First Contact Entertainment has been one of the few developers to prove that multiplayer only titles can work in virtual reality (VR) when done correctly. Having launched Firewall Zero Hourin the summer, the studio has released two DLC packs up until now, announcing that the third will be released tomorrow.
Firewall Zero Hour DLC #3 will feature a new free map called Containment, bringing the total map count up to ten. “Containment is set in an infectious disease lab, tucked away in the remote hills of Greenland. It’s a massive facility that researches viruses and stores deadly bacteria code. Be on the lookout for a number of unique areas within the lab where epic showdowns can take place,” notes Damoun Shabestari, Game Director, First Contact Entertainment on PlayStation Blog.
The DLC pack also includes new clothing camos, weapon camos, trinkets, and patches for purchase hitting the store.
New Clothing and Weapon Camo patterns:
Hologram
Banana
Amphibious
Dark Carbon
New Trinkets – Available as a pack:
Pigskin
Baseball
Basketball
Soccer Ball
New Patches – Available as a pack:
Medic
Samurai
Triggered
Additionally, because it’s Chrismas PS Plus members get a free 2018 Ornament Trinket for Firewall Zero Hour to add to their gun. The festive ornament will only be available until 5th January, so don’t forget to pick it up.
Ancillary improvements to Firewall Zero Hour in #3 include:
Addition of implementation to deal with idle (“AFK”) players
Addition of ability to speak with your teammates during loading screens
Addition of Contractor eye movement in the lobby
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Firewall Zero Hour and First Contact Entertainment, reporting back with the latest updates.
First Contact Entertainment today announced that Firewall Zero Hour (2018), the studio’s PSVR team shooter, is getting a new map just in time for Christmas.
The game’s third DLC will feature ‘Containment’, a free map set in an infectious disease lab in the remote hills of Greenland. The DLC is set to drop tomorrow, December 18th; the addition of Containment brings Firewall Zero Hour’s map count up to 10 maps.
Along with it comes a number of new paid items such as skins, trinkets, and patches.
Addition of implementation to deal with idle (“AFK”) players
Addition of ability to speak with your teammates during loading screens
Addition of Contractor eye movement in the lobby
First Contact Entertainment says in a PlayStation Blog post that updates since launch have improved things including matchmaking wait times, squad matchmaking capabilities, weapon offset options, and anti-aliasing options for PS4 Pro.
Earlier this week as part of the two year celebrate of Sony’s virtual reality (VR) headset, the PlayStation VR, it was revealed that the tactical first-person shooter (FPS) title Firewall Zero Hour is getting it’s first download content (DLC) pack soon. The news comes direct from the PlayStation blog and confirms that the critical and community successful title is getting more content that is sure to make players happy.
The team-based multiplayer title has been doing well for itself following its release including being PlayStation VR’s top videogame in August. Now players can look forward to more content such as new items and skins to customize their characters along with new weapons that will offer new styles of play in the intense and thrilling shooter.
Following the announcement, the team at Fist Contact Entertainment provided more details on their own blog which explains that the release of the DLC “marks the opening of the PlayStation Store for Firewall Zero Hour, featuring cosmetic items such as Trinkets, Facepaints, and Weapons Skins.” Though some players might be upset that the first update does not include a new map or two, having more ways to customize your character and weapons before heading into battle is a nice addition to the videogame.
The DLC is planned to release on October 16th and with it will also come an update that set-ups the framework for the PlayStation Store in every region. The team are also looking on improving their patch process to ensure that improvements come to the title sooner rather than later. Some mentioned on the blog include Weapon Offset Options, improvements to the Smoke Grenades and Noise Maker to make them more useful along with Anti-Aliasing for PlayStation 4 Pro users.
VRFocus’ Staff Writer Rebecca Hills-Duty reviewed Firewall Zero Hour saying: “Firewall Zero Hour has managed to avoid many of the common pitfalls of VR online multiplayers and add its own interesting twist to the military FPS genre. The lobby system could use some improvements, but otherwise its a finely crafted title that will be of great interest to FPS fans.”
For all the latest on the upcoming DLC and Firewall Zero Hour in general, keep reading VRFocus.
Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has now released the top downloaded videogames for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation VR, revealing to probably no one’s surprise that First Contact Entertainment’s tactical first-person shooter Firewall Zero Hour has clinched the top spot.
As usual no figures have been mentioned with the title knocking top ten regular Job Simulator from the number one spot it quite often achieves even after launching almost two years ago.
The rest of the PlayStation VR top ten for August is as follows:
It’s easy to understand why Firewall Zero Hour achieved the number one position. The FPS has received rave reviews with even VRFocus giving the PlayStation VR exclusive a full five-stars, saying: “Firewall Zero Hour has managed to avoid many of the common pitfalls of VR online multiplayers and add its own interesting twist to the military FPS genre. The lobby system could use some improvements, but otherwise its a finely crafted title that will be of great interest to FPS fans.”
If you own a PlayStation VR and have so far resisted the temptation to purchase Firewall Zero Hour then you’re missing out on four vs four player action where teamwork and communication is key to winning the multiplayer missions. Players take on the role of a mercenary contractor, charged with protecting sensitive data in a laptop. There are nine map locations spread across Russia, the Middle East and the UK. Players will be able to use in-game currency to upgrade and customise their character.
While the videogame does support PlayStation’s DualShock 4 controller, and PlayStation Move (kind of), First Contact Entertainment has designed the gameplay to ultimately use the PlayStation Aim controller.
For any further updates on Firewall Zero Hour, keep reading VRFocus.
Firewall Zero Hour (2018), the tactical team shooter from ROM: Extraction (2016) developers First Contact Entertainment, has apparently celebrated some serious notoriety since it launched late last month on PlayStation VR; Sony has ranked it the top most downloaded PSVR game of August.
What’s more, Firewall Zero Hour launched on August 28th, giving it only four days to vault to the top spot, surpassing long-time fan favorites Job Simulator (2016), SUPERHOT VR (2016), and Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality (2017) to name a few.
Notably, the only other game to launch in August was Survios’ Electronauts (2018), a supremely fun VR DJ’ing tool that lets you mix samples and create your own tracks without the fuss of actually being able to hit a steady beat. Launched on August 7th across PSVR, HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, the funky music-maker hasn’t appeared to have resonated with PSVR users with the same gusto as Firewall Zero Hour.
Here’s the full list below:
Image courtesy Sony
Firewall Zero Hour has been heavily featured by Sony since it was announced back at E3 2018, as it’s had significant air time on the company’s official PlayStation YouTube channel, detailing everything from how to properly defend and attack in the game, to hype-filled dev interviews overlayed with epic music. It’s also been available for public demo at some of the biggest gaming events, including E3 and Gamescom.
A dedicated PS Aim hardware bundle, priced at a not-so-intolerable $80—a mere $40 more than the game itself—might have had something to do with it too. Oh, and it’s a pretty great game too.
In our review, we gave Firewall Zero Hour a strong [7.9/10] for its deep focus on tactical gunplay, which we said “works especially well with VR’s heightened immersion.” Here’s a quick summary of what makes it great, and sometimes a little less great according to Road to VR’s Ben Lang.
“To succeed you’ll need to be able to do more than just aim—you’ll have to communicate and strategize with your team. With strong gunplay, randomized objective locations, and unlocks to chase, Firewall Zero Hour has a distinct allure for those looking for FPS immersion. That said, match pacing needs to be reworked to provide more gameplay with less downtime, locomotion is clunky at times, the post-death camera system feels unbalanced, and item unlocks won’t come without significant grinding.”
We expect it to have some serious staying power on the charts, so we’ll be looking forward to September’s list to see just how it fares. In the meantime, check out the full review here to learn more about what makes Firewall tick.
Firewall Zero Hour is the real deal. We praised the fantastic tactical shooter in our full review, especially when played with a talkative team using a PS Aim Controller, and we can’t wait to see what’s next for the PSVR shooter. Personally, it’s eating up a ton of my free time on weekends and evenings.
As you level up you’ll start to unlock better gear that enables brand new strategies you may not have seen in your first dozen or so levels. Specifically, at level 21, you unlock the Signal Modifier. This gadget, which can be taken in place of a grenade slot, can only be used on the Defending team. What you do is place the modifier (a beeping rectangle that looks a bit like a WiFi Router) on a surface somewhere near the laptop. It prevents the Attacking team from hacking the laptop unless they destroy the modifier first.
Frankly, it’s a great little device that adds a really tense extra layer to the end of matches as you frantically search for it all around and near the laptop. But just a week removed from Firewall’s launch, players are already finding ways to exploit the device.
Since you can get creative with where you place it, you really have to think outside the box as an Attacker. Most of the time you won’t spot it out in the open, but instead hear it behind a cabinet, under a desk, or on a totally different floor of the building. Saving a grenade for that last moment to try and blow it up is a wise strategy. This isn’t inherently a problem though — it encourages creativity — but when combined with the game’s rule that as soon as all Defending players die you’ve only got a minute left as the Attacking team, it becomes a majorproblem. PSVR Frank alerted us to the issue just last night via DM.
This means that, if you’re Defending, an almost fool-proof strategy (depending on the map size) is to place a signal modifier and then immediately have everyone throw down grenades or blow up mines to commit suicide. Now, with all four Defenders dead, the timer is set to only one minute and the Attackers have to bypass the access point, find the signal modifier, destroy it, and hack the laptop — all while starting on the other side of the map.
It’s a bit ridiculous.
We’re pretty confident that this issue will be addressed, hopefully sooner rather than later, seeing as how the developers at First Contact have already fixed some of the networking issues from the title’s launch week.
Have you ran into this issue before? How are you enjoying Firewall Zero Hour? Make sure and check out our tips for getting started and let us know what you think of this issue down in the comments below!
The wait is finally over and the much anticipated virtual reality (VR) tactical military shooter for PlayStation VR, Firewall Zero Hour, has now released inviting players to instense four-versus-four multiplayer action. To mark the the launch of the title, the team at First Contact Entertainment have released a new trailer showcasing a number of the games features in action.
The new launch trailer, which you can view below, comes following a number of other trailers which were released to help prepare players for the tactical first-person shooter (FPS) title. This includes a detailed look at some of the maps and mercenaries within the videogame along with another exploring the ways in which the team were making the experience as immersive as possible.
In Firewall Zero Hour two teams of four go up against each other to attack or defend a laptop that houses vital information. Picking from 12 experienced mercenaries each with unique abilities and playstyles, players will need to learn the maps, weapons and equipment in order to work as a team and complete their objective. With a number of different options available to players on how they prepare and fight within a match, it will be the team that is more prepared and works together that sees victory.
Built for PlayStation VR, Firewall Zero Hour also leverage the immersive power of the PlayStation Aim controller to give players a more realistic experience. This means that they can aim with better accuracy, lean from behind cover to attack and even blind fire for added tactical opportunities and immersion.
VRFocus’ Staff Writer Rebecca Hills-Duty reviewed Firewall Zero Hour praising it highly saying: “Firewall Zero Hour has managed to avoid many of the common pitfalls of VR online multiplayers and add its own interesting twist to the military FPS genre. The lobby system could use some improvements, but otherwise its a finely crafted title that will be of great interest to FPS fans.”
You can see the launch trailer for yourself below and for all the latest on PlayStation VR, Firewall Zero Hour and developer First Contact Entertainment in the future, keep reading VRFocus.
Update: Since this story originally published at 1PM on August 31, 2018, First Contact has issued two patches for Firewall Zero Hour. Patch notes for 1.01 indicate a focus on “General improvements for stability and performance” and notes for 1.02 indicate “various bug fixes.” It’s unclear if either or both patches are related to the issues communicated in today’s blog post down below, but it seems likely.
Original: According to a new blog post today from First Contact Entertainment, the Firewall Zero Hourdevelopers are “currently working on” fixes for two major issues that have been hot topics with the community all week: squads getting split up during match making and host disconnect issues.
In the blog post, the developer explains that they’re “working on various bug fixes and improvements” to the game and specifically names those two issues. As it stands right now, if you make a squad with your friends and join public matchmaking, then there is a chance that your squad can get split up and assigned to opposite teams. Obviously that’s an issue. Private matches seem to work fine if you have a big enough group, but you can’t earn XP that way. It’s good to see this issue is top of mind since it literally hinders people from playing with friends.
The other most prominent networking issue facing the game this week has been frequent disconnect problems. As explained in the blog post:
“We currently use a peer-to-peer format, so please be aware that it is possible that quitting early may affect everyone else’s game. We are working on improved in-game messaging and a way to protect the loss of progression (crypto and XP) for players when this happens.”
Ideally we’d love to see the team adopt a dedicated server system instead since that will improve connection quality and prevent this issue, but at the very least establishing a host migration system so that even if the selected host leaves the matches can continue would be great.
Since the game just launched a mere few days ago, seeing the developer already directly address major concerns is a great sign. However, we don’t have any idea when these updates will be rolling out or what the specific roadmap for future plans looks like. There are still other issues with the game worth addressing as well, such as extended loading screens, the lack of a round system to cut back on downtime, and more.
The first-person military shooter remains one of the most popular videogame genres on the planet, played and enjoyed by millions of people all over the world, particularly in multiplayer. It was therefore inevitable that such a title would eventually hit the PlayStation VR, in the form of Firewall Zero Hour.
Though Firewall Zero Hour supports both the PlayStation Aim controller and Dual Shock 4, the review was conducted with Dual Shock 4, since it is the ubiquitous controller, and many users still won’t be equipped with a PlayStation Aim controller.
Firewall Zero Hour has two modes, a virtual reality (VR) ‘training mode’ that essentially acts like a wave shooter, with increasingly tough robots charging towards you. This basically exists to let you get a feel for the controls and the weapons, as the emphasis is very much on the multiplayer.
The Contract mode is a 4v4 PvP, with other players take a role in your little team as you take a role as either defender or attacker. Right from the outset, it becomes obvious that communication is essential. Luckily, every PlayStation VR comes with a microphone, so its fairly easy to engage with your team, to make plans, point out enemies or give orders.
Of course, whenever you have lots of people online, you are going to encounter the occasional person who won’t play ball, or groups that descend into squabbling. Curiously, most of the players encountered were reasonably polite. Its also worth noting that Firewall Zero Hour has a fairly robust and active online community as of time of writing, so it has so far avoided the pitfall of many other multiplayer titles.
Using the Dual Shock 4 controller is a little awkward. Though it maps as a motion controller, it feels a little counter-intuitive to use, particularly when using a two-handed weapon, and it can be uncomfortable for long periods. Movement is primarily handled using smooth locomotion, and though it feels a little slow at times, it mostly works well without giving a sense of disorientation.
Combat is where Firewall Zero Hour really shines, as you would expect. Everything feels immersive and real, there’s some lovely animations at work, and the graphics in general look polished and well-handled. The guns have been modelled to have realistic recoil effects, so compensating for this becomes second-nature after a while, and switching to a different weapon means you need to learn how it behaves so you can get the best out of it.
Playing Firewall Zero Hour in any mode – even solo training mode – nets you in-game currency that can be spent on upgrades, such as new guns, skins and abilities and this progression is fairly nicely handled, giving out just enough at a time to make you feel more powerful without suddenly making you overpowered.
It should be noted that you don’t get ‘lives’. If you die during a mission and your teammates don’t revive you, you are dead. However, death has its advantages. You can float around peeking at the cameras placed through the map, and – crucially – you can still speak with your living teammates. This means having a dead team member can actually be an advantage in some circumstances.
Firewall Zero Hour has managed to avoid many of the common pitfalls of VR online multiplayers and add its own interesting twist to the military FPS genre. The lobby system could use some improvements, but otherwise its a finely crafted title that will be of great interest to FPS fans.
I knew Firewall Zero Hour would be something special the very first time I got my hands on it almost a full year ago back at PSX 2017. After playing it at multiple events since then and spending several hours with it after launch, I can finally confirm that Firewall Zero Hour from First Contact Entertainment is the tactical, multiplayer-focused VR shooter we’ve all been waiting for and absolutely lives up to the hype.
Firewall Zero Hour Review
Note: This review was originally published on August 28th, 2018
The fact that an online-only, multiplayer-focused, PSVR-exclusive shooter that’s best played with an optional PS Aim Controller peripheral not only had a smooth, nearly bump-free launch, but is thriving with the community and exceptionally fun to play feels about as close to a miracle as is possible, but here we are.
Rainbow Six VR?
Anyone that’s played Rainbow Six Siege will be immediately familiar with the idea behind Firewall Zero Hour’s main game mode: Contracts. In this online PvP-only competitive contest, two equal teams of four players are pitted against one another with no respawns. Matches are five minutes long and the Attacking team must hack firewall access points to reveal the location of a laptop with top-secret intel on it, then steal that intel, and the Defending team must protect the laptop and/or wipe out the attackers. When you cut away all the filler, that’s what the entire game boils down to.
It sounds simple when described that way, but in practice it’s not only one of the most exhilarating VR games I’ve ever played, but one of the most fun games I’ve played period — VR or not.
You can do a Solo Training mode or Co-op Training mode, but they’re just wave-based matches against an endless stream of bots. As you level up it gets more difficult, but they’re called Training modes for a reason. The focus is on Contract PvP and if you buy the game for anything other than online multiplayer you’re gonna be severely disappointed. I’d advise you look towards Farpoint to scratch that itch.
The impact that VR as a platform has on the tactical shooter genre cannot be overstated. If you want to shoot around a corner in Arma, Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, or any other non-VR shooter ever made, you typically need to either press a button to lean around, or poke your face out with your gun. When in VR, you can just reach around the corner using your actual hands to point the gun. It’s a literal game changer both tactically and for immersion.
Aim Accuracy
To explain things further, when in VR you can fine-tune your aiming with slight adjustments to your wrist, tweaking your arm’s angle, shifting your shoulder, or just moving your head to line up the shot. Instead of being forced to rely on thumb dexterity, your actual marksmanship is being put to the test. This makes every moment-to-moment encounter significantly more intense and profoundly more rewarding.
If you own a Rift or a Vive then you’ve probably experienced a lot of this already through games like Onward, Pavlov, or even Stand Out: VR Battle Royale. But I am here to tell you that despite what those games have accomplished, none of them have nailed the polish, accessibility, and sheer tactical depth that the team at First Contact have with Firewall. This is a team of over 30 game industry veterans with experience working on the most popular FPS franchise on the planet and it shows. Each of those indie VR titles are great games in their own ways, but Firewall feels like a culmination of sorts; like the full evolution the industry’s been anticipating ever since VR headsets hit the market over two years ago.
Granted, making a shooter like this on the relatively limited PSVR hardware does have its drawbacks and concessions. For starters, it’s not a roomscale device and with a single tracking camera you’re limited in how much you can move even while standing still. If you turn around all the way then your controller will be occluded and if you reach up too high or down too low, the camera won’t be able to see what you’re doing anymore. This admittedly does limit how far the developers can push your sense of presence, but what you lose in VR capability is more than made up for in platform accessibility, user base size, and game polish.
Technically you can play Firewall Zero Hour with just the DualShock 4, but you’d be missing out on the immersion of holding a gun-shaped peripheral while inside VR. Mechanically all the functionality is there since you just move the controller around and hold it up like a gun while playing, but it’s just not the same. You’ll get used to it eventually, but the PS Aim feels dramatically better.
One of the main areas that Firewall Zero Hour excels at that other VR shooters have faltered is a sense of progression. Everything you do in the game, whether it be full online PvP Contracts mode, Co-Op Training missions, or even just Solo Training missions, earns you XP and in-game currency. As you level up you unlock access to new guns, attachments, skins, abilities, and more. Once something is unlocked, you can then spend the in-game currency, known as “crypto”, to buy said items.
Onward and Pavlov don’t have any meta-level progression systems at all really. The difference is like walking into a store and being told anything on a desk is free for you to use, or walking into a mall and being told that you can earn access to several times more things with a bit of hard work. It’s much more rewarding.
Each of the 12 contractors look completely different and can be customized visually, plus they each have their own unique abilities such as faster magazine reloads, taking less bullet damage, or heightened enemy detection. As you progress you’ll unlock secondary abilities that can be equipped to further customize things — in addition to custom loadouts with individual stocks, grips, and other attachments on about a dozen different guns and equipment.
All nine maps are fantastic as well. They’ve got personalities all their own, plenty of variation within such as long corridors, multiple stories, tight corners, open spaces, rooms scattered with cover points, several entryways to key areas, flanking paths, and more. Every time you queue up a match the objectives are placed in randomized locations so it helps prevent the single game mode from feeling stale.
Honestly, if a non-VR shooter from a AAA developer launched tomorrow on consoles with this much depth for unlocks and progression, I don’t think you’d see anyone complain about a lack of options. The fact that a VR-only game has that degree of parity from a depth of choices perspective is impressive.
However, I do wish you could unlock and use those things more quickly. By the time I was level 10 (a solid few hours into the game even with the launch double XP turned on) I barely had enough currency to buy attachments for my first custom loadout and even then I wasn’t even close to matching (let alone surpassing) the gear of the pre-made load outs. Most guns cost upwards of 15,000 credits and you only earn about 600 for matches you win and 100 for matches you lose. That’s a lot of grinding.
In the time I’ve spent with the game so far (including late at night, early morning, and mid-day sessions) I’ve never had to wait more than a minute or two for a match to start. That small facet, the fact that people are playing, is taken for granted with most non-VR game launches but is already a significant step above almost all other multiplayer-focused VR game launches I’ve seen.
But if anyone from the development team is reading this, then one major request I have that I’ve already seen repeated in-game and across the web is for a way to decrease downtime between matches. Right now when you’re in a lobby with all eight people it takes about a minute for a match to start, followed by a loading screen. Then after a single round you’ve got a loading screen that sends you back to the lobby where it starts all over again.
What this game desperately needs right now is a way to quickly ready up and bypass the pre-match wait, as well as a round-based system instead of single matches. This way, you’d play with the same squad in a best of three or best of five series, swapping Attackers and Defenders back and forth without ever seeing a loading screen. Basically exactly what Rainbow Six Siege does.
In the future they’re reportedly planning to add more game modes if the community really wants that, but I’d settle for a single playlist that shuffles game modes to help keep the small player base together as well. Or, they could run limited events to feature alternate game modes as promotions with XP bonuses to incentivize players. I’d love for at least one more game mode, but I understand the need to not fragment the player base (yet). There is still a ton of room for improvement not because it gets so much wrong out of the gate, but because the foundation is so fantastic that I can’t help but fantasize about the possibilities.
Firewall Zero Hour Review Final Impressions
For what it is, Firewall Zero Hour defies the odds by delivering a multiplayer-focused VR shooter that actually lives up to its potential. If you don’t have a PS Aim controller yet, then you should buy one for this game even though it technically supports DualShock 4 as well. If you don’t have a PSVR headset yet, then you should buy one for this game. With a few improvements and additions, First Contact could turn what is already a must-have PSVR game into a genre-defining one.
