Ace Space Adventure Eclipse: Edge Of Light Hits PSVR And PC VR Next Week

One of the first big VR releases of 2020 is nearly here. Eclipse: Edge of Light should hit PC VR and PSVR headsets very soon.

The Steam page for the former Daydream exclusive states the game is coming on January 14th. Whatsmore, the PlayStation Blog’s weekly release list also claims the game’s coming to PSVR next week. These lists can occasionally get it wrong but we confirmed that Eclipse was coming to these platforms in January during our Holiday VR Showcase last year. There’s a good bet it’s going to happen, then.

Eclipse is a discovery-driven first-person adventure. You crash land on an alien planet and set about exploring the remains of an ancient civilization.

We loved the tone the game set, its sporadic approach to storytelling and the intuitive control scheme. In our initial review we called it easily Daydream’s best game.

“White Elk took a lot of risks with the game’s design that pay off in spades, from the smart use of Daydream’s controller to giving players full control over their movement,” we wrote. “The result is a memorable sci-fi adventure that kept me fully engaged from start to finish, and left me feeling like I’d really explored an alien world. This isn’t just the best game on Daydream, but one of the best mobile VR games full stop.”

Plus we’re looking forward to finally playing Eclipse with full positional tracking; you could move your head around in Daydream’s Mirage Solo headset, but your hands were locked in place with 3DOF motion controls.

As for the Quest release? That’s due a little later on in the year, but it’s absolutely still in the works.

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Eclipse: Edge Of Light Is Finally Coming To Quest, PSVR And PC VR

We once crowned Eclipse: Edge Of Light as Daydream’s best game. Now that the platform is essentially dead, it seems it will forever hold that crown. But good news; you’ll soon be able to experience Eclipse elsewhere, too.

White Elk Studios’ stunning sci-fi adventure is on its way to practically every other VR headset. As we revealed during our Holiday VR Showcase today, the game’s due to arrive on PC VR and PSVR in January. Not only that, but White Elk is planning to bring it to Oculus Quest early next year, too. It’s already available on Oculus Go, so it’ll be available pretty much everywhere soon.

In Eclipse, players crash land on an alien planet and set about discovering what appears to be the remains of an ancient civilization. It’s perhaps closest to something like Downward Spiral: Horus Station in tone.

On Daydream, we loved the game for its atmospheric exploration and intuitive control scheme based on the headset’s 3DOF motion controller. These ports will mark the first time the game can be played with full 6DOF controls, so we’ll be really interested to see how it holds up.

In our 2017 review of the game we said that “White Elk took a lot of risks with the game’s design that pay off in spades, from the smart use of Daydream’s controller to giving players full control over their movement. The result is a memorable sci-fi adventure that kept me fully engaged from start to finish, and left me feeling like I’d really explored an alien world. This isn’t just the best game on Daydream, but one of the best mobile VR games full stop.”

We’ve got plenty more announcements to come in our Holiday VR Showcase, so stay tuned!

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Epic Games Awards the Final Round of Unreal Dev Grants

Launched in 2015 to support developers working with Unreal Engine, Epic Games’ $5 million USD Unreal Dev Grants programme has now drawn to a close, awarding the final $500,000 to over a dozen projects, covering industries including gaming, film, VR/AR, education, and more.

Project M Evie

Recipients this time include Backlight, a French studio working on virtual reality (VR) title Eclipse. Created in collaboration with Virtual Adventure, a VR entertainment centre near Paris, Eclipse is a multiplayer experience with 4D interactive elements.

Also in the VR sphere is Shooty Fruity Arcade from nDreams, a VR arcade version of its popular fruit shooting title for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR. Then there’s Project M from EVR Studios, a narrative-driven adventure where you’re encouraged to interact and build friendships with the game’s hyper-realistic non-player characters. Or then there’s SnapClick: Fossil Diggers VR by The Orphanage, a puzzle title where you play as a palaeontologist on the hunt to find proof that dinosaurs once existed. Travel to remote locations, explore environments, find fossils and piece them together.

Other recipients also included:

  • Aeon Must Die! by Limestone Games
  • BioStories by Bio-Bridge Initiative
  • Complete Unreal C++ Dev by GameDev.TV
  • Cryptant by Orcari
  • Eximius: Seize the Frontline by Ammobox Studio
  • Glimpse from Mr. Kite
  • Kingshunt from Vaki Games
  • Meta Runner by Glitch Productions
  • Photorealism in UE4 by Rense de Boer
  • Polter Pals by Split Hare Games
  • The Forgotten City from Modern Storyteller
  • Virtual Helsinki by Zoan
Fossil Diggers VR
“With today’s announcement, we’ve reached our $5 million goal for the Unreal Dev Grants program. As we look back at the list of those we’ve been able to support throughout the years, we can’t help but feel deeply honoured to have played a part in the stories of hundreds of projects,” said Chance Ivey, Partnership Manager at Epic Games in a statement. “We remain inspired by the talent and dedication that the Unreal Engine community continues to exhibit, and look forward to where everyone will take things next. Though Unreal Dev Grants is now behind us, it’s not the end of our ongoing support. Tune in to Epic’s State of Unreal opening session at GDC for more information.”
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Epic Games and Unreal Engine, reporting back with the latest updates.

Covert Is A Local Co-Op VR Game From The Creators of Eclipse: Edge of Light

Covert Is A Local Co-Op VR Game From The Creators of Eclipse: Edge of Light

Covert is a new, upcoming collaboration between White Elk and Oculus to bring local co-op multiplayer to Go and Gear by way of a tense, high-profile heist VR game. White Elk Studios is the same developer behind Eclipse: Edge of Light, which won our Mobile VR Game of the Year award last year as a breakout title for the Daydream platform. Now with Covert, they’re doing something a bit different.

We still don’t know a whole lot yet, but we do know this is a heist-themed game this time around in similar fashion to something like Ocean’s Eleven. As a local co-op game that means one person wears the headset while being assisted by a friend outside of  VR — similar to Black Hat Cooperative and Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes.

As a master thief, you must steal a mysterious artifact from a safe inside a high-security museum. This means being careful as you sneak past security systems using ziplines and a whole host of other tools and gadgets at your disposal. While wearing the headset, you’ll have to rely on a partner to feed you details like “notes on museum blueprints and crucial warnings about guard locations, laser movements, and the safe’s internal mechanics.”

Until we see footage or try it for ourselves it’s hard to tell how this will work exactly, but it sounds extremely similar to the aforementioned Black Hat Cooperative. Hopefully it does something a bit different, though.

Covert is due out for Oculus Go and Gear VR later this year.

If you like these sort of asynchronous multiplayer games, there are a handful of other solid ones worth a try already out as well. Let us know what you think down in the comments below!

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Former PSVR Game Eclipse Is Now A Daydream Exclusive

Former PSVR Game Eclipse Is Now A Daydream Exclusive

If you’ve been following VR for a while then you might have already heard of Eclipse, a VR adventure game from indie developer White Elk Studios. This intriguing title originally started life as a PlayStation VR (PSVR) game, but it appears to have been reborn as a Google Daydream exclusive.

That is according to a new trailer released this week, which carries the ‘Only On Daydream’ banner along with the full name Eclipse: Edge of Light. In fairness it looks like a good steal from Google; the trailer is absolutely gorgeous and suggests this could be one of the more complete, immersive games to come to the platform since it launched last year.

Eclipse is set on a sentient planet that players crash land on. As you begin to explore you’ll come across a mysterious artifact that allows you to control elements and interact with the ancient technology that you’ll come across. You’ll make your way across the planet discovering its past as you gain new powers.

We’ve reached out to White Elk to ask why the game made the transition to Daydream and if a version of the game could still come to PSVR. We’re also not sure if the game has changed in any significant way content-wise. The game was even playable on Sony’s headset at a previous iteration of the company’s PlayStation Experience event, so it’s surprising twist.

There’s no official release date for the game yet, but White Elk does expect it to launch soon. We’ll definitely be keeping our eyes peeled for it.

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Trailer Revealed For Google Daydream’s Eclipse: Edge of Light

Developer White Elk today released a trailer for upcoming Google Daydream exclusive title Eclipse: Edge of Light.

Eclipse: Edge of Light is set on a planet on to which the players crash-land and must then set about exploring the landscape around them. Upon discovering the ruins of a collapsed civilisation, the characters then find a device known as The Artifact, that allows them to control elements of the world. In order to uncover the secrets of the planet, and eventually escape, players must recover the pieces of The Artifact that have been scattered across the landscape.

EclipseArt_1

Google Daydream is the successor to Google’s popular Google Cardboard headset, which was released in November 2016. Eclipse: Edge of Light was announced back in 2015, but since slid off the radar for quite some time. Eclipse was originally announced for PlayStation VR, but it is currently listed as a Daydream exclusive.

Eclipse: Edge of Light will be one of several Daydream exclusive titles, joining the likes of puzzle platformer Lola and the Giant, tower defence game Underworld Overlord and shooter The Arcslinger on the platform.

You can watch the Eclipse: Edge of Light trailer below.

VRFocus will keep you updated on Eclipse: Edge of Light and the Google Daydream.

White Elk Studios’ Eclipse Coming to Google Daydream

Google has finally unveiled the Daydream head-mounted display (HMD), a fabric covered device with a Bluetooth remote/controller. While hardware was the main news along with launch details and price, on the videogame front the news was some what lacking. Only CCP Game’s Gunjack sequel made it into the event along with educational title Starchart. But that’s not to say there isn’t immersive content coming to the device as developers have begun revealing projects online. One of which is White Elk Studios with its first-person title Eclipse.  

Taking to Twitter the developer said: “We are thrilled to announce Eclipse is coming to #Daydream!” No further details have been released for the title which until now had only been confirmed for Sony Interactive Entertainment’s (SIE) PlayStation VR.

eclipse_art1

Eclipse is an exploration game set on a sentient planet with a dark past. After crash-landing players will set about exploring the planet which is littered with the remnants of a failed civilization. Finding the Artifact, a mysterious device that lets them control elements of the world around them and interact with the ancient technology, players must collect various fragments that make up the device to escape the planet.

VRFocus previewed the title back in December 2015 and since then hasn’t heard much else on its development until now.

Now that Daydream has had its official reveal today expect more developers to be announcing project over the next few weeks. Resolution Games is currently making WonderGlade while nDreams has said its working on two projects for the device, but these were revealed back in May.

Daydream will be released this November for $79 USD, the event also featured the newest Google smartphone Pixel which will compatible with the headset.

For all the latest Daydream news, keep reading VRFocus.