It’s that day of the year which every journalist hates. 1st April, aka ‘April Fools Day’, is a day in which every news story that comes your way has to be scrutinised twice as hard. Some press releases are obviously intended for nothing more than a moment’s titillation, others walk a line far too close to reality for comfort. Some however, are genuinely laugh-out-loud funny. Here’s VRFocus’ picks of the best efforts in 2017.
Kratos to Make a Guest Appearance in Bound DLC
Bound is a wonderful and often forgotten gem in the PlayStation VR’s line-up. God of War is a brutal and beloved PlayStation exclusive franchise. Why not combine the two? Developed in collaboration between Plastic Studios and Sony Santa Monica – the latter of which is the studio responsible for many of Kratos’ adventures – Bound today had some new downloadable content (DLC) announced for it, in which Kratos becomes the highly animated hero. This is more than a little suspicious, but would undoubtedly sell well if it weren’t.
Announcing standalone DLC for #BoundPS4 “Kratos’ Reminiscence” coming soon to your @PlayStation ! pic.twitter.com/wrOFpQ1m92
— Plastic (@plasticdemo) April 1, 2017
Cosmic Trip Comes to Virtual Boy
Another April Fools Day, another videogame coming to Nintendo’s much berated Virtual Boy. This year the responsibility has been handed to Funktronic Labs, the developer of – you guessed it – Cosmic Trip for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. Of course, the studio isn’t really working on a Virtual Boy edition of their VR videogame; they’re still working on finishing the high-end PC version currently in Steam Early Access.
REWIND Moves into Hardware Development
UK virtual reality (VR) content developer REWIND has a had a hand in many well known projects, including the recently launched Ghost in the Shell experience for Samsung Gear VR and Oculus Rift. With a number of years of experience under their belt, why not step into the world of hardware development? Because that’d be stupid. That’s why.
Google Introduce New VR Haptic Feedback
For many, the next landmark development in VR won’t be wireless (although that technology does rank highly on near-everyone’s ‘wish list’), it’ll be haptic feedback. What’s better to aid immersion than incorporating all your senses – not just sight and sound – into the experience? Well, one of Google’s many April Fools gag delivers just that, with Haptic Helpers: a new programme in which people enter your home to aid you in your suspension-of-disbelief.
Virtual Umbrella’s Bertie Millis Launches AFVRC
It seems like every week someone at VRFocus proclaims this acronym on the group chat. Most frequently with the word ‘not’ in front of it and a massively sigh afterwards. Yes, there are many VR conferences. So many in fact, that they’re starting to overlap due to there simply not being enough days in the year. Bertie, we don’t want AFVRC. Nobody does.
Of course, there’s plenty more April Fools gags coming from the VR industry. Let us know your favourites in the comments section below.