Last month Archiact Interactive announced a partnership with indie developer E McNeill to bring the award-winning Darknet to Sony Interactive Entertainment’s (SIE) PlayStation VR. A release date for the title has now been confirmed, arriving on 7th March.
Origianlly launched for Samsung Gear VR, Darknet is an deep strategy/puzzle game that lets gamers play as an elite hacker contracted to retrieve data from the world’s most secure networks. Players dive into the Net, install viruses, inject code, and hack their way through cybersecurity in an experience inspired by a classic cyberpunk vision of the future.
Darknet has been refined and tailored for PlayStation VR boasting several new improvements. This includes full audio integration added to the PlayStation 4 Dualshock controller, art enhancements to the UI and main menu, as well as all-new PlayStation trophies for players to earn.
Since releasing Darknet E McNeill has gone on to create Tacteraand most recently Skylight. VRFocus gave the former a 4-star rating saying: “Tactera is a great example of high production values on the Samsung Gear VR’s limited hardware and is a showcase piece for the strategy genre in VR.” While Skylight got a 5-star review: “Skylight has been perfectly formulated with engaging gameplay, quirky visuals and hours of entertainment.”
When Darknet launches on Tuesday, 7th March, PlayStation VR owners will be able to pick it up for $14.99 USD. For the latest updates from E McNeill, keep reading VRFocus.
Darknet is one of the best and most highly-regarded VR puzzle games out right now. Available today on both Rift and Gear VR, it positions players as hackers in a cyberpunk futuristic environment where they must retrieve data from some of the world’s most secure networks. According to an official press release, starting March 7th, that list of support platforms is expanding to also include Sony’s PlayStation VR (PSVR).
It’s a very 90s-style retro-futuristic approach to the concept of hacking that takes you “inside” of computers and makes you feel like what you thought computer hackers were back when you were a kid.
The objective of the game is to inject viruses into anti-virus points in the correct pattern so that they spread and infect the core of a node. It sounds confusing, but works incredibly well mechanically and gradually gets more and more difficult as the game progresses — like any good puzzle experience.
Here’s a video of the game’s creator, E McNeill, explaining it himself on the Gear VR version:
Interestingly, this marks the first time a game by E McNeill has appeared on a non-Oculus platform. Darknet, Tactera, and Skylight have all been released on Gear VR and Darknet is also on the Oculus Rift. But nothing on Vive or Google’s Daydream yet.
In its port over to PSVR, Darknet is also receiving some minor upgrades, such as full audio support for the PS4’s DualShock 4 controller, visual enhancements, and of course trophies to earn while playing.
Since Darknet, E McNeill has gone on a bit of a tactical kick, releasing turn-based strategy game Tactera [Review: 7/10] and the turn-based real-time hybrid war game, Skylight [Review: 7.5/10]. Both are excellent in their own way and all three of his games maintain an iconic visual style.
Darknet is scheduled to release for PSVR on March 7th for $14.99 from E McNeill and Archiact.
One-man VR development force E McNeill released his third game onto Gear VR last week, but his original project is finally coming to PlayStation VR, too.
As announced over on the PlayStation Blog, Darknet, the developer’s futuristic hacking-based puzzle game, is making its way from Gear VR and Oculus Rift over to Sony’s system at some point in early 2017. The experience has you accessing nodes to strategically take them over. Like all of McNeill’s games, its a neon-enthused nod to some of the science fiction that dreamt of VR before it was really here, and it pulls it off with style.
Waddle Home developer Archiact is publishing the game on PlayStation 4. In addition to porting it, the team is adding audio integration with the console’s DualShock 4 (though we typically play PS VR with headphones on) and new art. Based on the trailer above, the PS VR version will also bring the DualShock 4 itself into the game world.
VR veterans will remember that Darknet was the first full game to release on Gear VR back when the headset released as an Innovator’s Edition in late 2014, having originally been conceived in an Oculus VR Jam. McNeill even released the entire experience for free, as Gear didn’t actually allow customers to pay for products in its first few months. Since then the developer also released sci-fi strategy Tactera [Review: 7/10] on follow-up Skylight [Review: 7.5/10] onto the mobile headset. We’ve asked the team if those games might make it over too.
News of new PS VR games will be welcomed by early adopters, as it’s been a fair few weeks since a new game has released on the kit. Hopefully ports such as this can help keep the headset fuelled with new content; there’s plenty of Rift, Vive, and Gear games we’d want to see on the platform.
A full release date Darknet‘s PS VR port hasn’t been shared, but expect to be playing this one within the next few months.
Indie developer E McNeill has become renowned for creating strategy titles for Samsung Gear VR. His first was Darknet, which began way back in 2014, then last year saw the release of Tactera. Then last week saw the launch of his third virtual reality (VR) project, Skylight. Today Archiact Interactive has announced a partnership with McNeill which will bring the award-winning Darknet to Sony Interactive Entertainment’s (SIE) PlayStation VR.
Darknet is a strategy/ puzzle videogame in which players are cast as elite hackers, combing cyberspace using viruses, worms and other digital exploits to steal data as quickly as possible. Its gameplay mechanic has seen Darknet win awards such as Best Gameplay at the Proto Awards, and win an Oculus VR Jam.
But Darknet was built for mobile, so when moving it across to PlayStation VR Archiact has refined and tailored the experience for SIE’s head-mounted display (HMD), with the final version adding several new improvements. On the PlayStation.Blog the studio state: “Full audio integration has been added for Dualshock 4, which brings another layer of immersion to the up-close-and-personal hacking experience. We also couldn’t resist sneaking in some new art; players will notice enhancements to areas such as the in-network nodes, the user interface, and the main menu. And of course, we created some new PS VR Trophies for you all to hunt down and collect.”
Archiact hasn’t confirmed an exact launch date, simply saying ‘early 2017’, so for further details on Darknet, E McNeill, or Archiact Interactive, keep reading VRFocus.
When presented with the potential of VR as a new medium for video games, first-person shooters may immediately come to mind. But the prospect of being able to stand atop a battlefield, looking down at units, and commanding forces as an all-seeing god-like being is just as exciting. We’ve seen a few interpretations of the idea, such as AirMech Command, which mostly stay true to the genre’s roots, few games have stepped outside the genre boundaries.
Which brings us to Skylight. This latest release checks many of the boxes we’ve come to expect from strategy games over the years, but it’s ultimately a difficult game to describe mechanically as it melds elements from real-time strategy and turn-based tactics experiences together into something fresh and unique.
At first glance, Skylight looks just about like anything else E McNeill has done in his stint with independent VR game development. The neon-infused lines and colors are reminiscent of both of his past works (Darknet and Tactera), lending an identifiable style that feels both familiar and fresh at the same time. While Darknet was very clearly a unique VR-powered puzzle game and Tactera was an inventive adaptation of real-time strategy mechanics played on a virtual tabletop, Skylight is something a bit different altogether.
From the start of the game, the cohesive thematic sense of immersion is extremely well-done. Your character is standing aboard a starship in outer space as the soft, kind voice of a female A.I. speaks to you, addressing you as the commander. The premise is that you’re presented with a large 3D visualization of a battlefield as it’s happening millions of miles away in another region of space.
During missions your fleet, the blue ships, begin on the left side, while your enemy’s fleet, the yellow ships, begin on the right side. You look at each of your ships, tap the touchpad, then pick a node on the battlefield for them to approach or an enemy to attack. After you’ve issued all of the commands to your fleet, you confirm, and then everything starts to move at once. Your ships, your enemy’s ships — the action takes place simultaneously in real-time for both sides. It’s like a neon-space opera ripped out of Ender’s Game.
As the ships move around the environment, a timer is ticking down. Once it’s done the action pauses again for each side to issue new orders and the cycle repeats itself until one side loses all of their large capital ships. Things start out easy in the campaign with you outnumbering your enemy but quickly get more difficult as the missions carry on. There are three core campaigns split between Easy, Normal, and Hard difficulty levels. In my experience, the Hard campaign is in fact extremely difficult.
In addition to capital ships there are defensive ships and attack-type ships as well. Even though the combat system sounds relatively simplistic, the visual detail and animations put it over the top in terms of quality. Small fighter ships zip around larger ships during combat and the sound of rail guns firing really sells your eardrums on the power. Before long, you’ll really start to feel like the commander of a futuristic star fleet.
Skylight is launching with a free-to-play demo version and the option to unlock the full game for $4.99. In the free version, you get access to 8 of the 12 total ships and 10 of the 30 campaign missions, along with some multiplayer matchmaking limitations. If you enjoy the first few missions you play in the Easy campaign, I’d highly recommend purchasing the full game early instead of waiting because the extra ships really open up a lot of new strategic opportunities. Triple the number of missions and more multiplayer don’t hurt either.
Even though there is a good amount of content, I came away wishing for some type of structured campaign mode with a more refined story. The lore of the different planets and factions is there in descriptive text, but it’s not enticing enough to keep reading. More varied objectives, maps, and even just extra environments could have helped extend Skylight’s appeal. There is a Skirmish mode for quick battles you set up on your own, as well as Multiplayer matchmaking, which does add up to a relatively robust package.
Final Score: 7.5/10 – Very Good
Skylight may very well be E McNeill’s best game to-date. The stylistic neon visuals shine through with more detail than ever before and the intricate mixture of turn-based tactics and real-time strategy add up to an engaging and unique experience for Gear VR. A more robust campaign mode and a bit more gameplay variety could have turned Skylight into an even better tactical affair, but as it stands, it’s one of the best VR games for strategy fans so far.
Skylight will be available as a free demo version on Gear VR starting today (1/12/17), with an upgrade to the full game costing $4.99. Read our Game Review Guidelines for more information on how we arrived at this score.
E. McNeill has quickly and decisively established himself as one of the premiere game developers working on the Oculus platform with successful games on both the Rift and Gear VR, such as puzzle game Darknet and real-time strategy game, Tactera. The developer’s most recent addition to his growing catalog is another take on the tactical strategy genre in the form of a spiritual successor named Skylight.
Rather than being played as a fast-paced real-time strategy game, such as in Tactera, Skylight takes a much more measured and methodical approach. The entire game exists in a large 3D space around you with X, Y, and Z axis movement. Instead of your forces moving and reacting constantly throughout the game, it’s instead split into phases where you’re either issuing commands or watching them be carried out.
However, you don’t just get to sit back on your turn and watch your units move around, as you would in purely turn-based games such as XCOM, Advanced Wars, or even Fire Emblem. In the case of Skylight, it takes a more hybrid approach. While you’re issuing orders to your troops, so too is your opponent. Once the order phase is over, all of those troops carry out their orders simultaneously.
This means that you might tell a unit to go to a specific point to set up an ambush, but the unit you were anticipating to attack soon may change their trajectory and go somewhere else. It creates an interesting ‘cat and mouse’ dynamic that forces you to both anticipate your opponent and preemptively respond.
“Skylight puts a strong emphasis on strategic decision making while requiring true mental agility as the game unfolds,” states the game’s press page. “Each turn culminates in cinematic and spectacular space battles as Skylight navigates an unexpected dynamic between thoughtful, carefully plotted turn-based gameplay on the one hand, and real-time action-packed battles on the other.”
There will be 3 classes of ships, with 12 individual types, offering plenty of variety to the combat. The whole game is focused on tactical combat and decision making, taking the emphasis away from base management and macro-battle decisions. The campaign mode will feature over 30 different missions and intense multiplayer ensures plenty of reasons to keep coming back for more.
Expect to learn more information about Skylight this week during Oculus Connect 3 in San Jose. Skylight is currently in development for Gear VR without a definite release date established.
