Category: Dice

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DICE 2017: The Year of VR

DICE 2017: The Year of VR

DICE 2017 — a gathering of some of the biggest thinkers, creators and leaders in the digital entertainment industry – kicked off today in Las Vegas. As we’re almost at the one-year mark of release for the latest round of VR headsets, it’s no surprise that many of the topics at this year’s show revolve around virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality.

There are three panels specifically focused on the enhanced-reality industry, and we’re certain more speakers will talk to VR, AR and MR during their time on stage at the show.

From the official DICE 2017 speaker descriptions:

Into the Future
Magic Leap’s Graeme Devine

Magic Leap’s Chief Game Wizard, Graeme is responsible for defining the vision and leading Magic Leap’s Mixed Reality gaming universe. In his D.I.C.E. session, “Into the Future,” Devine will discuss how Mixed Reality will change our lives in the future and how we can create compelling gaming content that propels us forward – that enhances our lives through the Mixed Reality universe.

Powering VR Worlds with Laughter
Squanchtendo’s Justin Roiland and Tanya Watson
Justin Roiland, co-creator, writer and voice actor on Adult Swim’s Rick & Morty, and Tanya Watson, former Epic Games executive producer, are taking the D.I.C.E. stage to chat about their approach to making memorable and humorous games for the VR world. What would that look like? What types of things would happen? What would be different about the development process to support it? How is it more engaging in VR? What experiences do they have to lend to its creation? Join Justin and Tanya as they paint that theoretical world along with the potential opportunity or VR alongside it’s (sic) advantages and disadvantages.

Jason and Ted’s Excellent VR Panel
Oculus’ Jason Rubin and Insomniac Games’ Ted Price
Join Jason Rubin, head of content at Oculus and Ted Price, CEO of Insomniac Games as they discuss their takeaways from the first year of widely available VR content and what the future of VR gaming holds.

All three of these talks will take place on Wednesday, February 22nd in the late morning and early afternoon Pacific Time. We’ll be reporting live from DICE throughout the week, so look for more details about the panels and other VR, AR and MR tidbits as we gather them during our time here.

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More VR Star Wars Could Be in the Works as DICE Reveals Collaborative Effort

2016 was a bumper year for Star Wars fans. Not only did they get Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, DICE released several updates for Star Wars Battlefront, including a movie tie in. As an added bonus for PlayStation 4 owners this also included Rogue One: X-Wing VR Mission for PlayStation VR. Now it seems another virtual reality (VR) title could be in the pipeline as work begins on the next Star Wars video game.

While DICE developed Star Wars Battlefront, for the VR experience the studio brought Criterion Games on board. Better known for its racing franchises such as Burnout and Need for Speed, Criterion has been confirmed to still be working on Star Wars. A posting on EA’s Star Wars Battlefront website states: “While no future Skirmish content is planned, DICE isn’t done with Star Wars – the team has shifted its focus to creating the next great Star Wars game, a collaborative effort between three world-class studios: DICE, Criterion, and Motive. We look forward to sharing more with you later this year and thank you for being such a tremendous support of our work in a galaxy far, far away.”

StarWarsBattlefrontVR_1

In a further post – this time by Jade Raymond, Group General Manager, Motive Studios | Visceral Games – at present Motive Studios is working with DICE on the next instalment of Star Wars Battlefront, Visceral Games will be debuting a new action adventure game in 2018, while Respawn Entertainment are making their own 3rd person action adventure. A teasing line at the end says: “And we’re early in pre-production on some other projects we think you’re going to be excited about as well.”

Star Wars video games are always going to be popular – even if previous titles have been somewhat lackluster at points – and certainly another VR project would go down well with VR users, just look at the positive ratings Trials on Tatooine gets for HTC Vive on Steam.

If and when Criterion or DICE do confirm another Star Wars VR experience, VRFocus will let you know.

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VR-capable Frostbite Engine Suggests More AAA VR to Come from EA

It’s been confirmed that the soon to launch Star Wars Battlefront X-Wing VR Mission on PlayStation VR is powered by DICE’s coveted Frostbite Engine, a strong hint that more AAA VR development is on the way from the company.

Star Wars Battlefront is easily one of the best looking games ever made. That’s thanks in no small part to the proprietary Frostbite game engine, created originally by Battlefield developer DICE, and eventually sucked up as part of an EA acquisition of the company. Now the game engine powers some of the best looking games of this generation, like Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, Battlefield 4, and the aforementioned Star Wars Battlefront.

Speaking of Battlefront, the company is just about to release the PSVR exclusive Battlefront X-Wing VR Mission, giving players the first glimpse of Battlefront’s (and EA’s) take on virtual reality.

star-wars-battlefront-rogue-one-x-wing-vr-missionAnd while the easy path would likely have been to take one of the readily available built-for-VR engines—like Unreal Engine or Unity—to develop a one-off Battlefront VR experience, the developers behind the X-Wing VR Mission have confirmed that it is indeed the Frostbite engine powering the experience. That means two things: 1) it’s likely to look as amazing as Battlefront itself (PSVR limitations withstanding), and 2) EA has adapted the Frostbite engine for virtual reality.

That’s a good indication that more AAA VR content will be coming from EA. Adapting Frostbite for VR rendering lays a foundation to take the countless man hours poured into the engine and huge franchises like Mirror’s Edge and Battlefield, and apply them to VR content. You can imagine that the X-Wing VR Mission will benefit from many of the assets, effects, rendering capabilities, and much more that came from Battlefront’s budget, which likely approached $100 million.

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In 2015 (to this very week, in fact) DICE confirmed that it was “building a small and collaborative VR team,” and at the time was seeking four full time senior VR positions, which would become the ‘Frostbite Labs’ team.

In may of this year, Frostbite Labs lead Johan Andersson revealed that he had “[demoed] a few Frostbite VR experiences” to Hideo Kojima, the renowned director of Metal Gear and more. Those unnamed experience were shown in photos running on an Oculus Rift, which suggests that Frostbite’s VR capabilities go beyond just PlayStation VR, and are likely generalized for major headsets including the HTC Vive.

Work done by the Frostbite Labs team is likely to have led toward the engine’s VR capabilities, and may have directly made the X-Wing VR Mission possible, though it would be EA’s Criterion Games team that would lead the development of the experience itself.

Given all of this, including additional hiring at Frostbite Labs and EA for positions pertaining to VR, the X-Wing VR Mission seems more than a simple test of the VR waters for the company.

The post VR-capable Frostbite Engine Suggests More AAA VR to Come from EA appeared first on Road to VR.

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PlayStation VR’s Star Wars: Rogue One VR Experience Dated

PlayStation VR’s Star Wars: Rogue One VR Experience Dated

It’s just a few weeks now until the release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in theaters on December 15th, but the anticipated tie-in VR experience from DICE is even closer than that.

Star Wars Battlefront Rogue One: X-Wing VR Mission, as the piece is rather clumsily called, will be releasing on PlayStation VR on December 6th, according to a new blog from publisher EA. It will be free to anyone that owns a PlayStation 4 copy of last year’s Star Wars: Battlefront, which you can currently pick up for around $15 – $20 at online retailers, though the jury’s still out on if the experience alone will be worth that price. We’ve reached out to EA to ask if there might be any way for those that don’t own the game to see the experience.

As the name suggests, Rogue One: X-Wing VR Mission puts you in the cockpit of the iconic spacecraft for the first time in VR (officially, at least). You’ll undergo an “important mission” for the Rebellion, heading into battle. From the looks of concept art, the piece will feature the new U-Wing ship, seen in the upcoming movie. There are no lightsabers or laser battles here; fans looking for that will have to check out Trials on Tatooine, another free experience from ILMxLAB available on the HTC Vive.

It’s looking like it will be another short experience, similar to the Call of Duty Infinite Warfare: Jackal Assault VR piece that launched on PS VR for free a few weeks back. Hopefully we won’t be left underwhelmed by this one, though. More Rogue One-themed content will also be launching for Star Wars: Battlefront on the same day.

This isn’t all that’s going on in the world of Star Wars and VR right now. Also recently revealed was Rogue One: Recon, a short 360 degree movie, again telling the story of an X-Wing pilot, produced by ILMxLAB. The studio is also working on a fully VR interactive experience, telling a story starring iconic Star Wars villain, Darth Vader.

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EA’s ‘Star Wars’ PS VR Experience Made In ‘Close Collaboration’ With ILMxLAB

EA’s ‘Star Wars’ PS VR Experience Made In ‘Close Collaboration’ With ILMxLAB

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is just over a month away from hitting theaters, and we’re hoping Battlefield developer DICE’s companion VR experience, Star Wars Battlefront Rogue One: X-wing VR Mission, will arrive on PlayStation VR around the same time. But DICE isn’t the only developer with a hand in the demo.

As you’ll probably know, another studio is also working on official Star Wars VR content, the Industrial Light and Magic Experience Lab (ILMxLAB). So far this team, announced in mid-2015, has put out its own experience in a galaxy far, far away: Star Wars: Trials on Tatooine for the HTC Vive. We’ve always assumed that this group’s work was separate from the upcoming PS VR demo, which releases this year for free for Star Wars: Battlefront owners, but it was actually the result of “a very close collaboration” with ILMxLAB.

That is according to Rob Bredow, chief technology officer at Lucasfilm. He recently told DigitalTrends that the two studios “share assets back and forth”, suggesting that DICE’s work is helping ILMxLAB too. “If you look at some of the stuff that DICE has shared at technical conferences like SIGGRAPH, you’ll notice a lot of familiar things,” he said.

The Rogue One mission is set to arrive first on PlayStation VR. Published by Electronic Arts, the Rogue One X-Wing Mission is also being made with the help of UK-based studio, Criterion. It’s set to be a small experience and not a full game. ILMxLAB, meanwhile, is now working on a narrative-driven Star Wars VR piece that stars iconic franchise villain, Darth Vader. Sadly, Bredow didn’t have much more to share on when that might be releasing.