The third day of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2018 has come to a close and with it, E3 2018 is over. VRFocus have been all over the show floor to find the latest and greatest virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) titles and products, and in the final recap video of the event you can see all the best moments from the team’s adventures.
Yesterday, the team got their hands on a number of new titles in including Arca’s Path VR from Rebellion and Dream Reality Interactive, Seeking Dawn from Multiverse Inc, and ARia’s Legacy from The Pixel Crushers along with a number of other videogames and hardware goodies.
Today however, the team started off with a trip to IndieCade to witness a number of different indie titles that were sure to bring new experiences to the table. XSEED’s Gungrave VR, which has released a new trailer as part of E3 2018, was the next stop for the team. Bringing back the classic PlayStation 2 title to VR it was sure to offer some intense first-person and third-person action.
Tendar by Tendar Claws and Survios’ Creed: Rise to Glory were the next stops, followed by a trip to the Sony booth to get hands on with Blood & Truth from the PlayStation VR Worlds developers. The team would come back to the Sony booth later on to spend some time with the lovable Astro in Astro Bot Rescue Mission for PlayStation VR. In between that though the team checked out Hyper Arena VR from Hyperbook Studio and finished up their busy E3 2018 schedule by checking out Kite & Lightnings weird and wonderful VR title, Bebylon: Battle Royale. You can see the full adventures of the day in the below video.
With E3 2018 now closed and the excitement of the event winding down, this year has been a bit of a quiet one for the immersive technology with the event as a whole taking a slower pace. That said, some big VR titles were revealed including Tetris Effect, Trover Saves The Universe, Ghost Giant, Prey: TransStar and Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot to name a few. Though the event is over, that doesn’t mean the fun stops and VRFocus will be sure to keep bring you all the latest, including hands-on previews. So make sure to stay tuned for more.
London Studios first came to prominence among fans of virtual reality (VR) with the release of PlayStation VR launch title PlayStation VR Worlds. Last year, the studio announced that it was delving into the seedy world of organised crime in London with Blood & Truth. Fans can now get a closer look at what the title will look like.
Blood & Truth extends the ideas presented by London Studio’s PlayStation VR Worlds sub-game The London Heist, putting players in control of a Special Forces officer trying to take down a crime lord.
The main character of Blood & Truth is named Ryan Marks, who returns to London to find that his family have been drawn into the dark world of a criminal syndicate, and he needs to do whatever it takes to extract them from the danger they are in.
Players will be able to shoot down criminal thugs by using the PlayStation Move controllers as guns, and explore hideouts to discover secrets or hunt down criminals in high-seed car chases through the streets of London.
The developers hope to create an experience which lets players choose their own method of responding to a situation, whether it is a simple run-and-gun tactics, or carefully planting explosives. Players will also be able to choose dialogue to move the story in the preferred direction.
VRFocuswere fortunate enough to get a hands-on preview of Blood & Truth, saying: “It’s great to see The London Heist given an opportunity to return players to the gritty world it created and offer that same level of immersion in a fantastic looking depiction of London once again, however it’s difficult to escape the feeling that the need to target mass market audiences has resulted in a protagonist more Broadchurch than The Krays. The locomotion system will undoubtedly deter the core audience but is perfectly welcoming to newcomers.”
The new screenshots can be viewed below. Further news on new and upcoming VR projects will be covered here on VRFocus.
Blood & Truth, a promising VR action shooter from Sony’s first-party London Studio, got a brand new demo for E3 2018 which brings improved gunplay and a new bullet time mechanic while showing off a new level.
Blood & Truth has grown from the seed of ‘The London Heist’—one of the best recieved mini experiences included in PlayStation VR Worlds—aiming to build upon the many lessons learned and flesh things out into a fully developed game which Sony is saying will bring players five to six hours of immersive gameplay. In my first hands-on with the game back in October, I felt like the game was off to a great start. How are things now seven months later? Still as promising as ever, but the game needs to tread carefully to steer clear of becoming a wave shooter.
From the outset, Blood & Truth gives players much more agency than ‘The London Heist’. Players now have a means of node-based movement, which is more immersive than being stuck in the same spot but still managed to be comfortable. In addition to a strong shooting component, Blood & Truth mixes things up with a variety of interactive moments like picking locks, arming explosives, and climbing ladders. If you haven’t seen the trailer before, it’s worth watching to get a sense of how the game plays:
In the latest demo shown off at E3 2018, the game showed refined shooting and weapon handling mechanics. Players now have two holsters near their hips, a chest pack (where magazines are held), and a heavy weapon slot over their back. Much care has gone into making sure these elements are placed in way that they don’t interfere with each other—even in the game’s recommended seated position, it was easy and reliable to holster and unholster my pistol, reload it by pulling a magazine from my chest pack, and holster/unholster the submachine gun on my back. You can now easily hand your gun back and forth between your hands, which makes it easy to switch between hands and get the gun to the desired holster.
One bothersome point—while guns use a toggle-hold system (where they ‘stick’ to your hands once you grasp them, even if you let the trigger go), other items in the world use a ‘continuous-hold’ system, where they only stay in your hand as long as you’re holding the trigger. That meant I wound up dropping many of the game’s items, like lock picks and screw drivers, because I was used to the guns using toggle-hold. At one point I dropped an active grenade at my feet for this very reason. It would be nice if grabbing was consistent between all items in the game, whether it be toggle-hold or continuous-hold.
Blood & Truth is also now more aware of how you choose to hold your guns. For instance, when I cupped my right hand under my left hand in real life (to stabilize the virtual pistol), my virtual hands animated into a pose to match the act, which felt pretty cool. The SMG slung over my back could also be gripped as a two-handed weapon, though in this case I didn’t like it so much because the two-handed handling was weird, causing the forward hand to have a disproportionate amount of control over the gun’s rotation. I expect this might have been done to prevent the player’s front hand from occluding the rear hand from the PS Camera, or maybe it just needs more refinement to feel good.
As before, shooting guns in Blood & Truth feels visceral and satisfying. You can easily spam shots from the hip or blind-fire over cover, or take your time aiming down the sights for some well-placed headshots (especially fun when using the silenced pistol to clear a room without alerting the rest of the compound). On that note, I felt that the scale of the world was a little too small, causing the pistol to look small in my hands, and the holo-scope mounted on top to be a little smaller than I would have hoped.
Image courtesy Sony
This build of Blood & Truth also introduced a ‘bullet time’ mechanic called Focus. Activated by pressing both Move buttons at the same time, Focus gives you a few seconds of slow motion, providing a good opportunity to dispatch key enemies when you’re in a tough spot. It also looks and sounds super cool—incoming bullets slow down too, giving you time to dodge them with your head, all the while particles and effects can be seen with greater detail. In the prior demo, there was a moment of automatically triggered slow motion, but you couldn’t just activate it on a whim.
While your Focus seems to be limited to a certain amount of time (which slowly recharges), I think it might be more interesting to make Focus always available, but make it a risk-reward thing, where incoming bullets do extra damage unless they’re dodged (giving you brief moments of SUPERHOT-like gameplay).
Movement is slow and steady to avoid any motion sickness, and while this mechanic feels more immersive than teleportation, it does begin to feel a bit ‘on-rails’. You’ll find moments where you want to go somewhere that seems like you should be able to reach, but you can’t because there’s no node; or times where you’ll want to retreat after pushing too far into dangerous territory, but you can’t because there’s effectively no backtracking between nodes. Being restricted to nodes also kills any sense of exploration (a shame, because the environments look great) and introduces the risk of feeling like a shooting gallery.
Image courtesy Sony
To its credit, Blood & Truth is attempting to head off that shooting gallery feeling before it sets in, by smartly breaking up combat with interactive moments. In the demo I picked the lock on a door (by inserting two tools and carefully twisting them to pop the pins on the lock), disabled a security system (by unscrewing a few screws, flipping a switch, and swapping a fuse), and even used my hands to climb along the outside of a building (by grabbing big bolts in the wall and construction scaffolding to pull myself along).
These were all nice distractions from the shooting, but I think these intermission moments need to become more than distractions—they should mean something. It’s nice to use the 1:1 control of VR to flip some switches and press some buttons, but it should ideally be important somehow, not just a thing you have to do to move forward—and as interesting as the lock picking is at first, I hope I’m not asked to pick 50 locks over the course of the game; there ought to be more variety than that if I’m not even getting to choose which locks to pick (because I’m on rails).
One way to fix that may be to sometimes put the player in danger during these intermission moments (like if you don’t get the door open in a certain amount of time, you would get caught and fail the mission). Another could be to give players some sort of choice—perhaps I could choose to pick the lock to a door for a stealthy entry, or choose instead to blow it open with C4 to rush in with guns a’blazing (with the best option being revealed if I have the time to first peek through the window at the type of enemies inside). A combination of these two (danger + choice) could be doubly compelling.
Image courtesy Sony
I also hope that, beyond the brief intermission moments, chapters of the game will have players doing things altogether different than just shooting—like driving, flying, or even sword fighting! The variety of different vignettes carried along by a meaningful narrative is a big part of what made ‘The London Heist’ great, and Blood & Truth is likely to succeed if it can capture that magic while managing to scale it out into a complete game. The challenge is doing so without becoming a boring shooting gallery, as happened with Bravo Team. We’ll have to wait and see where Sony London Studios takes things next.
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While we expect that Blood & Truth will launch in 2018, Sony still isn’t confirming a release date or price for the game, though I was told that players can expect around five or six hours of gameplay, split up into chapters meant to run around 20 or 30 minutes each. At E3 2018 I also learned that the game is designed for seated play and there’s presently no plans for a ‘standing’ mode.
The presence of virtual reality (VR) at the biggest videogame event in the world, the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2018, tends to be a bit of a mixed bag. There will be indie developers showcasing their latest projects while the bigger studios put on a smaller display. That’s not the case when it comes to Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), with the company showcasing 14 PlayStation VR titles at its booth, with other compatible experiences elsewhere.
All of the titles available on the booth have been announced in some fashion, some only very recently like Beat Saber, and Space Pirate Trainer, whilst others like Blood & Truth were unveiled last year.
With the launch of the PlayStation Experience booking app the full list of playable VR videogames for PlayStation VR at E3 2018 are as follows:
VRFocus has previously played titles such as Archiact’s sci-fi first-person shooter Evasion, finding it to be one first-person title to keep an eye on and Creed: Rise to Glory on PC VR headsets, saying for the latter: “Survios has already established itself as one of VR’s premium content developers, with Creed: A Rise to Glory looking to continue that trend.”
Among the main three, high-end VR head-mounted displays (HMDs) PlayStation VR has the biggest and most prominent presence at E3 2018. Neither Oculus or HTC have booths dedicated to their headsets. Obviously, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive do feature at other booths, but there’s no official support from the manufacturers. This certainly goes in SIE’s favour as E3 now allows consumers to attended, offering dedicated PlayStation fans the opportunity to trial PlayStation VR, encouraging that temptation to purchase and increase its sizeable sales lead.
VRFocus will be at E3 2018 all week to bring you the latest news and announcements from SIE regarding PlayStation VR.
Remember when The Prestige and The Illusionist, two movies about magicians, both released the same year? Or when EverQuest 2 foolishly released the same year as World of Warcraft? Or that other time Gearbox decided it made perfect logical sense to release Battleborn in literally the exact same month as Blizzard’s Overwatch?
Pop culture is full of weird situations like this where movies and games that seem too similar to be coincidences are developed and released alongside one another. I’ve got a feeling we might have another scenario just like that in the VR market right now with Blood and Truth versus Defector. Both games want to tap into that visceral excitement that’s all-too-often associated with spy action movies by making you feel like a James Bond-esque hero and both games are exclusives for their respective platforms.
The below video was captured at a demo event last October.
In the case of Defector on Oculus Rift, we’ve got something that features full locomotion via the Oculus Touch controllers, branching decisions and dialogue trees, as well as roomscale support with lots of set piece action scenes. PSVR’s Blood and Truth, by comparison, is starting to feel a bit anemic.
I got the chance to go hands-on with both last week almost back-to-back and it really drove the point home for me. In Defector I jumped out of an airplane, climbed on the side of a disintegrating jet, got in a fist fight, shot up a ton of thugs, and sweet-talked my way into a crime boss’ private vault. In Blood and Truth, I progressed from cover point to cover point shooting enemies and watched a few slo-mo explosions. That’s it.
Admittedly, my first demo with Blood and Truth several months ago was much more promising, but it’s a bit baffling that the new demo just a month away from E3 feels so bare bones and empty. Last time there was an exciting chase scene, a bunch of stealth, and a whole slew of environments as I scoured the floors of a casino. This time I just ducked behind boxes and air vents while waves of enemies attacked me.
After trying Firewall: Zero Hour at the same preview event on the other side of the room, Blood and Truth’s lack of locomotion really stood out. Given that this is basically an expanded version of The London Heist, you do have a bit more control here. During a level you can look around the environment and see pre-determined nodes pop up on the ground. With a press of a button your character will slowly slide over to those spots, as if he were walking, and you still get full control of your head and hands during this process.
This is a stark contrast to Bravo Team, a game in which you lose all control of your character when moving to a new node. During gameplay in Blood and Truth you’ll also have moments where you can strafe from side-to-side between cover points with the press of a button as well.
The game is played using two PS Move controllers so you don’t have an analog stick or d-pad of any kind. I’d love to see what a developer like Sony London Studio could have done with proper VR controllers like the Oculus Touch or Vive wands. I imagine we’d have gotten something similar to Defector as an end result.
It’s not fair to compare two unfinished games to one another that are on completely different platforms, but they feel like they were both based off of the same brainstorming session in which a wide-eyed game designer dreamed up what it would be like to play a Mission: Impossible VR game.
If I’m basing expectations off of my original Blood and Truth demo, I’m imagining a game full of varied missions that mix fast-paced action, stealth, hacking, and a litany of other game mechanics together to create something consistently interesting. But if I’m basing my expectations off of the most recent demo, I’m anticipating a wave shooter that’s wearing a very thin coat of spy-action paint on top.
Let’s hope the most recent demo I tried isn’t representative of the final game’s content focus because multiple hours of that would get very boring very fast.
During my demo a developer told me that at E3 they’ll have an even newer demo for Blood and Truth that lasts upwards of 25 minutes, which sounds quite extensive to show at an industry event. Hopefully that demo will leave me with a more promising impression.
Let us know what you think of Blood and Truth so far down in the comments below!
The PlayStation 4’s virtual reality (VR) platform has entered its second year of consumer availability, and with it has brought some [link to best of 2017]fantastic PlayStation VR titles throughout 2017[/link]. However, it’s time to look ahead at some of the highlights coming in 2018.The release schedule for the PlayStation VR has never looked better, with an assortment of indie and AAA videogames coming over the next six months. Both digital-only and retail packages will lead the way to further consumer adoption, and below you’ll find some of the biggest and best titles heading to PlayStation VR in 2018.
Moss – Polyarc Games
Polyarc Games’ Moss was announced at last year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), Los Angeles, in June, and has since soared to the top of many PlayStation VR players’ ‘most wanted’ lists. The incidental detail in the animation of heroine Quill is nothing short of amazing, and the pacing between action and logic puzzle solving – at least in the early preview build of Moss – is almost pitch-perfect.
Moss is set for release on 27th February 2018, exclusively on PlayStation VR.
Blood & Truth – Sony London Studios
Blood & Truth is considered by many to be the evolution of The London Heist, which featured on PlayStation VR launch compilation, PlayStation VR Worlds. Developed by Sony London Studios, Blood & Truth places the player into the heart of London’s organised crime syndicate on a mission for revenge. There have been some misgivings about the nature of the player’s movement and the voiceover seen in the preview build of Blood & Truth, but hope remains high that Sony London Studios will deliver the deep mafia experience many PlayStation VR owners are hoping for.
Blood & Truth will launch at an unannounced date in 2018, exclusively for PlayStation VR.
The Inpatient – Supermassive Games
UK studio Supermassive Games have two announced titles coming to PlayStation VR in 2018, and while Bravo Team just missed out on making it into this feature, The Inpatient is arguably a more unique and involving experience. Continuing the trend of fleshing-out the hugely popular Until Dawn universe, The Inpatient takes place in the Sanitarium featured in the original PlayStation 4 exclusive and tasks the player with facing some odd goings on as they attempt to keep a grip on their sanity.
The Inpatient is set for release on 24th January 2018, exclusively on PlayStation VR.
Golem – Highwire Games
Having originally been announced back in 2016, Golem disappeared off the radar for some time. Re-emerging at Sony Interactive Entertainment’s (SIE) Paris Games Week press conference, Highwire Games’ VR debut shot right back to the top of the PlayStation VR’s most anticipated list. An adventure that gives the player the opportunity to explore the ruins of the Endless City, engaging in melee combat as they wield a sword and swing it as though it were a real blade; learning how to thrust, block and parry.
One for fans of the series or the videogames industry as a whole, Megadimension Neptunia VIIR is a commentary on the rivalry between videogame consoles and the hardware manufacturers behind them. While Megadimension Neptunia VIIR is in fact an ‘enhanced’ remake of Megadimension Neptunia VII, the most significant difference is the fact that players will be able to get face-to-face with several characters from the series for the first time.
Megadimension Neptunia VIIR is set to launch on 13th April 2018, exclusively for PlayStation VR.
Megalith – Disruptive Games
One of the most recently announced PlayStation VR titles, along with Blood & TruthDisruptive Games revealed Megalith at SIE’s Paris Games Week press conference. Megalith sees the player taking the role of a titan in a world with a bleak, stylised aesthetic. On a quest to become a powerful god, players will explore and destroy as they utilise powerful weapons to take out their foes.
Megalith is set to launch at a currently unspecified date in 2018, exclusively for PlayStation VR.
Star Child – Playful Corp.
Playful Corp.’s VR debut came in the form of the Oculus Rift exclusive Lucky’s Tale, a critically acclaimed platform videogame featuring a cute bouncing fox that eventually made the leap to Xbox One. This time around, Star Child presents a neon drenched science-fiction adventure for PlayStation VR. Star Child is a homage to classic side-scrolling platformers of yesteryear with the player running and jump through a world that encourages you to lean in and explore its depths with the new immersion afforded by VR technology. In a similar fashion to Paw Print Games’ Bloody Zombies, the action may be limited to a 2D plane but the player’s viewpoint is not, allowing for secrets to be discovered through observation.
Star Child is currently set to launch at an unspecified date in 2018, exclusively for PlayStation VR.
Quar: Infernal Machines – Steel Wool Studios
Aside from League of War: VR Arena and No Heroes Allowed! VR, PlayStation VR is somewhat lacking in strategy videogames. Steel Wool Studios will soon change that fact with Quar: Infernal Machines, a HTC Vive launch title that remains one of the most compelling strategy titles on the format. Players will engage in combat as they attempt to take control of the land with a variety of oddball creatures and weaponry.
Quar: Infernal Machines originally launched on HTC Vive under the guise of Quar: Battle for Gate 18, and will launch on PlayStation VR in March 2018.
The American Dream – Samurai Punk
Originally expected to launch in 2017, Samurai Punk’s The American Dream is the antithesis of the current trend for wave shooters in VR. Acting as a tongue-in-cheek examination of American gun culture – or potentially a commentary on it, should the tone be pitched correctly – The American Dream has the player using firearms to conduct even the most mundane activities. What’s better than opening a beer can with a gun? Nothing. That’s what.
The American Dream was originally intended to launch in 2017 and is currently expected to launch early in 2018 on PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.
Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner – Mars – Konami Digital Entertainment
The announcement that Konami were preparing a return to the Zone of the Enders franchise came as somewhat of a shock, especially as they were developing VR compatibility as part of the package. Of course, it makes perfect sense; there are few action videogames that lend themselves to VR as well as piloting giant mechs. And while Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner – Mars looks set to be a compelling rendition of the franchise, little has yet been revealed of exactly how the videogame will play in VR.
Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner – Mars is set to launch at an unspecified date in spring 2018, for PlayStation 4, Steam and PlayStation VR.
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Honourable Mention: Fallout 4 VR – Bethesda Game Studios
Fallout 4 VR is the ‘one that got away’. Bethesda Game Studios had a trio of VR launches over the holiday season, and while The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR and DOOM VFR both graced the PlayStation VR, Fallout 4 VR currently remains a HTC Vive exclusive. The suggestion is that Fallout 4 VR will eventually come to the PlayStation VR in time, but Bethesda Game Studios has offered no official word on when that might be. Fingers crossed PlayStation VR gamers don’t have to wait too long to experience the wasteland of the Commonwealth first-hand.
SIE London Studio’s upcoming PSVR title Blood and Truth was playable on the showfloor at PSX 2017. The footage captured during an interview with PlayStation Blog’s Sid Shuman at the show is the clearest look at the gameplay sequence we enjoyed during our hands-on in October.
Expanding on the tone and concepts introduced in the acclaimed ‘London Heist’ experience from their first PSVR title PlayStation VR Worlds (2016), London Studio is aiming to deliver a triple-A, first person action game in Blood and Truth. The team haven’t committed to a release window, but the game is likely to appear in 2018.
In the footage, you see their new node-based locomotion mechanic in full flow, along with situational moments of manual movement using motion controls, such as climbing a ladder, or shuffling along an air duct. With no teleportation system in place, players are able to stay engaged in the firefight as they slide to the next node.
“We’re doing a lot of movement. A lot of VR games are doing teleportation and that is not right for us,” said developer Mike Hampden. “We wanted a grounded experience; you move like a soldier, tactically from point to point. You can strafe between points as well – it gives you a lot of control.”
On the October 30th Sony London Studios announced at Paris Games Week (PGW) that it was working on Blood and Truth for the PlayStation VR. VRFocuswrote a preview piece and Nina Salomons also created a video preview of Blood and Truth if one would like a more in-depth understanding of the videogame. Based on one of the experiences in PlayStation VR Worlds named London Heist, players explored the love letter to Cockney gangsters,with Sony London Studios deciding to expand on it to create an ever bigger experience. VRFocusspoke to Stuart Whyte, Director of VR Product Development for Sony London Studios about Blood and Truth as well as how he sees the future development of PlayStation VR content.
PlayStation VR Worlds had five different experiences that allowed Sony London Studios to get their hands dirty when it came to making virtual reality (VR) content. It enabled the developers and creators of the team to play with genre, control systems and gameplay interactions. The team have been working on content for the PlayStation VR from the very start. This not only gave them a great learning experience for what seemed to work for the PlayStation VR, but also allowed them to build a game engine from the ground up to support their vision of creating AAA videogames for the platform as well. Whyte explains that when they started no middleware engines were out there, which led the developers to really push the limits of what the PlayStation VR is capable of.
Blood and Truth is a VR title that has quickly become one of PlayStation VR’s most highly anticipate titles. A first-person shooter (FPS) that puts players into the role of Special Forces veteran, Ryan Marks, he’s on a mission to save his family from the criminal overlords that rule modern day London. It’s a love letter to the John Wick or James Bond action movies that leads a player to immerse themselves in the dark underbelly of the criminal’s penthouses, casinos and derelict buildings scattered across London.
As mentioned previously, the developer created their own engine from the ground up for Blood and Truth. Their previous experience in creating what is essentially five VR videogames in one, have allowed the developers to think of new ways to move within a VR experience. Unlike most VR videogames Blood and Truth has adopted a node mechanic which teleports players to pre-designated destinations, allowing a player to simultaneously move forward and dual wield weapons. While Blood and Truth locomotion is handled through button presses, players can still dodge, hide and stand up to make the best use of the cover system. Great for taking cover and shooting across a poker table in a casino.
PlayStation VR is doing extremely well in reaching customers, with holiday sales spurring consumers on and PlayStation VR taking Amazon’s top seller spot for Black Friday it’s safe to say that Sony Interactive Entertainment’s (SIE’s) bet has paid off. With over 100 videogames and the first year anniversary of the PlayStation VR now past, Whyte explains that SIE is focused on users interested in gaming. To find out more about what he hopes PlayStation VR and Blood and Truth will do for the VR gaming community, watch the video below.
Those who doubted Sony Interactive Entertainment’s (SIE’s) investment in the PlayStation VR and haven’t bought one due to lack of content must have been presently surprised at the large amount of virtual reality (VR) videogames recently announced, such as Megalith, Bow to Blood, and Apex Construct to name a few.
If fans of the PlayStation VR tried PlayStation VR Worlds when it came out and enjoyed ‘London Heist‘ they will likely be presently surprised with the PlayStation VR exclusive videogame Blood & Truth, currently expected to launchin 2018. VRFocus tried the videogame at Develop:VR where there were two different types of demos available. A more in-depth preview that took our journalist Kevin Joyce around 10 minutes can be found here. The video preview below is based on the shorter five minute demo that focused primarily on a casino shoot out and chase/interrogation scene.
Blood & Truth puts players into the shoes of elite special forces soldier Ryan Marks as he desperately tries to save his family from a gangster overlord in modern day London. Taking full advantage of the PlayStation move controllers, users click on the move button to jump from one marker to another. Adopting the node mechanic for movement that was used in Oculus’s RiftArktika.1, it allows players to choose from pre-designated points. This enables players to simultaneously shoot and move in a space at the same time. Though during the chase sequence in the hotel corridors this is not enabled, it helps when you can shoot fire extinguishers and everything slows down, allowing you to take a shot at enemies as they appear. When Nina from VRFocus tried the demo, she did not feel any simulation sickness at all when using the node mechanic or the chase scene where this was disabled.
Blood & Truth asks players to pick locks, plant bombs, break into enemy hideouts and interrogate Marks’ victims, where you have the option to be nice or become more aggressive. Nina talks more about the Blood and Truth in the video preview below, where she discusses the various types of gameplay you can adopt, what it was like playing the five minute demo and what to expect when playing Blood and Truth.
For further updates on Blood & Truth, keep reading VRFocus.
The two The London Heist virtual reality (VR) experiences showcased by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) prior to the release of the PlayStation VR hinted at bigger things to come. Eventually offered as part of London Studios’ PlayStation VR Worlds launch package, it seemed almost as though the immersive world established so early on wasn’t given a true opportunity to shine. Little did we know however, that this was far from the case, as London Studio continued to work on a fully fleshed-out London gangster VR experience, Blood & Truth.
Revealed as part of SIE’s Paris Games Week press conference, Blood & Truth has quickly become one of the most highly anticipated PlayStation VR titles amongst the core audience. It’s a first-person shooter (FPS) that aims to immerse the player within a story of crime and violence, taking on the role of a Special Forces veteran, Ryan Marks, with a score to settle against the perpetrators of organised crime.
Blood & Truth is a depiction of a gritty east-end underworld, but is somewhat cartoonised by ill-advised radio chatter. Marks will communicate with as-yet unseen characters automatically as the player progresses, offering a bigger picture to the story unfolding as well as hinting as to what the next objective might be. Sadly, Marks’ quips frequently fall flat and the world of chaos you are cast into begins to feel far less intimidating. This isn’t a case of James Bond’ing the situation with confidence and charisma as much as a Jonathon Ross impression of a smarmy university student.
Unsubtle character development aside, the forced conversation does help in the delivery of objectives without relying to heavily on on-screen prompts. The linear path the player treads is decorated with points of interaction and the videogame does well to establish a reason for each action through plot and direction. You’re climbing the ladder and crawling through that air duct for infiltration; you’re monitoring the video cameras to find your mark unguarded; you’re blowing up a casino floor because it’s owned by the bad guys; you’re killing hundreds of armed enemies because they are the bad guys.
All of this is conducted with a very simple control system on two PlayStation Move motion-controllers. The player will see highlighted circles upon the floor (including an arrow to determine the direction they will be facing upon arrival) and can move between them using the large Move button on either controller; despite the system sounding similar to the Oculus Rift exclusive ARKTIKA.1, there is no fade between movement with the player forcibly walked between locations. Once locked into a position the player can strafe along a cover surface should one be available by using a face button (located left or right of the central Move button in relation to the strafing direction) or interact with objects using the motion detection of the controllers.
While the nature of the movement system and the linear level design may make Blood & Truth sound fairly pedestrian, the preview build available to VRFocus was heavy on action. After the stealth-advised introduction every scene was heavy on numbers of armed enemies and the player is encouraged to regular move and strafe in order to take advantage of cover, especially when you remain able to look and shoot independently while moving.
Coming to the end of the preview build VRFocus was offered the first taste of dialogue options set to feature in Blood & Truth. While much deeper examination is required to determine what effect (if any) different decisions will have on the gameplay later in the videogame, given the choice between aggression or compassion was interesting; especially when it’s altogether possible to ignore this completely and go straight for the kill. It would be strange to provide such a series of decisions for the player without having a recompense later, but London Studios are still keeping that information under wraps.
At present Blood & Truth is something of a mixed bag. It’s great to see The London Heist given an opportunity to return players to the gritty world it created and offer that same level of immersion in a fantastic looking depiction of London once again, however it’s difficult to escape the feeling that the need to target mass market audiences has resulted in a protagonist more Broadchurch than The Krays. The locomotion system will undoubtedly deter the core audience but is perfectly welcoming to newcomers, and by the time Blood & Truth launches next year there is a great expectation that PlayStation VR will have more of the latter than the former.
There’s still a long way to go until we get to see more of what Blood & Truth can offer, and whether the gameplay loop presented here can be equally as entertaining when stretched out over several hours opposed to a simple 10 minutes demonstration. Of course, VRFocus will keep you updated with all the latest details on Blood & Truth along the way.
If fans of the PlayStation VR tried PlayStation VR Worlds when it came out and enjoyed ‘London Heist‘ they will likely be presently surprised with the PlayStation VR exclusive videogame Blood & Truth, currently expected to launch in 2018. 
All of this is conducted with a very simple control system on two PlayStation Move motion-controllers. The player will see highlighted circles upon the floor (including an arrow to determine the direction they will be facing upon arrival) and can move between them using the large Move button on either controller; despite the system sounding similar to the Oculus Rift exclusive 
At present Blood & Truth is something of a mixed bag. It’s great to see The London Heist given an opportunity to return players to the gritty world it created and offer that same level of immersion in a fantastic looking depiction of London once again, however it’s difficult to escape the feeling that the need to target mass market audiences has resulted in a protagonist more Broadchurch than The Krays. The locomotion system will undoubtedly deter the core audience but is perfectly welcoming to newcomers, and by the time