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.
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.
Today Oculus Studios has announced a major update for its free Touch shooter Dead and Buried, adding new characters, levels and more.
Called the Guns and Ghosts Update the studio has added two more characters to the roster, an old gunsmith and a pistol wielding spirit. As players progress in Dead and Buried they’ll be able to unlock 10 additional options for them both.
The horde mode has seen several additions, with a resurrection gun now available to bring players back from the dead, a new boss, and a single-player option for those times you can’t find anybody online.
Lastly a new rifle and sniper map have been added to Shootout mode, putting players in a desert oasis located next to an old Spanish ghost town.
“Listening to the community is a must, and we took your feedback to heart,” says Oculus Software Engineer Ryan Rutherford. “We’re thrilled to deliver these improvements and new content—and can’t wait to share more updates throughout the year!”
For any further updates to Dead and Buried, keep reading VRFocus.
The Oculus Touch motion controllers for Oculus Rift are due to launch in just over a month with 30 titles scheduled to arrive. One of those is Dead and Buried, a co-developed title between Oculus Studios and Gunfire Games (Chronos). In a blog posting this week Oculus has revealed the videogame will be available to all Touch owners for free on launch day.
Wild west themed Dead and Buried brings the old school barroom shootout into VR, with teams of two players duelling the death. Armed with pistols, shotguns, grenade launchers and other available weapons littered around the area, players have to use cover to survive as long as possible. Get killed and they’ll be moved to a different location to continue the battle. Whichever team achieves the most kills wins.
In the blog posting Oculus Software Engineer Ryan Rutherford gave further details on the upcoming title including a game mode called Robbery. “In this mode, one team tries to rob a train while the other attempts to stop them,” said Rutherford. “The safe is located in the caboose and players battle it out through multiple train cars – sleeper cars, box cars, even a shootout on the roof! When one team wins a skirmish, that team advances while the other falls back.”
Shooting experiences are going to feature quite a bit for Oculus Touch, the controllers are ideally suited to waging gunfights. These will include: Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope by Croteam; Arizona Sunshine by Vertigo Games and Epic Game’s recently revealed Robo Recall.
Unveiled at Oculus Connect 3 last month,Robo Recallis another gallery style shooter, this time with players facing hordes of robots. The title is due to arrive in early 2017 and will be another free experience for gamers to enjoy.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Oculus Touch, reporting back with any further updates.
The Oculus Touch motion controllers are set to have an extensive line-up of software available for when launch day arrives. At the Oculus Connect 3 conference yesterday Oculus’ Head of Content, Jason Rubin outlined 35 titles that would support Touch at launch and one of those was first-person shooter (FPS), Dead and Buried. Being made internally by Oculus Studios, its now been revealed that Gunfire Games has been co-developing the title.
Gunfire Games, the studio behind Chronos and Herobound: Spirit Champion for Oculus Rift, has announced that its been lending its virtual reality (VR) skills and knowledge to the upcoming title.
“When Oculus Studios approached us about getting the group behind Herobound, our second Oculus title, back together to work on Dead and Buried, we knew it would be a good fit because we already know the talent of the team they have at Oculus and how well we all work together,” said Gunfire Games President David Adams.
For the last several months the studio has been assisting the internal Oculus Studios content team in the development of Dead and Buried, by helping them build out additional content and features for the game.
Wild west themed Dead and Buried brings the old school barroom shootout into VR, with teams of two players duelling the death. Armed with pistols, shotguns, grenade launchers and other available weapons littered around the area, players have to use cover to survive as long as possible. Get killed and they’ll be moved to a different location to continue the battle. Whichever team achieves the most kills wins.
