CCP Games’ EVE: Valkyrie, one of the first-ever multiplayer VR games, is shutting down next month along with Sparc.
Tweets from both games’ official accounts confirmed the news. Both Valkyrie, a space combat game, and Sparc, which offered Tron-style athletic future sports, will take their remaining servers offline on August 5. After that, the games will no longer be playable.
Valkyrie is of particular significance as one of the first-ever VR games to be announced, serving as a launch exclusive for the Oculus Rift before coming to the HTC Vive and PSVR headsets too. A spin-off of CCP’s popular EVE Online MMO, the game saw you jump into the cockpit of spacecraft and face off with opponents online.
In fact, it’s so old it was one of Upload’s first video reviews, too. Seriously, I can’t even remember who’s narrating this.
Though the news may seem sudden, the writing had long been on the wall for both projects. After previously committing to VR in a big way with new studios and projects, CCP exited the VR market in late 2017, closing those new departments. Valkyrie implemented flatscreen support to help sustain its numbers but its developer, CCP Newcastle, was sold off. Neither game ever ended up releasing on the Quest platform, where many struggling long-time VR developers have gone on to find success.
What are your thoughts on EVE: Valkyrie and Sparc shutting down? Let us know in the comments below!
Now that Star Wars: Squadrons [read our review here] is out you might be hungry for space combat in VR — we’ve got you covered. This list covers five of our favorites across all major VR platforms and then we threw in a few bonus suggestions at the end for free fan-made experiences.
Chances are if you’re a Star Wars fan or space combat fan, then you’ve already decided whether or not to play Star Wars: Squadrons. Personally, I’m loving it so far.
If you’re looking for something that’s the most similar to Star Wars Squadrons out there, this is probably your best bet for a single-player experience. It’s another arcade-style space combat game that has you shooting down pirates and bad guys across a relatively lengthy campaign. It’s fully playable in VR, with HOTAS or stick, and it’s on sale often.
This next one is for basically everyone — End Space. It’s one of the oldest space combat VR games out there in terms of being a fully playable and realized single player campaign. What began as a Gear VR title has since been ported to basically ever VR headset including Oculus Go, all PC VR platform, PSVR, and Quest. And if you’re playing on PC or PSVR then you can use a HOTAS setup similar to what you might use in Star Wars: Squadrons. It doesn’t have multiplayer, but it delivers similar thrills to the Star Wars: Squadrons campaign, just without The Force.
If you’ve got a VR-capable PC and love space, then this is the big one. If you want to fly a space ship and have a relatively realistic experience with it, then look no further than Elite Dangerous. There is a basically endless amount of things to do in this MMO-like and it’s ful of intricate attention to detail. The PS4 version does not have PSVR support.
Nowhere near as many people play this one anymore, but last I checked it was still fun against bots at least. For a combat-focused experience, this is another one that feels similar to Star Wars: Squadrons, albeit a little more simplistic by design. It’s definitely more of an arcade-style space combat game rather than a realistic one.
Arguably, this is what showed the world a Star Wars flight game with VR could absolutely be amazing. It’s super short and requires you own a copy of DICE’s first Battlefront game to play it, but it’s a pitch perfect thrill ride from start to finish. If you’ve got a PSVR, you owe it to yourself to play this. You can usually find a copy of Battlefront super cheaply these days to make it worth it.
According to the developer: “Destroy the Death Star in a VR remake of a 1983 Atari classic arcade game. Pilot an X-Wing as you destroy TIE fighters, Turbolaser turrets, and avoid Darth Vader while making an attack run. Created at the University of Utah by Dylan Stout as a research project on Virtual Reality Sickness.”
There you go — that’s our list of five (actually six) awesome VR space combat games and experiences that will let you experience a similar sensation and space fantasy to playing Star Wars: Squadrons. Let us know if you have any other good suggestions down in the comments below!
For today’s livestream we’re playing multiplayer in Star Wars: Squadrons, a AAA immersive space combat game from EA Motive! If you’re curious about how we livestream the way we do then look no further than this handy guide for general tips and this guide specific to our Oculus Quest setup.
In case you missed it yesterday, our review-in-progress published for Star Wars: Squadrons, including impressions on the story mode, gameplay, and VR support. We’ll update it with a finalized score once we finish the story and spend time with the multiplayer modes this weekend. Speaking of, now that the game’s out, we can dive in for some multiplayer right now! We may be joined by some other Upload staff on the stream as well.
Our Star Wars: Squadrons livestream is planned to start at about 10:30 AM PT today and will last for around an hour or two so, give or take. We’ll be hitting just our YouTubeand I’ll be streaming from an Oculus Quest via Link using a T.16000M flight stick. I’m flying mostly solo on this one and will pin chat inside my cockpit to keep an eye on things.
Star Wars: Squadrons VR Multiplayer Livestream
Check out the Star Wars: Squadrons stream embedded right here and down below once live:
You can see lots of our past archived streams over in our YouTube playlist or even all livestreams here on UploadVR and various other gameplay highlights. There’s lots of good stuff there so make sure and subscribe to us on YouTube to stay up-to-date on gameplay videos, video reviews, live talk shows, interviews, and more original content!
And please let us know which games or discussions you want us to livestream next! We have lots of VR games in the queue that we would love to show off more completely. Let’s get ready to go!
Star Wars: Squadrons is finally here and it absolutely delivers. From the incredible set piece moments, excellent new characters, and fantastic VR space combat, this is an adrenaline-fueled blast in the galaxy far, far away that you won’t want to miss. Here’s our Star Wars: Squadrons VR review with all the details!
I don’t typically play space combat games, space sims, flight sims, or any of that sort of stuff. Furthermore, I’ve never played a game with a flight stick for more than just an hour or two to test things out. All of that changed with Star Wars: Squadrons.
From the very first moment I booted it up I played the entire game with a VR headset and flight stick, specifically the Thrustmaster T.16000M HOTAS, and it was so good — so authentic even — I don’t really want to play it any other way. I’ve tried keyboard and mouse and gamepad too, both get the job done and it really feels great with a gamepad for my tastes, but I surprisingly prefer the flight stick or full HOTAS instead. For a game that’s designed for VR and non-VR across PC and consoles with cross-play on everything, this is perhaps the best compliment I can give: it feels madefor VR. And from what we’ve heard, it basically was from the very start.
Star Wars: Squadrons Story Mode
In Star Wars: Squadrons the story shows both perspectives and bounces back and forth between the Galactic Empire and New Republic. The Prologue is split into two parts, introducing both sides, immediately after Alderaan is destroyed during the events of A New Hope. Then it fast-forwards a few years and the rest of the game takes place after Return of the Jedi in the aftermath of the Battle of Endor.
Right at the start of the game you get to customize each of your pilots down to their face, voice, and name. I wasn’t expecting this considering you don’t really see them much, but these are the same avatars you’ll use in multiplayer so getting ownership of your identity across the game for both the Republic and Empire is a great touch.
The entirety of Squadrons takes place from a first-person perspective whether you’re talking to crewmates in the hangar or flying your starfighter during a mission; it’s a big reason why the VR support feels so natural. The only times the camera is not inside of your face are during the cutscenes that take place before and after missions.
For these moments, when the camera is sweeping across your squadron or zooming in on characters while they fly, you see a rectangular letterbox floating in front of you, sort of like the Cinematic Mode on PSVR. It’s absolutely immersion breaking, no doubts about that, and a bit of a bummer, but cutscenes like this are expected in non-VR games so this is a price to pay in order to get VR support out of a AAA project like this. Sacrifices needed to be made and I’d rather have a VR hanger and briefing room than 30 second cutscenes in VR.
The other sticking point about Squadrons’ VR support is that there is zero motion controller functionality here. You have no hand presence in the cockpit at all — it’s just a head tracking only game. Some die hard VR purists will likely be upset about this, but honestly, give me a great flight stick over inaccurate motion controllers that lack realistic resistance and tension any day. You’re sitting still when you play a game like this so all you need is head tracking. It works great, looks great, and most importantly, feels great.
Even if Squadrons was just its Story Mode and practice/training map and that’s it, this would feel like a complete game. My playthrough came in around the 10 hour mark, but it could probably go higher if you played on a high difficulty setting or replayed missions to get more medals. There are four difficulty modes to pick from so there is some replayability, but I imagine most people will spend the majority of their time in multiplayer..
Surprisingly, the cast of new characters is memorable and full of personality for both the Republic and Empire. Between missions there are opportunities to chat with all of them to learn more about their backstories and motivations that helps add a lot of context to how they act. One of the Republic pilots used to race previously and your squad mates poke fun at her for being a show off. Eventually, she teaches you how to drift in an X-Wing and it’s an exhilarating moment reminiscent of scenes with Poe from the new trilogy.
Most of the missions can be boiled down to taking out squadrons of enemy fighters, defending larger ships, eliminating big ships, and escaping or escorting. I’d be lying if I didn’t say this gets repetitive, but the way EA Motive mixes things up, shuffles these pieces around, and introduces one-off set pieces here and there keeps you on your toes. By the time you reach this midpoint of the story in Mission 6 things get pretty interesting with bombing runs in a Y-Wing and a big, bombastic finale that rivals the spectacle of the films themselves. Chase sequences were also some of the best moments and it made me wish for more time trials or flight trials to put my pilot skills to the test.
Star Wars: Squadrons Gameplay And Ships
In a lot of ways this feels like a dream game for Star Wars fans. We’ve gotten dozens of games focused on the Jedi vs Sith with lightsabers and force powers and there have even been a heavy share of ground combat games that require you to know your way around a blaster. But not since the 90s and early 2000s have we gotten a game that was really focused on space combat in the Star Wars universe. Until now.
The industry has made huge strides with technology in recent years and visually it’s hard to find any faults at all with Star Wars: Squadrons. The overall presentation quality is on par with DICE’s Star Wars Battlefront II. Each map has a similar layout — they’re all in space after all — but the planet backdrops are gorgeous to behold and various bits of debris add enough variety here and there.
In VR there have been some performance concerns. For me personally VR mode only worked if the game was windowed, but after a patch it works from Borderless mode as well. I notice some very occasional stuttering on Ultra with an RTX 2060 Super, i5-9600K, and 32GB RAM but it’s not enough to really impact the experience. I’ve heard of others having far more issues with crashes and freeze ups in VR but haven’t experienced that personally.
The hangar is the unexpected highlight of the package due to how immersive it is to chat with crew members and just watch people working in the background. You really get a sense for what the inside of a hangar might truly feel like, almost like waiting in line at a big Disneyland Star Wars ride. And Squadrons features an excellent score that swells in combat appropriately and punctuates every moment with just the right emphasis. And yes, it’s all functional in VR — including the hangar and briefing room, complete with NPC conversations.
Squadrons is a special kind of wish fulfillment in that regard. Every cockpit is painstakingly recreated here with insane attention to detail so that instruments and indicators are all in different places depending on which ship you’re flying. From the wide, open canopy of the X-Wing and A-Wing to the closed tunnel vision of the TIE Fighter, each ship feels and plays dramatically different.
As far as I can tell equipment loadout options are the same or on par across factions, for balance, but the choices you make will change based on the ship. Since the X-Wing has shields maybe you sacrifice a bit of its hull capacity for better acceleration or speed? Perhaps you want to beef up the TIE’s maneuverability even more to go all-in on a zippy ship that’s hard to hit? You can get really creative there.
Star Wars: Squadrons VR Review – Comfort
Since Star Wars: Squadrons is an always first-person VR space combat game, it’s impossible to eliminate all artificial motion. By nature you’re flying a ship in space, banking, turning, and rotating during combat. For some people it’s going to be uncomfortable no matter what, but some ships may be better than others. For example, the TIE Fighter has a very enclosed cockpit so the field of view outside of the cockpit is more limited than the more open X-Wing and A-Wing. Playing with a flight stick also helps to ground you and aid immersion which can combat sickness.
When you’re out of the cockpit you can turn on snap turning instead of smooth turning if you’d like for hangar exploration, or you can just turn your head around instead. Compared to other space combat games I’ve played, it seems quite smooth and comfortable but I don’t typically get sick so it’s hard to say. As long as performance is good, framerate is consistent, and you’re not seeing any major issues it should be okay for most people. No one on staff has been affected by playing. it.
The first three missions of the story after the prologue have you flying X-Wings and A-Wings, so switching back to a TIE Fighter in the next mission after that is a huge shock to the system. Not only do these fast and nimble fighters not have any shields, but they’re far more agile as well. Drifting in a TIE Fighter feels like you’re doing a donut in a street racer and watching the stars swim by as you flip around is extremely exciting.
Even though Squadrons isn’t a space combat simulator game, it’s more of an arcade-style experience, there is still a lot of depth here. For starters, you’ve got to manage your system’s power flow. For Republic, that means engine, lasers, and shields. By flicking the switch on the top of my joystick I can reroute power on the fly to whatever I’m doing at that moment. On top of that, you can designate shields for the front, back, or balanced during combat, boost, drift, and more.
At first it’s a lot to take in; there is a steep learning curve when using a stick essentially for the first time and being in VR, you can’t exactly see the buttons easily, but you eventually get the hang of things. I tried playing with a gamepad a little bit and the learning curve is far less steep. It feels really, really good with a controller in your hands and you don’t lose out on any functionality playing that way. I also tried out keyboard and mouse, but for me, that felt like a huge step backwards in terms of immersion.
After I got a feel for where each button was it all started to feel like second nature. Keyboard and mouse, as well as gamepad, have the same sort of muscle memory that kicks in after a while to a lesser extent, but after trying all three formats the HOTAS is absolutely my favorite way to play, followed by gamepad.
Star Wars: Squadrons Multiplayer
There are two main multiplayer modes: Dogfight and Fleet Battles. You can do a solo Fleet Battle with everyone else filled by AI allies and enemies, or invite friends in for a co-op affair against the AI as well. As far as I’ve seen there is no way to do a solo Dogfight match against AI or to have a co-op Practice flight, but you can spawn squadrons during Practice to sharpen your dogfighting skills.
You don’t even unlock Fleet Battles until your online rank is at least 5, so Dogfight is all you can do at first. There is a ton of map variety ranging from destroyed docking yards, massive relay stations with trenches and debris, or even huge asteroid fields that resemble obstacle courses. Not crashing becomes just as difficult as avoiding enemy fire. There’s even a giant, empty map that’s just a void of space. Keeping up with speedy TIE Fighters there is extremely difficult.
In Fleet Battles though, that’s where Squadrons really comes alive. In this game mode there are two armies with massive flagships anchoring their spot in space. First, the fighters battle it out in a game of tug of war to try and earn enough “morale” to wage an assault. From there, whoever wins the tug of war, takes the fight to the enemy’s two medium-sized capital ships. Once those are down you can attack the opponent’s massive flagship to win the match — but it’s not that simple.
At any time during a Fleet Battle the enemy can win back the morale tug of war and flip to the offensive, forcing you to go on the defensive. Once you’re attacking a flagship, like a Star Destroyer, you can take out its subsystems such as the shields, its power supplies, its turrets, and so on to slowly chip away until it’s destroyed in an epic ball of fire.
There is an in-game tutorial that takes you through all of this against AI, as well as the aforementioned AI enemies only mode you can play solo or with friends.
The biggest problem facing Star Wars: Squadrons though is a question of longevity. Once you finish the campaign all you can do is Dogfighting (Team Deathmatch) and Fleet Battle, that’s it. There are no plans for DLC, no plans for new maps, new ships, or anything like that. The developers have been very clear that Squadrons is sold as-is and will not be a live service game. It’s a great game already, but it could offer so much more had EA been willing to fund an ongoing support cycle. Instead, it’ll never grow beyond what it is right now. Hopefully there is enough interest to generate plans for a sequel that does get ongoing support.
Squadrons also contains a seasonal ranking structure, similar to most AAA online games, complete with ranks, rewards, daily missions, and so on. There are plenty of carrots to keep you moving along and coming back to earn juicy cosmetics since EA has stated there will be no microtransactions at all this time.
Star Wars: Squadrons Review Final Impressions
While I would say that Star Wars: Squadrons has exceeded my already lofty expectations overall, it’s not without its faults. It still manages to out-perform every other VR space combat game I’ve tried across the board for my tastes and offers a ton of nuance in its gameplay and immense entertainment with its full campaign. If you got a chance to try the brief, but magical, X-Wing VR Mission in the first DICE Battlefront game on PS4 with PSVR and wished it could have been made into a full game, then this is exactly that and so much more. Multiplayer is thrilling and extremely fun, but is lacking in options and variety a bit. There were some tiny performance issues and a lack of VR motion controller support, but all that is forgivable.
Minor gripes aside, for fans of Star Wars, fans of arcade-style space combat, and fans of just flat-out immersive VR, it doesn’t get a whole lot better than Star Wars: Squadrons.
For more on how we arrive at our scores, check out our review guidelines. This review was originally published on October 1st as a review-in-progress and has since been updated and finalized throughout.
Star Wars: Squadrons is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One for $39.99. VR support is included with PSVR on PS4 and any PC VR headset on PC through Origin, Steam, and the Epic Store. This review was conducted primarily via Link cable on PC with an Origin copy of the game using an Oculus Quest and Quest 2 via Link cable and Virtual Desktop. It was also tested on a Rift S.
Star Wars: Squadrons is an upcoming first-person space combat game that features a full single-player campaign, multiple gameplay modes, and crossplay support across PS4, PSVR, PC, PC VR, and Xbox One.
Excellent preview video from Star Wars HQ:
We haven’t gotten a chance to try the game for ourselves yet and no one has any impressions out for its VR support that we’ve found, but today a slew of hands-on previews dropped for the game’s non-VR format.
From what we can tell, only prominent non-VR gaming publications were included in the round of previews. After looking over the new impressions and watching several new gameplay videos, we’ve pulled together a list of a few takeaways worth noting.
There Are Lots Of Customization Options
We already knew there would be two types of customization in Star Wars: Squadrons in terms of cosmetic changes like paint jobs and the like, previewed above in the screenshot, as well as loadout customization. There are dozens of different components to pick from so not only will two two ships of the same class likely not look alike in a match, but they likely will not play alike either.
Once we know more about the customization options we look forward to digging in as much as possible. It’s also worth noting that you’ll be able to get little bobble heads as cockpit decoration items as well as holograms of characters and ships.
Additionally — there are zero microtransactions according to EA. Everything is earned in-game only.
There’s An Immersive Pre-Game Lobby And Hangar
When looking over all of the new footage and coverage for Star Wars: Squadrons today two things really stood out to me in the video preview from Star Wars HQ: there is a highly-detailed pre-game lobby and a hangar that lets you just sit in any of the cockpits outside of a match. Both of those things are going to tremendously help the game feel as immersive as possible in VR.
The pre-game lobby lets you look around the battle map at your teammates while aboard a capital ship. It looks like a really detailed and intricate environment. Then you can look over to the side at the Hangar door and go adjust your loadout, customize the ship, or just sit in the cockpit of any of your various Starfighters. I have a feeling this will be a great way to get used to the layout prior to diving in head first.
I cannot count the number of times an otherwise fun VR game has absolutely failed to maintain immersion due to flat, floating 2D menus. It’s reassuring to know that EA Motive seems to be approaching this game with immersion as a primary motivator.
Each Starfighter’s Cockpit Is Extremely Different
If you’re curious to see how each of the eight different Starfighters look from inside the cockpit, then look no further. This video from PCGamer breaks down each of the different in-game views to give you an idea of how not only your view of the battlefield will change depending on your ship, but also the placement and style of its instruments.
Picking a starfighter is just as much about leveraging its capabilities as it is adapting to its cockpit. Both VR and non-VR players will be allowed to look around freely, but VR users can (presumably) do so more easily without sacrificing ship control.
Gameplay Is Reminiscent Of Classic X-Wing And TIE Fighter Space Flight Sims
From what we’ve seen and read about Star Wars: Squadrons, gameplay is absolutely a crossover between a pure arcade-style shooter and a hardcore space flight simulation. It looks sort of like a halfway point between EVE Valkyrie’s relative simplicity and the sometimes overwhelming complexity of Elite Dangerous.
Managing ship power levels between engines, shields, and attack power will be a huge part of the meta-game skill cap and will likely factor heavily into your efficiency in combat. The moment-to-moment gameplay though, in terms of how it feels, sounds very reminiscent of the late-90s X-Wing and TIE Fighter PC space combat games.
Communication And Good Team Composition Is Crucial
While it may seem like only four different types of ships isn’t very many, it’s more than enough once you dig into the details. Team composition is key here. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of fighter-class ships like the X-Wing and TIE Fighter versus interceptor-class ships like the A-Wing and TIE Interceptor is crucial, plus the bombers and support class ships. Coordinating attacks and relaying crucial info during defense is ridiculously important.
More so than most any other competitive multiplayer game, I imagine voice communication over mic is going to be crucial here. Thankfully, every VR headset has a built-in mic so there isn’t much excuse.
Let us know what you think of the new details today down in the comments below! For more, check out what our friends thought from their hands-on demos over at Polygon, PC Gamer, and The Verge.
Virtual Reality might be one of gaming’s most immersive ways to play but it remains a niche platform.
[UploadVR regularly commissions freelance writers to review products, write stories, and contribute op-ed pieces to the site. This article is an opinion-based listicle from the perspective of the writer.]
That’s mostly attributable to a high price barrier. Though efforts from Sony such as PlayStation VR and Facebook’s Oculus Quest have helped, the price still helps explain why AAA publishers are reluctant to invest in fully-fledged original experiences. As a result, much of the time, VR is incorporated as an optional experience within existing non-VR titles instead.
On the other side, developers have also adapted VR games to more conventional platforms, providing them a larger audience. Whether it’s launching with both options, porting to VR-less platforms, or patching in a desktop mode, the inclusion of both methods can make great experiences more widely accessible.
With some developers seeking to unify both audiences, here are some of the best examples we’ve seen yet for great non-VR games with must-play VR support.
CCP Games have seen huge success with EVE Online. Released in 2003, EVE became renowned for its vast scale, seeing players compete for virtual supremacy and bringing some fascinating stories with it. Looking to branch out their universe, CCP then released VR title Eve: Valkyrie back in 2016, a multiplayer dogfighter with heavy emphasis on PvP missions. Over a year later, Valkyrie’s Warzone update was released, bringing a desktop mode that removed previous VR requirements. It’s campaign was sadly short-lived but bringing some enjoyable gameplay, it’s an exhilarating experience worth revisiting for quick space thrills.
Several studios have tried recreating the intensity of floating through outer space via virtual reality and back in 2017, Anshar Studios’ Detached was among them. Featuring PvP multiplayer as well as a separate campaign, it’s an incredibly lonely experience that saw you separated from your ship, left to explore an abandoned space station to survive. Its zero gravity antics proved nauseating in places and, trying to broaden its user base, Anshar developed a non-VR version in 2018, easing the experience but losing that immersion. With benefits to both formats, Detached proved an enjoyable title that’s worth looking into.
Five Nights At Freddy’s: Help Wanted (Switch Non-VR, PC / PC VR, PS4 / PSVR, and Quest)
When Five Nights At Freddy’s launched in 2014, few expected it to become the hit sensation we see today. Originally developed by Scott Cawthon, this horror series saw you playing an overnight security guard at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, trying to survive against a group of deadly animatronic characters. Spawning six main sequels, FNAF expanded into VR last year with Help Wanted, featuring 50 minigames based off its previous entries. It saw positive reception and quickly became a best-selling VR title but, not wanting to leave any fans out, developers released a non-VR release six months later, landing on PS4, PC and Switch.
Tequila Works made a name for themselves most recently with Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son but back in 2017, they were hard at work releasing The Invisible Hours. Invited to a mysterious mansion by Nikola Telsa, each guest holds a murky past, many of whom are looking to make amends. Playing as disgraced detective Gustaf Gustav, we find Tesla has been murdered by another guest and it’s up to you to discover the truth. Receiving strong reviews, Tequila Works soon developed a non-VR version, releasing a free patch six months later and it proved just as satisfying.
The Persistence recently became a multiplatform release but two years ago, developers Firesprite made waves on PSVR with their former exclusive. Finding your spaceship stranded in deep space and overrun by demonic creatures, you played the crew’s sole survivor, Zimri Elder, trying to make it through this horrific onslaught. Incorporating FPS and roguelike mechanics, death is a minor obstacle, finding Zimri cloned back to life each time and no two playthroughs are identical, changing the spaceship layout on each run. Now withVR optional on PC/PS4, it’s a great choice for horror fans.
Tetris should require no introduction to most. With differently shaped blocks known as Tetrominos falling downward, you aim to clear lines by filling them up, earning points for speed. Since arriving in 1984, Tetris has seen many different releases, but news of a VR version surprised many in 2018. Helmed by Rez producer Tetsuya Mizuguchi, TetrisEffect retained the classic gameplay formula but split stages into three cinematic sections, activated by clearing a set number of lines. Bringing us stunning visuals and an excellent soundtrack, it launched with support for both VR and non-VR and comes highly recommended.
It’s been three years since VRChat first launched but even now this free-to-play title retains a significant following. Featuring gameplay reminiscent of Second Life, VRChat is a user-driven experience, allowing players to create their own worlds, avatars and custom content. It may be surprising considering the name but VRChat isn’t limited to virtual reality, including a desktop mode so anyone can join, albeit with control limitations. Not every world caters to desktop users but ultimately, this experience comes down to you. Whether you’re looking to socialize, play some games or something else, there’s plenty of fun to be found.
There are undoubtedly countless others that we could have included. What are some of your picks for the best VR games that also have non-VR support?
CCP Games, developers of epic space MMO EVE Online and VR games like EVE: Valkyrie and Sparc, aren’t as into VR as they once were but it’s not being written off entirely.
Back in late 2017 CCP Games publicly announced they’re withdrawal from heavy involvement in VR projects. After releasing EVE: Valkyrie alongside the Oculus Rift, porting the game to Steam VR headsets, PSVR, and even releasing it outside of VR, wave-shooter spin-offs in the Gunjack sub-franchise, and then releasing Sparc, the numbers just weren’t there for it to be a sustainable business focus.
Following the closure of CCP Atlanta, in an interview CCP Games CEO cited low install base as the main current bottleneck.
Surprisingly, earlier this week, CCP Games released the first update to Sparc in quite some time adding in new games and spectator options — which is extra surprising when you consider its complete lack of single player content. The entire game is dependent on the small userbase the company cited as their reason for pulling back to begin with.
After hearing the news we reached out to CCP Games for comment and a company representative had the following to say:
“We’re continuing to invest the revenue we receive for Sparc back into the game so as to support its dedicated and passionate playerbase. Moreover, CCP remains bullish about the future potential of VR and its long-term appeal as the VR market still has some way to go before it reaches maturity. VR is, fundamentally, a brand-new medium and we’re still in the early stages of its life.”
It’s a good sign for fans of CCP Games and at least means their existing projects aren’t being totally abandoned, which does happen often in the VR market. Let us know what you think of this statement and news down in the comments below!
Along the way is Chapter 23, titled NINE STORIES. The chapter focuses on developers in April 2013 receiving the first Rift development kit — known as DK1. 56,334 of the headsets would eventually ship out to 114 countries. The nine stories provide an intimate look into how some lives changed with the arrival of that VR headset.
Below are the first four of the nine stories. Check back tomorrow when we excerpt the remaining five stories from Chapter 23 of The History Of The Future.
FOUR STORIES
April 2013
“Check this out,” Luckey said, showing Dycus an eBay web page littered with results.
Skimming the items, Dycus couldn’t help but grin: Oculus’s $300 devkits were in such high demand that some were going for over a thousand bucks.
By this point, the first week of April, it was now clear that the launch of DK1 had been an unmitigated success. Secondhand units were selling for three times their price; tech journalists were publishing glowing reviews; and Luckey’s in-box was flooded with affection and admiration—comments like this one, from a Korean fan, proclaiming that Luckey was “going to be a historic human in 21c.” But as cool as all that was, none of it compared to the fact that developers all over the world were starting to receive their devkits in the mail; and over the next few months, these devs would get to work and begin building incredible things . . .
1. JUSTIN MORAVETZ
Santa Monica, California
In seventh grade, Justin Moravetz and his classmates were asked to give a presentation about “The Future.” So Moravetz decided to talk about the technology that excited him most—virtual reality!—and even cobbled together a makeshift headset using a VGA monitor and two Game Boy Screen Magnifiers. For the next two decades, he waited for VR to finally arrive in all that glory he had imagined as a boy. But year after year yielded disappointment after disappointment.
From Forte’s VFX1 to eMagin’s latest Z800 3-DVisor, Justin Moravetz had seen it all. From his experience as a 3-D animator at Sony Computer Entertainment, Moravetz had insight into what a powerhouse was doing with virtual reality. And, well, it wasn’t much. He came to believe that the only way virtual reality could ever really take of would be for a small, scrappy outside force to come in—resurrect the technology from the ashes of its failures—and force big companies (like the one he worked for) to jump into the fray.
Would this ever happen? Moravetz did not know. But he felt hope—glorious, long-lost hope—as he tore open the package containing his devkit and read the welcome letter inside.
Unlike almost every other developer, Moravetz had already come up with an idea. In fact, using Unity, he had already spent the past six months creating various levels for a retro-inspired, Arkanoid-style brick-breaking game he called Proton Pulse.
It was challenging to make an Oculus-ready game without an actual Oculus headset, but Moravetz’s lifelong passion for VR coupled with his animation expertise gave him the ability to develop something that he thought would be viable.
Now, after six months’ worth of nights and weekends spent developing this game, he was about to find out how viable it would really be.
2. DENNY UNGER
Qualicum Beach, Canada
Within moments of putting on DK1 for the first time, Denny Unger started crying. He couldn’t help it. Ever since trying a Virtuality VR system at Edmonton’s Klondike Days expo in 1992, he had been infatuated with virtual reality. It wasn’t that the Virtuality demo had been especially good (he left the demo sick to his stomach) but because, he assumed, that if VR hardware progressed on the same trajectory as, say, video game consoles, then it would only be a few years until virtual reality started to take of.
That, of course, didn’t happen. But eventually, Unger found solace in a community of fellow VR diehards called MTBS3D. It was there he met Palmer Luckey who—as Unger would fondly recall years later—“had kind of cracked the code of how we could do this affordably using current technology.” So when Luckey announced that he was planning to sell an open-source HMD kit on Kickstarter, Unger was so excited that he volunteered to design the logo for this little venture called “Oculus.”
At the time, Unger had no expectation that VR would become interesting to anyone outside the hundred or so hobbyists who frequented the forums on MTBS3D. But his perspective began to change after John Carmack wound up demoing Luckey’s prototype later that year at E3. Oh shit, Unger thought. There’s a big opportunity here that no one understands yet! In late 2012, Unger quit his job (designing tabletop games) and recruited a few tech-savvy friends (Christopher Roe, Matthew Lyon, Paul White, Dan Taylor and Joel Green) to start a studio (Cloudhead Games) focused on creating “deeply immersive” gaming experiences.
“We’ve got this golden opportunity to really do something special,” Unger told the team during one of their early meetings in his garage-turned-game-studio. What he had in mind was a game that combined the adventurous spirit of films like The Goonies and Indiana Jones with the hidden challenges and mystery-island feel of his all-time favorite
puzzle game: Myst. To help finance this built-for-VR puzzle/adventure game—The Gallery: Six Elements, they called it—the Cloudhead Games team launched a Kickstarter campaign in late March 2013. And that campaign had all but hit its goal by the time Denny Unger received his devkit in the mail.
There was a lot riding on the Tuscany demo he was about to try. Which is why, within moments of putting on DK1 for the first time, Denny Unger started crying. Tears of joy—of pure, unadulterated, dream-come-true joy. Because this moment felt like every Christmas ever; because even though he knew he was still in Canada, he felt like he was all the way in Italy; because if this was just first-generation hardware, could you imagine what the future would bring? It was all so wonderful and overwhelming. But before allowing himself to fully imagine those possibilities—for himself, for Cloudhead Games, for the future of human interaction—Unger had the urge to email an old friend. “Thanks for bringing us the future,” he wrote.
3. OWLCHEMY LABS
Boston, MA
“I think that this is the beginning of a forty-year-industry,” Devin Reimer, the CTO of Owlchemy Labs, told Owlchemy founder and CEO Alex Schwartz. This was months earlier, right after Oculus’s Kickstarter had launched. Reimer—being a big fan of John Carmack—had been following the lead-up to the launch, and somewhere between E3 and QuakeCon, he had become convinced that VR was about to upend the gaming industry. “I think that this is the beginning of a forty-year-industry. And I think we should do something here.”
At the time, Schwartz didn’t know much about VR—Owlchemy’s focus, after all, was mobile gaming—but he trusted Reimer’s instinct and agreed they should order a devkit. Then the two of them got back to work and didn’t discuss VR again until a devkit showed up at their office.
Intrigued by the headset and impressed with Oculus’s SDK, Schwartz and Reimer decided to take of a month from their current obligations and create a VR version of a base-jumping game they had published in 2011 called AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! For The Awesome.
Since Aaaaa!!! had originally been built using Unity, it only took two days to get their port working. But then it took the rest of the month to get it working in a way that was fun and functional and could be played end to end without taking of the headset.
During this time, the Owlchemy team learned many things. Things like: the camera angle is sacred, controllers (not keyboards) are essential, and motion sickness—believe it or not—is addressable. Though perhaps the biggest lesson they learned was that if you tell anyone—friends, family members, fellow developers; anyone—that you’re thinking about “betting the future of the company on VR,” every single one of them will inevitably say the same thing: YOU’RE CRAZY.
4. CCP
Reykjavík, Iceland
“I know it’s a bit crazy . . .” wrote Sigurður “Siggi” Gunnarsson, a senior web developer at CCP Games, in a late 2012 company-wide email that he hoped might lead to the creation of a VR team. It didn’t need to be a big team—even just a few would signify a great start. “I know it’s a bit crazy to spend your free time doing something you spend your working hours on, but the goal here is not to create a commercial success, but to have fun, learn new things, and try out new ideas.”
Shortly after this call to arms, a small crew of collaborators came together. In addition to Gunnarsson, there was graphic artist Andrew Robinson, software engineer David Gundry, and a pair of QA (quality assurance) analysts: Ian Shiels and Louisa Clarke. On paper and in person, this small skunkworks team had little in common. Except for two things: they all had relatively low-level roles working on CCP’s hit space adventure MMORPG EVE Online; and they all had been fascinated by VR for many, many years.
“For me, it started in college,” Gunnarsson recounted to the team over beers, as they met at a local bar to discuss potential game ideas. “Games like D&D and Shadowrun. I was always just imagining how would it be if you could make a computer game in the future where you and your friends could go into VR and just go somewhere else and work together as a group.”
The crew really liked that idea—of group play; of something social; of creating a VR game that thrust multiple people into the same shared experience. But what should that experience be? A roller-coaster ride? A rocket race through space? Maybe a wormhole battle? Wait, what the hell was a wormhole battle?
Andrew Robinson took notes on a bar napkin and drew little sketches of these ideas. Just scribbling, just screwing around, until Louisa Clarke threw out a concept that sounded like a game that they all suddenly very much wanted to play.
Over a year ago, CCP announced it was stopping work on virtual reality (VR) titles, shocking many in the VR and videogame sectors. CCP Chief Executive Officer Hilmar Veigar Pétursson has now revealed some of the reasoning behind the decision.
CCP had some of the earliest successes in VR, with EVE: Valkyrie spinning off from the hugely popular MMO EVE: Online and receiving critical praise as well as a loyal fanbase in its own right. However, last October CCP announced it was closing its Atlanta studio and selling off the Newcastle studio that produced EVE: Valkyrie.
Speaking with Destructoid, Pétursson said that the main reason for the decision was that the user base for VR had not attained the size they studio had hoped for, making it difficult to justify further investment in the sector.
“We expected VR to be two to three times as big as it was, period,” Pétursson said. “You can’t build a business on that.” Pétursson went on to explain that the decisions regarding this began to be made around May 2017, less than six months before the studios were closed and sold.
“Was it a surprise? Maybe,” he said. “But the picture was filling in that there would not be a way to continue with VR as heavily as we were.” Pétursson said there were no regrets about working on VR, and suggested that he had positive expectations for the Oculus Quest headset and what effect that might have on the wider VR market.
“If it does take off – and I mean if – we’ll reassess,” he said. “The important thing is we need to see the metrics for active users of VR. A lot of people bought headsets just to try it out. How many of those people are active? We found that in terms of our data, a lot of users weren’t.”
For future coverage on new developments in VR, keep checking back with VRFocus.
CCP Games, the Icelandic studio known for their long-running MMO Eve: Online (2003), shuttered their VR production studios in a surprise move last year, selling off their Newcastle-based branch behind their multiplayer space dogfighter EVE: Valkyrie (2016), and completely shutting down their Atlanta studio behind sports game Sparc (2017). Now, CEOHilmar Veigar Pétursson speaks out in an interview with Destructoidabout the studio’s reconsolidation back to traditional desktop gaming, and his thoughts about the VR landscape. In short, he thought VR would be bigger by now, and more capable of supporting a healthy multiplayer userbase.
EVE: Valkyrie, the company’s flagship VR game, was the result of over three years of development before becoming a day-one launch title on Oculus Rift and PSVR, arriving shortly afterwards on HTC Vive via Steam in 2016—a seemingly best-case scenario for any multiplayer-only game.
Image courtesy CCP Games
Under CCP direction, EVE: Valkyrie saw a number of updates designed to entice players back, including new ships, maps, and weekly events; CCP even pushed a major update to the game last year that brought support for desktop and console players, a move to help boost sales and revive the ailing VR-only playerbase. Still, the multiplayer game just didn’t perform as CCP ultimately expected, and the company officially stepped back from VR shortly thereafter.
“We expected VR to be two to three times as big as it was, period,” Pétursson tells Destructoid. “You can’t build a business on that.”
Pétursson still has hope though that headsets like Oculus Quest, the $400 high-end standalone 6DOF headset launching in Spring 2019, will have the mass appeal to bring the user numbers the company needs to see before jumping back into VR.
“If it does take off, and I mean if, we’ll re-assess. The important thing is we need to see the metrics for active users of VR,” he tells Destructoid. “A lot of people bought headsets just to try it out. How many of those people are active? We found that in terms of our data, a lot of users weren’t.”
Image courtesy CCP Games
While CCP Games has been recently acquired by Korea-based developer Pearl Abyss, the studio behind the MMO Black Desert Online, it may still have leeway to begin anew in VR when they think the time is right. According to Pearl Abyss, CCP will “continue to operate independently as a developer with studios in Reykjavik, London and Shanghai, while integrating the company’s extensive development and publishing expertise into Pearl Abyss’ operations for all current and future projects.”
Despite shuttering the Atlanta-based office behind Sparc and selling EVE: Valkyrie to Sumo Digital, both games remain functional today.
