Disney is premiering a brand new VR short film at Siggraph in a few weeks, but it has VR plans for its D23 Expo too.
A new VR experience highlighting the company’s array of broadway shows will be on display at the event this year. Little about the piece is known right now but Disney promises it features “brand new” content. According to the company, it will put “you center stage in Aladdin, Frozen, and The Lion King’s biggest Broadway production numbers”. Stars include Caissie Levy (Elsa), Major Attaway (Genie), Telly Leung (Aladdin), and Tshidi Manye (Rafiki).
From the sounds of it, then, this might be a 360 video showcasing choice picks from each musical. If you want some idea of what to expect, Disney actually already filmed a performance of Circle of Life from The Lion King back in 2015. To this day it actually remains one of the better 360 videos we’ve seen.
It’s been four years since then, though, and 360 filming has come some way. We’d love to see an updated version of The Lion King and other musicals in VR.
This isn’t the only way Disney is using VR, though. In fact, this month’s upcoming live-action adaptation of The Lion King used VR to help visualize many of its scenes. We’re still waiting on a Pixar VR film, though.
Sadly there’s no word on if this app will be released to VR headset owners following D23. This year’s show takes place from August 23 – 25. Hopefully this won’t be the only VR experience to speak of at the show.
Disney is premiering a brand new VR short film at Siggraph in a few weeks, but it has VR plans for its D23 Expo too.
A new VR experience highlighting the company’s array of broadway shows will be on display at the event this year. Little about the piece is known right now but Disney promises it features “brand new” content. According to the company, it will put “you center stage in Aladdin, Frozen, and The Lion King’s biggest Broadway production numbers”. Stars include Caissie Levy (Elsa), Major Attaway (Genie), Telly Leung (Aladdin), and Tshidi Manye (Rafiki).
From the sounds of it, then, this might be a 360 video showcasing choice picks from each musical. If you want some idea of what to expect, Disney actually already filmed a performance of Circle of Life from The Lion King back in 2015. To this day it actually remains one of the better 360 videos we’ve seen.
It’s been four years since then, though, and 360 filming has come some way. We’d love to see an updated version of The Lion King and other musicals in VR.
This isn’t the only way Disney is using VR, though. In fact, this month’s upcoming live-action adaptation of The Lion King used VR to help visualize many of its scenes. We’re still waiting on a Pixar VR film, though.
Sadly there’s no word on if this app will be released to VR headset owners following D23. This year’s show takes place from August 23 – 25. Hopefully this won’t be the only VR experience to speak of at the show.
Yet another VR essential is making its way over to Oculus Quest next week. Crows, Crows, Crows and Squanch Games’ entirely bizarre VR mind-messer, Accounting +, touches down on July 4th.
Yes that’s right, the most American of all games arrives on the most American of all days. Accounting + is a surreal descent into madness from the mind of Rick and Morty creator Justin Roiland. It sees you putting on VR headsets to travel deeper and deeper into strange and twisted realities where you’ll meet uncomfortably aggressive characters and, uh, play the xylophone with some bones.
Check out the trailer for the Quest port below. It also confirms the game’s getting support for Valve’s shiny new Index headset and controllers.
VR veterans will remember Accounting first released for free on PC VR headsets in 2016. It then came to PSVR as the expanded Accounting +, which also arrived on PC late last year. We’ve long been fans of the app’s distinct tone. Accounting + excels at making you feel awkward and uncomfortable in fascinating and funny ways. Plus it’s littered with easter eggs and secrets to uncover, encouraging you to explore every inch of every scene. Trust us when we say there’s nothing quite like it out there right now.
Meanwhile, outside of Quest town, Limited Run games is also launching a special edition of Accounting + on PSVR. It’s got a special coin, soundtrack and a Talking Tree Guy plush that we really, really want. Squanch also recently launched another VR game, Trover Saves The Universe.
Hopefully you enjoyed the first look at Doctor Who: The Edge of Time at our E3 VR Showcase this month. Today, though, developer Maze Theory is taking you a little deeper behind the scenes of the VR game.
The developer’s just unleashed a range of new making of videos. There’s a main one in which members of the studio are on-hand to talk about working on the game and then some brief looks at bringing some of the series’ iconic villains to virtual life.
In The Edge of Time, you play as a new companion to the Doctor that must track down the Tardis and set off to rescue her. A new villain has trapped the Doctor at the (you guessed it) edge of time. To save her, you’ll travel across different times and come into contact with some of the best-known baddies from the TV series.
That includes the Weeping Angels, a terrifying brand of beast made famous in a more recent series. They’re stone statues that only move when you can’t see them. That creates a frightful mechanic where you’ll want to be looking at them at all times. And yes, you’ll meet a Dalek or two too. Current Jodie Whittaker also lends her voice talents to the game throughout.
Maze Theory also got to design a new villain named the Hydrorks for the game. They’re sludgy-looking monsters that you can see in the first video below.
Doctor Who: The Edge Of Time is due for launch in September on PSVR, Rift, Vive and Quest. We’ll have more on the game when it hits.
Yesterday, Cloudhead Games and Valve launched Aperture Hand Lab. The free download is intended to be a showcase for the latter’s new Index Controllers, which bring finger tracking and improved pressure sensitivity into VR. The latter feature is required to actually get through this experience, which stopped Oculus Touch users right in their tracks. Thankfully, Cloudhead has provided a workaround.
The developer behind The Gallery series this week took to the Oculus Reddit to provide an update. The studio has just published a new controller binding for Touch that you’ll need to select when you jump into VR (instructions below).
With that in place, you’ll be able to make your way through the app. “Obviously this isn’t the way we intended for it to be played,” Cloudhead wrote, “but at very least you should get some laughs from the dialogue.” We’ve got to concur on that point; Hand Lab is absolutely hilarious especially for fans of Valve’s Portal universe. Still, we’d recommend waiting until you have an Index Controller in-hand to actually give this one a go.
Here’s Cloudhead on how to activate the binding:
Launch the game
Open the SteamVR menu and click Settings > Controller Binding (or Devices > Configure Controller on desktop)
Select “Knux [Testing]” under “Current Application”
Click “View” on the binding labeled “CHG Recommended”
Click “Select this Binding”
Note: Selecting a binding for “Aperture Hand Lab” will not currently sync to the game. You will need to launch the game and select a binding for Knux [Testing] under “Current Application.”
Call it a swing in the right direction; the tie-in VR experience for Spider-Man: Far From Home is far from perfect, but it’s easily the best Spidey VR title to date.
Following the disappointing tie-in to Spider-Man: Homecoming, Sony Pictures Virtual Reality and CreateVR take a more ambitious stab at becoming the web-head here. This is, amazingly, the first time you’ll be able to truly web-swing in VR; Far From Home gives you an ‘open’ world to zip around in during its super-brief (~15 minutes) story segment and a free-play mode. To swing, all you need to is take aim at a building with one hand, pull the trigger to shoot at web-line at it, then pull yourself towards it.
Before you know it you’ll be gliding down city streets with ease. It’s not as versatile, effortless or authentic as, say, the recent Spider-Man PS4 game. CreateVR has been fairly liberal with designing for comfort this time around but locomotion still feels closer to Windlands’ grappling hooks than it does truly swooping low and high through the city streets.
Even with these concessions, though, swinging is often breathless and fluid. It carries a weightlessness that often has you imagining the wind rushing through your hair. Hit a wall and you can run up it to gain ground. Shoot two web-lines and you can propel yourself forward even faster. Find a skyscraper and the game will let you jump right from the top all the way down to the streets below. Being given this much freedom in a Spider-Man VR game at this stage is unexpected and entirely appreciated.
In fact, it’s so much fun that you can overlook just how crusty the rest of Far From Home VR is. Even on PC VR headsets, New York City resembles PS2-era visuals, with simplistic, cookie-cutter buildings, heavy pop-in and blurry details like cars and citizens. On PSVR things are even more unsightly and some of those features are even removed.
Controls follow a similar trend. Web-swinging aside, general navigation could be considered tricky at best on a PC VR setup with 360-degree tracking. On PSVR with 180-degree tracking and the cumbersome PlayStation Move controllers, it’s fairly dire. This is, I don’t doubt, the best CreateVR could do with VR’s limited range of options against Spidey’s long list of possibilities, but it can be as finger-tying as VR gets.
That’s especially true of the combat section of the story, which wants you to avoid incoming laser-fire while shooting webs. You end up feeling like a Spider-Man still learning the ropes more than one in his prime. Tom Holland and Jacob Batalon lend their voices to the game’s script, meanwhile, but the dialogue is often stilted and awkward, resembling a shadow of the banter Peter Parker and Ned Leeds share on the big screen.
All that might sound fairly damning, but when you consider this is a free app Spider-Man: Far From Home VR becomes something of a guilty pleasure. It doesn’t have anything like the polish of, say, Marvel Powers United VR but, not unlike the classic Spider-Man 2 from 2004, the swinging is so much fun you can overlook the many technical blemishes. SPVR and CreateVR now have a compelling template down; we can only hope its next step is to refine and expand upon it to give us the Spider-Man VR game we truly deserve.
Yesterday we reported that a new Spider-Man VR experience would be releasing this week. Turns out it’s sooner rather than later; Spider-Man: Far From Home, Virtual Reality (yes that’s the full name) is releasing today on Rift, Vive and PSVR for free. We’ve got the very first trailer right here.
As the name suggests, this is a tie-in to the next Spidey movie, which hits cinemas next week. It’s developed by CreateVR, the same studio that worked on the Spider-Man: Homecoming VR experience. In it you suit up as Spidey and take to the streets of New York, swinging through the skyline. You can choose between four of the costumes the web-slinger has donned in the MCU thus far.
As we mentioned yesterday, we played an early version of the app back at MWC. The swinging is closer to something like Windlands than it is a regular Spider-Man game, but it still feels fast and fluid. You can choose between a bunch of suits featured in the new movie and then race down city streets. You throw your arms out just like you were Spider-Man, shoot a web and then propel yourself forward. When you get into the flow, it feels great.
This trailer gives us our first glimpse at another element of the game – combat. It looks like giant robots are attacking the city and you have to take them down literally on the fly. You can fire webs to stop drones in their tracks. There might not be any melee combat but ultimately that might be a sensible decision for comfort and immersion.
But this isn’t just a home VR release. Sony Pictures Virtual Reality is also taking the experience to Regal Cinemas in North America until July 7th. It’ll be running on the HP Reverb headset and use the company’s backpack PCs.
We’ll bring you full impressions of the experience soon.
The annual Siggraph conference and expo is usually a great place to discover experimental VR tech. But the show is also home to content premieres too. This year’s edition will feature a VR premiere from Walt Disney Animation Studios.
The company will debut A Kite’s Tale at the event from July 28 – August 1 at the LA Convention Center. Little about the project is known right now, though a few months ago we reported that Disney was working on a ‘top secret‘ new animation project that could use existing characters. It’s very possible that this could be that project. If it’s anything like its first VR animation, Cycles, expect a short but charming piece. It will be interesting to see if the app uses Disney’s own in-VR animation software, PoseVR.
Disney isn’t the only one revealing new VR content at Siggraph, though. Fortnite developer Epic Games will also reveal II Divino: Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling in VR. Again, no information on what the app actually is, but the title rather gives it away a bit, doesn’t it?
Next up Parallux and New York University’s Future Reality Lab will debut Mary and the Monster: Chapter One. Finally, Magic Leap will have a new experience called Undersea.
These debuts will join other experiences like Doctor Who: The Runaway and MindPalace. Immersive content will be split between a VR Theater and the Immersive Pavilion. Tickets will be issued on a first-come, first-served basis each day. Hopefully we’ll be at the show to give you a rundown of what’s new in VR.
Another day, another Japanese VR arcade that we’re intensely jealous of. This time it’s the latest from Bandai Namco, which looks to offer a greatest hits of its VR software.
Mazaria is a gigantic VR facility opening soon in the Toshima Ward in Tokyo. Namco has previously drawn headlines for its VR Zone arcades that offer new experiences from beloved franchises like Mario and Dragon Quest. Mazaria doesn’t seem to offer anything super new, but it does house most if not all of the company’s past games under one roof.
The arcade is split into four sections, each covering different types of games. In the Festival Zone you can get crazy with Mario Kart VR, Taiko no Tatsujin VR (the one with the disturbingly cute sentient drums) and, uh, Pacman VR. Meanwhile, over in the Adventure Zone you can jump into the world of Dragon Quest in VR, take a virtual fishing trip and work with friends in a VR white water rafting experience.
Next up is the Panic Zone or, as I like to call it, the ‘Nope’ Zone. It’s got horror experiences and other such frights. Finally there’s the SF Zone which has a bunch of sci-fi experiences. That includes Gundam and Godzilla VR apps as well as VR’s very own take on shoot ’em up classic, Galaga.
The park opens soon. You’ll be able to get a day pass as an adult for 4,200 yen (about $39) and 2,700 yen (about $25) for kids. We’d love to see some of these experiences make their way to the west some time but, so far, only Mario Kart and a few others have done so.
Peter Parker is back from the land of dust and ready to swing into his next adventure next month. Spider-Man: Far From Home hits cinemas in early July and, as with most Sony Pictures-produced movies, it’s getting a tie-in VR experience. Poor ol’ Spidey doesn’t have the best track record with VR, but I’m actually cautiously optimistic about this one.
See, I played Spider-Man: Far From Home Virtual Reality Experience back at Mobile World Congress in February. While this is indeed a tie-in piece and not a ‘full’ game, it was the first Spidey VR app to finally let me web-swing. The VR experience for Spider-Man: Homecoming was a largely stationary experience and the web-slinger was significantly nerfed in 2018’s Marvel Powers United VR. Homecoming developer CreateVR is returning for this experience and the team seems to have taken some lessons from its first attempt.
From what I played back in February, web-swinging is closer to something like Windlands here. You’re more zipping between buildings than you are swinging around them. We’ve got some gameplay below, though the player isn’t having an easy time with it.
The PlayStation Blog says the piece will let you pick from four different Spidey suits. It also teases that a “colossal and dangerous enemy is waiting.” We’d presume that would mean Far From Home big bad, Mysterio, but it could be something else.
Anyway, look for the app to launch on PSVR sometime this week. I played it on the Rift back at MWC so expect it to launch there too, and probably on Vive as well. No word on a possible Quest version but, if it comes to Valve Index with finger-tracking support I’ll die of happiness. Thwip!
