EVE: Valkyrie (2016), the arcade dogfighter from EVE Online studio CCP Games, is about to get a big update that promises to take the game in what lead game dev Andrew Willans says via an official Sony blogpost “new and exciting directions.” Called Groundrush, the new update—launching April 11th on PSVR—will include tweaks to existing systems and a brand new map, Solitude, that brings the dogfight to the surface of a snowy planet.
Besides Solitude,Groundrush promises weirder and wilder wormholes, a feature that was added 2 months ago that changes up the game’s maps in unexpected ways.
Co-op will also now include Control and Carrier Assault. According to Willans, “no matter which mode you select, all XP progression and rewards are the same. You play the game how you want to, and be rewarded for it. Squads welcome!”
image courtesy CCP Games
Willan mentions in the blogpost that Groundrush will also include a new avatar animation feature. The feature hasn’t been specified, but “the animations will help pilots celebrate a victory or commiserate a defeat.” English subtitles will also be a part of the update.
Valkyrie League Alpha is also changing somewhat, as CCP will be improving Training modules, tweaking multiplayer playlists and fixing many bug and stability issues. Leagues is a system developed to increase player competition by offering 4 leagues in descending order of difficulty to enter; diamond, sapphire, ruby, and emerald—effectively providing a players across all supported platforms bragging rights. Valkyrie supports cross-platform play with Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PSVR.
It’s uncertain when the update will hit other supported headsets.
Check back for our hands-on impressions of the new Groundrush update.
Disclosure: CCP Games provided airfare and lodging for Road to VR to attend Fanfest 2017
With the Galaxy S8 and S8+ coming later this month, Samsung is hoping to sweeten the deal with a free Gear VR headset and Controller for US and Canadian pre-orders before April 20th. And while there are plenty of free games on the Oculus app store, Samsung is also giving away a free Oculus content pack to get you started (US purchases only).
Samsung Galaxy S8 ($750) and Galaxy S8+ ($850) aren’t exactly cheap, but if you’re looking for an easy way to jump into VR and upgrade your phone, now may just be the time to act.
US carriers include AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile. The free Gear VR and Controller offer is also available for Canadian pre-orders (presumably unlocked devices), but the Oculus content bundle is for US customers only.
In addition, the US-based Samsung store is offering a pair of Harman AKG Y50BT black headphones ($149.95 value) and 256GB Samsung MicroSD EVO+ memory card ($146.48 value) for an additional $99 to go along with your free Gear VR headset/Controller and Oculus content bundle.
The content bundle represents a good smattering of genres, from the heady Esper 2 (2016) puzzler to the fast-paced space battles of End Space (2016). While these are sure to keep you busy on your first few days, the store is matured a lot since it was first opened back in 2014, and is chocked full of great free games and experiences, so keep an eye on the top free section of the Oculus store. Oculus is boasting over 70 games on the store (with none of the ‘low-effort chaff’ you find on Google Play).
Social VR is also accessible using Gear VR, which can let you connect to the most of the VR headset-owning community thanks to cross-platform apps like Altspace VR andVTime—not to mention Oculus’s own Room app which is planned for cross-compatibility with the Oculus Rift in the near future.
Gear VR also lets you watch livestreaming 360 video like Next VR’s live sports coverage or special promotional 3D 360 videos like Ghost in the Shell VR Experience. Browse the web, watch Netflix in your private movie theater, go to museums—there’s so much to see and do on Gear VR.
For more VR apps, games and experiences, check out at the Oculus Store.
The live-action Ghost in the Shell (2017) film starring Scarlett Johansson is already in theaters worldwide, but Oculus has today published the VR experience so you can get a slice of the android-kicking action direct on your Gear VR or Oculus Rift.
Created by VR studio Here Be Dragons in partnership with Oculus Studios and Paramount Pictures, the Ghost in the Shell VR Experience takes you on an on-rails journey of the iconic opening scene of nearly every Ghost in the Shell series to date, the ‘building dive’ where Major, the film’s cybernetically enhanced protagonist, jumps off a skyscraper wearing a hip-hugging thermoptic camouflage suit.
The digital representation of Major, played by Johansson in the film, straddles the uncanny valley somewhat, but the 360 action more than makes up for it as Major shoots her way through killer android geishas and bad guys of all types. Near the end, diving ever deeper into her mind, there’s a moment when you come to to a jelly fish-filled pool that’s nothing short of awe-inspiring.
What’s more, Oculus Rift owners (and Vive owners using ReVive) get to enjoy a real-time rendered version of the experience, meaning you get an eye-full of some pretty crisp graphics with the immersive power of the headset’s positional tracking.
The Gear VR version, while still inspiring, is a 3D 360 video—with all the caveats of the medium including lower fidelity and some weirdness around the top and bottom poles of the video capture. None the less, the Gear VR version is clear above average for 3D 360 videos.
If you don’t own a VR headset, you can also watch the 360 video on Facebook, although you’ll truly be missing out on one of the slickest film tie-ins in VR to date.
VR studio Here Be Dragons (ex-VRSE) is known for producing critically acclaimed VR experiences and 360 film from a number of collaborators such as The History of Cuban Dance, The Mr. Robot VR Experience, Catatonic, and The Evolution of Verse to name a few.
Downward Spiral: Prologue (2017) is a sci-fi adventure game that takes you into a lovingly recreated ’70s retro future of CRT monitors and space stations abound. Featuring a single-player and coop mission, and multiplayer death match mode Downward Spiral: Prologue feels like the creators have torn out the first few pages of an Arthur C. Clarke novel and realized it in virtual reality.
Generator power: offline. Life support: offline. Artificial gravity: offline.
You’re tossed in with little back story, but it’s clear what you have to do aboard what appears to be an abandoned space station orbiting Earth. Get systems back online and see what happens.
Grabbing the railing you propel yourself to the nearest airlock and enter the station. Because you’re in a microgravity environment, you have to stop yourself with your hand and navigate forward by pushing off walls, and using the world’s many hand railings and button-filled consoles for stability.
There’s a lot to like about Downward Spiral: Prologue, from its well-polished interiors to its innovative locomotion scheme that has you free-floating in space, but I wasn’t impressed at all by the 15-minute length of the game. That’s right, another short-lived VR game that’s selling for real money on Steam.
But if the short single player/coop mission doesn’t deter you, you’re in for some very cohesive art, some interesting exploration in what feels like a real space station and a satisfying conclusion of the little level that will definitely leave you wanting for more of everything. Considering this is the first installment of the game, which hasn’t gone through any sort of pre-funding scheme like Steam Greenlight program or Kickstarter, purchasing the game at $9.99 (€9,99 or £6,99) means you’re directly funding the second installment.
There aren’t really any puzzles to speak of, as the action is mostly driven by a few neat little button-filled consoles that jump-start the station’s various processes. There are also a few enemies to dispatch with a pistol, but the world’s little electric robot enemies are laughably easy to kill. It seems the atmosphere around you is really the star of the show here.
Deathmatch allows up to eight players to experience the same zero gravity gunplay in “environments familiar to the story,” meaning the same map. I wasn’t able to get into a deathmatch during pre-release of the game, so I can’t speak to its entirety. This isn’t a “shooter” however, so I’m still mystified as to why there’s a deathmatch in the first place. I’ll be updating my impressions (and score if need be) as soon as I get into a match.
Immersion
At first it took me a few moments to get used to the locomotion style of floating around and pushing off the corridors of the space station, but after a little practice I was flying through the world with relative ease. I was surprised at just how good it was, similar to Oculus’ recently released Mission:ISS (2017).
Shooting the game’s pistols wasn’t an entirely a hitch-free experience. Aiming felt a little unnatural, a possible tribute to realism as my space suit didn’t entirely allow for free movement with the pistol. I found myself being more deliberate in how I aimed because of it though as my bullets zinged through the vast expanse of the engine room.
Getting zapped by a robot feels right. Your sight is slightly more red-tinted every time you take a hit, and the sound mutes ever so slightly the worse the onslaught.
I played the game with both the Oculus Rift (with Touch) and the HTC Vive. The game is an open 360 environment, so a 3-sensor set-up is a must for Rift players if you want to forget the Touch version’s snap-turn. As per usual, the stock Vive setup provided for a flawless 360-tracking experience.
Comfort
Floating in space can be stomach-turning, but it seems the developers have nailed the locomotion scheme in Downward Spiral: Prologue to a pretty fine degree.
Besides relying on an hand-held air compressor you find midway through that lets you bebop around with your own personal jet, you have to use a little physicality to push off and stop yourself with walls. Thankfully grabbing out for any and all parts of the ship lets you stop yourself, and you sort of settle int your forward motion after a while.
The HUD design also helps anchor you in the world, keeping nausea at bay. The video walk-through below (warning: the full game is completely spoiled below) shows a bit of the left side of helmet in the frame, but it’s really not so intrusive. The helmet design only slightly cuts off your horizontal field of view (FOV).
Despite having a temperamental belly when it comes to artificial locomotion (I made myself sick playing Mission ISS), Downward Spiral seems to have done everything in its power to limit nausea, and I walked away feeling surprisingly normal.
We partnered with AVA Direct to create the Exemplar 2 Ultimate, our high-end VR hardware reference point against which we perform our tests and reviews. Exemplar 2 is designed to push virtual reality experiences above and beyond what’s possible with systems built to lesser recommended VR specifications.
Palmer Luckey, the co-founder of Oculus VR and designer of the Oculus Rift, is stepping down from his position at the company.
Oculus told Upload VR the news, saying that it will be Luckey’s last week at the Facebook-owned VR headset company.
“Palmer will be dearly missed. Palmer’s legacy extends far beyond Oculus. His inventive spirit helped kickstart the modern VR revolution and helped build an industry. We’re thankful for everything he did for Oculus and VR, and we wish him all the best.”
The result of a record-breaking US$2.4 million Kickstarter campaign, Oculus went on to produce two VR headset developer kits, dubbed Oculus Rift DK1 (released in March 2013) and Rift DK2 (released in July 2014)—devices upon which prospective developers could create VR games and experiences that would eventually populate the Oculus Home store. The two headsets, the direct result of Luckey’s efforts, would go on to kickstart an entire industry.
Rift DK1 (left), Rift DK2 (right)
Oculus then went on to be acquired by Facebook in March 2014 for US$3 billion, an event that culminated in the launch of the first consumer-level VR headset for the company in March 2016—the Oculus Rift. As a result, Forbes Magazine estimated Luckey’s net worth to exceed US$700 million.
After the acquisition, Luckey however settled into somewhat of an undefined position at the company, oftentimes playing the boisterous, flip flop-wearing front man of the organization when he wasn’t working with the team to develop Oculus Touch, the platform’s natural motion input controller.
Palmer Luckey hand-delivering the first Oculus Rift to pre-order customer #1 in Alaska
After the news was out and confirmed by Luckey himself to be true that he was secretly providing funds to the pro-Donald Trump non-profit organization, he went into nearly complete radio silence, stopping all activity on Twitter—unusual for Luckey considering how openly he interfaced with the developers and fans on the social platform.
In December 2016, it was said he would be taking on a new role after ex-CEO Brendan Iribe stepped down to take lead of Facebook’s PC VR division, Oculus confirmed to The Verge, but no verifiable information came out as to exactly where he landed in the company.
Based on a photo courtesy Dallas News
Earlier this year Luckey found himself the subject (and defendant) in a prominent lawsuit between ZeniMax and Facebook/Oculus centered on an alleged misappropriation of intellectual property (i.e. the Oculus Rift) that ZeniMax says was disclosed under the sanctity of a nondisclosure agreement. A bitter pill to swallow: the lawsuit resulted in a $500 million award to ZeniMax.
Luckey’s absence from Oculus comes nearly on the one-year anniversary of the launch of the consumer Oculus Rift. What’s next for the 24-year old near-billionaire is uncertain at this time.
Announced at Samsung’s Unpacked event earlier this year was a new version of the Gear 360, the company’s 360 camera. The event, which saw official announcement of the Galaxy S8/S8 plus and pricing info of the new Gear VR headset, revealed that the new Gear 360 is capable of capturing 360 video in 4K (4096 x 2160) at 24 fps, and livestreaming 2K to Facebook and YouTube. The camera is now due to launch in the US tomorrow (Thursday, May 25th) with an attractive new price of $229.
Update (5/24/17, 9:57AM PT): Since the original announcement of the new Gear 360 (also known as the 2017 Gear 360 or the Gear 360 2), Samsung has now revealed launch info for the camera in the US.
The device will hit store shelves Thursday, May 25th, priced at $229, which is $121 less than the original version launched in 2016. Samsung says the camera will be available for purchase in-store and online from Amazon, AT&T, Best Buy, T-Mobile, Verizon, US Cellular, and Samsung.
Original Article (3/29/17): Now fitting in a bulbous hand-held form-factor, the 2017 Gear 360 is upping the resolution and spreading support to more devices including the iPhone 7, a first for the little 360 camera. Last year’s model shot at a max resolution of 3840 x 1920 at 30 fps, didn’t include livestreaming, and only connected to a a number of select Samsung handsets.
Samsung hasn’t released pricing and availability yet, but the company maintains shipping will start sometime in April or May and cost less than last year’s model at $350.
Gear 360 Specs (2017)
CMOS 8.4MP x2 / F2.2 lens (Default output pixel count equivalent to 15MP) Dual Lens Mode, Single Lens Mode (Front/Rear) Video, Photo, Time lapse, Video looping, Landscape HDR EV, Sharpness, White Balance, HDR, Wind Cut, ISO Limit (up to 1600) Horizontal Correction, Geo Tagging (via Smartphone)
Still Capturing (Max Resolution) 360˚ Dual Lens: up to 15MP (5472 x 2736) Single Lens: up to 3MP (2304 x 1296) Format: JPEG
Video Recording (Max Resolution) 360˚ Dual Lens: up to 4096 x 2048 (24fps) Single Lens: up to 1920 x 1080 (60fps) Codec: MP4 (H.265)
Recording time: Up to 130 mins (2560 x 1280 / 30fps)
Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4/5GHz), Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth v4.1, USB 2.0 (Type-C)
Water & Dust proof: IP53 (Dust and Splash-proof)
Like its predecessor, video is managed through the Samsung Gear 360 app, allowing the camera to change views and apply multiple modes on the fly. Samsung says that the app will also allow you to convert 360 content into a standard video or photo format.
Live-stream capture is sent wirelessly to PC or any one of the supported smartphones first, and then uploaded to either YouTube or Facebook as live broadcasts. It’s uncertain if Gear VR headsets will have access to these live-streams.
Everyone in attendance at Unpacked received a free Gear 360. Last year’s ‘gift’ was a Gear VR headset.
While you wait for pre-orders, check out this hands-on demo from Samsung’s own Newsroom in the meantime.
On stage today at Samsung’s Unpacked Event in New York, the new Gear VR with controller finally got a launch date and price. The new 2017 Gear VR and Controller combo,announced alongside the Galaxy S8, will be available April 21st for $129. A Controller, which can be purchased separately for people that already own an older Gear VR headset, will set you back $39.
Pre-orders for the new Gear VR and Controller combo, as well as separate Controllers, will be available on the Samsung website.
Oculus, the principle partner of the Gear VR mobile platform, will also be rolling out their “biggest mobile platform update yet,” saying they’ve rebuilt Oculus Home from the ground up. The company says that this has reduced load times by up to 3x.
Oculus is promising 70 new titles with controller support “coming soon” with nearly 20 titles to choose from in April, and 50 more to follow over the next few months.
Oculus say zombie shooter Drop Dead, puzzle game Rangi and SingSpace will be receiving support for Controller, including Oculus Rooms.
The single-handed controller, much like the Daydream VR controller, will provide motion tracking. Engagdet’s Devindra Hardawar got a hands-on with the controller, saying “the motion tracking felt fairly accurate, but mostly I was struck by how it felt in my hand. It has a slightly angle orientation, and your fingers naturally fall on the large trackpad on top and the trigger button on the back. That trigger, by the way, differentiates it from the Daydream View remote, which only has a trackpad and a few buttons. It makes the controller more in line with the Oculus Touch and Vive gamepads, and it’s a big help for most VR shooting titles.”
This story is breaking. We’ll be updating with new information as it comes out.
In-game advertisement (IGA) is a pretty divisive issue; on one hand it provides needed incentive to developers who otherwise wouldn’t have the funds, on the other hand its … advertisement, something most people try to avoid on principle. Now that virtual reality is coming to a wider audience, it seems the medium is mature enough to open the conversation about funding games with ads, something HTC is letting developers enable in a big way with their newly announced VR Ad Service—and VR ads are different. Very different.
Launched today at 2017 VIVE Ecosystem Conference, a new HTC event centered on the future of the Vive platform, the VR Ad Service will make it easier for developers to integrate a number of ad styles into their games hosted on Viveport. Viveport is the company’s digital distribution platform intended for both at-home service and the ever-growing out-of-home arcade market proliferating across China.
The new program offers a number of ad styles that can play on both PC and a still unnamed HTC mobile VR headset. These include loading scene banners, big screen video, and both 2D and 3D in-app placement advertisements. A full list is available on the Vive developer site.
The VR Ad Service is an opt-in program, so only developers that wish to include ads can do so, however HTC says that by opting in “all of your free apps would be automatically put on the list which can be used to integrate VR Ads.”
But because of VR’s integrated head tracking technology, gaining revenue from ads is going to be a bit different. People actually have to look at the ads.
“Ads that appear in immersive VR environments can not only provide more effective impressions, they can also track whether the users have viewed them or have turned away their gaze,” writes HTC on the VR Ad Service site. “Accordingly, the multiplied effect of effective impressions and verified viewings will bring you higher advertising revenue!”
While in-game VR ads tracking your very gaze may sound like something out of a Neal Stephenson novel, it’s really a double-sided coin. By integrating more data points into the equation, advertisers can better determine what ads are actually relevant to you, so the likelihood of you seeing ‘dumb ads’ or ones cast out to the general public, decreases. The same theory applies to in-game analytics like Aladin Dynamics’ Ghostline tool used in Waltz of the Wizard which revealed some interesting information about what users did in the space, for how long, and what they found most interesting.
“Compared to ordinary Ad impressions, Ads that are seen by users in an immersive VR environment can not only meet the user’s needs by means of precise re-targeting, but can also be detected if they are viewed effectively by users. Therefore, promotion of your applications would have much more effective impression, which not only arouses the attention of potential users and enhance brand image, but further attracts interested users directly to download your apps in the VR environment!”
Vive’s VR Ad Service was announced alongside the news that the company will be an exclusive partner for all VR content related to upcoming film Ready Player One and a new HTC-led initiative called International VR Research Institute (IVRI), which has struck partnership with Shenzhen’s local government in order to “make Shenzhen a global center for VR research, development, and applications.”
HTC’s Vive Tacker, the Lighthouse-compatible puck that promises to get more than your hands into virtual reality with a bevy of hardware applications, is now officially available for sale to anyone with $99.
Vive Tracker made its debut at CES 2017 this past January, where we got a chance to try out several applications showing off just how versatile the little puck really is. We got to fire custom-built guns, swing bats in a baseball training sim and use positionally-tracked gloves that gave us a level of precision that just isn’t possible with today’s IMU-based systems alone.
The tracker is available through both its US developer page for $99 (with US-only shipping) and its China-based online storefront for 799 yuan. There’s no word from HTC when other international customers will be able to purchase the device.
Orders include one tracker, a USB cable, power adapter, a 2.4 Ghz dongle and dongle cradle. One charge is estimated to bring the user 4.5 hours of playtime.
General release of Vive Tracker comes on the heels of HTC’s launch initiative, where the company gave away 1000 of the pucks to developers who made it through their review process, sometimes giving multiple units to indie studios like CloudGate Studio, developers of the dinosaur-themed shooterIsland 359 (2016).
The tracker houses multiple Lighthouse sensors, a 6-pin ‘pogo’ connector, a micro USB charging port and a standard 1/4 inch mount at the bottom, so not only can it communicate button presses through Vive Tracker itself, but it can also be securely attached to anything and everything with a standard tripod mounting screw. An integrated battery and its own wireless connection allow for Vive Tracker to communicate to the host computer.
The Deluxe Audio Strap, a head strap that significantly improves the ergonomic factor of the Vive headset, will also be priced at $100 and will begin pre-orders on May 2nd.
In preparation for Steven Spielberg’s theatrical adaptation of Ernest Cline’s critically acclaimed novel Ready Player One, HTC Vive and Warner Bros Pictures today announced a deal that makes the Vive an official partner for all upcoming VR content for the film. All Ready Player One VR content and experiences will be available on Viveport, HTC Vive’s digital distribution platform.
According to HTC, the company will produce multiple pieces of VR content tied to the world of Ready Player One,distributing it globally across all VR in-home platforms including high-end PC based VR systems to mobile solutions.
The company also plans to bring Ready Player One-inspired content to its Viveport Arcade platform for location-based entertainment as well as showcase the VR experiences and games at many of the biggest global consumer events through the year.
Based in a universe where highly-immersive VR is ubiquitous, things are sure to get pretty meta with Ready Player One VR content.
“Ready Player One is one of the most anticipated movies in the world, and has tremendous potential to engage and entertain the worldwide market, showcasing the transformative nature of VR, and what it can and will be,” said Rikard Steiber, President of Viveport. “Vive is delivering on the promise of VR and continues to be the most advanced and immersive VR experience available to consumers, and we’re thrilled to be partnering with Warner Bros. to bring these experiences to consumers, on all platforms, around the globe.”
Directed by Steven Spielberg, Ready Player One is starring Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn and T.J. Miller, with Simon Pegg and Mark Rylance. Zak Penn and Ernest Cline wrote the screenplay, based on the novel by Cline.
The film is slated for global theatrical release on March 30, 2018, from Warner Bros. Pictures, Amblin Partners and Village Roadshow Pictures.
