Year In Review: All VR/AR Hardware & Game Reviews From 2021

This year has seen some absolutely incredible games release for VR and AR platforms, alongside a smattering of new hardware releases as well.

As the year comes to a close, we’re looking back at some of the biggest stories and releases of 2021 and we’ve compiled all of our reviews from 2021 in one place.

Read on for the breakdown of UploadVR’s 2021 game and hardware reviews – we’ve highlighted some of the biggest releases in bold and included video reviews for some titles as well.


January – March

Mare Oculus Quest Review: A Breathless Beauty Of A VR Game
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Battlescar Review: An Explosive Must-See
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Hitman 3 VR Review – A (Mostly) Clean Kill
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Yupitergrad Review: Innovative VR Platforming That’s As Much Hard Work As It Is Fun
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Contractors Quest Review: VR Gets An Approachable Call of Duty-Style Shooter
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Ryte: The Eye of Atlantis Review: Watered-Down Myst
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Vanishing Grace Review: A Cozy Firewatch-Lite To Drink In
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Terje Haakonsen’s Powder VR Early Access Review: A Fine Winter Sports VR Game
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A Wake Inn Review: Tedious Pacing Overshadows Immersive Design
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Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs Review – A Shooting Success
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Crashland Review: A Deliciously Creepy If Overly Tough VR Critter Killer
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The Climb 2 Review: Quest Gets A Real Cliffhanger
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Flow Weaver Review: Clever Time-Weaving Doesn’t Escape Boredom
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Hyper Dash Review: Dynamic And Intense Competitive VR Shooter
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Cosmodread Review: Roguelike VR Horror Where No One Can Hear You Scream
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Doom 3: VR Edition Review – A Serviceable Port Of A Game Never Intended For VR
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Zombieland VR: Headshot Fever Review — Slightly Off-Target
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April – June

Floor Plan 2 Review: A Henson-Esque Marvel
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Hand Physics Lab Review: Experiments In Joy And Frustration At Your Fingertips
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Carly And The Reaperman Review – VR’s Best Asymmetrical Co-Op Overcomes Its Scrappy Side
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Alvo PSVR Review: Surprisingly Rewarding Barebones Shooter
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Maskmaker Review – Wonderfully Intricate But Familiar VR Fairy Tale
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Wraith: The Oblivion – Afterlife Review – Solid Survival Horror For VR
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Star Wars Pinball VR Review: Making the Bump(er) to Hyper Space
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The Wizards: Dark Times Review – Action-Packed Magical RPG Adventure
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Demeo Review – A Social VR Masterclass In An Engaging Tabletop RPG
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Zero Caliber: Reloaded Review – Fantastic Gunplay Held Back By Design Issues
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Solaris: Offworld Combat Review – Sci-Fi Quake For The VR Age
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Puzzle Bobble VR Review: A Fun If Unnecessary Take On A Classic
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Carve Snowboarding Review – A Thrilling Take On An Addictive Sport
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ForeVR Bowl Review: A Great Take On A Sport That Isn’t Ready For VR
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Stones Of Harlath Review: Novel But All-Too-Brief Dungeon Crawling Throwback
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Larcenauts Review: A Slick, Rich Shooter For Competitive Play
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Sentenced Review: A Brilliantly Bloody Bit Of VR Theater
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July – September

Chess Club Review – Almost All You Could Ask For From VR Chess
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A Rogue Escape Review: Brilliantly Stuffy, Mercilessly Tough Puzzler
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Sniper Elite VR Review: Old Dog, New Tricks
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Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual Review – Light On Interaction, Heavy On Hilarity
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Tarzan VR Review: Lord Of The Fumble
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Winds & Leaves Review-In-Progress: A Peaceful Kind Of Progress
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Arcsmith Review – Enjoyably Bitty, Immersive Puzzling From Bithell Games
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Stride Review: Fast, Fluid VR In Need Of Much More Content
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Disc Ninja Review – A Good Shot That Works Best In Multiplayer
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Arashi: Castles Of Sin Review – Fun, Forgiving VR Stealth
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Yuki Review: Classic Shooting Done Right in VR
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Vengeful Rites Review: The Legend of Virtual Reality
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Fracked Review: A Shooter With Brains, Brawn And Unfortunate Brevity
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I Expect You To Die 2 Review: A Worthy Sequel Rich With Detail
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Traffic Jams Review: Manic Mayhem In Mostly The Right Ways
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A Township Tale Review: A Fascinating Glimpse Of A Future VR Great (Quest)
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Goliath Review: Effective, Innovative Account Of Psychosis On Oculus Quest
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Puzzling Places Oculus Quest Review: Stunning 3D Puzzles With Most Of The Right Pieces
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Star Wars: Tales From The Galaxy’s Edge – Last Call Review: A Much More Satisfying Second Half
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Star Wars: Tales From The Galaxy’s Edge Full Review: Bringing Balance To The Force
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The Walking Dead – Aftershocks Review: The Endgame Saints & Sinners Needed
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Rhythm Of The Universe: Ionia Review – A Gorgeous But Empty Adventure (PC)
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The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners Review – The Best Zombie Apocalypse To Date (Updated 2021)
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Rainbow Reactor: Fusion Review – If It Paint Broke, Don’t Fix It
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October – December

Sweet Surrender Review: A Rock-Solid Roguelite With Room To Grow
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Jurassic World Aftermath: Part 2 DLC Review – Same, But Different
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Song in the Smoke Review: A Primal VR Survival Game With Real Majesty
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Loco Dojo Unleashed Review: VR’s Logical, Enjoyable Answer To Mario Party
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Lone Echo 2 Review: A Gorgeous But Glacial Swansong For The Oculus Rift
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Resident Evil 4 VR Review: An Incredible Way To Revisit A Classic
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Unplugged Review: Thrilling Air Guitar With Unmatched Hand Tracking Capabilities
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Spacefolk City Review: Laying Some Nice Groundwork
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Blade And Sorcery: Nomad Review – VR’s Best Combat Sim Is Still In-Progress
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Medal of Honor: Above And Beyond Oculus Quest 2 Review – A Great Port Of A Flawed Game
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Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Tempestfall Review – Sigmar’s Shame
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After The Fall Review: Frantically Fun Co-Op That Needs More Content
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Warplanes: WW1 Fighters Review – A Versatile Flight Sim That Delivers
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HoloLens 2 Review: Ahead Of Its Time, For Better And Worse
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Early DecaMove Review – A Little Device That Goes A Long Way For VR Locomotion
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Logitech G Pro Headset For Oculus Quest 2 Review – Comfortable, Clear And Routine
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VR Power 2 Review – Great Quest 2 Battery Extender For VR Marathons
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Forcetube Review: A VR Rifle Stock That’s Equal Parts Hassle And Immersive
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Varjo Aero Review: A Powerhouse Headset With Some Big Question Marks
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HTC Vive Flow Review: A Niche Within A Niche
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Nreal Light AR Glasses Review: A (Limited) Preview Of The Future
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VR Ears Review: Great Sound, With Issues
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Google Building An ‘Augmented Reality OS’ For A New AR Device

Google is hiring in several positions working on an ‘Augmented Reality OS’ for an AR device, as reported by 9 To 5 Google.

There’s a variety of open positions involved in building the software for this AR device, with the listing for Senior Software Developer, Embedded, providing a description of the team working on the OS:

Our team is building the software components that control and manage the hardware on our Augmented Reality (AR) products. These are the software components that run on the AR devices and are the closest to the hardware. As Google adds products to the AR portfolio, the OS Foundations team is the very first software team to work with new hardware.

The full job listing is here. Likewise, postings for Senior Software Engineer, Camera and Senior Software Developer Tech Lead, Input describe building software for an “innovative AR device.” The listings say that this OS team “is the very first software team to work with new hardware.” The nature of this device is unclear, but the operating system and new hardware angle seems to imply a dedicated AR device, such as a headset. Apple is working on a still-unannounced VR/AR mixed reality headset while Meta is preparing a higher end headset code-named Cambria, and we’d expect Google to be very interested in the AR product category.

Mark Lucovsky also revealed that he started a new position at Google this week. Lucovsky previously led the VR/AR operating system effort at Facebook/Meta, where he was reportedly building a new operating system for AR. He also worked as a Microsoft engineer for many years, where he co-developed Windows NT. He will now “lead the Operating System team for Augmented Reality” at Google.

Most of Google’s recent efforts in the VR/AR space focused on the AR — the company has gradually reduced its focus on VR, ending support for Daydream, shutting down Google Poly and open sourcing its art software Tilt Brush. With these new job postings, it seems Google’s focus is likely to remain squarely on AR for the foreseeable future.

Apple Hiring AR/VR Frameworks Engineer For ‘Entirely New Application Paradigm’

Apple posted a job listing for an ‘AR/VR Frameworks Engineer’, with the role described as “developing an entirely new application paradigm”.

The listing was shared by current Apple manager Hayden Lee on Twitter. A pioneer in the social VR space, Lee co-founded Convrge and worked early on at Bigscreen. He was hired by Apple in mid 2020 to work on AR/VR, and made manager in October, according to his LinkedIn page.

A software framework is a collection of components, assets, and functionalities developers can use instead of reinventing the wheel. What makes this listing interesting is how it hints at the approach Apple might take to AR/VR software.

The role is listed as involving “distributed systems” – software which runs across multiple coordinated networked computers (or in this case headsets), and asks for experience with real-time. Here’s how the job itself is described:

You will be researching and developing an entirely new application paradigm – a challenge that will demand rapid experimentation and prototyping without sacrificing code quality or attention to detail. Working closely with Apple’s UI frameworks, Human Interface designers and system software teams – this role will push you to think outside-the-box, and solve incredibly ambitious and interesting problems in the AR/VR space. You will have access to a wide variety of internal frameworks and services that will allow you to build software that is deeply integrated into our operating systems.

The reference to “an entirely new application paradigm” that is “deeply integrated into our operating systems” in a networked framework role suggests Apple might be exploring providing developers with high level tools to build inherently multi-user spatial apps. Such a framework could result in apps which can seamlessly be run by multiple headsets in the same space, or across the internet, with synchronized components like UI which follow best practices.

All of this is possible today manually or with a combination of 3rd party frameworks in engines like Unity and Unreal. But with ARKit’s RealityKit and RealityComposer Apple has already shown a desire to provide higher level tools handling tasks like materials, shadows, physics, animations, spatial audio, and more. This lets Apple work on perfecting these core technologies while developers focus on building the actual content instead of needing to replicate each themselves. For the user, that means more consistency and quality between applications, even those made with a low budget.

apple reality composer

We have yet to hear details about the rumored rOS operating system for Apple’s rumored AR/VR headset, which could launch as early as next year. But this listing hints that despite all the hardware hype, Apple’s true innovation in this space could be a fundamentally different approach to software.

Nreal Launches $600 ‘Light’ AR Glasses in United States via Verizon

Nreal, the Chinese startup behind the Nreal Light AR glasses which made a splash back at CES 2019, has now expanded to the United States, making the smartphone-tethered device available through select Verizon stores starting today.

Nreal Light is a pair of AR glasses that are physically connected to a smartphone via USB Type-C to drive its graphics and provide power, making it lighter than standalone AR headsets like HoloLens 2 since it’s offloaded the need for an internal battery, chipset, and cooling to the phone itself.

Image courtesy Nreal

Relative to enterprise-focused AR headsets like Magic Leap 2 and HoloLens 2, it’s also less expensive due to the inclusion of cheaper and less complicated optics, called ‘birdbath’ optics, which project light from a microdisplay to the eye via what’s essentially a curved see-through mirror (among other things).

As for apps, the AR glasses play bespoke content in pre-defined playspaces, all of which you can download from Google Play, such as Table Trenchesa 1v1 tabletop strategy game.

It also boasts a screen mirroring function for your phone so you can use every app on it,  as well as the ability to use multiple browser windows so you can watch a video and surf the web in different floating monitors. The tethered smartphone acts primarily as a laser pointer selector, something Oculus Go and Google Daydream users will be very familiar with in terms of UI interaction.

That’s the value proposition at least, as Nreal Light goes on sale in the US today for $599. Rollout in that country comes first to select brick-and-mortar Verizon stores. According to Tom’s Hardware, online sales via Verizon will kick off on December 2nd and those physical stores will act as places to demo Nreal Light before consumers buy it.

Nreal Light boasts a fairly wide compatibility list, with the following phones offering support:

  • Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G
  • Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G
  • Samsung Galaxy S21 5G
  • Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 5G
  • Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G UW
  • Samsung Galaxy S20 5G UW
  • Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G
  • OnePlus 8 5G UW
  • OnePlus 9 5G UW

The company says Light will also support iPhones in some capacity, however it hasn’t specified how that works.

Before its release in the US, Nreal has rolled out via telecoms in South Korea, Japan, Germany and Spain. The Beijing-based company also recently closed a $100 million Series C financing round which it will use for R&D and to widen its international reach.

Nreal Light has yet to launch in its Chinese homeland, however Nreal CEO Chi Xu has previously said it may happen at some point in 2022 along with “more countries as well.”

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Mario Kart: Live Multiplayer Now Works Splitscreen With A Single Switch

A new update for Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit brings splitscreen mulitplayer functionality, allowing players to use two physical karts with one Nintendo Switch console.

Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit released last year and brings the famous arcade racing franchise to your home, using a camera-equipped toy kart to turn your home into an AR Mario Kart course on your Switch.

Using a Nintendo Switch console, players can connect to the kart and control it using the Switch, mapping out an AR-powered course around your home using cardboard gates that can be placed around you on the ground.

One Home Circuit kit comes with the game, the kart and the required gates to map the course. Multiplayer was supported at launch, but only with multiple Switch consoles — each player would have to use their own Switch along with their own physical kart.

Now, with a free update, splitscreen multiplayer is supported, allowing two physical karts to compete against each other using just one Switch system. This means that a family with just one console can purchase two karts and play on the same system. In addition, the base Home Circuit kit is now discounted for Black Friday at multiple retailers, bringing the price of one kit down to $59.99 from $99.99.

There’s also some other additions in the 2.0 update, including a new Relay Race multiplayer mode, which allows 2-4 players to use one kart, taking turns controlling the kart via mid-race switches.

There’s a new Luigi Cup added to the Grand Prix as well, along with some new cosmetics and customization unlocks.

Check out our full review of Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit from last year.

Epic’s Tim Sweeney Says Metaverse A ‘Multitrillion-Dollar’ Opportunity

The Chief Executive Officer of Epic Games sees the “metaverse” as a potentially “multitrillion-dollar part of the world economy.”

Tim Sweeney’s Epic Games is, of course, the company behind the global phenomenon that is Fortnite and the Unreal toolset responsible for making it. Sweeney and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg are among two of the most prominent technology industry executives using the term “metaverse” to describe a broader shift toward sharing experiences with others in real-time over the Internet. While we’ve heard plenty from Zuckerberg recently, Sweeney’s recent comments, which were made at a conference in Seoul as well as an interview afterward with Bloomberg, offer us an updated view into his assessment of the opportunity.

“The next three years are going to be critical for all of the metaverse-aspiring companies like Epic, Roblox, Microsoft, Facebook,” Sweeney is quoted as saying. “It’s kind of a race to get to a billion users, whoever brings on a billion users first, would be the presumed leader in setting the standards.”

Bloomberg reports Sweeney is aiming to expand Fortnite from 60 million monthly active users “to an experience that could reach a billion in the future.”

“I do believe in this future of the world in which billions of people are wearing AR hardware, AR glasses are their everyday life and I believe that’s the entertainment platform of the future,” Sweeney told us in 2019. “And we’re gonna be there.”

Report: Meta is Considering Physical Stores to Sell Its Vision of the Metaverse

Meta (formerly Facebook) is not only building its next generation of AR and VR headsets, but it’s looking to jumpstart a sort of immersive internet the company believes will one day be the future of human interaction—that’s the ‘metaverse’ everyone’s talking about. And to sell that idea to the masses, the company has allegedly discussed rolling out physical stores.

New York Times report maintains that Meta has been planning its own retail stores that aim to eventually span the world. The report cites people with knowledge of the project in addition to internal company documents shared with The New York Times.

Those documents allegedly revealed that Meta’s stores aim to let people try out its upcoming XR hardware in a “more open and connected” space which will make guests feel “curiosity, closeness,” and “welcomed”—all whilst on a “judgment free journey.”

We know marketing fluff when we hear it, however the report maintains that “serious work” was started last year, predating the Meta rebranding late last month. Whether it actually follows through with those plans is still an uncertainty. The company hasn’t substantiated any of the claims made in the report.

Project Cambria | Image courtesy Meta

The company is no stranger to the challenges of getting VR headsets on neophyte noggins. It’s had pop-up events and in-store demos as far back as 2016 to prepare for the launch of the original Oculus Rift.

Opening physical stores though would be much larger step for Meta, putting it in the same retail class as Microsoft, Apple and Google; the latter just opening its first retail store this summer. It would not only need highly visible locations to broaden its push into the consumer market, it would need to be very confident in its products—emphasis on the plural.

Although the company only sells Oculus Quest 2 and has partnered to create the Ray-Ban Stories camera glasses, it has a few products in the works. Last month the company unveiled its Project Cambria mixed reality headset and teased an AR headset called Project Nazare. We aren’t sure when either will be productized, but you can bet Meta will be looking to offer in-person demos when they do, since both AR and MR headsets will be entirely new territory for most people.

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Niantic Kickstarts Its AR Metaverse with Release of Lightship SDK and $20M Developer Fund

At a special launch event today, Niantic announced it’s opening up the Lightship AR Development Kit (ARDK) platform, a software development kit with the kinds of tools the company uses to make Pokémon Go’s ‘world-scale’ gameplay possible. And to attract third-party developers to the platform, it’s also announced $20 million fund which it hopes will kickstart AR development.

Niantic is releasing its augmented reality tools, which features the geo-location functionality which we’ve seen in other Niantic games, such as Pikman BloomHarry Potter: Wizards Unite, and the company’s seminal title Ingress.

With an eye for the future of its burgeoning AR ecosystem though—something Niantic is definitely calling a ‘metaverse’—Lightship ARDK notably brings the company’s real-time mapping technology which allows developers to create multiplayer AR experiences for both Android and iOS mobile platforms. For now, multiplayer experiences can connect up five players in a single shared space, but we’d expect that number to grow as developers push the boundaries in their own apps.

The video above is a basic demo of what’s possible, however Lightship ARDK also includes its ‘Semantic Segmentation’ APIs, which use computer vision to identify objects such as the ground, sky, water, buildings, and more. ‘Meshing’ APIs in ARDK also let users create real-time 3D mesh maps, which digitizes the topography of a room for use during gameplay.

The idea behind both computer vision object recognition and mesh mapping is to better blend virtual objects with the environment, and do things like provide realistic occlusion so a virtual ball rolling behind a couch will disappear from view just like you’d expect a physical ball to.

Over the past few months Niantic has worked with a few creators during ARDK’s closed beta. At the event, the studio showed off a number of experiences and games running on the platform including an app from Historic Royal Palaces to celebrate the Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022, a manga app from industry veterans Shueisha, a giant virtual butterfly for the Coachella 2022 app, and new AR functions from the UK’s Science Museum Group and meditation app TRIPP.

The studio also announced an initial $20 million development fund from its newly established Niantic Ventures arm, something it hopes will accelerate the growth of AR applications and experiences using the Lightship platform.

“Niantic Ventures will identify companies doing unique work to build the AR ecosystem, and will serve as a co-investor alongside other venture capital and angel investors,” the company says in a press statement. “The model is optimized to accelerate the growth of promising companies using AR in new ways and in various industries.”

Niantic is making the core APIs in the Lightship ARDK, including Semantic Segmentation and Meshing, free to use for developers. Its Multiplayer API will be free for apps with fewer than 50,000 monthly active users, but will introduce a fee structure for apps with more than 50k monthly active users. You can check out the pricing schedule at the Lightship ARDK website.

Niantic too is dubbing its app ecosystem a ‘metaverse’ of sorts, which may suggest that apps built on Lightship ARDK will one day share some level of app interoperability.

Image courtesy Niantic

Similar projects are in the works by Meta (formerly Facebook), Epic Games, and Roblox, and Microsoft, however Niantic is the only one approaching it purely from the AR side of things. Earlier this summer the studio showed off prototype demonstration of Pokémon GO running on HoloLens 2 and a teased glimpse of a see-through headset which we’re still eager to hear about. It’s undeniably preparing for a future of all-day AR glasses.

We’re hoping to learn more about where the company is headed at the its upcoming in-person developer conference, which is scheduled to take place in San Francisco in May 2022. Niantic says we’ll hear more about updates on the platform at Niantic Lightship Developer Conference there.

The post Niantic Kickstarts Its AR Metaverse with Release of Lightship SDK and $20M Developer Fund appeared first on Road to VR.

Quest 2 Can Now Label Keyboards With AR In Passthrough

An update to Horizon Workrooms on Oculus Quest 2 adds the ability to overlay AR labels onto your tracked keyboard when using passthrough mode.

The feature is one of a few added in the Workrooms 1.1 update. As previously reported, the update includes support for M1 Mac models, but also introduces the AR keyboard labels, quicker connection to your computer via Oculus Remote Desktop, and “more intuitive whiteboard design” that lets you use your hands more.

quest ar keyboard label

You can see some photos of the AR keyboard labels spread throughout the article — on a flat 2D photo, they look hard to distinguish from the normal light-up keys on the MacBook Pro. However, the depth perception in VR makes the labels look just slightly elevated from the keys themselves.

quest ar keyboard label

This only applies to tracked keyboards (which currently only includes the Logitech K830 and Apple Magic Keyboards and laptop keyboard) when using the desk passthrough cut-out. If you’re just using the standard tracked keyboard in Workrooms without passthrough there’s no need for the AR labels — a 1:1 digital model represents and displays your keyboard in VR, matched to the position of your physical keyboard.

It’s only when using the passthrough desk cut-out feature that the AR labels come to life. This makes the passthrough cut-out feature much more useable, as you retain full visibility of your keyboard keys while also being able to see other desk accessories such as your mouse, drinks etc.

In a future update, Workrooms will get support for Zoom conference call integration and room customization.