Pavlov VR, the VR shooter in Early Access for PC VR headsets, just got its biggest update yet which not only brings WW2 weapons, character models, and maps to the game, but also multiplayer tanks so you can finally put a little more Blitz in your Krieg.
The free update is now live, and includes weapons from both the Axis and Allied powers, including Germany, Britain, the US, and the USSR. In total, the update brings 18 new guns, six grenade variations and three rocket launchers to the game.
One of the biggest parts of the update is undoubtedly the new multi-crew tanks. Each tank includes three spots, which service a driver, gunner, and commander.
Everyone is important though, since manning a tank requires all three players to participate. You’ll need to drive, load munitions, spot for enemies, and aim/shoot heavy machine guns and its main armament too. Needless to say, the most disciplined tank crews will probably be the most successful.
Alongside tanks, a new mode is also here called ‘Tank TDM’, which features a 10v10 game mode for maps big enough for tanks to navigate.
Developers Vankrupt Games say in the new tank mode a “special class that will spawn with a blowtorch in their utility for Tank repairing. To repair a tank, activate the gas by pressing trigger on the black knob and making contact with the flame to the tank to weld repairs.”
You’ll be able to find a game any time of the day thanks to the studio’s 24/7 servers, which host ‘Tank TDM’ on its first-party Stalingrad map. There are also plenty of third-party maps now created by community members too.
The update comes free as a part of the base game, which is available for PC VR headsets on Steam for $15 (currently 40% off $25 MSRP). You can check out the full list of updates coming to Pavlov VRhere.
You can relieve stress by meditating, making art, or getting a good workout in VR. Alternatively, you can also unload a heavy machine gun at anything that moves. And there’s a few really great choices out there if you’re looking for a little explosive therapy to soothe your woes.
Here, we take a look at the best first-person shooters on the Oculus Quest platform, which includes everything from online competitive games and full featured single-player campaigns, to some decidedly more abstract stuff that really only works in VR.
Single Player
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners
Zombies, guns, knives, and swords. Make sure to move and strike tactically, because stamina doesn’t last forever. Great single-player story, even greater zombie-slaying action.
Rhythm and shooting, together at last. You’ll constantly move forward through a cinematic bullet-hell to the beat of a pretty great soundtrack. Shoot dudes to the beat. Don’t get shot.
Tactical kayaks sound pretty ridiculous, but paddling in VR is actually a surprisingly fun and intuitive way of moving around. Sneak, shoot, and explode dudes.
Harmonix, the makers of Rock Band, essentially meld Space Pirate Trainer and Beat Saber together to make Audica. Shoot and smash targets to the beat of a soundtrack that features songs from some of the world’s most popular artists.
Take a break from the story-driven, active games for a bit with this virtual gun range. Plink at some targets using realistic weaponry, or go for some faster-paced gameplay by shooting at pop-up alien targets.
A bit like Fortnite for VR. This battle royale is all about scrounging for gear and moving out before you find yourself on the wrong side of the wall-o-death. You build, climb anything, and glide. Cross-play with PC VR.
Realism is the name of the game, and Onward is all about keeping it real. Gun on your hip, radio on your shoulder. Take it slow and plan out your attack with the team. Cross-play with PC VR.
Aiming for realism, this military competitive multiplayer shooter offers up all of the standard trimmings. Less real than Onward, and more like CS:GO. Cross-play with Rift.
Grapple Tournament is a recently released VR game that’s a bit like an arena shooter such as Overwatch mixed with high-flying grappling hooks.
In a non-VR game it probably wouldn’t be that appealing to launch yourself around the map using grappling hooks, but in VR it feels immensely liberating. Imagine if you gave a room full of Spider-Man wannabees guns and that’s pretty close to what we’ve got here.
Naturally, we’ve seen a handful of VR games with very similar mechanics already. Windlands and Windlands 2 are great single-player action-adventure titles, but this cranks the insanity up to 11 by pitting you against other players.
Grapple Tournament is still in Early Access and aims to stay that way until late 2021 more than likely. Currently there are five different weapons, three game modes, five maps, two practice ranges, and over 100 customization items for your character. It’s also got a friend and party system, in addition to private lobbies, which is more than most multiplayer VR games have at full launch these days.
Over the next year the developers are looking to add five additional maps, more game modes, and more customization. There will also be wave-based tower defense modes and solo or co-op challenges so you’re not required to simply fight others over and over.
Last week the Happy Holidays update released including new customization options, map decorations, a candy cane melee weapon, and reskins of weapons like the grenade pistol to a snowball pistol.
Grapple Tournament is out now on Steam for $14.99 with plans to come to the Oculus PC Store very soon and then Oculus Quest in early 2021, followed by PSVR eventually at some point after that. The Quest version is “under review” for official Store approval by Facebook. Tomorrow Games intends to offer cross-buy and cross-play between Oculus PC and Quest players.
Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is releasing later this week on December 11th for PC VR headsets via SteamVR and the Oculus PC client. You can play the game easily on an Oculus Quest if you’ve got a powerful VR gaming PC, but there’s no firm news on a Quest-native port just yet.
Unedited gameplay footage is not allowed to be shared just yet — the preview and review guidelines were very clear that any footage must be edited into a video preview to be shared. Since the review itself is fast-approaching I’m just focusing my efforts on that video instead.
My entire time with Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond has been on an Oculus Quest 2. I’ve tried it using both Oculus Link and using Virtual Desktop and I can say without a doubt I prefer it with Virtual Desktop.
If you want to play Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond on Quest you have two options: Oculus Link or Virtual Desktop. Oculus Link should have less latency, which means you won’t perceive any delay at all between what you’re doing and what you see in the headset, but you’ve got a cord dangling from your head. Virtual Desktop on the other hand is a fully wireless way of connecting to your PC, however depending on your Wi-Fi signal and router quality you may perceive a small amount of latency.
For me personally, I prefer Virtual Desktop every single time. Guy Godin’s software is incredible and it allows me to access both my SteamVR and Oculus PC Store libraries, at once, without ever needing to connect my Quest to my PC with an actual cord.
To be frank, playing PC VR games wirelessly is extremely liberating. The visual fidelity is far beyond what a standalone headset such as the Quest is capable of, so being able to experience high-end VR, such as Medal of Honor and other PC-exclusive games, from the ease of access found within a wireless standalone device, feels like magic.
After playing games like Onward, Contractors, Solaris, and more on Quest natively, I didn’t want to go back to a wired experience — especially with Medal of Honor VR’s multiplayer — so I simply didn’t and it works great.
Granted, I’ve got a strong home network and a very good connection speed. Things download very quickly for me and that’s a major factor when considering how playable a VR game would be for you over a streamed wireless connection. But if your internet is up to snuff, this is absolutely the best way to enjoy Medal of Honor VR. I did not notice any added latency, at least not that I know of, was able to get in the top 3 of most multiplayer matches, and had no trouble playing through a lot of the campaign as well.
Do you plan on playing Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond and if so, would you do it wirelessly using an Oculus Quest and Virtual Desktop? Let us know down in the comments below!
Community Download is a weekly discussion-focused articles series published (usually) every Monday in which we pose a single, core question to you all, our readers, in the spirit of fostering discussion and debate. For today’s Community Download, we want to know if you plan on playing Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond when it releases later this week?
Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is just around the corner. The latest shooter from Respawn Entertainment drops exclusively for PC VR later this week on December 11th on the Oculus PC Store and SteamVR for Rift, Vive, and Index and it aims to deliver a full single-player campaign that lasts over 10 hours, a wave-based survival mode, and online multiplayer.
You can read our first impressions of the online multiplayer here as well as our round up on everything you need to know about the game’s modes, maps, guns, and more. The recommended specs are high, as is the amount of hard drive space required, so this is certainly one of the beefiest VR games to date that puts it up there in the same tier as Half-Life: Alyx and Asgard’s Wrath for sheer digital footprint required.
So, that brings us to the ultimate question: Do you plan on playing Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond when it releases? If so, which PC VR headset will you use? Are you holding out hope for a Quest port of some kind?
Let us know your plans later this week once Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond releases down in the comments below!
Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond releases this week across the Oculus PC Store and SteamVR for PC VR headsets. We can’t disclose our verdict on the game as a whole just yet, but the final preview embargo has now lifted so we can talk about our early impressions and publish thoughts on multiplayer.
In addition to Above and Beyond’s single-player campaign, you can master the distinctive handling of a host of WWII weapons and test yourself against opponents in five multiplayer modes on sites across Europe.
Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond Multiplayer Impressions
Naturally, these impressions come with a lot of caveats. Since the game isn’t live yet these multiplayer impressions are based on specifically scheduled sessions with producers, developers, QA testers, and fellow members of the gaming press to run through the various game modes on several maps. I also supplemented that time by playing several rounds of each game mode against CPU opponents as well.
The issue here is that not only were my teammates and enemies not your typical gamers that are learning the game for the first time but also servers were relatively stable. I had issues connecting at first, but eventually, it worked itself out.
Game Modes Impressions
There are five game modes between Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Blast Radius, Mad Bomber, and Domination. The first four of those listed are all basically just some variation on deathmatch with a twist of some kind, so the variety isn’t actually as great as it seems on first glance.
For example, Mad Bomber is very similar to Deathmatch other than the fact that each player also has a timed explosive they can plant wherever they want. You get bonus points for explosive kills and disarming other explosives. In the end, it boils down to just being Deathmatch with a few sporadic extra kills here and there.
It’s really a shame that a WWII-era shooter is launching without a Capture the Flag mode or something that really takes advantage of the unique advantages VR presents. Something that incorporates some vehicles in some way would have been awesome, or at the very least another objective-based mode instead of four variations off of Deathmatch.
Weapons Impressions
The weapon selection is also shallow in the same way. There are only eight primary guns to pick from and weapons like the MP40 and M1A1 feel very similar in practice and two of the options are literally the exact same gun, except one of the options has a scope and the other doesn’t. Since there are zero sidearms in multiplayer and no progression system to speak of it just left a lot to be desired for me in terms of depth and options.
Luckily the ten large, spacious maps are fantastic. It’s extremely evident that this is a studio that has years and years of experience designing online multiplayer shooters so the map design philosophies really carry across well into a made-for-VR title like this. I feel like all-too-often VR shooter maps lack verticality and they all kind of feel the same, but that’s not the case here. There’s a snowy map with a light hazy fog effect in the air which pairs well with the stark white landscape — it’s a great juxtaposition for the ruined suburban church with exploded walls and destroyed interiors.
Overall ten entirely unique maps is a really great launching off point for this type of shooter and should keep things fresh for a while across all of the game modes.
Overall, I had a lot of fun playing multiplayer. In many ways it feels true to the tone and pacing of the original Medal of Honor games, specifically in terms of the fast-paced structure that focuses on delivering fun thrills without much complexity or depth. After a few hours it left me yearning for more in some ways, but it does scratch a certain itch that nothing on the market really does right now — not even Onward, Pavlov, Contractors, or any others that I’ve tried — due in large part to the nostalgia I feel for the brand and the setting.
The biggest hindrance overall is the lack of any sense of overarching progression. The fact that EA and Respawn have managed to capture that old-school feeling in the moment-to-moment gameplay and base WWII setting is a great achievement, but I also fear they may have turned the clock back in other ways too much as well. You don’t have a rank that levels up, there are no unlockables at all besides character skins — which are earned via campaign progress — and every gun is available from the start with zero changes possible. You can’t tweak your loadout or even change weapon skins.
As much as I enjoy the gameplay on a surface level, it doesn’t seem to go very far beyond the window dressing from what I’ve seen so far.
Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond releases on December 11th as a PC VR-exclusive on both the Oculus Home store and SteamVR with support officially listed for Rift, Vive, and Index.
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.
Upcoming Oculus Quest and PC VR game Guardians mixes elements of first-person shooters and real-time strategy games across single and multiplayer modes.
Developed by Virtual Age, Guardians is set in a far-flung future in which elite teams of soldiers travel to alien planets to extract a mysterious energy resource. You’re tasked with fending off each planet’s inhabitants as you secure those resources. That essentially boils down to a shooter in which you gun down hordes of bug-like enemies with the assistance of NPC units and base components you can summon. Check it out in the trailer below.
Guardians VR Revealed
It looks fairly simple, which is the developer’s aim – the team says it wants an experience that’s easy to pick up and play but hard to master. It certainly seems like the more strategic elements of the game could introduce a lot of twists that push it beyond a simple wave shooter. Elsewhere you get seven weapons including your usual assortment of machine guns, pistols and shotguns as well as more interesting designs like a bow and arrow and what looks like a tether beam.
Guardians offers a full single-player campaign with 12 levels across three planets, but there’s also drop-in cooperative multiplayer to help even the odds and PvP modes too.
The game’s aiming to launch in Q2 of 2021 and is currently in beta. It’ll come to PC via Steam and Quest via SideQuest. You can currently join the game’s discord to find out more info. Are you interested in Guardians? Let us know in the comments below!
It looks like the Oculus Studios-funded Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond from Respawn Entertainment and EA has a chance of getting an Oculus Quest port after all — although it might only be for Quest 2.
On Reddit today, Oculus Studios producer Mike Doran replied to a comment asking about whether or not the PC VR-exclusive first-person shooter, Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, ever had a chance of coming to “Quest 2 natively.” Doran said that they are “going to try, once the PC SKU is finished,” and that Respawn/EA are “fully involved and onboard with this ambition.” He then added they “don’t know yet” how long that would possibly take.
This is pretty big news. Every bit of information we’ve heard about Medal of Honor seemed to indicate that it would remain a PC VR exclusive game given the scope of the project. I got a chance to go hands-on with it briefly over a year ago on Oculus Rift S and came away impressed with the direction the campaign is taking and am eager to see how multiplayer shapes up.
As exciting as this news is, it isn’t entirely surprising. Back when Medal of Honor VR was first revealed I asked Game Director Peter Hirschmann from Respawn about a Quest version and he didn’t deny it. Instead, he told me the company was “focusing on Rift” but then added that they “love the Quest” as well.
We’ve reached out to Facebook for further comment and will update this story if we hear back.
First-person shooter (FPS) games are some of the most popular in the world of video games. In this list, we'll go through the very best the genre has to offer.
