ergonomics including a flip-up visor. Since then, the project has remained quiet, and there is no sign of the headset this year. The company is still heavily involved with VR development however, and are expected to present some new technology with Google at Display Week 2018 in May.

Magic Leap announcements

image courtesy Magic Leap

Magic Leap has launched the SDK for the device’s Lumin OS, with support for Unity and Unreal engines. Epic Games have detailed Unreal Engine’s support for the Magic Leap One Creator Edition on their blog, which confirms some significant hardware features of the device, including eye tracking, hand tracking, and room scanning. The company is offering a “deep dive” into developing for the headset at a sponsored GDC session on Thursday.

Nvidia RTX

Photo: Remedy Entertainment

Nvidia have announced RTX, a “highly scalable ray-tracing technology” that can run in real-time on the company’s latest Volta GPUs. Ray tracing is a standard technique for rendering high quality CGI in the movie industry, but its extreme computational demands have prevented it from being practical for real-time rendering in games and other interactive apps. Nvidia’s Volta architecture includes a hardware “ray-tracing engine” which, combined with RTX, appears to be capable of running scenes smoothly in real-time, albeit still with noticeable noise.

Stealth game ‘Budget Cuts’ resurfaces

Image courtesy Neat Corp

Developer Neat Corp has appeared at GDC 2018 to show their progress on Budget Cuts, confirming a May 16th release date on SteamVR and Oculus Home. The first-person stealth game was one of the early ‘wow’ moments of VR motion-controller action, but this is the first time we’ve seen their work since the excellent pre-alpha demo from 2016 (which is still available on Steam). The game promises seven hours of content involving stealth, action, puzzles, and bosses.

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Google and Squanch Games Team up for New Daydream Exclusive, ‘Dr. Splorchy Presents: Space Heroes’

In partnership with Google, developers Squanch Games have revealed Dr. Splorchy Presents: Space Heroes, the first in a series of exclusive games for the Daydream VR platform. Announced today, the game is playable on the GDC show floor at Google’s booth.

The game centres around scientist Dr. Splorchy, who evidently has no interest in what we say here, as in his own words, his experience with VR is “so beyond the capability of your understanding that if I were to try to explain them to your primitive earth mind I would have to rip out most of your brain and replace it with a computer so powerful it hasn’t even been invented yet, so no, I will not send you a blurb for your stupid press release.”

Image courtesy Squanch Games

This particular brand of humour comes from Squanch Games co-founder Justin Roiland, best known as the co-creator of animated comedy series Rick and Morty. He formed a VR development studio with Tanya Watson in 2016 called Squanchtendo, changing their name to Squanch Games late last year. Their first game, Accounting (2016), developed with Crows Crows Crows for SteamVR, launched in enhanced form as Accounting+ (2017) on PSVR.

Roiland and Watson appear to have been superseded by “Senior Lead Master Game Developer” Dr. Splorchy, saying “we’re tremendously fortunate to have found such a creative and experienced partner in Dr. Splorchy, an incredible genius that we have definitely not grown to be deeply concerned about or afraid of over the course of our relationship” under what they both describe as “definitely not duress.”

Image courtesy Squanch Games

As Dr. Splorchy isn’t being forthcoming with information, not much is known about his new game, but we’ll try to check out the project at Google’s booth at GDC to learn more. Going by the teaser and the screenshots, it could feature adventure elements as well as first person shooter action. In the meantime, you could follow Dr. Splorchy’s various social media accounts: his blog, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

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Google Opens ‘Maps’ API So Devs Can Create ‘Pokémon Go’-style Games

During the Google Developer Day presentation at GDC 2018, Product Manager Clementine Jacoby and Engineering Lead Patrick Donelan at Google Maps presented the team’s progress in bringing their technology and data to game developers. Several ‘location-based’ AR games using Google Maps APIs and ARCore are coming to mobile devices this year.

Building large virtual worlds is costly and time-consuming when done by hand. Using the example of Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto IV (2008), which remains one of the most expensive and richest game worlds ever created, Jacoby noted that this was, at launch, it only as big as downtown Manhattan (in terms of real-world scale). Google is now offering an easier route, where even small teams can leverage vast, rich geodata through Google Maps APIs.

The team has built an SDK to bring the technology to Unity which “does all the heavy lifting” with “no Google Maps expertise needed to get started,” and helps developers design interactions around real-world places, which presents a unique set of challenges.

“Doing it well requires knowing a lot about the player’s immediate environment and also their larger context,” says Jacoby. “We help you design gameplay around real-world locations so you can choose places that are appropriate, unique, and fun to play, no matter where your players are.”

Image courtesy Google

Donelan demonstrated how the Unity integration can easily turn the bland, untextured geometry of Google Maps building and object data into stylised settings for game experiences using lighting and textures, or even changing the height of the buildings. Then, using the Playable Locations API, you can create a game with missions and spawn points at prominent locations, and have it work anywhere around the world. “We use a vast array of Google Maps signals to determine the best places for gameplay and AR experiences ranked by prominence and popularity,” says Donelan. “You can request points at whatever density your game requires, and fine-tune the way those points are distributed.”

There are additional features to enable richer detail to the environment, such as ‘nine slicing’ for adding custom-sized textures to buildings, decorators to add extra geometry to rooftops, and borders around roads and buildings to simulate ambient occlusion. The SDK also integrates with Unity’s real-time lighting and physics systems.

Donelan then highlighted some well-polished examples created by a single developer in just a few weeks using procedural rules and modular asset packs. Firstly, two stylised views of city environments were shown, zooming down to street level at an impressive level of detail, with Google Maps data informing the procedural rendering in an organic way. In the final example, a vast area of Glacier National Park in Montana was shown, rendered in Unity using Google Maps elevation data, with procedurally generated rocks and vegetation, showing the SDK is not limited to urban environments.

The overall message: it’s easy to harness Google Maps geodata to build rich game experiences that work on a global scale, using gameplay suitable for the real world, and driving players to popular places, or off the beaten path, depending on the style of game. Finally, three games coming in 2018 using ARCore and Google Maps APIs were featured: Jurassic World Alive, Ghostbusters World, and The Walking Dead: Our World.

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Sony Highlights 30+ PSVR Games Launching This Spring

Over on the US PlayStation Blog, SIEA Social Media Manager Justin Massongill has compiled a list of 34 PSVR games targeting a Spring 2018 release. The article details some of the more anticipated titles: Ark Park, Crisis on the Planet of the Apes, Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality, Smash Hit Plunder, Torn, and Xing: The Land Beyond.

Although Massongill notes that some projected dates may slip, the list is an illustration of Sony’s commitment to the platform, maintaining a steady flow of high-quality VR releases since the headset’s launch in October 2016, including standouts like the recently released Moss.

Of the detailed games, Ark Park, Crisis on the Planet of the Apes, and Smash Hit Plunder are likely to appeal to action fans, check out their trailers below:

On the other hand, Torn, Xing: The Land Beyond, and Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality are more puzzle-orientated. The latter is sure to be enjoyed by fans of Job Simulator (one of PSVR’s top rated titles) as it’s made by the same studio, Owlchemy Labs.

Here’s the complete list of what Sony says is launching this Spring:

  • Anamorphine
  • Apocalypse Rider
  • Ark Park
  • Snail Games
  • Chromagun VR
  • CoolpaintrVR
  • Crisis on the Planet of the Apes
  • Flatline Experience The Other Side
  • Floor Plan
  • Headbutt Factory
  • Hopalong: The Badlands
  • Island Time
  • Just in Time Inc.
  • Killing Floor: Incursion
  • MLB Home Run Derby VR
  • Nothin’ But Net
  • One Piece Grand Cruise
  • Pixel Ripped 1989
  • Prana
  • Preta: Vendetta Rising
  • Quar Infernal Machines
  • RadianVR
  • Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality
  • Rooms the Unsolvable Puzzle
  • Separation
  • Smash Hit Plunder
  • Super Amazeballs
  • Super Kaiju
  • Syren
  • The Perfect Sniper
  • Time Carnage
  • Torn for PlayStation VR
  • Torn
  • Aspyr
  • VR Apocalypse
  • War Robots VR: The Skirmish
  • Xing: The Land Beyond

Which are you most looking forward to?

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