VR ‘rhythm shooter’ Audica from legendary rhythm game studio Harmonix is now available in Early Access on Steam and the Oculus Store. The studio has already pushed a v0.1.1 patch addressing early player feedback. The studio has also revealed some of what’s in store for an eventual full release.
Following three prior VR titles, Audica is Harmonix’ latest entrant into the VR category, and this time mashes up VR shooting and rhythm gaming into something quite unique.
Our recent preview walks through the game’s mechanics and some of our initial thoughts about the game design, including the top-notch music, strong visual and audio feedback, but also several missteps which prevent a strong feeling of flow as you blast your way through the beat.
Responding to player feedback (aligning with some of our own), Harmonix released a v0.1.1 update just one day after Audica launched in Early Access, bringing the following changes to improve the experience:
Melee hit detection is now more generous, and the game now re-centers you upon the start of a song to give you the best melee position. (NOTE: we don’t re-center you after choosing “Restart.”)
Added a “Choose Difficulty” label to Difficulty selection for clarification.
A setting has been added (“Audio Filtering on Miss”) so that, if unselected, song volume is no longer reduced when missing a target, as some users expressed a preference for this.
The song’s title is now listed on the Song Leaderboard panel.
Reduced particle density to improve target readability.
Tutorial text no longer references specific colors to accommodate players who change their weapon colors before playing the Tutorial.
Adjusted tutorial text to explain how to avoid arm fatigue.
Made ‘cue darts’ more noticeable, to better draw your eyes to the area where off-screen targets will be coming from.
Made authoring adjustments for sections that felt unfair in the following songs:
1788-L & Blanke “Destiny”
Noisia “Collider”
While these changes are a good first step (especially reduced particle density and more visible ‘cue darts’), it feels like broader changes will need to be made before Audica really finds its groove.
Image courtesy Harmonix
Luckily, Harmonix says it’s “looking forward to working closely with you, our community, to shape the course of [Audica’s] development.” The studio promises to monitor player feedback to continue to hone the game throughout the Early Access period. To that end, the studio has created a public task board to show players what’s in development, and is encouraging players to reach out via the official Harmonix Discord server to share feedback.
It isn’t clear yet when Audica will launch out of Early Access, but in addition to responding to player feedback, Harmonix tells Road to VR that it plans to have the following features ready for the full launch:
25+ Song Soundtrack (the Early Access launch includes 10 songs)
Campaign Mode
Practice Mode
Additional environments and weapon sets
Expanded leaderboard functionality
And possibly other new gameplay mechanics
The Trello board further shows the following features planned:
Song Previews
Local/Party Mode
Achievements
The studio expects that 80% of its launch songs will be licensed tracks, with the rest coming from friends and family of the studio. Harmonix hasn’t announced any plans for custom song support in Audica.
You read that right, this is our first double feature livestream! We’re doubling on the music game madness today with both Beat Saber and the newly released Audica from Harmonix. We’ll kick things off with Beat Saber first letting you all request any and all custom songs for us to play live on the stream and then we’ll flip things over to Audica to show off its unique brand of VR music rhythm gameplay.
You can read our full review of Beat Saber on PSVR here, the Early Access PC review here, details on custom song downloads here, and finally our freshly published review of Audica’s Early Access here.
We’ll be playing both Beat Saber and Audica using an Oculus Rift and two Oculus Touch controllers. We’re starting right around 1:30 PM PT today and we’ll aim to last for about two hours or so between both games. We’ll be livestreaming to the UploadVRTwitch page where you can interact with us directly and chat among yourselves.
Since we’re affiliates on Twitch you can subscribe to our channel, cheer us on with bits, earn nifty loyalty badges, and best of all gain access to our amazing custom emotes!
You can see the full stream right here once it is live:
Let us know which games or discussions you want us to livestream next and don’t forget to follow/subscribe to the Twitch channel and sign up for notifications.
Harmonix knows what it’s doing when it comes to rhythm action videogames. Having created Rock Band and its immersive kin Rock Band VR, the studio has the sort of legacy that firmly puts it at – or near – the top on the genre. So when Audica was first announced there came a natural wave of excitement to see what the developer had come up with. Now available via Early Access on both Steam and Oculus Store, Audica offers up a distinctive gameplay experience that could well be the marmite of the virtual reality (VR) world.
That’s because there’s no getting away from the fact that it’ll be compared to Beat Saber whether the studio likes it or not. The sword-wielding rhythm title has set the VR world alight – it’s easy to assume most owners of a supporting VR headset have played it – namely due to one overriding factor, its gameplay was ludicrously easy to pick up and fun to play, yet the Expert difficulty levels are mind-bogglingly difficult to master.
Audica, on the other hand, isn’t so intuitive from the off. Using a pair of coloured guns – one blue, one orange – the title is about shooting targets in time with the music. Miss the beat and the shot will miss the target. Yet this isn’t just about shooting boring targets, Harmonix mixes things up with standard single shot targets, ones which require multiple hits by holding the trigger, sideways gangster style shots, and massive chained targets.
So even on the second ‘moderate’ difficulty setting, for first-timers, Audica can be a bewildering experience, as the targets aren’t coming straight at you. The majority of them are actually flying in from either side, so you can’t focus on one point, instead, you need to be aware or your periphery vision to keep up.
Not keeping up in the physical sense – you won’t burn as many calories on this as you would Beat Saber – it’s the myriad of different target options that fly at you, and remembering what target requires what action. Which all means Audica takes time to settle into, way before you start considering highscores. However, for fans of rhythm action videogames Audica provides an experience like no other, and could certainly be described as unique.
Being an Early Access title does mean that it stills needs work and does lag in certain areas. The first and most importantly is the track list. You’ll quickly get through the ten that come supplied, and while they are all of high quality, they do feel somewhat samey with only a couple that really stand out as consistently repeatable.
Actually, production values across the entire videogame are top notch, from the way the guns handle to the visual effects when targets are hit or successive combos are achieved. Audica may be being made by a small team inside of Harmonix but it certainly doesn’t look like it.
Audica is a bold experiment by Harmonix, trying to mix up the rhythm action genre with mechanics that only VR can truly provide. It really does sit on a knife edge between standout gameplay design that keeps you on your toes and just being overwhelmingly complicated, assaulting your senses from every direction. Audica is not to be taken lightly, yet with that difficulty comes intense satisfaction on completion. It’ll be exciting to see what else Early Access brings.
Now that Audica has officially launched on Oculus Quest and is available on PSVR and PC VR headsets, we thought it was the perfect time to revisit our review and update it for the current version of the game with a finalized score.
When Audica first hit Early Access it was early 2019 and Beat Saber fever was still in full sing. Beat Saber was absolutely the VR shot heard around the world and clearly Harmonix was listening closely.
To their credit, they have the most experience with crafting music games out of anyone on the planet. They’ve established their legacy as the music game creation game company with titles like Amplitude, Rock Band, and Dance Central to their credit, not to mention VR games like Rock Band VR, Singspace, Dance Central VR, and even Harmonix Music VR, so it’s no wonder they took note. Since then, Pistol Whip has burst onto the scene as another rhythm-based VR shooter, but that one is its own beat entirely.
Comparing Audica to Beat Saber is inevitable, but it has just as many differences as it does similarities. It definitely offers something distinct and different, but not necessarily better. The relatively unwieldy mechanics and lack of overall fluidity makes it harder to recommend than its main competitor’s dead simple pick-up-and-play approach — but let’s dig into the specifics more clearly.
The basic premise in Audica is that you shoot blue and orange nodes inside VR using motion controllers to the beat of the music. Instead of slicing boxes, punching orbs, or blocking objects, you shoot colorful targets. It’s just different enough to feel unique and challenging, obviously requiring a different type of hand-eye coordination than physically punching or swinging. And when you nail it and rack up a huge combo, it feels extremely satisfying.
Once you get in the zone Audica has a way of feeling almost more like a dance than anything else. You’re not only aiming at targets as boxes close in on the center, but also swinging your arms to swat down orbs trying to hit you and scanning the field with your head to locate the next target. The way the game engaged my head and forced me to move and look somewhere other than straight ahead was definitely an adjustment for games like this. We’ve yet to really see a rhythm music game in VR that takes full advantage of the 360 space, other than 360 levels in Beat Saber, but playing Audica on Quest definitely had me looking from left to right constantly.
When you watch footage of this game it’s a bit hard to tell the nuances of each movement, but there are actually a lot of different ways to shoot a target in Audica. There are basic shots with circle targets, diamond shaped shots that require holding the trigger to channel electricity, as well as dual combo shots, chain shots that require tracing a pattern while holding the trigger, as well as both vertical and horizontal shots. It’s a lot to digest.
Even though the tutorial throws everything at you quickly the actual difficulty stages are pretty diverse. In Audica you have entire new game mechanics to contend with depending on which setting you pick which really does help make it feel like a progression within the game rather than notes just moving more quickly.
As it turns out, gameplay is actually very similar to an obscure downloadable rhythm game you may not have heard of calledOsu which involves dragging your cursor through circles as they shrink and timing it as the outer circle hits the center. Or like in Elite Beat Agents for DS. Basically that, but in VR and with two guns.
I think my main issue with the core gameplay loop is that it doesn’t feel as fine-tuned as it should. For example, with modern VR headsets like the Rift S and Quest, the main two I’ve played this game on, it’s easier than I’d like to miss new targets because of the narrow field of view relative to my actual eyesight. Frequently on the second difficulty tier and above, new targets will appear outside of the headset’s vision. The only indication that a target is there is a faint aura that emanates just before it appears but if you’re turning your head or already looking at an existing target it’s way too easy to miss it. A headset with a wider field of view would help, but I only tried it on Quest and Rift S for this review. It becomes less of a music rhythm game and more of a “quick reflex reaction time” game.
However, the main thing Audica has going for it is a deep and varied selection of songs — especially if you factor in the DLC as well. When you buy the game you’ll immediately have access to over 30 tracks right off the bat ranging from EDM and electronic tracks, as is customary in this genre, but also with a few pop songs and even some metal via Dragonforce thrown in for good measure. They don’t all fit the gameplay that well as far as I’m concerned, but everyone vibes with music differently.
If you add in the DLC, which is reasonably priced at $2 per track or $19.99 for the whole 2019 Season Pass, you get even more variety with artists like Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Imagine Dragons, Post Malone, Fall Out Boy, and more. Having that much to pick from is really, really nice and new track releases happen very consistently.
Another issue is that the key action you’re performing (quickly aiming at and shooting targets) doesn’t feel natural. Usually when you shoot a gun in real life or in other VR games you’re holding it up, arms steady, and taking aim carefully or at least with some stability. On the contrary in Audica your arms are swimming through the air, almost like you’re in a ballet, as you swat away objects and quickly take aim at new targets just as they appear. However, this does foster a need to memorize the song patterns and it becomes a much more skillful game, which will appeal to hardcore players. The skill ceiling feels enormous here.
The pure physicality of hitting things though, the cornerstone of what makes so many VR rhythm games addictive, is all but missing. Pointing and pulling a trigger just isn’t as satisfying as the impact of slashing or punching. Even other shooting games like Pistol Whip manage to be more visceral because of the dodging and active nature. In Audica, you basically just stand still. In this way, it feels like something is missing.
There’s a Campaign mode which splits the tracks up into different thematic categories you progress through, but the bulk of your time will likely be spent in Solo play mastering the various difficulty levels. There’s a Group Play mode as well that’s designed for passing the headset, which works great on Quest especially if paired with Chromecast streaming for parties. There are also leaderboards, naturally.
One very unique feature Audica has going for it is the ability to craft your own beat maps for songs directly inside the app itself, which is really unique and fun. However, it does not have anywhere near the same level of custom beat map modding support that Beat Saber does. If you don’t like the songs included in Audica, you should skip it entirely instead of expecting the community to mod in songs you want.
I hate to have made so many comparisons to Beat Saber in this review, but especially on the PC side of things where the active modding community is providing Beat Saber with a near infinite number of songs and so much more, it’s hard not to. For a lot of people the question is: Why should I buy Audica if I already have Beat Saber? And that answer is gonna be very different for most everyone.
Audica VR Review Final Verdict:
As it stands Audica is definitely something different, for better and for worse. The gameplay mechanics are enough to make it stand out, especially if you dedicate the time to really dig into it, but in a crowded VR rhythm game market the circumstances surrounding how and why it’s different aren’t always in its favor. If you’re a big fan of VR rhythm games, make no doubt: there is plenty to sink your teeth into and you’re gonna have fun, but if you’re picky about finding your flow in a game or already enamored with Beat Saber, there may not be enough to pull you in
Audica is available now on Steam for PC VR headsets, Oculus Home for Rift, PSN for PSVR and Oculus Quest at a price point of $29.99 on all platforms. This review is primarily based on the Oculus Quest version of Audica, but we’ve played it on PC via Rift and Rift S as well.
Editor’s Note: The first version of this review was published in March, 2019, when the PC Early Access version of Audica released. As of today, February 4th, 2020, the review has been updated and rewritten to account for the launch version of the game.
Put those sabers down as there’s a new rhythm action videogame in town which wants to eat up all your time. Today sees the return of Harmonix to virtual reality (VR), following up from Rock Band VRwith a gun-toting experience called Audica.
Arriving via Early Access on both Steam and Oculus Store, Audica looks to make its own mark on the musical rhythm action genre by challenging players to shoot and smash targets to an infectious electronic beat. Harmonix, being the developer it is, has already got quite the lineup of tunes for players to enjoy, with an initial ten available today, and over 25 planned for the final release at the end of 2019.
The songs revealed so far are:
1788-L & Blanke “Destiny”
AU5 & Fractal “Smoke”
Alison Wonderland “I Want U”
Donna Summer “I Feel Love (Afrojack Remix)”
DJ Fresh ft. Ms.Dynamite “Gold Dust”
James Egbert “The Space”
Jeff Allen “Lazerface”
Savant “Splinter”
Noisia “Collider”
Zedd & Grey “Adrenaline”
In addition to the ten songs, the early access version will include one weapon type, four difficulty settings, one environment and online leaderboards. The studio has yet to confirm how quickly more tracks will be added in the months ahead.
The gameplay involves two guns, one orange and one blue, with which to shoot a variety of single and multiple colour shaded targets.
For the fully finished version, Harmonix plans on having multiple environments to play in, additional weapon sets, campaign and practice modes plus the possibility of more gameplay options. “We will be actively participating in discussion on our Discord, Steam forums and Reddit throughout development about topics including song selection, authoring and the development of new features, mechanics (should Audica have overdrive?), environments and weapons,” notes the studio.
Audica can be downloaded now via Steam and Oculus Store for $19.99 USD / £15.49 GBP, supporting HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. As Harmonix releases further details including additional tracks, VRFocus will let you know.
Audica is the intriguing upcoming VR “rhythm shooter” from veteran rhythm gaming studio Harmonix. Today we’ve got a preview of the game through an exclusive first look at one of the 10 tracks that will ship with the game’s Early Access release on March 7th.
Update (March 11th, 2019):Audica is now available on the Oculus Store and in Early Access on Steam priced at $20. The team at Harmonix has already pushed a v0.1.1 update to address a first batch of feedback (some of which applies to the impressions provided in our original preview article below). The studio is promising to continue to listen to feedback and has published a public task board to show known issues and what aspects of the game are being worked on, which is encouraging to our hope that the team uses the Early Access period to hone the game into something great. Our original preview article (before the v0.1.1 update) is below.
Original Article (March 2nd, 2019): Audica has been readily compared to ‘Beat Saber with guns’, but it’s actually quite different than any VR rhythm game that’s come before.
So before we dive into things let me set the stage for myself as a player of rhythm games: I wouldn’t say I’m a hardcore “rhythm-gamer,” but every once in a while a rhythm game comes along that hooks me. I’ve played my fair share of DDR, had plenty of fun shredding in Guitar Hero, and enjoyed jamming with friends in Rock Band. I’ve also tried a handful of VR rhythm games in recent years, but none managed to hook me until Beat Saber; I rank in the top 500 scores on a number of the official tracks on the Expert+ difficulty.
Now onto Audica. Set to launch on March 7th in Early Access, the game will include 10 songs initially. The studio gave Road to VR early access to a preview build of the game, and the opportunity to play and reveal one of the forthcoming tracks. Without further ado, here’s Lazerface by Jeff Allen, played by myself:
So let’s talk about what the heck is going on; here’s a quick breakdown of the core mechanics:
Standard targets (circular) – can be shot in any orientation
Oriented targets (circular with notches) – must be shot with gun in the specified orientation
Sustain targets (diamonds) – shoot and hold until note is complete
Chain targets (diamonds with strings) – shoot and hold until note is complete
Spheres targets – smack with your guns
Unlike Beat Saber, which is mostly focused on flow, swing technique, and combo, Audica is primarily concerned with timing, accuracy, and combo, in addition to using the correct shot.
Each target type makes its own unique sound, which Harmonix effectively uses to make the player feel like they’re actually contributing to the beat. This is especially notable with Sustain targets which act a bit like a dynamic FX layer when you bend the arc in different directions, which means players can add a bit of their own flair.
All of the target types have great feedback between the sound, visual effects, and haptic feedback. Smashing Spheres is especially satisfying because they break in the direction you smack them.
Musically, Audica has a much different flavor than Beat Saber. Yes, it’s focus on EDM, but the songs are generally much punchier and percussion-focused compared to Beat Saber’s more chorus-y tracks.
Image courtesy Harmonix
One of the biggest differences between Audica and Beat Saber is the way that the actual beat map plays out from one level to the next. In Beat Saber, all notes come from directly in front of you, and it’s easy to ‘read into the future’ because upcoming notes are never out of sight, and in many cases you can visually see the next dozen swings at any given time.
Audica, on the other hand, uses a much larger swath of space in front of the player (~170 degrees), and notes could come from any direction, at any time. This makes the beat map less clear, because it’s possible that a target will actually spawn outside of your field of view.
The game uses a variety of tricks to draw your attention to upcoming targets, including a streak of light that points toward the center of upcoming targets to catch your eye, and large circles which hone in on the target (and also indicate timing). The beat maps themselves also sometimes effectively move your attention from one target to the next (for instance a Chain target might end where the next targer will land), but at other times the maps aren’t always great about pointing where to go next, and in some cases seem to purposefully trick you by throwing something at you from one direction while another target spawns in the opposite direction outside of your field of view.
While I understand that Harmonix wants to encourage player movement to keep things dynamic (and really utilize VR), the current approach of throwing targets at the player from such a wide range of potential directions leads to a handful of problems which I hope will be reworked throughout the game’s Early Access phase.
The current approach makes it difficult to sight-read new songs for the first time (which is, in my opinion, one of the most fun parts about playing rhythm games at a high level), and makes it harder to pick the beat back up if you lose your place. That’s because if you aren’t looking in the right direction at the right time, you could completely miss a target—and that target might have been designed to lead you to the next target, which means you could end up with a chain reaction of misses.
Missing a target because your aim or timing was off feels like something you are in conscious control of, so when it happens you just feel like you need to do better next time. Missing a target because you didn’t even see it feels out of your control and is often frustrating.
On many occasions when first getting a feel for Audica’s gameplay, I’d be looking in one direction about to make the next target only to see another one fly by me in the corner of my eye. That feeling of brewing frustration, where you gesture upward with your hands in that specific way and give your head a little shake (as if to say ‘what was I supposed to do?’) happened far more often than I would have liked, and continued to happen even when I began playing tracks at the highest difficulty level (Expert).
For the Lazerface track in particular, the Expert mode hardly felt more difficult than the less difficult Advanced mode, because the latter mode had a more convoluted map that did a worse job of directing my attention from one target to the next.
Ultimately that means that track memorization plays a fairly large role in success, and that makes Audica a less accessible game than Beat Saber. Not all rhythm games necessarily need to be highly accessible, but VR rhythm games really ought to be, because otherwise there’s a risk of turning off players who will never give it a second chance.
The good news is that Audica sets a strong foundation. The individual mechanics are deeply satisfying, the music is top-notch, and there’s a clear path forward for fixing the issues with readability and mapping. With the game launching first in Early Access, the company has time to get feedback from players and make improvements before the full launch. Let’s talk briefly about how they might do it.
First, Harmonix is using various methods to guide your attention and provide feedback, but sometimes important visual queues are lost in an overabundance of particle effects. Those effects should be toned down so that attention direction retains top visual priority.
Second, better beat mapping is key. Beat Saber relies heavily on the quality of its beat maps to guide players’ swings smoothly from one note to the next. A poorly mapped song is no fun precisely because it doesn’t create good flow (or make an effort to help players understand the flow). Better beat maps that more effectively lead the player’s attention will greatly improve the experience.
However, Beat Saber’s significantly more constrained note track makes beat mapping much easier than in Audica, which relies heavily on the mapper to have a rich understanding of how player attention can be directed (and even asks them to consider the field of view of the headset).
So, third, Constraining the canvas upon which Audica’s beat maps play out will create more consistent expectations for both mapper and player, which also means it’ll be easier for Hamonix to establish beat map patterns that the mapper can rely on to make note placement feel less arbitrary. Audica doesn’t necessarily need to (nor should it) use such a straightforward approach as Beat Saber’s note track, but at least making sure targets are spawning inside the player’s field of view would be beneficial. Constraining the note track in some way could also improve the map readability which would reduce the reliance on memorization for success while increasing accessibility.
– – — – –
Audica is set to launch in Early Access on Steam and Oculus on March 7th (find links via the official site to wishlist on either platform) and will include ‘Lazerface’, along with nine other tracks. I have a strong hope that Harmonix will work with the community during Early Access to hone the gameplay and help Audica find its groove.
Update (March 3rd, 2019): A previous version of this article stated that many of Audica’s initial tracks were composed by Harmonix. This reference has been removed; at launch only one of the initial tracks will be from Harmonix while the others will be from external musicians.
When it comes to rhythm action videogames Beat Saber is the current darling of the virtual reality (VR) industry, loved by gamers and bestowed with numerous awards. However, Beat Games is still new at this and is about to be challenged by a veteran of the genre, Harmonix – the developer behind Rock Band VR – with its latest VR title Audica.
Making the announcement via its Twitter channel, Harmonix said: “Introducing Audica – a VR rhythm shooter that combines Harmonix’s award-winning music gameplay with precision shooting mechanics and a killer soundtrack, all set in a mesmerizing cosmic arena.”
From the looks of the screenshots and mixed reality (MR) trailer, Harmonix seems to be going all out with Audica, offering a frantic first-person shooter (FPS) take on rhythm action videogames, with a blue gun and an orange gun to take out respective targets. Whether they are singular or a succession of smaller targets which look to require a sweeping motion.
Not only does the gameplay look fun, but expect the soundtrack to be equally captivating. As one of the most well-known studios when it comes to this genre of videogame, Harmonix will surely be able to attract some of the biggest electronic artists in the world to supply sounds.
Audica will see an initial Early Access release via Steam and Oculus Store on 7th March 2019 for $19.99 USD, purely supporting HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. The Early Access release will feature a 10 song soundtrack with licensed music, including:
1788-L & Blanke “Destiny”
Alison Wonderland “I Want U”
Donna Summer “I Feel Love (Afrojack Remix)”
James Egbert “The Space”
Savant “Splinter”
There will be four difficulties per song, one environment to play in and one weapon set. Online leaderboards will also work in Early Access.
Harmonix expects to leave Early Access before the end of 2019, with the fully released version featuring 25+ songs, Campaign and Practice modes, additional environments and weapon sets, plus expanded leaderboard functionality. The studio also hopes to bring Audica to PlayStation VR after the closure of Early Access.
VRFocus will follow the progress of Audica during its Early Access phase, reporting back with the latest announcements.
Harmonix, the studio behind many rhythm game hits like Guitar Hero (2005) and Rock Band (2007), today announced what they’re calling a “VR rhythm shooter” that looks—to be frank—pretty freaking awesome.
I guess there’s just something about combining body movements with music that is naturally appealing (who would have guessed?); as someone who has said on more than one occasion that a VR gun game featuring ‘instructed gameplay’ (in the vein of Beat Saber) could be tons of fun, I was thrilled to see today’s announcement of Audica, which looks to skillfully tie together gun mechanics with some audio-visual instructions to create a game which looks to only really make sense in VR.
The game is slated to launch in Early Access on March 7th, and is set to come to the Oculus Rift and SteamVR (ostensibly supporting Vive, Windows VR, and Rift). Harmonix hasn’t yet mentioned support for the upcoming Oculus Quest, but they’d be missing a huge potential opportunity if they aren’t already designing Audica to land there eventually (my guess is that they are).
As for the game’s mechanics: from the trailer we can see a variety of distinct ‘shot’ types that players will need to manage: there’s a ‘hold’ shot (which looks like electricity), ‘straight’ (circular target), ‘sideways’ (horizontal target), ‘rapid fire’ (strings of diamond targets), and ‘hit’ notes where the player has to smack a sphere with their gun.
While the type and timing of each shot is clearly visible, I’m very interested to see how (of even if) the game helps players understand how to move from one note to the next. One reason why Beat Saber feels so good is that notes are confined to a small area in front of the player and they also explicitly indicate the swing direction; it becomes intuitive over time how one would move from one block to the next (given the note position and swing direction), even when playing tracks you’ve never played before. With Audica’s notes seemingly covering a much larger potential area, it may be challenging to help the player understand which movements between notes will be best, short of raw practice and memorization.
Something else I’m curious about about is the frequency with which users will need to pull the triggers. I’ve played a handful of (bad) VR games that basically ask the player to continuously pull the trigger to shoot a pistol for the entire duration of gameplay, which can very quickly lead to finger strain. Harmonix will need to be careful not to directly tie track difficulty to trigger frequency, and to smartly rely on a mix of mechanics to avoid finger fatigue (as they appear to be doing so far in the trailer).
In an announcement post on Reddit, the team behind the game said, “Audica has been a passion project for a small team here at the studio and we’re thrilled to finally share it with the world.”
The team answered an impromptu Q&A offering up some additional details on the game:
“The soundtrack will be a mix of licensed music (the majority) and tracks from Harmonix friends & family. The core soundtrack is expected to be electronic but if the game does well and there is demand for DLC I think we would experiment with some different genres.”
“When you buy Audica in Early Access you get access to the full soundtrack. On March 7 that will be 10 songs but we’re targeting a 25+ song soundtrack for full release later this year. As we add songs to the soundtrack you’ll get them for free. We may do DLC down the road but it’s a bit too early to say how or what it would look like.”
“It’s definitely a challenge on Expert but each song has 4 difficulties so there’s something for everyone.”
The team has notably avoided answering questions about the potential for modding and custom music in Audica, which is understandable considering issues with music licensing. Those capabilities are an essential reason why Beat Saber has formed a strong and active community.
Audica isn’t Harmonix’s first foray into VR, but it does look to be their most inventive—and dare I say, promising—yet. The studio actually has a significant track record across major VR platforms, having previously released Harmonix Music VR (2016) on PSVR, Rock Band VR (2017) on Oculus Rift, and SingSpace (2017) on Gear VR.
Other than the announcement tweet and debut trailer we know basically nothing about Audica at this time. You can see the announcement trailer here:
Here’s what the Steam page has to say:
Audica is a VR Rhythm Shooter from Harmonix, the makers of Rock Band and Dance Central. Armed with a pair of rhythm blasters, you shoot and smash targets to the beat of a soundtrack featuring songs from some of the world’s most popular electronic artists. The better your timing, accuracy and form, the better your score. The better your score, the higher your place on the Audica Leaderboards.
Audica is incredibly intuitive and immersive from the first time you play – use your blue and orange blasters to shoot color-coded targets to the beat while in a breathtaking cosmic arena. On expert difficulty, Audica gameplay is intense and exacting. If you want to claim a spot at the top of the leaderboards, you’ll need to practice until you and your blasters become one, performing a tightly choreographed ballet of beat-blasting brilliance.
You’d be hard-pressed for me to come up with a better series of alliteration than “ballet of beat-blasting brilliance” to describe what I saw in the trailer. That’s A+ word-slinging right there.
According to the interview, in Audica you dual-wield VR guns to take aim at targets that form out of different colors and shapes similar to skeet shooting. There is a circle closing around each target and once it is fully closed that’s the precise moment you should shoot it as the music thumps along. In a way, it looks and feels a bit like Audioshield or Beat Saber, but is gun-based rather than swiping or punching.
Audica’s soundtrack will focus mostly on electronic music. When it releases in early access that will include ten total songs, the first five of which are:
1788-L & Blanke “Destiny”
Alison Wonderland “I Want U”
Donna Summer “I Feel Love (Afrojack Remix)”
James Egbert “The Space”
Savant “Splinter”
As someone that’s been a fan of Harmonix’s work for years (even before Rock Band, going all the way back to Frequency and Amplitude from nearly 20 years ago) I’m excited to see them still involved with VR. Harmonix Music VR on PSVR was an interesting, albeit overall lacking, eclectic collection of music mini games, while Rock Band VR on Rift had some really great ideas implemented. Even SingSpace on Gear VR on Go, a VR karaoke game, was a good time with the right people.
Audica will be their fourth VR game so I’m excited to see what lessons they’ve learned and applied from the last several years. You can look forward to playing Audica on Oculus Rift and HTC Vive as an Early Access game on March 7th, 2019. It’ll be on both Oculus Home and Steam.
Harmonix “hopes” to bring Audica to PSVR and Quest eventually as well. You can join the Harmonix Discord for more details as it nears Early Access launch and see the official website. Let us know what you think of the game down in the comments below!
That’s because there’s no getting away from the fact that it’ll be compared to 
Not keeping up in the physical sense – you won’t burn as many calories on this as you would Beat Saber – it’s the myriad of different target options that fly at you, and remembering what target requires what action. Which all means Audica takes time to settle into, way before you start considering highscores. However, for fans of rhythm action videogames Audica provides an experience like no other, and could certainly be described as unique.
