Announced late last year, Meta is shutting down three of its exclusive titles this week, including VR shooters Dead and Buried (2016) and Dead and Buried II (2019), and virtual pet simulator Bogo (2019), making it your last chance to say goodbye.
Update (March 11th, 2024): The date for complete shutdown of Bogo and both Dead and Buried titles is coming fast, arriving on March 15th. If you want to give them one last go, now’s your chance. For Quest owners who haven’t played before, sadly there’s no way to download them from the Quest Store, as all three have been removed at the time of the original announcement in September 2023.
The original article detailing the games’ shutdown follow below:
Original Article (September 18th, 2023): Meta announced via email to current game owners that all three titles will no longer be supported come March 15th, 2024. In the meantime, the company has removed the games from store search results, and removed any way to purchase or download them (if not already in your library).
Created as an Oculus Touch launch title for Rift and released in late 2016 by Oculus Studios, Dead and Buried was one of the pioneering multiplayer VR shooters that explored room-scale gameplay, including co-op, PvP, and single-player modes.
Interestingly, the Oculus Touch launch title never came to Quest, although a version was adapted for Oculus Go, the 3DOF standalone released in 2018.
Meta’s internal game development studio back then, Oculus Studios, instead was working on Dead and Buried II, which would release as a launch title for the original Quest in May 2019, but also arrive on Rift with cross-play.
Dead and Buried II departed from the purely room-scale locomotion of the first, and injected some standard stick-driven locomotion to the mix, making for more dynamic shootouts across multiple maps.
Released as a free Oculus Quest launch title in 2019 (and Rift), Bogo lets you raise and care for your own virtual pet. It’s admittedly a short experience without a ton of depth, but it’s getting the axe just the same come March 15th, as it will be removed not only from both Quest and Rift Stores, but also from user libraries.
While both Dead and Buried games heavily feature online gameplay—more understandable victims of platform decay—the decision to shutter the single-player game Bogo suggests Meta isn’t prioritizing legacy support for original Quest games as it moves towards the next generation of Quest headset, or more specifically Quest 3.
Whatever the case, we’re sure to learn more come September 27th during Connect 2023 where the company will very likely release a flurry of news surrounding Quest 3.
Dead and Buried II: Reloaded is a big, free update to the Oculus Rift and Quest-exclusive VR shooter that introduces a series of new game modes, maps, and more to the Western-themed VR shooter.
Dead and Buried II released in 2019 for both Rift and Quest and quickly fizzled out in terms of popularity. Now, almost a year later, it’s getting a big update that adds a host of new features to try and draw people back in.
This update will add three brand new game modes: Survival, Horde, and Quickdraw. In Survival, you and three other players have to try and survive as you collect energy orbs to progress through large maps. For this mode there are three new maps as well: Fort, Canyon, and Alpine. The destruction sounds similar to the popular zombies game mode found in many Call of Duty games.
The other two game modes, Quickdraw and Horde, are “back by popular demand” according a prepared statement as carryovers from the original Dead and Buried that launched with Oculus Touch back in late 2016.
Quickdraw is exactly what it sounds like: this is a 1v1 stand-off against another player in the middle of the Old West-themed main town area. Horde on the other hand is similar to the new Survival mode, as it is another co-op mode across a series of maps.
Developers are also adding four new maps to Shootout, making it seven total for this multi-team mode, as well as two new maps to the Deathmatch mode, also equaling seven total for this mode.
Finally, there is now a character select screen, two new characters, five new weapons, and character customization for added variety.
The Dead and Buried II: Reloaded update launches for free today on both Oculus Rift and Oculus Quest. You can get the game now, if you don’t own it already for $19.99 with full crossplay and cross-buy support across both headsets. You can read more about the update over on the Oculus blog.
Oculus has used virtual reality (VR) for a number of charitable initiatives like its VR for Good programme. Today, the company has announced a new charitable scheme, the VR Charity Challenge, which is set to take place later this week.
The challenge is simple enough, two teams of five players will compete against each other for a prize of $100,000 USD, which will go to one of two charities, Take This – a mental health nonprofit serving the game community or Stack Up – which works to bring veterans together in a supportive environment using a universal love for gaming.
VR Charity Challenge will take place from 13th December until 16th December, with each day featuring a different VR title. On Thursday 13th it’ll be the excellent Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, on Friday 14th its Face Your Fears, Saturday 15th’s challenge will be Dead and Buried, while on Sunday 16th the contestants will have to face Creed: Rise to Glory.
And who will be facing these challenges? A bunch of gamers from YouTube and further a field. On Team Stack up there’s Jon Sandman, ChilledChaos, STPeach, Austen Marie, and Magnusbeasticus. Making up Team Take This are Pamela Horton, TheMissessmae, Sohinki, Lemming, and Panser.
Head to the VR Charity Challenge or the Oculus YouTube page on each of the days to see how each challenge played out. For any further updates on Oculus’ charitable initiatives, keep reading VRFocus.
Though virtual reality (VR) is steadily growing in popularity among consumers, the expense of the hardware needed keeps it out of reach of many who might otherwise enjoy experiencing VR. In response to this, the number of location-based VR centres has increased hugely in recent months, with an accompanying increase in the videogames created for a larger-scale location-based VR experience.
As part of the showcase for what the newly released standalone headset the Oculus Quest could do, a demonstration area was set up at Oculus Connect 5 where up to six people could use Oculus quest headsets to play a location-based version of first-person shooter Dead and Buried, known simply as Dead and Buried Arena.
Some of the team from VRFocus, including Nina Salomons got to go hands-on with this experience and report their findings.
Dead and Buried was originally launched on the Oculus Rift and was one of several titles to be launched alongside the Oculus Touch controllers, as part of a showcase of what the motion controller could do.
Dead and Buried is described as a kind of barroom shoot-out in VR, where teams of two players fight to the death. Armed with a range of pistols, shotguns and even grenade launchers, players need to make clever use of cover and time shots carefully in order to take out opponents and make it out alive.
The arena in use at Oculus Connect 5 used physical props to demonstrate what areas could be used as cover, so users had to duck down behind pillars and pop up to take a few shots before retreating again, making good use of the free-roam aspect of the arena part of Dead and Buried Arena.
“Suddenly we were in a fantasy wild-west shooter environment. In the real-world environment there were boxes, there were obstacles in the game.” Nina explains.
The full video is available to view below. For further coverage on Oculus Quest, keep checking back with VRFocus.
Auf der Oculus Connect 5 wurde die neue VR-Brille Oculus Quest enthüllt. Mark Zuckerberg verspricht, zum Startschuss über 50 Titel auf dem Niveau der Oculus Rift bereitzustellen. Um welche VR-Spiele und -Erfahrungen es sich dabei handelt und welche Entwicklerstudios ihre Arbeit für das neue System bereits bekannt gegeben haben, erfahrt ihr hier.
Oculus Quest – VR-Spiele und -Erfahrungen für die neue VR-Brille
Die neue Oculus Quest möchte als mobiles VR-Spielsystem den Mainstream erobern. John Carmack sieht sie in direkter Konkurrenz zur Nintendo Switch, um ortsungebunden in ein virtuelles Gaming-Erlebnis einzutauchen. Damit die Käufer/innen bereits zum Release genug Auswahl erhalten, sollen laut Oculus über 50 VR-Titel bereitstehen.
Einige Studios hielten nicht lange hinter dem Berg und veröffentlichten kurzerhand ihre anstehenden Releases. So veröffentlichte das Team von Superhot, dass SUPERHOT VR auf der Quest spielbar sein wird. Eine Demo wurde bereits auf der OC5 vorgestellt. Auch die Titel Moss von Polyarc Games, Robo Recall, The Climb und Dead and Buried wurden bereits bestätigt. Auch Sci-Fi-Freunde kommen mit der neuen VR-Erfahrung Star Wars: Vader Immortal voll auf ihre Kosten.
Eine einzigartige Arcade-Multiplayer-Erfahrung soll Dead and Buried Arena bieten. Mit Mixed-Reality-Technologie bezieht der VR-Titel dank eingebauten Kameras das reale Umfeld mit ein und vermischt somit virtuelles Arena-Shooter-Gameplay mit Deckungen aus der realen Welt. Wie der MR-Titel umgesetzt wird, bleibt noch abzuwarten. Auf der OC5 konnten bis zu sechs Teilnehmer/innen auf einer 450 Quadratmeter großen Fläche gegeneinander antreten
Sportlicher geht es dagegen in Tennis Scrampe zu. Mit einem Schlaggerät eurer Wahl dürft ihr auf dem virtuellen Tennisplatz in Wettkampf treten und euch die Bälle um die Ohren hauen.
Neben den VR-Spielen wurde der angsteinflößende Nachfolger Face Your Fears 2 von Turtle Rock Studios verkündet. Erneut dürft ihr euch euren Ängsten stellen und in gruselige Szenarien eintauchen.
Face Your Fears 2 is at #OC5 being played hands on for the very first time! Check it out if you're here… and very, very brave. pic.twitter.com/dp8Sg6e3Kn
Oculus Quest – Unbekannte VR-Titel von bekannten Entwicklerstudios
Wenn auch bisher noch ohne öffentliche Releases, haben diverse Entwicklerstudios ihre Arbeit an VR-Software für die kommende Oculus Quest angekündigt. Dazu zählen Twisted Pixel (bekannt für Wilson’s Heart), High Voltage Software (bekannt für Dragon Front), Sólfar Studios (bekannt für In Death), Ready at Dawn, Schell Games, Vertigo Games, BigScreen und viele mehr.
Hugo Barra, Vice President von Facebook VR, kündigte die Arbeit der Devs folgendermaßen an:
“Diese Teams erforschen derzeit, welche Möglichkeiten die Oculus Quest offenbart und welche zukünftigen VR-Titel damit umsetzbar sind.”
Oculus Quest might be being touted as the future of virtual reality (VR) – where Oculus is concerned anyway – but the company has yet to release many specs for the headset other than it being standalone with built-in inside-out tracking using Oculus Insight. The big question is how well it’ll stack up against Oculus Rift, with Oculus’ Head of VR Hugo Barra stating in yesterdays keynote address during Oculus Connect 5 (OC5) that it would provide ‘Rift like experiences’. That question became a little clearer thanks to a session which looked at porting content to the new device.
In the session called ‘Porting Your App to Oculus Quest’, Oculus Developer Relations Engineer, Gabor Szauer, discussed the processes developers would need to use to fine tune their videogame for the less powerful head-mounted display (HMD). While most of the talk gets quite technical – especially towards the end – Szauer does use multiplayer first-person shooter (FPS) Dead and Buried as an example, showcasing side by side comparisons of the two.
As you can see from the image above there’s not a huge amount of difference between the two, with the Oculus Rift version having better lighting thanks to real-time lighting and volumetric lights. While the Oculus Quest version uses whats called ‘baked’ lighting which is much less intensive to produce. And there’s greater detail not only in the scene but the gun itself for the PC version, with Szauer noting that the Oculus Rift version uses 6,917 polygons while the Oculus Quest gun uses a mere 33 polygons.
Easy to pick apart when side by side, in a hectic videogame like Dead and Buried you’re likely to notice this difference a lot less, especially when playing the new arena version, due to the physical nature of the gameplay.
To see it in action take a look at the video below. It’s the entire session so skip to 9:08 minutes in to see the short video demonstration. It probably looks even better in the headset thanks to the new lenses which are similar to Oculus Go. As further details regarding Oculus Quest are released VRFocus will keep you informed.
Oculus Quest, Facebook’s new VR standalone headset, is set to bolster its library with a host of ports of Oculus Rift titles when it launches next year. But, running with mobile hardware, can Quest really hope to achieve anywhere near the level of visual fidelity seen on the Rift?
As Developer Relations Engineer Gabor Szauer showed at Oculus Connect yesterday, it can get pretty darn close. Szauer ran a session titled ‘Porting Your App to Project Oculus Quest’ in which he detailed various optimizations made to one of Rift’s premier shooters, Dead and Buried, that allowed the team to squeeze the game onto Quest. This was the result:
Not bad, right? Now, obviously, Oculus itself has intimate knowledge of both PC and mobile development on its hardware, not to mention the limitless resources of Facebook to make these ports happen. It’s also true that Dead and Buried isn’t the most demanding Rift game (a sort of port is on Go, too). Still, Szauer’s tips for porting games should give developers a lot of help.
For starters, the developer cited a key component of any optimization system: baking the app’s lighting. This essentially means lighting is a static feature within an environment rather than an intensive dynamic system that sucks up processing power. The less Quest has to remember, the more it can focus on things that really matter.
Other tips were very much along the same lines. Szauer suggested developers merge objects in a room. Dead and Buried, for example, features 915 objects on Rift but just two in the Quest version which, yes, will mean you can pick up everything in a room, but it will give Quest a much easier time letting you walk around in it.
Another major factor is texture compression. Szauer showed examples of where texture qualities on characters and environments had been lowered ever so slightly. The difference to you and me is hardly noticeable but, as Szauer said: “Where we can’t really tell, the GPU can most certainly tell.
“This is kind of a trend you see in all the assets,” he continued. “Less textures, fewer polygons, preferably just one material so the whole thing can just render in one draw call.”
Games like Moss, Superhot and Robo Recall will likely also be calling upon these tricks for their announced ports for Quest. We’re going to be really interested to see how they turn out.
You can see Szauer’s full talk below. Hes’ got plenty more tips. As for Quest, it’s out next spring for $399.
Free Oculus Touch title Dead and Buried by Gunfire Games and Oculus Studios has received a new update today, bringing with it the ability to take 360-degree screenshots and mixed reality (MR) support.
Fans of the videogame can now natively capture immersive screenshots of their best moments as well as 360-degree videos. On top of that, for users with the right equipment, Dead and Buried also includes MR support, so that viewers can get an even better understanding of what it’s like to play the first-person shooter (FPS). This continues Oculus’ MR support roll out, first announced last month.
The 360-degree screenshots and video can be shared outside of virtual reality (VR), plus there’s also a new Gallery section to relive your best highlights.
The core videogame has been expanded and improved as well. Shootout matches can now be started with three players, a new level called Purgatory has been added, and a Global Quick Search function which means you can find any open match from around the world to jump straight into.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Dead and Buried, reporting back with the latest updates.
Der Titel Dead and Buried für die Oculus Rift und Samsung Gear VR kann schießwütige Cowboys überzeugen. Nach einem Update Ende Dezember steht nun die nächste Aktualisierung für die Oculus Rift bereit und bringt etliche Neuerungen mit. Das Update mit dem Titel „Summer of Bullets“ erlaubt es beispielsweise, Screenshots und Videos in 360 Grad zu erstellen. Zudem bringt die neue Version Mixed-Reality-Unterstützung, Shoot-Outs mit drei Spielern und einen zusätzlichen Level.
Dead and Buried: Noch mehr Schießspaß im Wilden Westen
Dead and Buried zeichnet sich vor allem durch seine schicke Grafik und die vielfältigen Spielmodi aus. Man kann beispielsweise am Schießstand üben oder sich gegen angreifende Zombie-Horden zur Wehr setzen. Unser Highlight ist aber der Heist-Modus. Darin muss man im Team einen Zug oder eine Bank überfallen, während das gegnerische Team verteidigt.
Der Shooter im Wild-West-Setting Dead and Buried erhält nun ein größeres Update mit interessanten Erweiterungen. In der Aktualisierung können Spielerbeispielsweise nun Screenshots und Videos in 360 Grad erstellen und in einer neuen Gallerie teilen. Auch Freunde ohne VR-Brille können dann mitfiebern, wie ihr euch geschlagen habt. Ein weiteres Highlight ist sicherlich die Unterstützung von Mixed Reality, bei der Spieler selbst in der virtuelle Realität agiert.
Die Shoot-Out-Kämpfe können jetzt bis zu drei Spieler bestreiten. Eine globale Schnellsuche soll dabei helfen, offene Plätze in Multiplayer-Einsätzen zu finden. Das Matchmaking in Dead and Buried wollen die Entwickler ebenfalls verbessert haben. Am Ende wartet noch auf den Spieler eine neue Herausforderung: Der neue Level Purgatory, also Fegefeuer, wartet darauf, gemeistert zu werden.
Als Hardware setzt Dead and Burried auf dem PC mindestens eine NVIDIA GTX 970 oder AMD Radeon 290 voraus. Der reguläre Preis im Oculus Store beträgt knapp 40 Euro, für Käufer der Oculus Touch Controller ist der Titel kostenlos. Eine Version für die Samsung Gear VR ist ebenfalls erhältlich.
Thanks to ReVive, a hack that lets SteamVR-compatible headsets play Oculus Rift exclusives, anyone with an HTC Vive can enjoy a number of unofficially supported games from the Oculus Store. Here we take a look at 5 of the games you shouldn’t miss—of course with the appended “buyer beware” warning that the Revive hack caries with it.
For non-Rift owners, losing access to a game you bought on the Oculus Store isn’t likely at this point, but it’s not something you should ignore either. Back when Oculus modified their DRM in a way that prevented Revive from functioning, thus blocking Vive users from playing Oculus games in their library, community outcry over the decision eventually led Oculus to reverse that particular stance on DRM, saying that in the future they wouldn’t use headset verification as part of the platform’s security protections. Despite the risk, we still think these Oculus exclusive games are worth playing.
People used to think that fast-paced, high-action games would be too disorienting for new virtual reality users, but in Epic Games’ Robo Recall (2017), you can teleport around at full speed as you blast away at the game’s evil (and hilarious) robot army. If being able to tear your enemies literally limb from limb and beat a robot over the head with their own dismembered arm isn’t astounding enough, the level of detail and polish put into this game will make you reassess what’s possible in VR. This is another Touch freebie you’ll have to pay for as a Vive user, but at $30, you’d be hard-pressed to find something with this level of polish at this price on Steam.
Find out why we gave Robo Recall [8.5/10] in our review.
You can probably burn through this charming, family-friendly 3D platformer in a weekend—providing you’ve got a gamepad on hand—but at exactly zero dollars, Playful’s Lucky’s Tale (2016) is an easy sell. As one of the first third-person games for Rift, Lucky’s Tale helped define the Xbone Gamepad-era of VR gaming that Oculus is leaving behind now that the controller is no longer being bundled. Whether you’re racing with Lucky through lush trees, dodging swamp pits, battling menacing bosses, or mastering mini-games, youʼll feel like you’ve truly gone inside the world of a video game thanks to the magic of VR.
With a fantasy-meets-WW2 setting, this collectible card game takes place on a 4×4 grid battlefield featuring rampaging giants, intimidating war-machines, and soaring projectiles. As a freemium game from High Voltage, there’s still plenty of opportunity to play an exciting single-player campaign if collecting (and buying) card packs in multiplayer isn’t really your thing.
There’s plenty of gun slinging fun in this Western-inspired multiplayer shooter. Darned tootin’ if you can rob a runaway train, defend from zombie hordes, or battle it out in an old saloon—of course with your trusty six-shooters by your side (and a stick of dynamite for good measure). While this is free to Touch owners upon activation, if you’re looking for a well-rounded little shooter with a cowboy flair, the $40 sticker price may fit the bill.
Esper: The Collection gives you access to Esper (2016) and Esper 2(2017)—two finely-crafted and ultimately intriguing puzzlers that give you psychic abilities to solve increasingly challenging tests. As an agent of ESPR, an organization set up to deal with the outbreak of telekinetic powers, you travel to exotic locations (not just your desk); solve puzzles, discover secrets, stop villainous plots, and fall unconscious multiple times. Interact with an array of characters, voiced by notable actors, Nick Frost, Lara Pulver, and Sean Pertwee, and Eric Meyers. Since you’re using your telekenetic powers, this isn’t a game that’ll use Vive controllers to their fullest, but it’s still a great options if you’re looking for a more passive, seated experience.
Two of the most well-received Oculus-funded games—both the campaign mode Lone Echo (2017) selling for $40 and the free multiplayer mode Echo Arena (2017)—are easy for Vive users to play thanks to the games’ native 360-degree setup. If you’re skeptical of the zero-g locomotion scheme, we suggest grabbing Echo Arena first,which doesn’t require Touch activation to nab for free. Either way, you’ll be amazed at how comfortable and immersive flying through space can really be in the first-person (i.e. not Adr1ft).
Find out why we gave Lone Echo [9/10] in our review.
Wilson’s Heart is a gritty first-person thriller from Twisted Pixel that jaunts through gads of sci-fi tropes ripped directly from the silver screen. As one of the most beautiful and visually cohesive VR games out for Touch, the game takes you through a black-and-white universe as experienced by Wilson, a hospital patient recovering from a curious surgery that has replaced his live-beating heart with a strange machine. Ripping it from your chest, you find it gives you a growing number of abilities to help you not only fight against your personal demons, but also some very real ones that have passed into the world thanks to experiments done by the brilliant, but clearly insane Dr. Harcourt
While falling into some overly campy territory, garnering it Wilson’s Heart a [7/10] in our review, the game is definitelty worth a play-through if you can find it for cheaper than its $40 sticker price.
Don’t say we didn’t tell you *not* to button-mash your gamepad before stepping into Chronos (2016), a third-person adventure by Gunfire Games. Slashing at enemies with the long-trained penchant for beat-em-ups will get you exactly nowhere in this Zelda-inspired, Dark Souls-ish-level of difficulty game where dying in the game physically ages your character. Starting out with either an axe or a sword, you leap through a multi-dimensional transport crystal to hunt down a dragon that has ruined your world. As an interesting mix of high-fantasy and a retro post-apocalyptic world, Chronos gives you plenty to gawk at, and even more to worry about as you hack and slash your way through dimensions.
Sitting at 4.5/5 stars on the Oculus Store, it’s a score we can easily get behind.
Edge of Nowhere (2016) is a third-person VR survival horror game created by Insomniac Games that strands you in the icy wasteland of Antarctica, leaving you with only a pick-axe, a shotgun, and some rocks to defend yourself against a bloodthirsty ancient species that lurk inside the snowy caverns. The lack of supplies makes for tense gameplay and forces the players to be creative and conserve resources, creating tense moments when you’re forced to decide whether you should use that last shotgun shell and blow the head off the horrible beast lurking nearby or just try the more risky route and sneak past. As a gamepad game
Find out why we gave Edge of Nowhere one of our highest ratings at [9.5/10] in our review.
