Cloudhead Games announced three new levels and two new modifiers are coming to Pistol Whip in a free update dubbed the ‘Heartbreaker Trilogy’, and they may be here in the next few days.
Pistol Whip has consistently received free updates adding new content to the game, with 5 new levels added since launch. This new Heartbreaker Trilogy update will add three levels that involve less “face-melting music for the fighters” and more chilled out action “for the lovers.”
In the tweet below, Cloudhead pointed towards a hint about the pack’s release date, highlighting lyrics from one song that include the words “before September”.
That makes it kind of obvious, right? We should have the pack this time next week.
This update was first announced at our UploadVR Summer Showcase earlier in the year, with a tentative August release date. Now with just a few days left in the month, we still don’t have an exact date, but Cloudhead teased that the update is “almost here” and will arrive before September. We got a sneak peek at one of the three levels, called Ember, featuring enemies doing some funky dance moves — a nice change from the serious tone of the existing levels.
Three new scenes, two new modifiers, one massive free update. The Heartbreaker Trilogy is almost here.
The video also reveals the titles of the other two tracks, called Letting Go and Another Day. The update will add two new modifiers to the game as well, but we’ve got no further details on those for the moment.
Pistol Whip launched on PSVR last month, but it looks like PlayStation players will have to wait a bit longer for the Heartbreaker Trilogy to drop — Cloudhead indicated that the update will drop “shortly after” on PSVR, with some “PSVR specific considerations.”
As announced at our showcase, this isn’t the end of the road for Pistol Whip content this year either — in Q4, Cloudhead will launch “The Concierge” update. This will be the biggest content addition for the game since launch and will be split over two updates. They will introduce new weapon types, new enemy types and a “cinematic action campaign” for all the new content.
The Heartbreaker Trilogy update will be available for Pistol Whip on PC VR and Oculus Quest sometime this week.
When Cloudhead’s latest title debuted on Oculus Quest and PC VR last year I awarded it my first 5/5 rating after spending dozens of hours pistol whipping through its 10-song launch collection. Pistol Whip hit a bullseye and it is only getting better with time.
This arcade shooter is instantly fun and endlessly challenging, with the auto-aim default making you feel like a can’t-miss action movie sharpshooter seconds after picking a scene. Built-in modifiers like “Deadeye” remove that superstar feeling, though, and in its place is an exhausting and rewarding grind to master both aim and rhythm.
Since launch the developers added five more scenes — Akuma, Full Throttle, Dark Skies, High Priestess, and Religion — each adding its own distinct and beautiful landscape to the growing library of hand-crafted scenes that make Pistol Whip so different from other rhythm games like Beat Saber.
That’s what PSVR buyers get at Pistol Whip’s launch on Sony’s PS4 in mid-2020 and it is still every bit the 5/5 game I fell in love with last year. Everything in that review stands, plus new modifiers added post launch which make it easier to practice and additional options to tweak gun cosmetics.
Pistol Whip –Comfort
Pistol Whip artificially moves the player forward through its scenes in a straight line at a constant rate of speed. While nowhere near the most uncomfortable type of simulated movement VR software might employ, it is possible some players might feel a little woozy or uncomfortable. VR’s current rhythm leader Beat Saber, in contrast, moves boxes past a stationary player that should be more comfortable to a wider selection of players. Still, I am one of the most sensitive people on staff to simulator sickness and experienced not even a hint of it in Pistol Whip on any headset.
Graphically, I found visual differences between PSVR and other platforms incredibly minor, though I did miss the smoothness and comfort of 2019’s Valve Index with its high frame rate and fine tuned IPD adjustment while spending time in Sony’s 2016 headset. I captured the below comparison video showing Black Magic captured on PC VR, Quest and PSVR.
Cloudhead isn’t done with Pistol Whip yet by a long shot and the Canada-based studio is doubling down on its roadmap for this game with the upcoming Heartbreaker trilogy of songs coming very soon and the Concierge campaign due for release later this year. That means Pistol Whip might be the perfect swan song addition to a PS4 library that can occupy players through the transition to PS5.
Of note for PSVR owners is that camera placement is incredibly important in Pistol Whip. Unlike Beat Saber where the boxes come in tightly packed bunches that aren’t very forgiving, sometimes in Pistol Whip you have time to turn around and take out a missed target. That’s obviously a risky maneuver with a Move controller in your hand and only a single dual-eye camera directly in front of you. PSVR owners will probably enjoy their time with this game dramatically more with a careful high camera placement that offers more tracking coverage for this infrequent, but sometimes necessary, effort to correct a mistake and increase score.
Pistol Whip PSVR Review Verdict:
Pistol Whip’s multiple difficulties and modifiers like Deadeye and Dual-wield add depth to a game that’s more addictive and satisfying than Beat Saber. The 15 scenes included at the time of this review are all in the same general musical style and a bit of variety would be nice, but that might be coming with future updates. Pistol Whip is the game that brings me back to my VR headset again and again and I expect to keep playing through every update Cloudhead has planned for it.
For more on how we arrived at this score, read our review guidelines. Agree or disagree with our Pistol Whip PSVR review? Let us know in the comments below!
In a new video on the Tested YouTube channel, Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame has created a custom gun grip for his Oculus Touch controller to use while playing Cloudhead Games’ Pistol Whip.
Pistol Whip was one of our favorite VR releases of 2019. The rhythm-shooter kept us coming back for more, and has received a bunch of free updates with new songs since release. As it turns out, Adam Savage is also a big fan of Pistol Whip and was inspired to create a custom gun grip for his Oculus Touch controller, in order to add a bit more realism to his play sessions.
Most VR enthusiasts will have seen some form of 3D printed objects that can be made or bought to use with VR headsets or controllers. There are loads of 3D printed gun grips similar to the one made by Adam, but also many other objects that allow you to do things like wall-mount your headset, make modifications to the headset’s fit or strap, or even play a more realistic game of table tennis.
However, most of the designs you’ll find online are just 3D printed plastic — in his Pistol Whip grip build, Savage went a bit further and added aluminum to the top of a printed plastic gun grip. It was then finished off with an amazing acid-etched custom design with his name on the sides. The whole build took Savage a couple of hours and the end result is stunning. Not only does it look fantastic, but it also adds significant weight to the controller as well. This brings it more in line with the weight of a real pistol, adding an extra layer of immersion and realism to the game.
“That was officially a lot of fun,” said Savage after completing the building and trying the grip out. “[But] a lot more work, since it’s heavy.” This isn’t the first time Savage has created a custom grip for VR controllers — a few months ago, he made custom hilts to use while playing Beat Saber.
Have you made or bought any custom grips for your VR controllers? Let us know in the comments below.
Cloudhead Games released the 15th song for its hit action-rhythm VR shooter Pistol Whip and announced huge updates planned for the game throughout 2020.
First of the announcements is that PlayStation VR owners should be able to get their hands on the game on July 28th. Their latest song, Religion, is playable right now on PC or Oculus Quest. The intense new track now ranks as the game’s longest level.
Heartbreaker Trilogy In August
As part of the UploadVR Summer Showcase, Canada-based Cloudhead also revealed its next major steps for Pistol Whip through 2020.
Another free content update called “Heartbreaker” will add a trilogy of new songs to the game “for the lovers” with a vibe that’s a “chilled out action experience” with more abstract environments, water guns, two new modifiers, and achievements.
The “Heartbreaker” update will launch first on PC VR and Quest in August and later on PSVR.
‘Concierge’ Campaign In Q4
Late this year Cloudhead plans to make its biggest addition to Pistol Whip since it launched in November 2019. “The Concierge” is scheduled for a Q4 2020 launch alongside an “action pack” that will add new enemies, weapons and mechanics “all framed by a cinematic action campaign.”
Though details are slim beyond that, the addition of a campaign to Pistol Whip should string together the game’s arcade intensity in an entirely new way.
We’re big fans of Pistol Whip — I rated it 5/5 — even though it originally launched with only 10 songs because of its deep challenge curve which can be unlocked by activating a “Deadeye” modifier that turns off aim assist. The game is a hit too — raking in $2 million from buyers on Oculus Quest alone — and the development team behind the game expanded the title regularly with additional modifiers and scenes.
I’ll be looking forward to Heartbreaker and Concierge then to see how it changes one of my favorite VR games.
Pistol Whip (2019), the VR rhythm-shooter from Cloudhead Games, just got a new dielselpunk-inspired update, available now on Oculus Quest and SteamVR-compatible headsets.
Called ‘Dark Skies’, the update includes a new level set on Zeppelin, replete with hanger bay and plenty of cinematic flair. Like many of the game’s other levels, ‘Dark Skies’ takes inspiration from a few works of fiction, namely the airship scene in Ninja Gaiden, The Rocketeer (1991), Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004), and Captain America: The First Avenger (2011).
The update also includes three wartime-era pistols, and a new metal finish for all available weapons. Broomhandle Mauser, anyone?
Image courtesy Cloudhead Games
Cloudhead calls its latest content drop “the penultimate entry to our monthly Pistol Whip updates as we begin to move toward our long-term roadmap.” The studio says a major update is also planned for later this year.
‘Dark Skies’ comes hot on the heels of Pistol Whip’s most recent update in March, which arrived with a Mad Max-inspired scene called ‘Full Throttle’ and a number of goodies including new modifiers, new weapons, and new weapon skins.
Launched in November last year, Pistol Whip took Road to VR’s 2019 SteamVR Game of the Year Award for its uncanny ability to marry rhythm and shooting in the stylish and interesting worlds that, thanks to its many successive updates, has grown past its original John Wick vibe.
You can nab Pistol Whip for $25 via Steam and Viveport for your standard mix of SteamVR headsets, and the Oculus Store for Rift and Quest.
The Virtual Athletics League (VAL) is teaming up with Cloudhead Games to launch the first worldwide Pistol Whip tournament, spread across three weekends in March. The tournament is supported by Oculus and iBUYPOWER and will be open to anyone, with the one pool taking place entirely online from the comfort of user’s homes.
The tournament will be split across three parts, each taking place over one weekend. The first part is the Home Tournament, which is entirely online and takes place on March 13-14. The second part is the Arcade Tournament, on March 19-22, and will take place at participating VR arcades across the world. The Grand Finals will then take place at Salt Lake City at VAL HQ on March 29.
For the home and arcade portions of the tournament, players will be competing to gain the highest combined score after playing two Pistol Whip levels – Black Magic and Download the Future. The levels will be played on the hardest difficult, with the ‘no-fail’ modifier enabled. At the end of the arcade section of the tournament, the results of both the home and arcade tournaments will be compared and the top 3 players with the highest scores will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to compete in the Grand Finals in Salt Lake City, which will also be livestreamed on Twitch and Facebook Gaming.
The total prize pool is $10,000, with $2500 allocated to the home tournament, $2,500 allocated to the arcade tournament, and $,5000 allocated to the Grand Finals. Players who place 1st-8th in the home and arcade tournaments will receive a share of the allocated cash prize pool, ranging from $100 to $500 depending on their placement. For the Grand Finals, the prize pool will be split up with $2,500 going to 1st place, $1,500 to 2nd and $1,000 to 3rd. The top three players at the Grand Finals will also all receive an Oculus Rift S in addition to their cash prizes.
The tournament will be run by VAL with support from Oculus and and iBUYPOWER, alongside other companies like SpringboardVR, who are supporting the effort to involve 500 VR arcades across the world. There will also be an accompanying mixed reality social media contest that runs through March, with categories like “best dressed” and “best deadeye score.”
My first words to Cloudhead CEO Denny Unger after playing an early version of Pistol Whip: “Holy $&#%”. After dozens of hours in the game that still sums up my overall impression.
A standard Pistol Whip play session for me is at least half an hour with my knees bent for agility and moving closer to the beat each time through a song. I’ll feel an adrenaline rush gaining proficiency and matching the tempo of my shots only to be killed by a bullet I know is coming. I’ll grit my teeth in frustration at my own stupid head for not moving out of the way quicker, and go again and again — typically until l beat the level or wipe away the sweat and take a breather.
You can look at Pistol Whip and see so many other VR titles influencing it. Even if Pistol Whip wears the rhythm of Beat Saber and art style of Superhot on its stylish sleeves, Cloudhead’s new game moves VR design forward in its own ways. Rather than slashing cubes or simply avoiding bullets in slow-motion, every song (or scene) in Pistol Whip moves you through the level at a steady pace. Enemies pop out at pre-determined locations that you then must shoot or punch to the beat of the music to get the highest score possible.
Difficulty Options
I count around half a dozen difficulty-altering options Pistol Whip players can try to find their groove. There are separate scoreboards for Oculus and Steam players and, though many people probably won’t play this way, if you get hooked on maximizing score there’s enough challenge and skill required in Deadeye mode for potentially endless play.
More scenes (both free and paid) are planned by developer Cloudhead Games, with the 10 included available in easy, normal and hard flavors. The main mode of Pistol Whip is built around an aim assistance feature that makes most players feel like an expert shooter. Most people are not a John Wick-level marksman and the built-in modifiers will prove it — just turn Deadeye on with the built-in menu and feel the crushing difficulty of perfectly lining up sights and timing shots just right.
If this is too hard, players can activate the Dual-wield mode to add a second gun and riddle the colorful simulation with bullets.
Pistol Whip Skill Progression
Each Pistol Whip song included at launch is licensed from Kannibalen Records and roughly three to five minutes long. You can pick any of the ten at the start of the game, and any difficulty. One shot takes out enemies with no armor, a bulletproof vest takes one more, or a motorcycle helmet combined with full body armor requires four shots total to defeat.
I’d expect many players who are familiar with VR, and shooters, to try the normal difficulty at first and find their way through some tracks after maybe a few attempts. Some players — those unfamiliar with games and VR in general, or those looking for a more relaxed session — can use the training and start with the easy version of the scenes.
Select the hard version of a scene and the number of enemies increases as does the number of bullets needed to take many of them down. Some of the songs at this difficulty could take some players dozens of tries to get through. David Jagneaux played five of the songs over more than an hour on stream and he didn’t complete one on hard. In his defense, he spent that time touring through some of the game’s built-in modifiers, answering questions from viewers, and generally not building the memory of a track which is critical to completing one. I’ve beaten all the scenes on hard — I spent many hours doing so — and moved onto Deadeye mode to try and improve my aim.
This is the only song I’ve beaten so far in that mode:
The important bit here is that there are multiple levels of challenge for each of the included scenes, and multiple styles of play it can serve. This should allow a wide range of players — from a shooter-savvy marksman to a first-time VR buyer — to find entry points where they can start searching for Pistol Whip’s groove.
Dancing Through A Gunfight
There are so many power fantasy action movies that come to mind moving forward through Pistol Whip’s glowing fever dream maps. The one which I think best describes the nirvana power fantasy feeling of playing it is Edge Of Tomorrow. That’s the Tom Cruise versus aliens movie where he gets a power that lets him — Live. Die. Repeat. — essentially fighting seemingly unwinnable battles over and over again and marginally improving over time.
Pistol Whip teaches you to read the environment looking for platforms where enemies may spawn moments before they actually do, to listen close to the gunfire and know exactly when, and from which direction, the bullets are coming. This training, hard-earned from repeated playthroughs, teaches players when to duck, lean or move out of the way just in time to save themselves. Proficiency at Pistol Whip means moving with the rhythm and that’s just about the time it starts looking and feeling more like dancing.
Below is a video for the same scene and difficulty level as above but this time I turn Deadeye mode off and, because I’ve memorized the map, I play in a much more relaxed style where aim isn’t as important.
Does it get boring?
If you’re not a fan of Pistol Whip’s included music there’s no support for custom maps at launch, so don’t expect to play a level inspired by 8 Mile’s Lose Yourself, or whatever your dream song is, for some time.
I find most of the songs pretty enjoyable but definitely take a listen to the videos on this page and see if there’s a fit with your tastes before committing to a purchase. I find the songs that aren’t my favorites can still be fun because the level designs come with enough surprises to make them challenging in slightly different ways.
On Revelations you’ve got to regularly slip your head between narrow crevices while on Download The Future some of the enemies send bullets from far away long before you can reply. That means you’ve got several more seconds to get out of the way of a wave of bullets while more enemies ready up to fire closer to you.
Death is my favorite of the launch scenes with its more than 5-minute battle playing out like you’re being chased through a Day of The Dead festival colored by yellows, oranges and reds on a hot day, then, after about a minute, the lyric “I’ll bring you death!” marks the transition to a cool kind of afterlife marked with purples and pinks as the walkway changes to a long narrow path over the abyss.
Mileage with Pistol Whip will definitely vary from mine, which amounts to roughly 50 hours with no end in sight. The main motivation here is dodge the bullet or die. If you complete all 10 songs on hard quickly, don’t like a few of the songs enough not to play their scene, or don’t find the Deadeye and/or Dual-wield modes to be a fun challenge, you’re going to spend a fraction of the time with this game compared to me.
Comfort
Pistol Whip artificially moves the player forward through its scenes in a straight line at a constant rate of speed. While nowhere near the most uncomfortable type of simulated movement VR software might employ, it is possible some players might feel a little woozy or uncomfortable. VR’s current rhythm leader Beat Saber, in contrast, moves boxes past a stationary player that should be more comfortable to a wider selection of players. Still, I am one of the most sensitive people on staff to simulator sickness and experienced not even a hint of it in Pistol Whip with a Valve Index or Oculus Quest.
Even if you get a couple hours of fun out of Pistol Whip that’s — let’s be honest — more than most VR games get out of most players, and practically none of that time wearing the headset is spent learning made-for-VR mechanics like teleportation or grasping simulated objects. No, in Pistol Whip you point the gun, pull the trigger, shake it up and down to reload and remember to dodge incoming bullets by moving your head out of the way. That’s it. That’s the entire game and, for me, each of these scenes and the Deadeye modifier makes for an addictive challenge that pays off again and again and again.
Pistol Whip Platform Differences
The wireless freedom of Quest can make it easier to move with the kind of speed and confidence required, to, say, jump into the air to dodge a bullet and then bring your gun down on a bad guy’s head in a single movement. On Index it’s a gorgeous trip with a smoothness to everything — and a depth to the sound — that’s missed in the Oculus Quest. As noted above there are separate leaderboards for Oculus and Steam buyers.
Violence
Despite the age warnings associated with many headsets kids often play VR games and there are some differences between Pistol Whip and Beat Saber which parents or guardians should bear in mind. Beat Saber hands players a simulated tool inspired by a fictional laser sword from a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, and its “enemies” are boxes. Pistol Whip’s tool is a gun and its enemies take the shape of people. So I would recommend taking to heart a lyric in one of Pistol Whip’s songs: “Due to some violent content, parental discretion is advised.”
Pistol Whip Review Verdict:
Pistol Whip’s multiple difficulties and modifiers like Deadeye and Dual-wield add depth to a game that’s more addictive and satisfying than Beat Saber. This is neither fully a shooter nor completely a rhythm game yet it ticks off both boxes and does so exceptionally quickly in a stylish package. The 10 launch songs, all in the same general musical style, are a bit limiting. Pistol Whip, though, is already the game that brings me back to my VR headset again and again, and I expect that to be the case for months to come. I’ll be in the group waiting for more official scenes to arrive, trying to finish a few more songs in Deadeye mode on hard, showing the game to others and hoping someone figures out how to add custom maps and songs.
For today’s livestream we’re diving into the neon-soaked rhythm insanity of Pistol Whip to show off what it’s like from the player’s actual first-person perspective. If you’re curious about how we livestream the way we do then look no further than this handy guide for general tips and this guide specific to our Oculus Quest setup.
Pistol Whip is finally releasing this week on November 7th! To get you ready for its release we’ll be livestreaming the rhythm-based action shooter for the first time using the pre-release build. We can only show five of the songs during the livestream, but we’ll really try and put them through their paces. If you want to read our hands-on preview you can do that here or watch a bunch of great mixed reality videos here.
The Pistol Whip stream is planned to start November 4th at around 2:15PM PT and we’ll aim to last for about an hour or so. We’ll be hitting just YouTube. You can see the full stream embedded via YouTube right here down below once it’s up, or find it here on this page:
You can see lots of our past archived streams over in our YouTube playlist and various other gameplay highlights. There’s lots of good stuff there so make sure and subscribe to us on YouTube to stay up-to-date on gameplay videos, video reviews, interviews, and more original content!
And please let us know which games or discussions you want us to livestream next other than Pistol Whip! We have lots of VR games in the queue that we would love to show off more completely.
Designers at Canada-based Cloudhead waste no time in their latest game. Pistol Whip basically points a gun at your head and says “dodge this.” You better move, or you’re going down like just another agent in The Matrix.
The VR game debuts Nov. 7 across most major headsets including Quest, Index, Rift and Vive (with a PSVR version in the works), and the software wears its inspirations on stylish sleeves. If you’ve played Superhot, you can see that game the moment you hear the words “Pistol…Whip” at scene selection. Beat Saber’s influence is obvious, too, but so are the fantasies of generations who grew up watching action movies like James Bond, Die Hard, Kingsman and John Wick.
That’s the level upon which Pistol Whip’s foundation is laid firmest. It is a VR game made for people who like movies where heroes get things done with a gun. Put another way, it should appeal to almost anyone who thinks Keanu Reeves looks good in a suit.
Symphony Of Bullets
I’ve spent nearly 40 hours with early versions of Pistol Whip on Valve Index and I see no end in sight to my time with the game. As I type this, my hand aches from gripping the controller too tightly, and for too long, replaying a single hard level in “Deadeye” mode.
The game launches with 10 levels, or “scenes” as Cloudhead calls them. Each scene — a catchy song licensed from Kannibalen Records — is mapped to a continuous three-to-five minute path through colorful glowing stages. Each scene amounts to a dreamy re-imagining of chase or gun-battle scenes from action movies. There are easy, medium and hard difficulties for each scene and they are all built around an auto-aim system tuned to help a wide selection of players slip into this power fantasy.
Auto-aim
The auto-aim ensures everyone playing Pistol Whip is a highly skilled marksman relentlessly pulled forward through each level. Enemies sprint into place and align themselves at a series of predefined moments along the path. When they fire you’ve got some time to move your head out of the way. There are really only three main enemy types and they differ visually just enough to tell you they need one, two or four bullets to go down. There are, of course, more of the harder to break baddies on higher difficulties.
I put most of my time with the game into this auto-aim mode. Players are likely to find different play styles depending what you want to do. Going for a high score? Maybe start moving to the beat to help you place your bullets at the right moment. I found a satisfying flow state playing this way — a kind of dance with my heart thumping in my chest and shots colliding perfectly in sync with the music. I haven’t felt anything like it since, maybe, Mirror’s Edge.
Deadeye Modifier
I recently turned on the “Deadeye” modifier and, spoiler alert, turning auto-aim off is like that arc in a comic book hero’s journey where they lose their powers. I can’t yet beat a level on hard difficulty in this mode and I haven’t found that relaxing/exhilarating flow state I did in the main game. Honing my aim, though, also feels like an incredible challenge to undertake as well and one that’s likely to draw me back again and again. It also offers a 20% score bonus.
Pistol Whip Scoring
With auto-aim I’d memorized the spawn beats of enemies to such a degree, and became so aligned with the assistance, that I’d learned to take my shots fast and move my head so little that it didn’t take much energy anymore to dodge the occasional bullet and stay in command of a hard level. There are 200 points possible per shot summed from a combination of accuracy and on-beat shooting. “Deadeye” mode, then, is there for players who want “training accuracy or as a high-level challenge,” according to Cloudhead.
What About Custom Songs?
Some VR players may turn Deadeye on way quicker than I did — it wasn’t in earlier builds I tried — and I’m far from what anyone would call “good” at shooter games. So many players will probably exhaust the game’s levels way faster than me. Cloudhead’s official comment on “custom” music is that “because Pistol Whip levels are complete scenes rather than ‘voids’ like in traditional rhythm games, custom tracks are a more complicated process. However, we have solutions in mind that we are excited to address after launch.”
The studio is also planning “more free and paid songs/scenes for after launch.”
Hype Train Pulling Into The Station
Game reviews are embargoed by Cloudhead until release of the game at 10 am Pacific on Nov. 7. In all my time with the game I’ve only played five of the 10 completed songs. We should have our hands on a finished build of the game with plenty of time to develop a full review, but for now Cloudhead’s lifted the embargo on initial impressions.
So, here it is then. Pistol Whip’s consumed me for much of 2019. Cloudhead announced the game as part of our E3VR showcase this summer and when I went on vacation I took the Valve Index and its base stations with me because I expected Cloudhead to send me a build during the trip. They did, and my family is still mad at me for playing it in the other room so much instead of visiting with them. I was so impressed by what I played I got a passport and booked the multi-flight journey out to visit their office in Canada and interview the development team face-to-face so I could understand their journey toward this game.
For roughly seven years now I’ve obsessed over the promises of VR technology and I’ve been a fair bit skeptical the entire time. I wish VR would allow more people to work from home while empowering more folks to spend meaningful time with their families. Maybe that’s the future of VR — I hope it is — but the fun I’ve found in Pistol Whip tells me something Cloudhead seemed to realize in its journey from two Myst-like VR games and Aperture Hand Labs to this one.
First, we’ll need guns. Lots of guns.
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Cloudhead Games, the studio behind The Gallery series and Aperture Hand Labs, today announced that its upcoming ‘action-rhythm FPS’ Pistol Whip is set to arrive on November 7th.
Pistol Whip is said to include cross-buy for the Oculus Store version, meaning you’ll only need to buy the game once to play on either Rift or Quest. The game also supports HTC Vive, Valve Index, and Windows VR headsets via Steam and Viveport.
The studio maintains that Pistol Whip is also heading to PSVR soon, although it hasn’t mentioned any specific release window yet.
In case you haven’t seen the game’s E3 2019 reveal back in June, the unique action-rhythm shooter is being billed as ‘part Superhot and part Beat Saber‘; it also includes a runner-style movement scheme that sends you hurdling through an abstract crystalline world that’s teeming with baddies that need to be shot—and providing they’re close enough—pistol whipped to pieces.
Cloudhead says they were also inspired by action films such as John Wick and Equilibrium, and if the new trailer is any indication, it’s pretty easy to see how.
“As a VR-centric studio, we’ve always placed a focus on player agency in VR. With Pistol Whip we wanted users to feel like their favorite action hero, planted in the center of an unstoppable action sequence,” said Denny Unger, Cloudhead CEO and creative director.
To supply the rhythm-based game with music, the studio has partnered with Montreal-based Kannibalen Records to deliver what it calls a “pulse-pounding 10-song soundtrack,” which is said to include music by EDM bands such as Apashe, HVDES, and Black Tiger Sex Machine. Cloudhead says regular music and level updates are planned for post-launch.
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