Gunheart – Page 2 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

June 4, 2018

Cross-Platform Online Co-Op FPS Gunheart Leaves Early Access

Last summer Drifter Entertainment launched its first virtual reality (VR) title, a co-op first-person shooter called Gunheart into Early Access for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Today, Gunheart has now left Early Access on Steam (its still listed on Oculus Store as EA), adding lots of new features and improvements.

Gunheart screenshot

Looking like a mixture of Gears of War and Halo, Gunheart is all about frantic co-op action – you can play single-player as well – where you and your friends become customizable robotic bounty hunters trying to make a buck at the edge of the galaxy.

So for Gunheart 1.0 Drifter Entertainment has added a double jump ability for all players to easily navigate the battlefield, official cross-platform support between VR and non-VR players, a new introduction and tutorial for new players, several new music tracks as well as hundreds of new lines of dialogue to add clarity and extra backstory, lobby/region select is now available on startup so you can join friends games, and for those relaxing moments away from the main missions the shooting range has been upgraded.

“Gunheart has been a passion project for the team since inception and we are extremely excited to be able to offer such an incredibly unique and fun RPG shooter to fans across the globe,” said Ray Davis, co-founder and CEO of Drifter Entertainment. “From the beginning, we’ve focused on building Gunheart as a world class VR gaming experience, and now with cross-play we’re able to share the experience with desktop players. Gunheart is guaranteed to provide hours of insanely fast co-op combat for you and your friends.”

Gunheart screenshot

As for the main experience itself, Gunheart has 10 unique weapons to unlock and master, 40+ weapon modifications that enable hundreds of thousands custom weapons for you to take on 9 campaign and 11 challenge missions. Elite mode and weekly missions keep the challenges coming even after you have mastered the campaign. And then there are the PvP battles which pit you against other bounty hunters either in free-for-all or team based skirmishes.

Gunheart is available now via Steam for £21.41 GBP, saving 10 percent off the usual price of £23.79. For any further updates from Drifter Entertainment, keep reading VRFocus.

May 2, 2018

New Gunheart Update Makes The VR Shooter Harder

Drifter Entertainment’s Gunheart is still going strong with Early Access updates, and the latest release is definitely one fans will want to check out.

Highlighting this latest update is a new mission achievement system for the first-person shooter, which will reward players with up to three stars for completing bonus objectives that have you play through levels in certain ways. It might be that one level asks you to beat it in a certain time, for example, or the hardest difficulty. You’ll also find that the game itself is more difficult after tweaks to make enemies tougher with better AI and new types of bad guys too.

Elsewhere there’s a new mission selection UI that will allow players to keep better track of their progress. Money pump missions will also be tougher and, when you do die, you’ll be welcomed with a new death screen. If you do decide to tackle the Elite difficulty with these tougher features then you’ll find enhanced rewards, too.

Turning to the game’s competitive multiplayer mode, there are lots of PVP updates to dig into. For starters, Drifter has revamped weapon pickups, allowing players to grab new guns just by strafing over them. The developer has also tweaked several important factors like spawn locations and weapon balance, which it says will make the Brawl game mode a much faster-paced experience.

Gunheart is currently available in pre-release on Rift, Vive and Windows VR for $29.99, though we don’t yet know when the full version will launch. Drifter is also planning to release a PSVR version of the game later this year.

Tagged with: Gunheart

February 26, 2018

Latest Gunheart Update Adds Weapon Progression And Price Drop

Gunheart by Drifter Entertainment is still in Early Access as a big, dynamic, cooperative first-person shooter, but ever since its debut last year it’s gotten large, consistent updates.

For this latest “Winter Update” that just recently dropped, there’s a bevy of new features and a price drop from $34.99 to just $29.99.

Kicking things off you can now unlock new abilities for your weapons via a progression mechanic, which adds some much-needed depth to the gameplay loop. It adds real incentive and a sense of growth to the game throughout missions.

Additionally, all weapons now get a default signature mod and there’s a challenge system that will award extra loot if you complete specific objectives across missions. There’s even been an animation overhaul for how enemies react to hits an animate when dying.

Finally, there’s also been a litany of optimization measures for how weapons combo, CPU performance, and loot drops.

Currently there’s no definitive full launch window, but Gunheart is expected to exit Early Access this year along with a PSVR release this summer. You can currently find it on Steam for Rift and Vive as well as on the Oculus Home Store.

If you’re playing Gunheart, let us know what you think in the comments down below!

Tagged with: Drifter Entertainment, Gunheart

February 25, 2018

VR Shooter Gunheart Releases Winter Update

The recent Winter Update to Gunheart has brought with it a number of changes that will make the co-op shooter all that more enjoyable and entertaining.

Gunheart screenshot

Built from the ground up for virtual reality (VR), Gunheart is a co-op shooter where players take on the role of robotic bounty hunters trying to make a fortune at the edge of the galaxy. This is done by battling through the bug infested frontier, blasting anything that moves and exploring rich locations, to complete bounties and earn cash to upgrade their rig. With the addition of the Winter Update, players will find a lot more bang for their buck thanks to numerous weapon changes and improvements.

Weapons are getting a progression system that will make each one feel more unique as you level them up from prolonged use. Mods will also ensure that players find each weapon more exciting, improving hit reactions and death animations which result in more satisfying kills. The Money Pumps in the videogame have also been revamped, giving players more strategy and interaction along with reducing the amount of down time during the game mode. Finally, as with any update, there are plenty of bug fixes and optimizations included to hopefully give players a smoother experience.

Gunheart screenshot 1

The full patch for the update are as follows:

Weapon leveling: unlock new and unique bonuses for your favorite weapons by using them successfully in combat.
Bonus challenges: new challenge system added to reward you with extra loot for completing the objectives across missions!
Default weapon mods: all weapons now have a signature modification that is applied as long as you have an open mod slot, increasing their utility as soon as you acquire them and offering more options as you unlock additional slots.
Money pumps overhaul: game mode has been revamped to offer much more strategy and interaction for players. It’s way more intense now, less down time, and a really great place to earn some extra cash + loot.
Hit reactions and death animations: we’ve spent a lot of time improving the responsiveness of dealing damage to enemies, improving the overall feel of combat fairly dramatically. Weapons such as the shotgun now have a much more satisfying blast back when landing the killing blow on an enemy.
Combo weapon re-balance: we’ve loosened the consumption rate on ammo and increased the odds of finding ammo throughout missions to ensure you have more opportunity to utilize your combo weapons.
CPU Optimizations: an experimental object culling technique has been added to improve CPU performance, especially notable on CPUs that may be previously bottlenecked on single core performance.
Buckets of bug fixes and tweaks to improve the overall experience!

Gunheart is currently available on Steam Early Access and via the Oculus store. It supports the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Windows Mixed Reality (MR) along with a range of play area configurations. If you want to know more about Gunheart you can read the VRFocus preview of the title.

Developer Drifter Entertainment released a short video where Creative Director Brian Murphy talks about some of the highlights from the update, which you can see for yourself below.

For more updates on Gunheart in the future, keep it reading VRFocus.

November 18, 2017

Gunheart Introduces New Enemies and Improved Loot System

Futuristic virtual reality (VR) sci-fi shooter Gunheart has been regularly introducing updates ever since developer Drifter Entertainment launched the title into the Early Access. The Fall Update continues this tradition with its largest update yet.

Gunheart is a co-operative first-person shooter set in the furthest frontier of space in the far future. Players must take on hostile aliens and explore distant planets to make money to buy upgrades for your weapons and armour, defending humanity and making some profit as you go.

In order to take advantage of the types of tracked motion controllers that are widely available, the new content updates is introducing a range of new features, along with the expected big fixes and performance updates.

Gunheart screenshot 1

A new campaign has been added in, complete with new voice overs covering nine new story missions. In addition twenty new side missions have been added, along with PvP challenges and ongoing weekly missions. The expanded loot system will add new weapon mods for players to discover and add to their arsenal of weaponry., including new modifiers such as Glass Cannon, Bloodlust, Bubble Shield, Fly Paper, Easy Money and Berserker. 30 new cosmetic items have also been added for players to collect.

Enemies have got an upgrade, including dropships with new behaviours, AI updates and new boss creatures have been added, with other world elements such as ‘spawning bag’ creatures and data pads.

Gunheart is available on Steam Early Access for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, priced at £26.99 (GBP). Further information and updates can be found on the Steam Store page.

A video trailer for the Fall content update can be viewed below.

VRFocus will bring you further news on Gunheart as it becomes available.

September 3, 2017

Gunheart Update Adds new Weapons, Elite Mode, PVP Levels and More

In July Drifter Entertainment launched its co-op first-person shooter Gunheart on Steam Early Access. Now the studio has released its first major update for the title, adding not only new features but also several improvements and bugfixes.

So what included? Well to start off with there are now Gibs – as Drifter calls them. Basically blowing apart alien hostiles will now leave behind lots of squishy body parts, plus there are new death animations.

Gunheart screenshot 1

As for weapons there’s the Death Disc for close range combat, which players swing around for some slice and dice carnage. And there’s a new combo weapon – where players bring both guns together – a destructive Rocket Launcher. This can be upgraded to the rockets flight path.

How about some new challenges as well. Several environments now have night mode missions and an elite mode is now available for those players looking for a tougher experience. On the PVP side a new team objective mode has players fighting over control of money pumps, while several new levels built specifically for PVP have been added.

That’s not all, a shooting range is available through the Bent Horizon hub, an experimental Holoscope upgrade can be unlocked for the pistol, and the default crosshairs are now adaptive to the scene colour so that they’re always visible.

Gunheart is currently available on Steam for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive with a limited time discount. Until 7th September, customers can get a 15 percent discount, dropping the price from £26.99 GBP down to £22.94. The offer isn’t available on the Oculus Store.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of Gunheart and Drifter Entertainment, reporting back with the latest updates.

August 4, 2017

Preview: Gunheart – Halo Meets VR

Plenty of developers when they enter the field of virtual reality (VR) tend to go into the first-person shooter (FPS) genre. This is not only due to the popularity of these titles but also how well they suit VR gameplay. The flip side of this is that there are a fair few of them to choose from, meaning that studio’s not only need to create a videogame that’s inventive, but polished as well. Drifter Entertainment falls into this area with the release of its first experience for Oculus Rift (previewed) and HTC Vive with Gunheart, a co-op multiplayer that’s been inspired by videogames such as Halo and Gears of War.

Currently in Early Access on Steam and Oculus Store, Gunheart looks like your standard sci-fi alien affair. The premise is that you’re an intergalactic robot bounty hunter, earning a living by exterminating aliens wherever needed. You need to complete missions, killing as many enemies on route whilst finding hidden cash caches to build up your rig, buy and upgrade weapons to then go out and wreak more carnage.

Gunheart screenshot

All players start in the central hub, called The Bent Horizon, which features a bar, gun shop, mission select area and a couple of other bits and pieces. There’s no hand holding in Gunheart, the developer hasn’t added a nice training mission or run-though of what does what, you just need to figure things out for yourself. Or just ask someone. The title has only been out a few days and it’s nice to see a community already building. There always seems to be someone in the hub, no matter what time of day which is refreshing to see for an early access videogame.

There is a wall that showcases how to reload or combine your weapons but aside from that there’s nothing, which is fine as the controls aren’t that overly complicated to begin with. First and foremost is movement, which by default is teleportation. Don’t worry if you’re fed up of teleportation however as Drifter Entertainment has got you covered. Head into the menu options and you’ll be able to switch on strafe, so that you can walk about – albeit with a small vignette for comfort – to your heart’s content.

You will still need teleportation because of the way the levels are designed. As you can see in the header image above, this early area is an undulating mixture of solid and moving platforms, rock formations and more. As there’s no jump functionality experienced players will likely mix between teleportation to get to useful vantage points and FPS mechanics when they’re going head to head with enemies.

Gunheart screenshot

The level design is one of the best bits about Gunheart, giving players a wealth of tactical options as they flit from platform to platform. Slightly more restrictive are your weapon load outs. You can only take a maximum of two guns into a level, so you need to choose wisely depending on how you intend on approaching a shoot out. You start with a mini crossbow (with remote controlled darts) and a pistol. As you progress you’ll be able to buy shotguns, SMGs, and some heavy weapons to mix up the gameplay. There’s also a nifty feature should you need it in the heart of battle. Bringing both guns together will form the heavy weapon – a minigun to begin with – to unleash some devastating damage.

Some early access titles can be really rough around the edges but Gunheart already feels quite polished. There were occasional glitches where enemies would just stand there, only attacking once a few shots had been fired. Also some of the basic enemies AI had a lot to be desired, just running straight at you. While the title can be played in single-player it’s best to have the options set to open co-op, as slaying hostile aliens is much more fun in a team, and that’s going to be Gunheart’s biggest draw.

July 31, 2017

Co-op Shooter Gunheart Hits Steam Early Access

Last year several virtual reality (VR) veterans from Epic Games, Oculus and Microsoft announced the formation of a new studio, Drifter Entertainment. Then a couple of months ago the team revealed development on its first VR title, a co-op first-person shooter called Gunheart. For those that have been keeping a close eye on its progress they’ll be happy to know the title has now arrived on Steam Early Access for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift with Touch support.

Supporting full cross-platform compatibility between the two headsets, Gunheart aims to combine the fun of summer sci-fi blockbuster movies with the gameplay of Gears of War and Halo. Players are cast as robotic bounty hunters earning a living by exterminating aliens across the galaxy. As they do so, the cash they collect can be used to upgrade their rig, whilst amassing a large arsenal of weapons and unlocking abilities. While Gunheart can be played single-player, going on the hunt in a team of three will unlock greater rewards.

Gunheart screenshot

In its current early access form Gunheart’s campaign is fully playable with over nine weapons to choose from, each with its own unique upgrades, several enemy types and support for 3 player co-op. Drifter Entertainment has also included a 10-player deathmatch “Brawl” game mode.

The title will see a full release within the next six months. “The final version will include additional game modes, new weapon types, and of course new enemies to battle against. We also plan to introduce many more options on how players can customize both their weapons and their rigs as well. On the competitive side we intend to add support for spectating, streaming, leaderboards, and unique unlocks for players,” states the studio.

If you want to dive right in, Gunheart can be downloaded from Steam for £26.99 GBP for either headset.

As for any further updates, keep reading VRFocus.

July 31, 2017

Multiplayer FPS Gunheart Launches Today On Steam Early Access

After spending so much time in VR over the past year and a half I’ve come to accept a lot of different things about this budding industry and one of the biggest learnings is that VR is always better with friends. No matter what the experience is if you throw in multiple people then it’s almost always a better time for everyone involved.

Gunheart is a new VR game from industry veterans that have worked at Epic Games and the title takes the multiplayer concept truly to heart (pardon the pun.) You take on the role of a bounty hunter that goes on missions with other mercenaries to earn money which can be used at the central hub cantina-style location. The launch trailer does a good recap of the various activities available:

When I first went hands-on with Gunheart a couple of months ago it was a short co-op demo where I and two of the developers had to make our way through a series of enemy waves to the end of the mission. But now in Early Access there is the promise of much more content, such as PvP battles, and more varied cooperative missions. Since my demo, they’ve also added full smooth locomotion options in addition to teleportation movement.

What stood out the most during my early demo was just how fluid and satisfying the gunplay felt, so with an infusion of more content to play and a nice variety of weapons to use, Gunheart could quickly become a go-to multiplayer offering for the VR scene.

As of today, Gunheart is officially available in Early Access on Steam for $34.99 with support for both Rift and Vive. What do you think of the game so far? Let us know down in the comments below!

Tagged with: Gunheart

July 31, 2017

Co-op VR Shooter ‘Gunheart’ Launches in Early Access, From Minds Behind ‘Gears of War’ and ‘Halo’

Gunheart, Drifter Entertainment’s co-op VR shooter, launches today in Early Access on Steam for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

In Gunheart, you step into the shoes of a robotic bounty hunter looking for cash, something you can grab throughout each level as you squash alien bugs. But the key isn’t just shooting everything that moves and hoping for the best though (well, that’s a big part of it), because working as a team gets you special abilities to go along with an array of futuristic weapons.

Built by ex-Bungie & Epic developers, who worked on Gears
of War and Halo franchises, Gunheart promises hours of bug-infested battles via the procedurally ‘remixed’ levels, something the developers say makes the bounties feel different every time you play. Another ‘remixing’ element also affects the number of alien combatants in your way between you and the end of the over kilometer-long level. The more players drop into the mission, the harder it’ll be to get to the end.

‘Gunheart’ on Steam

Locomotion is possible via teleportation or ‘strafing’ which can quickly let you slide across the field in any direction. A number of options are available, but mission maps are designed around teleportation (hopping from platform to platform), so you’ll probably end up using a mix of both. Check out this video for a full overview of the game’s locomotion system.

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