Veteran horror director Alexandre Aja, known for his work on The Hills Have Eyes (2006), Pirahana 3D (2010), and Horns (2013), is teaming up with Oculus and VR production studio Future Lighthouse to create a 360 live-action horror series entitled Campfire Creepers that takes you into long-forgotten childhood fears.
The live-action anthology series, directed and produced by Alexandre Aja, takes place at Camp Coyote, the archetypal summer camp. Played out through the scary stories told by a group of campers around the campfire, each story leads to what the press release dubs “an immersive ride into your darkest childhood fears.”
The show is said to be inspired by cult classics Creepshow (1982) and Tales from the Crypt (1989-1996).Campfire Creepers also bills itself as one of the first pieces of episodic VR content created to draw more mainstream viewers into virtual reality.
As an interesting piece of horror history, Robert Englund, the actor known for his role as Freddy Krueger from iconic slasher film A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) is making a cameo in one of the episodes.
image courtesy Future Lighthouse
Aja and Future Lighthouse say they’re focusing on pushing the 360 medium by utilizing new camera movements, editing, and macro shots. Producer/director Casey Cooper Johnson and director/writer Martin Andersen co-created the show with Aja and wrote the first season.
The production team is already filming Campfire Creepers and first episodes are slated to release this Halloween exclusively in the Oculus Store.
Lone Echo, the upcoming zero-G, sci-fi adventure from Ready at Dawn, has a brand new trailer proceeding its July 20th launch date.
In the game’s initial announcement trailer, we got a look at its unique locomotion scheme as well as some of the drama that plays out around a certain anomaly that wreaks havoc nearby your home space station. You, as a service robot, have to repair important systems and navigate puzzles alongside a human companion.
From the new trailer, we get a better look of life aboard the mining rig, set just off the rings of Saturn in the year 2126. As an android named Echo-1 (‘Jack’), you act as a sort of ‘comfort-bot’ to Captain Olivia Rhodes, the ship’s sole human.
image courtesy Ready at Dawn
According to Ready at Dawn, you “solve an increasingly threatening mystery as you use futuristic tools, clever problem solving, and interactive dialogue to engage with the world around you.”
The VR sports game Echo Arena, built as a multiplayer counterpart launching alongside Lone Echo, demonstrates just how comfortable the unique zero-G locomotion system is, which uses a combination of boosters and self-propelled momentum as you push off of objects and structures. Echo Arena will be free, and will also launch on July 20th.
So, you’ve either got your hands on an Oculus Rift or an Oculus Quest with the help of Link, and now you want to know what to download first (besides the free stuff). Here’s our breakdown of the top 10 Rift platform games that you should definitely play. Like right now.
Before we start, don’t forget that your Rift (and Quest with Link) also works with compatible games purchased through Steam. Thanks to Valve’s open SteamVR platform and OpenVR APIs, Steam supports HTC Vive, Windows VR, Valve Index, and Oculus Rift equally, so you can shop around for even more titles that aren’t published on the Oculus Store provided the developer enabled support.
HTC Vive owners can play all of these too with the help of Revive, a software hack that hooks Vive into Oculus Store exclusives. Without further ado, these are our top 10 Rift games in no particular order.
The 10 Best Oculus Rift Games
Stormland
From Insomniac Games comes the open-world adventure Stormland, a real study in good shooting mechanics, excellent locomotion schemes, and not to mention a two-player co-op mode so you and a Rift/Quest-owning buddy can battle all the evil robots the cloud-filled world has to offer. Half of the fun is picking your combat tactics; are you a silent killer, ripping out an unsuspecting enemy’s heath pack and skitter away to safety, or are you the ‘jump from a 200-foot tower like Deadpool’ kind of person with reckless abandon? It’s up to you!
Check out why we gave Stormlanda [9/10] in our review.
Asgard’s Wrath
I don’t know about you, but being a Viking god was always on my list of things to do before leaving this world for Valhalla. It just so happens that Sanzaru Games has produced one of the best VR games to date, as this melee combat adventure has so much story, combat, dungeon crawling, and looting that you’ll easily invest 20 hours on the low side, but come back for at least 40 to get everything out of what has turned out to be one of the funnest and most well-realized VR titles to date
Here we have two halves of the same zero-G coin: first-person action-adventure game Lone Echo (2017) and it’s multiplayer counterpart Echo Arena (2017). As impressive feats of engineering in their own rights, both games feature an undoubtedly comfortable zero-G locomotion system that lets you fly through the air without the slightest hint of motion sickness.
Lone Echo is the sort of cinematic sci-fi narrative that engages the player with its excellent voice acting, impressive visuals, and a deep and memorable story. Combined with its innovative locomotion system, it’s truly a gem of a game worth playing—if only to say you’ve been to the edge of the Universe and back. Check out why we gave Lone Echoa solid [9/10] in our review.
Where Lone Echo isplodding and tactful in its storytelling, Echo VR amps up the speed, throwing you in an online team sport that’s a fun mix of soccer and ultimate Frisbee… in space. The best part? It’s free to own permanently. Echo Combat, the first-person shooter expansion to Echo VR, isn’t here yet, but it’s also shown that the high-flying, zero-G locomotion mechanic is definitely suited to other game genres.
Vader Immortal: A Star Wars Series
This three-part Star Wars cinematic experience arrives from ILMxLabs, Lucas Films’ skunkworks which is known for having churned out some of the highest-quality immersive content to date.
Vader Immortal is more of a VR ‘experience’ than it is a outright game, presenting the user with a 45-minute adventure for each episode, however each comes with its own game area that lets you practice all of your Jedi skills in what’s called the ‘Lightsaber Dojo’. In other, less capable hands, this would be a hokey add-on, but here it actually works and makes sense. All in all, it definitely deserves to be on the list however you slice it.
Beat Saber
Created by Prague-based indie team Beat Studio, Beat Saber(2018) is a funky and incredibly stylish rhythm game that will have you slicing blocks to the beat of high-BPM dance music. While the idea is simple, the execution is magnificent. Beat Saber gives you a mess of songs to play, each with four difficulty levels to master, the highest being expert which will have you feeling like a 21st century techno-Jedi.
If you haven’t played the PC or console version of SUPERHOT (2016) before, get ready for a new take on the FPS genre with its strategy-based shooting missions. Designed from the ground-up for VR headsets, SUPERHOT VR (2016) is an entirely separate game in the same vein as its flatscreen counterpart. The iconic red baddies (and their bullets) move only when you do, so you can line up your shot, punch a guy in the face, dodge a bullet, and toss a bottle across the room, shattering their red-glass heads in what feels intensely immersive and satisfying—because you’re doing it all with your own two hands. That and you’ll feel like a badass no matter whose basement you live in.
People used to think that fast-paced, high-action games would be too disorienting for new virtual reality users, but in Epic Games’ Robo Recall (2017), you can teleport around at full speed as you blast away at the game’s evil (and hilarious) robot army. If being able to tear your enemies literally limb from limb and beat a robot over the head with their own dismembered arm isn’t astounding enough, the level of detail and polish put into this game will make you reassess what’s possible in VR.
Find out why we gave Robo Recall [8.5/10] in our review.
Trover Saves the Universe
From the co-creator of Rick and Morty comes the 3D platformer Trover Saves the Universe. Your dogs have been dognapped by a beaked lunatic who stuffed them into his eye holes and is using their life essence to destroy the universe. You’re partnered with Trover, a little purple eye-hole monster who isn’t a huge fan of working or being put in the position of having to save the universe.
We haven’t had a chance to review Trover Saves the Universe, although it’s currently sitting at a very respectable [4.76/5] on the Oculus Store.
I Expect You to Die
Schell Games has only just pushed out the last DLC installment of the hit spy-themed puzzler I Expect You to Die (2016). It’s on basically every platform now, and for good reason: it’s incredibly clever, well-built, and easy enough to pick up while being hard enough not to want to put down.
I Expect You to Die is currently sitting at a good [4.66/5] on the Oculus Store.
Moss
Once a PSVR exclusive, Moss (2017) has now made its way to PC VR headsets, letting you control your cute little mouse buddy, Quill, on your adventures through a large and dangerous world. Stylistically, Moss hits a home run with its impressive diorama-style visuals and interactive elements that lets you, the player (aka ‘The Reader’) move puzzle pieces around and also take over the minds of enemies as Quill slashes through the world to recover her lost uncle. Puzzles may not be the most difficult, but Moss has effectively set up a universe begging for more sequels to further flesh out the enticing world Polyarc Games has created.
See why we gave it a [7.9/10] in our review on PSVR.
Honorable Mentions
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR: While not an Oculus Store game, Bethesda’s Steam version of Skyrim VR fully supports Oculus Rift, letting you engage in multiple tens of hours of exploring the beautifully realized open world environment. What else is there to say? It’s Skyrim in VR.
No Man’s Sky: Unlike Skyrim VR, this is a free update to the game, which you can grab on Steam. It’s a bit flawed, but it’s an infinite galaxy of opportunities, so it always has that going for it.
Job Simulator: Tongue in cheek madness as you enter a far off future where robots rule the world, and consequently also have no idea how the past actually was. Smash stuff. Silly Robots. Hilarity ensues.
Vacation Simulator: Owlchemy Labs’s followup to Job Simulator. More story, a more open environment to traverse (albeit node teleportation) and a ton of vacation-style activities to explore and play. Arguably better than the first.
Arizona Sunshine: Offering you a chance to explore, collect real-world guns and indiscriminately shoot them at every moving thing (in this case zombies), Arizona Sunshine fills a very special place in many people’s hearts. The story mode does offer some thrills, but isn’t really groundbreaking as such.
Onward – A fan favorite with a hardcore playerbase, the OD green of mil-sim shooters Onward gives you that VR battle you’ve always wanted, including tactical team-based gameplay and plenty of guns.
The Mage’s Tale: Touch – Crafting elemental magic, exploring foreboding dungeons, battling giants and stealing their treasure. There’s all of this and more in The Mage’s Tale. Althoughstory-wise the game comes too close to campy and played out for its own good, it’s still a solid investment for the enterprising young wizard among you.
DiRT Rally: Gamepad/steering wheel – Driving through the forest with a beer in your hand isn’t ok…in reality. But in DiRT Rally you’ll need all the soothing ethanol you can get as you stomach the twists and turns of an exciting car simulator, that while rated ‘intense’ on the Oculus Store, is ultimately a fun and exciting way to burn some time perfecting your Initial D drifting skills. Ok. Better leave out the alcohol anyway.
Edge of Nowhere (2016) Gamepad – A third-person VR survival horror game created by Insomniac Games that strands you in the icy wasteland of Antarctica, Edge of Nowhere leaves you with only a pick-axe, a shotgun, and some rocks to defend yourself against a bloodthirsty ancient species that lurk inside the snowy caverns.
Chronos (2016): Gamepad – A third-person adventure by Gunfire Games, Chronos will have you slashing at enemies with the long-trained penchant for beat-em-ups will get you exactly nowhere in this Zelda-inspired, Dark Souls-ish-level of difficulty game where dying in the game physically ages your character.
If the list doesn’t have the game you’ve been eyeing for months, definitely check out our reviews for some more gaming greats on Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PSVR.
Update (November 19th, 2019): We’ve done a long-due overhaul of the list, expanding it from five to 10 games. We’ve also done away with the ranking system. If you’re looking for a more quantified list by user review rankings, check out The Top 20 Best & Most Rated Rift Games & Apps.
The Vive Deluxe Audio Strap is a more ergonomic strap with integrated headphones for the HTC Vive, and when it launched last month, it was only on sale for less than 48 hours until stocks ran dry in the EU and US. Now the company says not only will it be back in stock for US/UK/EU customers on July 10th, but that a special adapter for the Vive Pre will also be available for free with purchase.
In our review of the Vive Deluxe Audio Strap, we found the improved headstrap makes a major difference in comfort and usability of the headset. Proving to be popular despite the $100/£100/€120 price tag, many territories ran out of stock in only a few days. The strap is still available for purchase in Australia, New Zealand, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan.
HTC Vive Pre, photo courtesy HTC
The Vive Pre was the company’s last developer kit, but it’s essentially the same hardware that shipped out to customers when the consumer edition of the headset officially launched in April of last year, save a few minor differences—but because of the Vive Pre’s slightly different mounting mechanism, the HTC-built aftermarket strap simply won’t fit out of the box.
HTC is providing the free upgrade kit that will let Pre-customers use the Audio Strap. The company says limited quantities are available, and only when purchasing a new Deluxe Audio Strap directly from Vive.com. To get an adapter, simply apply the following promo code when checking out with your new strap: txjvuovh3
Sale of the Vive Deluxe Audio Strap starts Monday July 10th at 10 AM Pacific Time (click for your time zone).
Although full instructions and all the parts you need will be provided to safetly attach the strap to the Vive Pre, the company cautions users to follow the setup guide carefully, because as a developer kit, Vive Pre is not covered under warranty and any damage is on the owner.
San Diego’s Comic-Con always sees a massive fanfare for all things science fiction, so there’s no better place for Alcon Entertainment and Warner Bros Pictures to debut the VR experience for their upcoming film Blade Runner 2049,Riddley Scott’s sequel to the iconic Blade Runner (1982).
Update (7/19/17):Oculus today confirmed that the Blade Runner 2049: Replicant Pursuit VR experience will launch on July 21st on Gear VR. Interestingly, Replicant Pursuit is the first of three installments of Blade Runner 2049 VR experiences—each of which is being produced by a different developer—to be released leading up to the film’s premiere in October. The latter two will be available on both Gear VR and Rift. A trailed for the experience can be see below:
In Replicant Pursuit, developed by Turtle Rock Studios (Face Your Fears, Other Worlds), players will hop in a ‘spinner’ hover car to track down a rogue replicant. As the project is a promotion for the upcoming film, we expect the experiences will launch for free.
Original Article (7/7/19): Theatrical release of the Blade Runner 2049 is still slated for October 6th, but San Diego-based fans will get a chance to pop into the VR representation of the Blade Runner universe starting July 20th-23rd. According to a press release, not only Comic-Con badge holders can attend, but also the general public is invited to try out the VR experience and paw at everything else on display.
image courtesy San Diego Comic-Con
Alcon Entertainment is setting up an physical Blade Runner 2049 experience for fans to attend, including a Blade Runner art gallery, a display of actual vehicles featured in the film, actors dressed in the film’s wardrobe walking around the crowd, and of course the Oculus VR experience itself. The event will take place in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter during the entirety of Comic-Con weekend.
The VR experience is said to feature a walk through the film’s neon-lit setting including an impromptu test to determine if you’re a human or a replicant.
Located across the street from the Comic-Con convention center, the Blade Runner 2049 Experience will be open from 10:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. on Thursday and Friday; 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Saturday; and 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. on Sunday. Guests can register to enter at a specific appointment time with a same-day appointment, or choose to wait in line. Admission is free.
Japan is an exceedingly normal place when it comes down to daily life, but for some reason the culture’s social norms are—how should we put it—famously elastic. As reported by Vocativ, virtual reality played a big part in a recent marketing campaign for an upcoming sequel to the dating sim series Niizuma Lovely x Cation that saw the non-legal marriage between a number of men and their virtual girlfriends interacting through an HTC Vive headset.
Developed by Japanese adult game studio Hibiki Works, Niizuma Lovely x Cation lets you simulate creating a relationship with an anime girl and come face-to-face with her in VR. While it may seem ridiculous to some, the dating sim genre has a serious following in Japan, and its extension into VR is only logical.
According to Vocativ, between April 28 and May 28, Hibiki Works started collecting applications from its player base to see who wanted to marry one of three lucky brides-to-be: Yuki Isurugi, Aiko Kurihara or Nono Naruse. On June 12th, the lucky grooms received an email on how to dress and what to bring to ‘make the day go smoothly.’
image courtesy Hibiki Works
Reportedly officiated by a real priest, a number of men donned an HTC Vive on June 30th at a chapel in Tokyo and were united in holy matrimony. The marriages were performed privately (besides the one shown in the video above) and lasted around 5 minutes per wedding—of course sealed with a virtual kiss which was simulated by an attendant with a pair of rubber lips on a stick.
While the wedding ceremonies were held as promotional tool for the studios upcoming Niizuma: Lovely x Cation, the fact that VR is already playing a big part in how fans interact with a genre as mind-bending as dating sims tells much about where the next frontier of digital-human interaction is headed. There’s a clear desperation for human interaction that isn’t being fulfilled in a portion of the population, and VR might help bridge those gaps—for better, for worse, for richer, or for poorer. Either way, we’re not here to judge.
The BBC’s newest VR documentary, Easter Rising: Voice of a Rebel, today launched on Gear VR and Oculus Rift. The 13-minute documentary takes you through one man’s memories on a journey back to a defining moment in Irish history, the armed insurrection against British rule during Easter Week, April 1916 that saw the execution of fifteen Irish leaders and internment of more than a thousand people—kindling for the nascent Irish sentiment of self-rule which later manifested in 1922 with the founding of the Irish Free State.
Easter Rising: Voice of a Rebel is now available for free on the Oculus Store for both Oculus Rift and Gear VR.
Created by BBC iWonder, Crossover Labs and VRTOV, the story follows audio from Willie McNeive, taken from a 1970s tape recording. With the voice of McNeive as your guide, a participant in the Easter Rising nearly 60 years beforehand, you’re transported back to the streets of 1916 Dublin to see the uprising against the British. McNeive was only 19 years old at the time.
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image courtesy BBC
image courtesy BBC
image courtesy BBC
According to the developers, each scene in the 13-minute story has a fixed point of view, but the viewer can look around in the full 360-degree environment and see the action while listening to recollections of the events in various locations.
The BBC bills it as “an artistic journey into the memory of an ordinary man who was swept up into an extraordinary event.”
Zillah Watson, Head of Commissioning, Virtual Reality, says: “Easter Rising: Voice of a Rebel is a fascinating account of a critical moment in Ireland’s history, told from a unique perspective. It shows that virtual reality can be used to give audiences a greater sense of presence, enabling them to better understand a range of issues like important current affairs, news, science and history.”
Dead Secret (2015),Robot Invader’s first-person mystery thriller for PC, Gear VR and SteamVR-capable headsets, is getting a sequel called Dead Secret Circle. The second installment in the series is slated to come to VR and traditional platforms in 2017.
Like its predecessor, Dead Secret Circle is a narrative-driven mystery thriller set in the past—this time fast-forwarding to the brutal winter of 1971 Chicago, where you, a gumshoe reporter dive into your own subconscious to catch a killer haunting both your dreams and the people of the city.
We got a chance to review the first Dead Secret, calling it one of the early great successes in VR thrillers. With a clear penchant for generating haunting suspense rather than cheap jump scares, Dead Secret relies more on cultivating intrigue through its many clues scattered throughout the game that help you unravel the mystery (and horror) of the world around you.
It’s uncertain exactly which VR platforms the new Dead Secret Circle is targeting at this time.
Google wants to make it easier for VR/AR app developers to create 3D objects with its new app revealed today called Blocks, a program designed to let you build assets for the immersive mediums from within the VR headset itself.
Creating objects for VR is traditionally done on a 2D screen with the aide of relatively complex modeling programs like Blender or ZBrush, and while these programs have gotten more user-friendly throughout the years, there’s nothing quite like building something with your own two hands and viewing it naturally from different angles like you would any physical model. Today Google is launching Blocks for free for both Oculus Rift and HTC Vive in effort to let VR headset owners easily create low-poly 3D objects in the time it takes you to come up with an idea.
Creations can be exported as a standard OBJ file so developers can easily plug them into their AR or VR projects. Blocks also lets you share your creations to the web, generate an animated gif to display your work, and re-mix examples from their VR objects developers portal.
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image courtesy Google
image courtesy Google
image courtesy Google
image courtesy Google
image courtesy Google
Google says Blocks is designed to “feel more like playing with children’s blocks than working with traditional 3D modeling software. Starting with a simple set of shapes, a color palette, and an intuitive set of tools, you’re able to naturally and quickly create almost anything you can imagine, from a piece of watermelon to a whole forest scene.”
I got a chance to play with Blocks before public release, and even though I’m a complete novice in modeling software, within only 30 minutes I had created a fairly complex object—not a good one by any stretch of the imagination, but that’s really more on me as a not-incredible artist. For my first time though (including the tutorial), it was surprisingly quick and easy.
image captured by Road to VR
Much like Google’s critically acclaimed Tilt Brush (2016), the company’s 3D paint program, Blocks offers a bevy of tools, basic textures and shapes to choose from so you can construct whatever’s in your imagination. And just like Tilt Brush, using your own two hands to create is simple and incredibly natural.
Modifying and resizing the few bits of geometry I chose was as easy as selecting the modifier tool with my left controller and grasping a vertex, shape face or edge with my right controller in order to stretch and form the model into any complex shape (within reason to avoid too many collisions). Re-scaling the object was activated by an intuitive pinch-and-zoom movement using both controllers.
Being able to create and export my new low-polygon-count object and toss it into whatever program I want, including Tilt Brush and Windows stock modeling program 3D Builder (among many, many others), really makes me want to start creating my own characters, objects, and avatars. The thought of 3D printing them excites me even more, like conjuring something from thin air through an act of digital alchemy.
If you already own either an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive and want to start building, you really don’t have an excuse now not to start creating pieces of your virtual world.
Germany-based customers looking to snap up a deal on Oculus Rift and Touch, the VR headset’s motion controller, are seeing one of the biggest price cuts thanks to German electronics retailer MediaMarkt. Normally costing €708 for both Rift and Touch, the special sale bundle has slashed prices to a total of €453.99 including VAT and shipping to anywhere in Germany.
The sale is only available on the company’s German site, and doesn’t appear on other international branches MediaMarkt including Switzerland, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, or Italy-based MediaWorld.
If you’re in Germany however but for some reason don’t have a permanent address, you can also pay online and pick up the bundle in-store providing both items are currently in stock. It’s uncertain at this time how long the sale will last.
image courtesy MediaMarkt
Although Oculus has done some serious legwork to get Oculus-Ready computers down to as low as $650, price is still a big barrier of entry for many people that would otherwise want to jump right into VR. When you factor in the cost of a VR-capable computer with that of the Rift headset and Touch, you could be seeing a price tag well over €1,000, meaning any savings in cost is good news.
US-based Rift+Touch bundles can still be had for as low as $600 on Amazon.com and Best Buy.
