First Contact Entertainment’s multiplayer shooter Solaris Offworld Combat launched back in September 2020 for Oculus Quest and Rift, with the studio confirming more platforms would follow. Today, PlayStation VR owners will be pleased to hear that support will be arriving this Spring.
From the team behind PlayStation VR exclusive Firewall Zero Hour, Solaris Offworld Combat is an intense, team-based shooter offering 4v4 action. Matches revolve around a singular gameplay mode called ‘Control Point’, where teams spawn in, pick up items along the way then hold an area until it moves location. Players start with a basic pistol with further weaponry like Grenade Launchers, Shotguns and Rocket Launchers found throughout the arena.
It’s a double announcement today as the Spring launch won’t purely be digital. First Contact Entertainment has teamed up with Perp Games to bring physical copies to retail.
‘We’re pleased to announce that we’ll be working with PSVR specialist Perp Games to bring you the boxed version of Solaris Offworld Combat. We know how great it feels to hold a game in your hands, and we can’t wait for all of our fans to grab a copy,” said Fast Travel Games in a statement.
“First Contact Entertainment is one of the leading VR studios, and it is a great honour to partner with them,” said Rob Edwards, Managing Director at Perp Games. “We were fortunate to play an early build of Solaris Offworld Combat last year and we were blown away by the focus on all-out action and fun. We knew then that the age of immersive multiplayer VR gaming had begun.
Solaris Offworld Combat currently features seven arenas of various sizes and thanks to the recent Squad Update, players are now able to team up with friends rather than being automatically dropped in a group. Just like Firewall Zero Hour, Solaris Offworld Combat will support the PlayStation Aim controller, continuing to expand the list of compatible titles.
As further updates for Solaris Offworld Combat are released including Steam support, VRFocus will let you know
Solaris Offworld Combat (2020), the team-based VR arena shooter for Oculus Rift and Oculus Quest, is getting an update this week that’s set to bring a number of highly requested features to the game, including the long-awaited ability to squad up with friends.
In addition to the ability to create a squad, the studio is packaging a few features in the update too, which include:
New Map: Fury Major – redesigned to focus on more centralized player engagement and close quarters combat
Stamina Cooldown Changes: enjoy unlimited sprinting with a cooldown that happens only if you spam slide
IRL Crouch To Slide
Daily XP Bonus & Weekly Challenges
Free Hand Tracking: you can now move both arms independently while playing, this will not affect your weapons accuracy
Gameplay Balancing
Bug Fixes & General Improvements
There’s no precise timing on release of the update, however developers First Contact Entertainment say it should be here sometime this week.
Fury Major Map, Image courtesy First Contact Entertainment
In our preview of Solaris Offworld Combat, we liked the fast-paced experience designed for anyone can pick up and play, although it was still a bit rough around the edges. Some of those items we noted in the preview are being featured in the squad update, namely the lack of controller tracking for non-dominant hands. It’ll also be interesting to see whether the update can better balance its casual and competitive ambitions.
Solaris Offworld Combat includes cross-play and cross-buy between the Rift version and Quest version, priced at $30. The game is expected to also land on Steam and PSVR at some point, although it’s still unclear when. In the meantime, check out some of out preview gameplay footage below to get and idea of what Solaris has to offer.
Solaris: Offworld Combat is getting squad support in its biggest post-launch update yet this week. The update will also introduce a brand new map, several fixes and improvements, and will enable players to freely move their non-primary hand.
When Solaris first launched it delivered on the promise of fast-paced, easy-to-pickup-and-play thrills with addictive gameplay, satisfying gun mechanics, and vibrant map designs. However, the inability to group up and play with friends was a huge issue.
According to developer First Contact Entertainment via email, squad support was “probably the most requested feature” since launch, so it’s finally getting added.
A new version of Fury is coming as well, dubbed Fury Major, which will focus on centralizing player engagement with more close quarters combat moments. Stamina is also getting reworked so you no longer lose any for sprinting and you’re only impacted for spamming slide over and over.
The other major change which should improve player immersion dramatically, at least in my opinion, is that now your free hand has full tracking. Previously whichever hand was not your primary hand (for example your left hand if you are righthanded) would just be glued to the gun at all times even if you moved the controller around. Now, they’ve unattached it, just like in the main menu, so you can move it freely. Weapon accuracy is unaffected.
There are a handful of other changes as well, such as crouching in real life triggering a slide if you’re sprinting, daily XP bonuses and weekly challenges, balance adjustments, and more.
For more on Solaris: Offworld Combat follow the game’s official Twitter and YouTube and make sure to check out our full review and launch day livestream right here.
First Contact Entertainment confirmed that Firewall Zero Hour will offer PS5-specific improvements when playing the PSVR game on a next generation console.
As confirmed by Sony earlier this week, some PSVR games’ specific features will see improvements when played in backwards compatibility mode on PS5. We already know that PSVR exclusive Blood & Truth will feature a higher resolution and higher framerate on PS5, and now we have details for another PSVR exclusive — multiplayer FPS game Firewall Zero Hour.
Developers First Contact Entertainment put out a tweet with a video that details the improvements coming to Firewall on PS5.
— First Contact Entertainment is Hiring!!! (@firstcontactent) November 11, 2020
The text from the end of the video, detailing the changes, reads as follows:
Firewall Zero Hour played on PS5 offers reduced load times and improved visual fidelity resulting from an additional increase in supersampling pixel density from what is currently offered on PS4 Pro.
Firewall Zero Hour launched on PS4 for PSVR in 2018, and has continued to receive content updates ever since. The game recently entered its fifth competitive season, which added loads of new content and a brand new map as well.
Solaris: Offworld Combat, the next VR shooter from Firewall Zero Hour developers First Contact Entertainment, is out now for PSVR, Rift and Quest. Check out our impressions in our Solaris: Offworld Combat review!
Note: This review was originally published on September 26th, 2020. It’s now been updated to include the PSVR version.
Following up on one of the most successful and well-known PSVR games, Firewall Zero Hour, is no small task. Especially when your next game, in this case Solaris, launches first on different headsets (before the recent PSVR homecoming). But for all its differences and unique challenges, I think Solaris is still mostly a worthy follow-up to the breakout PSVR hit.
The big difference here is that Solaris is not a realistic-style tactical military shooter. At all. Whereas Firewall borrows heavy inspiration from the likes of Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon, Solaris is more like an alternate reality sci-fi version of Quake with its focus on pick-up-and-playability and quick-paced gameplay.
Everything in Solaris is about as streamlined as it can possibly get — for better and (in some small cases) for worse. For example, there are no game modes to pick from, maps to select, playlists to queue for, or anything like that. The main menu literally just says ‘Play’ or asks you to put on the helmet to enter a game. That’s it. From there you’re spawned into a match with seven other people in a 4v4 game to capture control points that move around the map, sort of like Headquarters in Call of Duty. It’s very quick and efficient and, above all else, very fun.
In addition to the four guns (starting pistol, automatic assault rift, grenade launcher, and rocket launcher) there are two equipment items: proximity mine and deployable cover shield. It’s enough gear to add some strategy to encounters, but does feel a bit light overall.
Another example of this streamlined approach is the lack of an inventory, weapon switching, or reloading. You walk over weapons to pick them up and then it auto-switches to that new weapon. You shoot the special weapons until they’re out of ammo and it switches back to your starting pistol. No reloading ever required. In this way the “weapons” actually function a bit more like upgrades since they’re temporary. It adds intensity because you can visibly see when others pick up the weapons and creates competition to see who can get them first.
Solaris: Offworld Combat Review – Quest vs Rift
Solaris: Offworld Combat is out on both Quest and Rift with cross-buy and cross-play support. So even if you only have one headset, you’re playing against and with people on both platforms at all times. Visually it’s extremely similar. So similar in fact, that other than a few particle effects and lighting enhancements you can barely tell the difference. Gameplay is functionally identical. The only difference I’ve ever really spotted from a performance level is at the start of a match on Quest, before you’re ever in combat, there is a little bit of jitter and stutter as things are initializing, but once you’re in the game and actively playing, that all goes away. Refer to the video below for a side-by-side comparison.
However, not all of the streamlining they’ve done is for the better. One great example of this is weapon handling. In Solaris, you literally cannot control your left hand at all. Every weapon in the game is essentially one-handed just like the pistol, which is fine in and of itself, Half-Life: Alyx did this as well, but in Solaris your left hand isn’t tracked at all. If you reach out with your left controller it doesn’t do anything, you’re only using it as a thumbstick to move around.
The issue with this is twofold: a lack of presence and immersion, but also a lack of gameplay opportunity. In games like Onward your left hand is equal to the right hand, you could pull your pistol with the left hand, cradle the gun on your left shoulder and even pull the trigger left-handed if you wanted to. But in Solaris your left hand is basically the left half of an Xbox controller in your hand without tracking.
All that being said — you will forget about it. While playing I tended to rest my right controller on top of my left controller to steady the aim regardless of weapon so it generally felt like I was using both hands in-game even though I wasn’t. I genuinely stopped noticing or caring about it during the heat of battle.
Solaris: Offworld CombatReview – Comfort Settings
Solaris: Offworld Combat should be avoided if you require teleportation movement to enjoy VR because smooth, direct locomotion is the only option. That being said, there are some settings you can tweak to make it more comfortable if you’re not extra sensitive. In the main menu options you can switch between smooth and snap turning or turn on/off the FOV vignette for turning and sprinting.
Another odd limitation is the restricted physical crouching. I know the Quest and Rift S are capable of accurately tracking me as I lay down on the ground, or even roll around, because I’ve done it in games like Rec Room and Onward, but there are invisible barriers in Solaris that only let you go down as low as the crouch button animates.
Probably more than any other shooter I’ve played in VR, Solaris is the most seamless to play. It’s pure entertainment that just works. You never have to fuss around with anything feeling wonky or off because all the things that usually cause those issues in VR just aren’t here. On the surface things can see simplistic, but in the moment they absolutely are there to ensure the game is as fluid and playable as possible from top to bottom.
Solaris: Offworld Combat Review Final Impressions
Solaris: Offworld Combat is more than just the sum of its parts. While it’s easy to nitpick some of the decisions made, like your left hand not really being tracked in the game or the lack of a party/friend system at all for launch, the fact of the matter is that it’s still just incredibly fun to play. Visually it looks great on both Rift and Quest and the gameplay has that quick and seamless feel of Quake mixed with a slick Tron-style aesthetic. Despite the issues, Solaris is easily the most accessible and streamlined VR shooter I’ve played in recent memory and scratches the arena shooter itch I’d forgotten I had.
Solaris: Offworld Combat is out now on Rift and for Quest with cross-buy and cross-play functionality across both platforms. This review was conducted using both versions of the game, but most time was spent in the Quest version. A PSVR version also release today, May 18th. For more on how we arrived at this score, check out our review guidelines.
For today’s livestream we’re playing Solaris: Offworld Combat, the latest VR shooter from the creators of Firewall Zero Hour! 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.
Yesterday the next VR shooter from First Contact Entertainment released, Solaris: Offworld Combat. It’s a sci-fi take on the arena shooter genre with fast-paced gameplay reminiscent of classics such as Quake and Unreal Tournament.
Our Solaris livestream is planned to start at about 1:15 PM PT today and will last for around an hour or so, give or take. We’ll be hitting just our YouTubeand I’ll be streaming from an Oculus Quest with two Touch controllers using a Chromecast connection. I’m flying solo on this one and will only be able to see chat periodically when I peak through my headset nose gap.
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!
Launching today, Solaris Offworld Combat is a team-based VR arena shooter from First Contact Entertainment, the studio behind the lauded Firewall: Zero Hour (2018). This time around, the studio wants to deliver a fast-paced experience that anyone can pick up and play. My preview of the game reveals strong technical merit, but a potential clash between casual and competitive ambitions.
Thematically, Solaris Offworld Combat presents itself to players as a sort of future sport where competitors jump into virtual arenas and duke it out for the top place on the leaderboards. And that’s exactly what the game hopes to accomplish: foster a level of hardcore competition which keeps players and teams coming back for more.
And while developer First Contact Entertainment attracted a hardcore player base to its prior title, Firewall: Zero Hour, in many ways Solaris is doing the opposite of what resonated with that community.
Firewall Zero Hour | Image courtesy First Contact Entertainment
Firewall: Zero Hour is a team-based PSVR mil-sim shooter with a slow, tactical pace. And that comes with the sort of mechanics you’d expect: loadouts, attachments, perks, reloads, ADS aiming, recoil control, etc. The sort of mechanics which give room for a deeper level of gameplay and strategy that goes beyond the act of putting your reticle on another player and pulling the trigger.
Solaris, on the other hand, is designed first and foremost for ease of play and a run-and-gun pace. The studio says its goal is to get anyone and everyone quickly into the action and deliver a “point and shoot” experience. And that’s apparently meant removing pretty much all of Firewall’s deeper gameplay elements; Solaris has no reloading, loadouts, attachments, or recoil control, and weapons project their reticle into the world so that there’s no need to aim down sights.
Rather than the slower, more tactical pace of Firewall—which gives an advantage to players who get themselves into the right position ahead of time—Solaris seems to expect players to be constantly moving, mostly using the thumbstick to strafe and juke rather than expecting much bodily movement from players like physically crouching or peeking around corners.
This breed of quick run-and-gun gameplay is par for the course in non-VR arena shooters, and on the surface Solaris has done a commendable job of translating the main tropes into VR. Player movement is quite fast compared to most VR games, even allowing players to slide for a few feet to try to stay behind cover while moving quickly. Everyone starts with the same basic pistol with unlimited ammo and can pick up weapons by walking over pads on the ground. Weapons have limited ammo and disappear once empty. Respawns are fast and time to kill is low. Shooting is of the point-and-shoot variety with no bullet travel or drop. It’s all undeniably functional.
After playing a few matches, it felt like I was playing a very cool version of VR laser tag. But it’s not clear to me yet whether the game has the level of depth needed to foster the competitive allure that First Contact hopes will keep the game buzzing with a stable player base. After all, laser tag is fun, but it’s not something most people are going to do on a weekly basis.
That’s not to say that Solaris doesn’t have—or won’t eventually be updated with—what it takes to bring out that high-level play, but there’s a lot left to prove. The most successful multiplayer VR shooter games so far have all been of the mil-sim variety, and have leaned into nuanced weapon interactions and a slower pace which are a natural fit for VR.
First Contact has taken the goal of ease-of-use so far that it has opted to make Solaris entirely free of two-handed interactions. In fact I was surprised to find that my off-hand in the game isn’t even tracked. Even as I move my hand around, my virtual hand wouldn’t respond to the motion at all, leaving me with the very awkward sensation that one of my arms was an extra appendage that I had no control over.
Image courtesy First Contact Entertainment
The studio said this was done for performance reasons and wanting to avoid the complexity of two-handed interactions. That’s well and good, but it’s a bit odd then that all of the weapons are—by their 3D models at least—designed to be held with two hands. It’s even more odd when my fake arm automatically grabs the gun’s grip all on its own.
Anyone that’s read my perspective on VR knows that I’m all-for ease-of-use in VR; overly complex interactions can often be more frustrating than they are fun. Half-Life: Alyx simplified its weapons by making them single-handed only, but it at least made use of the player’s off hand for reloading and other interactions like throwing grenades or opening doors. But it’s possible to get too simple as well.
If anyone can figure out how to make it work, First Contact Entertainment is a good bet. The studio cut their teeth on Firewall: Zero Hour, a game which after two years appears to still be going strong on PSVR. The studio says it’s continuing to deliver content updates to the game and has seen individual players top 1,000 hours in the game. The title is still lauded as one of the best shooters and best multiplayer games on the system.
That experience shines through clearly in the Solaris presentation; built on Unreal Engine 4, even on Quest the game is impressively sharp and runs very smoothly, with matches underpinned with dedicated servers.
And it’s the Quest audience—a younger demographic that your average enthusiast PC VR user—that Solaris is likely targeted toward. The game’s ease of entry and rapid-fire pace might be just the right combination for that group.
– – — – –
Solaris launches today on Oculus Rift and Oculus Quest with support for cross-buy and cross-play (it will launch on Steam and PSVR at some later date). First Contact is calling the launch a “pre-season,” and expects to listen carefully to player feedback. There’s one caveat with the pre-season which is odd for a team-based shooter—the pre-season will not allow players to form teams with their friends. All matches will be comprised of random teams, with the ability to invite friends being added at a later date.
Launching today, Solaris Offworld Combat is a team-based VR arena shooter from First Contact Entertainment, the studio behind the lauded Firewall: Zero Hour (2018). This time around, the studio wants to deliver a fast-paced experience that anyone can pick up and play. My preview of the game reveals strong technical merit, but a potential clash between casual and competitive ambitions.
Thematically, Solaris Offworld Combat presents itself to players as a sort of future sport where competitors jump into virtual arenas and duke it out for the top place on the leaderboards. And that’s exactly what the game hopes to accomplish: foster a level of hardcore competition which keeps players and teams coming back for more.
And while developer First Contact Entertainment attracted a hardcore player base to its prior title, Firewall: Zero Hour, in many ways Solaris is doing the opposite of what resonated with that community.
Firewall Zero Hour | Image courtesy First Contact Entertainment
Firewall: Zero Hour is a team-based PSVR mil-sim shooter with a slow, tactical pace. And that comes with the sort of mechanics you’d expect: loadouts, attachments, perks, reloads, ADS aiming, recoil control, etc. The sort of mechanics which give room for a deeper level of gameplay and strategy that goes beyond the act of putting your reticle on another player and pulling the trigger.
Solaris, on the other hand, is designed first and foremost for ease of play and a run-and-gun pace. The studio says its goal is to get anyone and everyone quickly into the action and deliver a “point and shoot” experience. And that’s apparently meant removing pretty much all of Firewall’s deeper gameplay elements; Solaris has no reloading, loadouts, attachments, or recoil control, and weapons project their reticle into the world so that there’s no need to aim down sights.
Rather than the slower, more tactical pace of Firewall—which gives an advantage to players who get themselves into the right position ahead of time—Solaris seems to expect players to be constantly moving, mostly using the thumbstick to strafe and juke rather than expecting much bodily movement from players like physically crouching or peeking around corners.
This breed of quick run-and-gun gameplay is par for the course in non-VR arena shooters, and on the surface Solaris has done a commendable job of translating the main tropes into VR. Player movement is quite fast compared to most VR games, even allowing players to slide for a few feet to try to stay behind cover while moving quickly. Everyone starts with the same basic pistol with unlimited ammo and can pick up weapons by walking over pads on the ground. Weapons have limited ammo and disappear once empty. Respawns are fast and time to kill is low. Shooting is of the point-and-shoot variety with no bullet travel or drop. It’s all undeniably functional.
After playing a few matches, it felt like I was playing a very cool version of VR laser tag. But it’s not clear to me yet whether the game has the level of depth needed to foster the competitive allure that First Contact hopes will keep the game buzzing with a stable player base. After all, laser tag is fun, but it’s not something most people are going to do on a weekly basis.
That’s not to say that Solaris doesn’t have—or won’t eventually be updated with—what it takes to bring out that high-level play, but there’s a lot left to prove. The most successful multiplayer VR shooter games so far have all been of the mil-sim variety, and have leaned into nuanced weapon interactions and a slower pace which are a natural fit for VR.
First Contact has taken the goal of ease-of-use so far that it has opted to make Solaris entirely free of two-handed interactions. In fact I was surprised to find that my off-hand in the game isn’t even tracked. Even as I move my hand around, my virtual hand wouldn’t respond to the motion at all, leaving me with the very awkward sensation that one of my arms was an extra appendage that I had no control over.
Image courtesy First Contact Entertainment
The studio said this was done for performance reasons and wanting to avoid the complexity of two-handed interactions. That’s well and good, but it’s a bit odd then that all of the weapons are—by their 3D models at least—designed to be held with two hands. It’s even more odd when my fake arm automatically grabs the gun’s grip all on its own.
Anyone that’s read my perspective on VR knows that I’m all-for ease-of-use in VR; overly complex interactions can often be more frustrating than they are fun. Half-Life: Alyx simplified its weapons by making them single-handed only, but it at least made use of the player’s off hand for reloading and other interactions like throwing grenades or opening doors. But it’s possible to get too simple as well.
If anyone can figure out how to make it work, First Contact Entertainment is a good bet. The studio cut their teeth on Firewall: Zero Hour, a game which after two years appears to still be going strong on PSVR. The studio says it’s continuing to deliver content updates to the game and has seen individual players top 1,000 hours in the game. The title is still lauded as one of the best shooters and best multiplayer games on the system.
That experience shines through clearly in the Solaris presentation; built on Unreal Engine 4, even on Quest the game is impressively sharp and runs very smoothly, with matches underpinned with dedicated servers.
And it’s the Quest audience—a younger demographic that your average enthusiast PC VR user—that Solaris is likely targeted toward. The game’s ease of entry and rapid-fire pace might be just the right combination for that group.
– – — – –
Solaris launches today on Oculus Rift and Oculus Quest with support for cross-buy and cross-play (it will launch on Steam and PSVR at some later date). First Contact is calling the launch a “pre-season,” and expects to listen carefully to player feedback. There’s one caveat with the pre-season which is odd for a team-based shooter—the pre-season will not allow players to form teams with their friends. All matches will be comprised of random teams, with the ability to invite friends being added at a later date.
Solaris: Offworld Combat is coming out this week for Rift and Quest and we’ve already gone hands-on with the team-based sci-fi VR shooter. Check out our preview for more details and watch the graphics comparison below to see how it fares on Quest vs Rift.
Since this is a multiplayer shooter, we won’t be syncing up footage, however we’ve got two rounds side by side. On the left is the Quest, which you’ll notice has slightly longer loading times compared to the near non-existent loading for Rift. We’ve shaved it down a bit for timing sake, but not by much.
Once the games begin you can see some clear lighting and color differences, with Quest being much more basic and chunky with distinctly less glow while the Rift can afford more blended and complex aesthetics.
Overall, the Quest version compares to the Rift version very favorably all things considered and looks much more similar to the PC counterpart than a lot of ports we’ve seen. All of the gameplay and content is the same so there is actually a lot of parity between the two.
Your weapons have about the same amount of detail except for the previously mentioned elements, however when it comes to shooting animations there are far less details on the Quest version, making it look a little more basic in comparison to Rift’s firework-style display. Either way, I don’t think any of these differences should affect your gameplay on Quest, and it holds up wonderfully even in this pre-release build.
In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that personally I prefer the Quest version due almost entirely to the wireless nature. With how fast-paced of a game Solaris is, being able to spin around quickly is a godsend that really improves how effective I can be in a fight.
Solaris Offworld Combat is coming out on September 24th for Rift and Quest as well as PSVR eventually after its initial launch but there’s no date on that version yet. You can definitely expect a new graphics comparison when that version comes out.
Let us know what you think down in the comments below!
Solaris: Offworld Combat is the next multiplayer shooter from First Contact Entertainment and we got the chance to go hands-on with it for the very first time last week. During my session I played the game on both Rift S and Quest and came away excited to see more!
From the very first moments of gameplay, it’s obvious that Solaris takes heavy inspiration from the likes of Quake, Unreal, and other classic arena shooters. And remarkably, it actually runs and looks strikingly similar on both Quest and Rift — as you can see in the video below.
Now, let’s dive into what it’s like it play it.
5 Ways Solaris Channels Quake And Unreal For Old-School Shooter Fun
Fast-Paced Gameplay
In Solaris you’re a cyber athlete from the future that battles it out against others on virtual battlegrounds. It’s a pretty meta premise that’s a bit like VR-within-VR and the presentation absolutely nails it. What this means functionally is that you spend very little time standing around waiting. Load times are incredibly quick, you move around maps at a quick pace, and can even slide across the ground for an evasive speed boost.
Just like in Quake and Unreal, it pays to stay on the move. Standing still is a great way to get shot so you’ll want to learn maps fast so you know the best cover points and hallways to sprint down while getting the drop on an enemy.
No Reloading Necessary
Solaris doesn’t have a reload button. I know, that seems weird. With the popularity of modern military shooters and the “realism” VR affords in games like Onward, it’s a bit odd to think that you won’t need to actually reload your gun at all. But in the future cyberscape of Solaris, where they’re going they don’t need reload buttons.
And if you played old-school games like Doom, Quake, and Unreal, then you’d know those don’t have reload buttons either. All reloading does is slow you down and Solaris is all about the speed of immediacy of combat.
Walk-Over Item Pick-Ups
Speaking of the immediacy of combat, in Solaris you don’t need to manage an inventory, manually pick up weapons, or switch weapons at all. You run full-speed over item spawn points and you just automatically pick them up. Everyone begins each match with their standard semi-auto pistol and within each map you can find a rocket launcher, grenade launcher, and assault rifle weapons, in addition to a deployable shield cover and proximity mine. Shield and health power-ups round out the offering.
In some older shooters you could cycle between various weapons, but you don’t do that in Solaris. Instead, whatever improved gun you find is your default weapon for a short time until you’ve used it up, then it just auto-switches back to your pistol. You need to take advantage of increased firepower when you’ve found it.
This one I expect to be a bit divisive, because in some ways it smacks of the taste of dumbing things down, but I don’t think streamlining necessarily means dumbing down. From what I’ve played Solaris is still an immensely fun, challenging, and deep shooter with a lot of nuance, but it sidesteps pain points that don’t translate smoothly to VR by simplifying things that get in the way of just having fun.
Teamwork Is Key
Since Solaris only has one game mode that’s basically like King of the Hill, called Control Point, it encourages teamwork above going rogue as a solo player. Technically you can still get XP and rank up to unlock new cosmetics even if your team doesn’t win, but being on the winning team nets you a big XP bonus so it’s worth playing cohesively.
Solaris has in-game voice chat, but unfortunately it won’t have a party system or friend invite system at launch. At launch it’s only going to be “Pre-Season” and then the standard Season of rankings will begin shortly after. It’s my understanding that as new Seasons begin, new cosmetics will roll out, and likely other changes like new weapons and maps too.
And yes — all maps and weapons that are added will be included for free.
Easy To Learn, Difficult To Master
Solaris is the kind of game you can quickly hop in and play with little to no fuss (assuming at least seven other people across PC and Quest have the same idea) and it’s a lot of fun. However, there is still depth here. Learning the maps, working with your team, getting the hang of shooting each gun, and developing strategies takes time and means that the entry level for playing is quite low but the skill ceiling for being really, really good is very high.
Similar to games like Quake and Unreal, virtually anyone can play those games. They’re pretty dead simple. But if you watch pro-tier players it looks almost like they’re playing a different game altogether due to how fluidly they move. Solaris has that same flexibility.
Solaris: Offworld Combat Additional Details
This article was called 5 ways Solaris is liek Unreal or Quake, but there are actually a bunch of other things I want to talk about. Thus, you get a small brain dump at the end here:
Progression
If you played Firewall Zero Hour you might remember in that game that you not only unlocked new things like guns, equipment, and skins by ranking up your level, but also by spending the in-game currency that you either earned slowly by playing or by spending real money to buy it. Solaris is rank-based progression only and all weapons are just map-based pickups.
From what I’ve seen there aren’t many cosmetics yet, but thankfully the outfit models like the shape of the helmet and style of your armor are separate from the color skin that’s applied, so you can mix and match pretty freely. It just takes a while to unlock anything, so hopefully they add a lot more.
Dedicated Servers, Fast Load Times
Another thing to mention as a key point is that Solaris is launching with dedicated servers rather than peer-to-peer and load times are really, really quick.
No Party System
I mentioned this already, but just to emphasize: you cannot join up with a friend, make a party, or invite anyone to a game — yet. That is coming as the first major update, but for pre-season it’s not in yet.
No Bots, No Solo Play
When I pressed the developers for an answer here they basically just said, “We never say never,” but at this time there are no plans for anything other than strictly 4v4. That means if only seven people are online, you can’t play. There is no training mode, no bots to fight against, and no solo options at all. Hopefully they reconsider and add something, even if it’s just an option to have bots fill empty slots and balance teams.
No Map Selection Or Lobby System
The main menu has a play button or you can put the helmet on — those are your options for joining a match. Behind the scenes the game then slots you into a match and starts the game. There is no map selection, it’s just always random, and you can’t tweak options or anything yet. I’m under the impression that private lobbies with settings to tweak and filters to set are coming, but aren’t there yet.
No Jumping
Sorry, no jump button. However — you can slide! And that’s pretty fun.
Solaris: Offworld Combat releases on September 24th for Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift with crossplay and crossbuy. There are plans for a PSVR release later, but there’s no date for that yet. Keep an eye here on UploadVR and our YouTube channel for more coverage. You can also preemptively join the developer’s Discord server.
Let us know what you think of Solaris down in the comments below!
