Original Story: In the first year of VR’s life when I went to a game convention there was a short list of VR experiences I could almost always guarantee we would play. Sports games were obvious choices, as were the wave shooters, and cockpit simulators. In the middle to fill in the rest of the content gaps were an assortment of other random games as a mixed bag of potential. When GDC 2017 rolled around at the start of this year though we started to see the next wave of VR games and what it could look like. From Other Suns stood above the rest as an exciting, fresh, and wholly new type of VR co-op shooter.
Mixing elements of franchises like Star Trek, FTL, and Borderlands, From Other Suns is a procedurally generated cooperative multiplayer shooter that has you flying a ship all around the galaxy as you dock and loot other ships and planets, all with intense fast-paced shooter action and tons of loot. It’s like the Away Team version of Star Trek: Bridge Crew.
News came in today that the title will be hosting a totally free Open Beta weekend from September 29 until October 1st and we can’t wait to dive in for more.
As of right now it’s unclear if the content in that beta will be different from what we saw at GDC already earlier this year or if it will be the same demo. Fingers crossed for some new content.
Make sure to also read our detailed hands-on impressions here to get a good idea for what the game’s like and let us know what you think of it so far down in the comments below!
Gunfire Games has more VR games under its belt than most, having worked on two Herobound titles for Gear VR, Oculus launch title Chronos, and Oculus Touch freebie, Dead and Buried. The latest effort, From Other Suns, looks to be its most ambitious yet, but you can find pieces of its past within.
From Other Suns is every sci-fi fans dream come true, letting you and three friends take control of a space ship and explore a procedurally generated galaxy, taking on infinite missions. It’s a full first-person shooter (FPS), that wants to accommodate every Oculus Touch owner, no matter how susceptible they are to VR sim sickness.
To that end, the game has a pretty intriguing optional locomotion solution. When pushing the analogue stick of your left Touch controller forward in comfort mode you won’t see your camera lurch forward like a traditional FPS. Instead, you’ll see your character step out in front of you, entirely under your control. When you stop walking, the camera resets back inside your character’s head. It’s an intriguing solution, but it actually reminds me of the static camera seen in Gunfire’s first Rift game, Chronos.
“When we first talked about Chronos we wanted a safe comfort launch title game,” the developer tells me. “But we wanted a deep immersive game. The games we play, we play for hours on end, we don’t just play 20 minutes or 30 minutes.” The developer wanted to create something that offered all the immersion of first-person VR while not tiring players out then. Comfort mode is one such option for those that get sick.
“We think that this is something that keeps that immersive factor for folks that need that comfort mode, and it enables us to keep everybody together because we’re giving options,” Gunfire said.
Jason Rubin playing Dead and Buried at GDC
While the third-person movement reminded me of Chronos, the rest of From Other Suns is obviously closer to Dead & Buried, the team’s multiplayer shooter for Oculus Touch. Gunfire told me the company was borrowing elements from that game, like attaching guns to your virtual hips, while also trying to balance the gameplay so that players wouldn’t get tired in 20 – 30 minutes like they might in its first Touch title.
Despite these influences, From Other Suns stands out on its own. When I played a 10-minute mission I had an absolute blast running down corridors, trading fire with robots and taking cover behind walls. At one point an ally opens a door and he’s instantly blown up by a rocket, and everyone in the room falls down laughing. Gunfire Games might have been heavily influenced by what’s come before, but something tells me this game’s best stories will come from what’s new.
Oculus has been keen to showcase the latest virtual reality (VR) content coming to Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR over the course of 2017. VRTV’s Nina Salomon has a video rundown featuring some of the biggest titles due to be launched.
Some of these titles you may already know about, while others might have slipped through the net. Rest assured none of them should be over looked.
Brass Tactics – VR Real-time strategy with clockwork/steampunk feel
SingSpace from Harmonix Music – ‘draw’ your music into the air, watch it react and dance in time to the beat. VR twist on classic music visualisations
At the recent Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2017, Oculus was out in force demoing the latest titles set to launch for Oculus Rift. Many supported its motion controllers, Oculus Touch, with Chronos and Dead and Buried developer Gunfire Games showcasing its latest project, first-person shooter (FPS) From Other Suns. A sci-fi adventure where you’ll be roaming the stars, From Other Suns aims to a virtual reality (VR) experience that’s comfortable for beginners, whilst engaging enough for VR stalwarts.
From Other Suns puts you on a spaceship, your spaceship, and it’s here that you’ll build a crew to head into the cosmos to fight battles, rescue people, gain resources and more. In the short GDC demo Gunfire Games ran, one thing was clear, building a solid crew is of primary importance when planning what you want to do and what to need to achieve. At it’s heart From Other Suns is an FPS where you’ll wander through space stations dispatching enemies, but your character is neither invincible nor immortal. This is where your crew comes in, as the harder the mission the more expendable your shipmates might just become.
The mission for the demo tasks you with locating an item on a seemingly derelict space station. Here you must find your way through the labyrinth of corridors, finding key cards on route to unlock doors. Before heading out you’ll be able to choose a couple of weapons to holster on either hip, a pistol comes as standard, with shotguns, assault rifles and a Tesla/lightning style weapon available. While you can choose your preferred loadout prior to launching the mission this can easily be adapted on the fly, more guns can be found dotted around the wall of the space station, the enemies will also drop useful stuff.
Enemies are of the robotic variety, ranging from normal foot soldier types, to heavily armored beasts who shouldn’t be taken head on. Gunfire Games seem to have a good early AI balance for the opponents shown. The heavily armed enemies tend to stand there and take the punishment – because they can, whilst dealing it out – while the the standard robots a much more tactile. If they’re by themselves they’ll tend to use cover – momentarily stepping out to fire – but when there’s more than one they’ll push forward trying to press the advantage.
It’s these types of moments where if you’re not careful you’ll be killed, and this is where your crew mates come in. Should your character die you’ll respawn in one of your crew to continue the mission, you won’t have any of the items that you previously picked up – those can be found by locating the body – so some retreading is needed. This system means that missions have to be weighed up carefully, as you can only have six members in your crew. If a mission is difficult is it worth sacrificing them all?
From Other Suns has another trick up its sleeve and that’s how it handles movement. Gunfire Games is well aware of the issues standard FPS movement mechanics can have in VR so its created a range of options to suit pretty much everyone. The videogame has a novel comfort setting in which you’ll view your character in third-person, run them to wherever you wish and once you come to a stop you’ll be teleported back into first-person. It mixes the best of both worlds, providing an intuitive option for those that suffer sim sickness. There’s also snap rotation if needed. The only downside to this is you can feel a little left open to attack.
The camera – your viewpoint – stays fixed as the character runs around. Fine when on your ship – and more immersive than just teleporting – but in hostile situations you’re essentially blind running around corners until you snap back into first-person, which could see you come to a quick end. There’s also complete free FPS movement using the Oculus Touch sticks – if you can handle it – which definitely provides the best way to play.
There’s a lot going for From Other Suns. It’s great to just look at, from the ship’s corridors, dials and gun detailing to the animation of enemies, everything feels solid and robust. The gameplay mechanics work nicely, the guns rewarding to use as you blow apart another robot, and movement options are extensively covered. Due to arrive later this year From Other Suns should be one to keep an eye on.
Debuted at GDC 2017 and announced via their official blog, Oculus offer a first look at some of the titles coming to Rift and Gear VR in 2017. This includes 6 new game reveals across multiple genres, with 4 optimised for Touch and 2 “must haves” for Gear VR.
Having recently teased ‘months of high-profile VR content’ starting with Rock Band VR, Oculus have begun to deliver on that promise at this week’s Game Developers Conference, revealing a list of 2017 titles, including 4 new games for Touch and 2 for Gear VR.
Oculus Rift Games
Blade & Soul
The way of battle is simple: summon the units by grabbing them with your hands. Choose your units wisely, have a strategy of your own and fight until the end. Strong units are crucial to winning the battle. Strengthen your units by training and upgrading them in the lab.
Designed by: NCSoft
Genre: TCG, RTS
Platform: Touch
Release Date: TBA
Price: TBA
Comfort: TBA
Brass Tactics
Brass Tactics takes real-time-strategy to the next level by placing you in the middle of the action on a fantastic clockwork battlefield. Experience the thrill of directly moving and interacting with your clockwork creations: grab structures and place them on the battlefield, and direct your units with the sweep of your hand. Just when you think you’ve mastered the game, raise the stakes by teaming up with other players in co-op mode or go head-to-head in PvP mode.
Designed by: Hidden Path Entertainment
Genre: Classic Real-Time Strategy (RTS)
Platform: Touch
Release Date: Fall 2017
Price: TBA
Comfort: Comfortable
From Other Suns
Your own ship. A crew. Steady work. Things were going well until the Collapse. Now you and half of humanity are trapped on the far side of the wormhole with ruthless pirates, scheming corporations, and worse—new threats from outside known space.
There’s danger at every jump on this side of the wormhole. You and up to two of your friends will tour the sector, upgrading your ship, stockpiling weapons, and fighting for your lives. And when you all die, you’ll discover new challenges in your next playthrough.
Fight and try to save humanity, or just joyride through the galaxy until its extinction. Your call.
Developed By: Gunfire Games
Genre: Action Adventure
Platforms: Oculus Rift and Gear VR
Release Date: Fall 2017
Price: TBA
Comfort Rating: Comfortable
Mage’s Tale
Welcome, apprentice. Don your wizard’s robe and become a mighty conjuror. The corrupted wizard, Gaufroi, has kidnapped your master, Mage Alguin, and it’s up to you to save him. To win the day you must conquer eleven dungeons, from the stinking sewers of Skara Brae to the living tombs of the evil Charn. Mind bending puzzles, terrifying traps, and deadly monsters stand in your way, all perfectly capable of sending you to an early grave.
But worry not. You wield raw elemental power in the palm of your hand, allowing you to sling gouts of flame, javelins of ice, arcs of lightning, and swirling tempests which can finish off any fiend that stands in your way– from the snarkiest goblin to the burliest giant. And as you delve deeper into the depths you’ll find forgotten secrets, ancient lore, and powerful spell reagents with which you can craft increasingly exotic spells to defeat even greater foes. Yes, you may be an apprentice now, but to save your master, this must become your Mage’s Tale.
Designed by: inXile Entertainment, Inc.
Genre: VR Adventure, Puzzle Solving, Action RPG
Platforms: Rift
Release Date: TBA
Price: TBA
Comfort: TBA
Gear VR
Augmented Empire
Augmented Empire is a story-driven tactical RPG set on the island of New Savannah, an isolated neo-noir city divided into three tiers by a social grade system. While the citizens deemed of high societal value live in luxury at the summit, outliers and criminals are forced to live in squalor at the island’s depths.
From the armchair of your secluded hideout, command a team of 6 bioelectronically-enhanced misfits in ‘augmented reality;’ a diorama-scale version of the city rendered before your eyes. Explore the city, develop your skills and battle law-makers and law-breakers alike to mastermind the Revolution.
Designed by: Coatsink Software
Genre: Strategy, Action, Adventure
Platform: Gear VR
Release Date: TBA
Price: TBA
Comfort: Comfortable
Term1nal
You are Flynn Lightman, a highly skilled Avatar Pilot who can control androids from the safety of his apartment using advanced VR hardware. You are contacted by a client to infiltrate STRIDE Industries, a company that specializes in data security and advanced robotics. Your journey takes you into the depths of a heavily defended, high-tech facility as you discover its darker intent.
Dual-character 3rd-person stealth gameplay and immersive 1st person puzzles designed exclusively for Gear VR.
Designed by: Force Field VR
Genre: Action Puzzler
Platform: Gear VR
Release Date: Q2 2017
Price: TBA
Comfort: TBA
The new titles add to a list of compelling upcoming content for the Oculus platform, promising to deliver ‘depth and polish’, covering genres such as RTS, RPG, stealth, puzzle and shooter. Announced via the Oculus Blog, the ‘Year of VR Gaming’ is showcased in this new montage, with more news coming tomorrow.
Gunfire Games has announced a new space-based co-operative shooter that combines elements of crew management, first-person shooters and loot gathering.
From Other Suns is being demonstrated this week at GDC. The game is still in development and some features are currently missing from the build, such as inter-ship combat, which Gunfire says will be implemented soon, as will the ability to send your crew to repair your ship.
The title is exclusive to Oculus Rift and integrates Oculus Touch support. This allows for a unique form of movement in the game that is designed to reduce the impact of motion sickness on the player. When you start to move using the Touch controller, you see your avatar from a third-person perspective, but once you let go of the analog stick, you are snapped back into your body in what some players have described as an ‘out of body experience’.
Though the game largely revolves around the co-op experience, it is possible to play solo. You can customise and swap out your weapon load out depending on the requirements of the mission. The maps are procedurally generated for a unique experience each time you play.
The game is currently expected to get an Autumn 2017 release. You can see the announcement trailer below. As always, VRFocus will keep you informed on the news on From Other Suns and from GDC.
Oculus has said before that 2017 is all about content for its VR headsets, and it sure proved it today. As part of its showcase for this year’s Game Developers Conference (GDC), the company revealed a slate of new titles heading to both the Oculus Rift and Gear VR in the coming year. There’s a lot of them to get through, so we thought we’d list them below.
We’ve got impressions of each of these games live now, so make sure to follow through for more information and deeper thoughts on each. One thing’s for sure: Rift and Gear owners have a lot of goodness heading their way. Let’s take a look at some new Oculus games.
Esper developer Coatsink is back with this brand new strategy RPG for the Gear VR, channeling classic games like XCOM and Mass Effect 2 for what it says will be a much deeper experience than anything it’s made before. Expect this to be a truly hardcore offering for the mobile VR audience, which isn’t something we often seen.
Trust the makers of Defense Grid 2 to craft a compelling strategy game for VR. Unlike the studio’s last VR game, though, Brass Tactics is designed for use with Oculus Touch. It’s a multiplayer game that focuses on tactics, getting players to utilize huge armies to wipe out their opponents. It looks like a colorful take on the gengre, and heaps of fun.
The developer’s of Chronos return with a much more ambitious game. This is a procedurally-generated space adventure that has all the elements you need to make your sci-fi dreams come true. Team up with friends to maintain your ship and visit other worlds, battling dangerous enemies on the way.
This was technically announced last week but we got a much clearer picture of it at GDC. inXile Entertainment is known for RPGs like the Wasteland series, but it’s turning to another classic genre, the dungeon crawler, for its VR debut. Mage’s Tale will be a lengthy action game that fully utilizes Touch to put you right in the loot raiding action.
The developers of Landfall only just released their debut VR game, but they’re already onto the next. Term1nal is an intriguing entry into the stealth genre for Gear VR, casting you as a hacker that must infiltrate the facility of a massive corporation using robots.
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We also got updated hands-on with some games already announced for both platforms, including Singspace and Dragon Front, which is getting Oculus Touch support. Check out our updated previews below:
From Other Suns, a brand new VR title by Gunfire Games, draws heavy inspiration from several existing concepts and combines them all together, effortlessly, into a fresh and shiny package. It’s got the ship and crew management of games like Star Trek: Bridge Crew and FTL, it’s got the cooperative first-person shooter elements of games like Onward and Borderlands, with tons of loot to gather and gear to acquire, and it’s got the crazy ragtag crew antics of something like Guardians of the Galaxy — you can watch the trailer below to catch all of the vibes.
Even though it’s designed primarily as a three-player cooperative multiplayer game, the first time I played From Other Suns at GDC 2017 this week I was on my own. The other two demo stations were occupied by players also playing alone so I’d be rolling solo for my first mission. It was like my own private trial by galactic fire, as it were.
Everything began aboard my starship as the onsite Gunfire Games developer walked me through the controls and movement systems. On my wrists are a couple of buttons I can press with my opposite hand to pull up things like the options window or a map screen. The Oculus Touch controller face buttons toggle an inventory and an equipment display.
The default, more comfortable, movement system was a bit unique. You start by pressing forward on the left analog stick and then as you move around you watch your avatar from a third-person perspective.
Once you let go of the analog stick, you immediately teleport back into your body as you’re standing still. It feels almost like an out of body experience, but is a good option for those sensitive to motion sickness. It seemed to be a decent stop-gap solution, but I can’t imagine someone playing the entire game this way. It’s just wonky and feels like an inferior way of experiencing it.
For me, I preferred the full locomotion movement. It worked very similarly to Onward, allowing me to freely move around the world with few issues.
Once I got that down, it was time for my mission briefing. I headed to the bridge and looked down at my star map. After I selected a space station that was in trouble, my commander informed me that robots had overtaken the vessel and killed everyone on board. Because of course they did.
I made my way back to the chamber with the teleportation pad and inspected the guns on the wall. My starting pistol was good, but not great. Each of the guns had different fire rates, magazine sizes, and damage output. One functioned like an energy rifle, another shot lighting bolts, and then another was sort of like a short range shotgun. Plenty of diversity with options for every situation.
Once my loadout was set I stepped onto the pad and beamed down onto the ship. The developers told me that in the real game, maps like this would be procedurally generated from tilesets. This means that no two mission will ever be the same due to randomization, but it won’t be as lifeless as a truly randomized area.
Knowing that killer robots were on the loose, I was much more cautious than when freely roaming my own starship. I slowly edged around corners, poked my head out from cover to sneak a look, and made sure to stay mobile.
Eventually I encountered my first enemy, a robotic adversary that resembled the droids from the Star Wars prequels a bit. He was flanked by two similar robots, so I started by poking out from around the corner, gunning for headshots with my pistol. Soon, I swapped to the automatic rifle and peppered the chest of the closest one until it dropped. Once they got too close I switched to the shotgun and blasted their heads off. It felt extremely satisfying, especially with full locomotion.
Upon death, the robots dropped a few glowing items. One was a shield, which I could hold in one hand and squeeze the trigger to activate — if it got hit too many times it’d break and need to recharge. The second glowing item was green and I found out it was a syringe, which I could stab myself with to heal. Stocking up on those saved me a few times later in the mission.
When I came came back to the booth at a later time I was able to hop into a multiplayer session with UploadVR’s own Senior Editor, Ian Hamilton. While exploring the starship I quickly realized that I could hear him just fine over voice chat, but he couldn’t hear me. It was just a minor hardware issue. I decided to use this to my advantage.
While this was technically a cooperative multiplayer game, the folks at Gunfire didn’t want to cut any corners. This is a hardcore game about manning a starship and trying to survive. Friendly fire happens. I learned this by opening fire on Ian as he was still trying to find his way around the ship; I could even hear the booth attendees talking to him over the microphone.
One thing led to another and I killed him in cold blood before the mission even started. I didn’t need him slowing me down, but he just respawned and joined me anyway.
While we were down there, team dynamics started to emerge. Whoever had the shield could walk in front, drawing fire and keeping enemies busy, while someone else headed up the rear taking aim with more powerful and precise weapons.
The inclusion of thrown weapons like EMP blasts to stun robots or grenades to blow apart large groups would be a welcomed addition if the developers decided to add them. Later on, large robots with rocket launcher weapons could demolish a fully charged shield in a single blow, making it clear this wouldn’t be an easy game when it finally releases.
During our time with the game, Gunfire also mentioned a suite of features that weren’t available in the demo we tried. For starters, while aboard your ship, you can actually engage other ships in combat. Gameplay during these moments would consist of sending crew members to repair parts of the ship and actively rerouting power to shields or guns during a fight.
Ultimately, even though I was more successful and actually beat the mission on my own before joining forces with Ian, playing as a team was rewarding and exciting. Perhaps with a more competent partner things wouldn’t have broken down so quickly.
I ended up killing him again out of pure spite before the demo was over. It didn’t make me feel any better.
From Other Suns is in development by Gunfire Games as an Oculus Rift with Touch exclusive, currently slated for Fall 2017. Even though it’s being built with three player co-op in mind, it’s still playable in single player as well.
[Editor’s Note] – This article was originally published in February during GDC 2017 and has been republished to coincide with the free Open Beta weekend happening at the time of publication.
Reaching back to an earlier time in gaming, Chronos was an unforgiving third-person action adventure game that launched alongside the Rift. Inspired by FTL (2012) developer Gunfire Games is now applying their lauded old-school game design principles to new-school game tech, with a procedurally generated ‘rougelike’ that lets up to three players experience a galaxy full of unexpected threats on Rift (with Touch) and Gear VR.
FTL is a top-down action RPG where the player commands the crew of a futuristic spaceship and attempts to survive in a hostile galaxy amidst greater and greater threats; pretty much the furthest thing from a VR game you could imagine. And yet, let’s be honest, anyone in the VR space who has played FTL has thought about how cool a first-person version of the game could be. Gunfire Games is no exception.
Their newly announced title now in the works for the Oculus Rift and Touch is From Other Suns, and they’re clear that the game draws its inspiration from FTL.
From Other Suns aims to recreate the same sort of challenges and gameplay found in FTL—multiple crew members, permadeath, procedurally generated events and environments, ship management, and more—in a VR adventure FPS that’s built from the ground up for three-player co-op.
Players will inhabit a large ship with important and useful rooms like a bridge, teleportation room, engines, weapon bay, and more. The campaign is procedurally generated and could throw any number of missions or events at you and your crew as you move through the galaxy. That could mean a mission where you need to board a hostile ship to retrieve a piece of key data, or maybe your own ship is under attack and being invaded by alien foes who want to kill you and profit from your cargo. There will even be ship-to-ship combat from the bridge which plays out like an episode of Star Trek where each player has a unique position to fill during combat.
Gameplay spans everything from blowing up enemy ships to commanding crew-members to go put out fires on your own, and it all happens in a first-person view. Players inhabit and control the crew of their ship who are unique and limited in number. Crewmembers are a precious commodity, and when one dies you might find yourself cursing. Indeed if you die out on a mission, you’ll respawn back on the ship as another crewmember, but if you all die it’s game over.
Gunfire Games hopes to keep players coming back to From Other Suns for a unique experience every time. Ship layouts, weapons, mission objectives, and more are all procedurally generated, meaning you won’t be able to count on what’s around the next corner.
The studio described the game’s guns in particular as being “like Borderlands,” meaning they’re aiming for a large variety of different weapons which will have a range of procedurally generated characteristics.
The pace of From Other Suns is a little slower and more deliberate than some VR FPS games out there, but that’s intentional. Not only because one mistake could cost you the irreversible death of a critical crewmember, but because the game—though thematically sci-fi—is much like a dungeon crawler.
In my time with the game, a friend and I boarded a ship where we battled our way through varying robot enemies using shotguns, pistols, handheld force shields, and more.
It’s still early days for From Other Sons, but with the game due out in Fall of this year, the promise of FTL in VR is alive and well.
