HTC Vive – Page 3 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

February 25, 2022

Vive Flow Partners With holoride on VR In-Car Entertainment

Wireless virtual reality (VR) headsets allow you to enjoy immersive entertainment wherever you go. Holoride has specialised in in-car entertainment for several years now having previously partnered with companies like Audi. Today, holoride has announced a new collaboration with HTC Vive, utilising its new Vive Flow headset to aid the in-car platform’s market launch later this year.

As part of its Mobile World Congress 2022 announcements, holoride’s technology allows car passengers to enjoy immersive entertainment on the move. It takes real-time motion, location and navigational data and combines it with VR content, think of it like a VR rollercoaster that matches every turn the car makes.

Vive Flow will be the first holoride-ready VR device as it prepares to launch the service in the second half of 2022. It’s not just VR content passengers can view, as holoride has an advanced cinema mode so individual users can watch 2D content on a virtual, motion-synchronized cinema screen.

“holoride is on a mission to create exciting in-vehicle experiences for passengers to travel the Metaverse, and that starts with putting our technology in the hands – or on the heads – of riders,” said Nils Wollny, CEO and co-founder of holoride in a statement. “VIVE Flow is the ideal device for on-the-go XR, so we are thrilled to be partnering with HTC VIVE to give riders direct access to holoride. The glasses’ sleek, portable design means riders can enjoy a fun and connected experience anywhere they go.”

“Vive Flow can fit in the palm of your hand and still deliver a breathtaking experience,” adds Shen Ye, Global Head of Hardware at HTC Vive. “Paired with holoride’s impressive tech, you’ll be able to turn car rides into virtual amusement parks. We’re very excited to work with holoride in shaping the future of passenger entertainment.”

Vive Flow should be ideal for this kind of use case as its fairly compact and lightweight in comparison to other standalone headsets. Weighing in at 189g, Vive Flow connects to a smartphone to deliver content, either cabled or by way of its external battery pack, wirelessly to smart devices.

As further details arise regarding holoride’s launch gmw3 will keep you updated.

February 24, 2022

HTC Sees Backlash Over Bizarre ‘Viverse’ Concept Trailer

HTC revealed its vision for the future metaverse, branded ‘Viverse’, and the internet did not like it.

In a now-pinned tweet, the Vive Twitter account yesterday posted a concept for a virtual ecosystem split across both augmented and virtual reality hardware labeled as Viverse. It suggested this platform would deliver a “future where the impossible becomes possible.”

The video itself proposed several broad possibilities for Viverse, from graspable concepts like working out at the gym with your performance displayed on virtual overlays to more outlandish ideas like attending virtual wine tasting sessions and then purchasing said wine using bitcoin. Oh, and there’s of course a bit where a young woman buys an NFT of the ‘Meowna Lisa’ (which is exactly what it sounds like) for her grandma.

Check it out in the video below. And, just in case you were wondering, no, that’s not a typo. It’s Viverse, not Viveverse.

HTC’s Viverse Revealed

It’s a strange and unspecific video that seems to cut between actual HTC products like the Vive Sync collaboration platform and currently non-existent concepts, with no real outline for how the company plans to actually deliver any of this in the future. How, exactly, are you meant to taste virtual wine? Why would users want to interact with NFTs in Viverse when reaction to them in the real world has been so strong that many companies have rolled back and distanced themselves from the concept?

Unsurprisingly, many Twitter replies were less than enthusiastic about the company’s vision.

This is up there in the list of grossest and worst takes for a mixed reality future https://t.co/WyOJ5eCmj2

— Alex (vastt) (@vastener) February 24, 2022

Who is more verse ?
It is starting to look like a parody, this Metaverse thing… https://t.co/42Oz4L5xKI

— Diego Bez. (@Diegobez) February 23, 2022

Disappointing seeing another major hardware manufacturer take this direction. VR is so much more than a place for business meetings and shopping. It’s a canvas for art you can stand in, pick up, and play with. It allows people from anywhere to share the same space. https://t.co/bFiHLGUr6T

— rosebur (@heyrosebur) February 23, 2022

The video itself has seen over 120,000 views but less than 200 likes (YouTube no longer shows dislikes).

HTC isn’t the only company to take heat for its potential vision of the metaverse, of course. Mark Zuckerberg’s protracted explanation of why we’d all want a digital lifestyle from last year’s Connect has seen similar criticsm. Just last week, Meta pushed that vision with its Super Bowl TV spot before delivering an underwhelming Foo Fighters performance inside social VR that many couldn’t even get into.

Certainly, it seems like these companies have a long way to go before they can convince many people of the potential uses of a metaverse.

February 24, 2022

Viverse Presents HTC Vive’s Vision of the Metaverse

Just like a multitude of other tech companies HTC Vive is getting into the metaverse through a range of initiatives like its previously revealed NFT marketplace Vive Bytes. Today, HTC Vive has teased its vision of the metaverse – or Viverse – with a new trailer jumping between several environments and virtual use cases.

Just like every other corporate vision of the metaverse, HTC’s world is a dynamic place where you can have work meetings, talk to your family, attend events and visit museums and art galleries, and, of course, buy stuff. As you’d expect, Viverse contains plenty of nods to HTC Vive’s current product lineup, from its hardware offerings to software solutions.

Early on there’s a plug for Vive Sync, the virtual meeting platform that forms part of the Vive XR Suite. Here you get a notification of upcoming meetings in beautifully barren offices, even the Vive Focus 3 standalone headset makes a brief appearance.

It can’t all be work and no play so there’s a virtual wine tasting experience you could enjoy with friends. While you’re not going to taste the digital bottle of plonk in your hands it showcases the idea that you could then order a real bottle for yourself using cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Crypto continues to play a role further on when heading to a gallery visit where you can buy an NFT of the image you’re looking at.

Once again, this is a nod to both Vive Bytes and Viveport’s online exhibition for Yamamoto’s Step Into Cat Art. No metaverse is complete without at least one of two cat pictures, with the Viverse demo highlighting the purchase of Yamamoto’s Meowna Lisa NFT using Ethereum.

Ultimately though, Viverse is a marketing vision for something that’s currently fragmented. Much like Meta and its various Horizon-branded apps, HTC Vive’s XR Suite, Viveport and Vive Bytes aren’t quite a homogenous whole – it also doesn’t help that Vive’s hardware lineup is just all over the place.

Viverse looks pretty but it still feels a long way off. For more metaverse coverage, keep reading gmw3.

February 22, 2022

Miniature Puzzler Tin Hearts Now Expected in Q4 2022

It has been a long old road for Tin Hearts, an adorable little puzzle title that was initially revealed by Rogue Sun all the way back in 2016; for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Today, the studio has revealed several new screenshots as well as the most important detail, a release window for the end of this year.

Taking inspiration from classics like Lemmings, Tin Hearts involves guiding a troop of mischievous tin soldiers through a craftsman’s workshop. Alter their path with various toys and objects, bounce them across tables and make sure they don’t crash to the floor, all in a bid to get them to the end goal.

At the same time, you uncover a magical narrative that spans not only generations but also dimensions as well; all based around Albert Butterworth, a genius inventor in Victorian times. Exactly what you’d expect from Rogue Sun, a team formed after the closure of Lionhead Studios – the developer of Fable.

As it’s been six years since Tin Hearts was revealed it has certainly expanded upon its initial VR premise. Back in 2018, Rogue Sun released Tin Hearts: Prologue giving an early access tease of the videogame before pulling it entirely due to a new publishing partnership with Wired Productions. Then last year Tin Hearts resurfaced at a Wired Direct event, confirming the videogame was still in production but would also get a non-VR edition.

After all these years Tin Hearts is now slated to arrive during Q4 2022, still supporting PC VR headsets like Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Valve Index, whilst adding Meta Quest 2, PlayStation VR, PlayStation 4 & 5, Nintendo Switch and Xbox consoles.

Tin Hearts is one of those VR titles gmw3 has been looking forward to playing more of after previewing it four years ago: “It feels almost like being inside a Disney movie, with beautiful use of light and wood to build a scene that has a great sense of presence, with just the right amount of toys and other paraphernalia littered about the place.”

There’s still a while to wait though. If any further details do arise gmw3 will let you know.

February 21, 2022

Green Hell VR Demo Arrives as Part of Steam Next Fest

Today sees the start of the Steam Next Fest event, where hundreds of demos are made available over the coming week. One studio taking part is Incuvo, giving PC VR gamers the very first chance to play its upcoming survival adventure Green Hell VR.

Remaking Creepy Jar’s Green Hell from the ground up for virtual reality (VR) headsets, Green Hell VR was initially teased back in 2020. Today, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index, and Windows Mixed Reality headset owners can get their first glimpse into the dangerous Amazonian rainforest, where they’ll have to hunt, forage and craft to survive this inhospitable environment.

Incuvo hasn’t said how much of the final game the demo will showcase but hopefully, it’ll contain a good chunk of the 60+ gameplay mechanics the team has been working on. Just like the dev’s VR port of Blair Witch: VR Edition its making sure all the mechanics are perfectly tuned to VR gameplay.

So you’ll be able to physically fire bows and swing axes to defend yourself from wild animal attacks. Become hurt or infected and you’ll have to treat the wounds, wrapping leaves around your arm. And there’s making fires to ward off the cold night, cooking food, making a shelter, and all the other things you’ll have to do to make sure the jungle doesn’t kill you.

As this is a demo and not the final product Incuvo has issued the following statement: “This early demo build has issues with optimization and requires a high-end PC. Some graphics cards will see better performance than others.”

Currently, the development team is working towards a Q2 2022 launch for both SteamVR and Meta Quest platforms. As gmw3 reported last year, Incuvo also plans on supporting PlayStation VR at some point in the future. For continued updates keep reading gmw3.

February 18, 2022

Roguelite Adventure Outlier Steps Onto Steam in March

Having revealed its latest virtual reality (VR) project, Outlier, last year, developer Joy Way is gearing up for its early access launch via Steam. The studio has announced that the PC VR release will be taking place next month.

Coming from the same studio behind Stride and Against, Outlier is a very different beast, a roguelite shooter set in a stylish sci-fi universe. The narrative revolves around you being captain of the last human ark, vessels designed to find humanity a new home. However, your ark is swallowed by a black hole and during this process, you discover what looks to be a habitable planet. Unfortunately, it’s being attacked, fortunately, that black hole incident has endowed you with powers. So down you go to clear out the menace.

Those abilities include a roguelite’s main feature, rinse and repeat until perfect. With every level procedurally generated death merely means restarting a little bit stronger and hopefully slightly wiser. That does mean, of course, that you’ll encounter different characters and experience new artefacts, weapons, and story pieces.

Player progression is always an important factor in any roguelite with Outlier combining power-ups and ability modifiers for players to tweak their characters. Spells such as the fireball or telekinesis can be merged to create an explosive fireball and a fire push. During early access Joy Way will continue to add more weapons, more powers, and more pickups.

As gmw3 has previously reported, Joy Way plans on bringing Outlier to Meta Quest 2 later in the year, saying in a statement: “Meta has accepted putting Outlier to the official Quest Store. Though, we plan to tweak all main game systems first during the early access period. After we receive enough feedback from the community on the core mechanics and future content of the game, we will start working on a Quest port.”

Outlier is currently scheduled for release via Steam Early Access on 17th March, supporting Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Valve Index. The full videogame is currently slated to arrive by the end of 2022. Check out the new trailer below and for further updates keep reading gmw3.

February 17, 2022

Music Sandbox Virtuoso Hits PC VR & Quest 2 in March

Reality Interactive, the indie team who’ve been developing a musical sandbox called Virtuoso have now revealed that an official launch is only weeks away; coming to PC VR headsets as well as Meta Quest 2.

If you are a Quest 2 owner then you may have already come across Virtuoso on App Lab. Rather than all the rhythm action games where you have to play to someone else’s music, Virtuoso is about creating your own; on some familiar and unfamiliar instruments.

While you can create beats on drums and snares, using the Looper tool to create layer upon layer of sound, instruments like the three-dimensional Oorgan have been tailored to VR. Here you can really let loose with motion controls, twisting and turning the controllers to create new sounds and effects. In total there are six instruments to experiment with, plus there’s an option to add vocals using a virtual microphone.

You don’t need to be a musical whizz either. One feature that’ll come in handy when trying to make your first track is Tempo Sync to keep you in time. And to stay on pitch there are preset scales. Once you got the hang of it you’ll be able to record tracks and share them with the community.

“Virtuoso is a new take on playing and creating music that is both accessible for complete
beginners and amazingly powerful in the hands of experienced musicians,” said Jonatan
Crafoord, Creative Director and Co-Founder of Really Interactive in a statement. “The instruments are built from the ground-up for expressing yourself musically in VR, while the tools and interactive tutorial help you stay on beat and in tune. We can’t wait to hear the music that the Virtuoso community will create in it!”

The first videogame to be published via Fast Travel Games’ new publishing arm, Virtuoso is scheduled to arrive for Meta Quest 2, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Valve Index on 10th March 2022. For continued updates keep reading gmw3.

February 9, 2022

Preview: We Are One: Prologue – Getting Yourself out of Trouble

Whether it’s time-travelling or time looping, virtual reality (VR) videogames have continually played with this mechanic, providing some truly head-scratching puzzles. The likes of Wanderer head down the more traditional route of travelling back in time to alter pivotal events whilst Transpose offers a far more mind-bending experience with copies of yourself. That ability to buddy up is central to Flat Head Studios’ latest puzzler, We Are One, where success means making sure your past self doesn’t cock up.

Previously known as Help Yourself, We Are One is a time loop shooter where the aim is to shoot a variety of enemies before they kill you, before you run out of ammo; and most importantly of all, before you run out of time.

Starting from a lofty position where you can survey the environment you’ll be able to select from a number of teleport points. Some may offer cover, other’s provide shields to repel projectiles but generally, you need guns and ammo to complete each level. As mentioned, puzzles revolve around the use of combining your various selves together, so one may have access to the gun but no ammo or you may need to protect a past version of yourself to complete a particular task.

Whilst it sounds complicated Flat Head Studios has done a great job of gently building up your familiarity with the mechanics. There’s no locomotion to worry about, so you can focus on your surroundings – which as you can see from the screenshots are quite striking between your colourful green character against the black and white environment. In fact, the mechanics are fairly simple, all you need to remember is that time resets once you leave one spot and head to another.

This sets up some awesome sequences where early on you’re passing the gun up to yourself on a higher platform or catching it mid-air to pop the final enemy. Of course, you need to make sure you don’t muck up by fumbling a throw or getting shot. Should that happen you get the option to completely restart the puzzle or overwrite your last position – (and only your last position).

The prologue has a decent selection of levels to keep you busy, with the full game to feature a story mode, a level editor and more. It may have only been a taster of what’s to come but every level was enjoyable, offered a new twist from the last, and made progression really fun. There’s something quite satisfying about seeing your past selves working together, especially when it’s one of the latter, trickier puzzles.

If you own a Meta Quest 1 or 2 then you may have already played We Are One, as a beta has been available via AppLab and SideQuest since last year. Today, Flat Head Studios has progressed the title even further with the launch of the free prologue. This updates the Meta Quest version with new environments, better lighting, enhanced visual effects, more levels and other tweaks whilst making this early portion of the title available to PC VR owners.

We Are One is slated for an official launch later in 2022 and gmw3 can’t wait to see the final version in action.

February 7, 2022

Ultrawings 2 Hits PC VR in March, Competitive Dogfighting in the Works

Ultrawings 2 soared onto Meta Quest 2 last week with plenty of positive feedback from gamers. A day later developer Bit Planet Games detailed what it has planned post-launch, with features including multiplayer, more aircraft and, of course, the PC VR version.

For Ultrawings 2’s first major patch the team will feature enemy dogfighting whilst in the freeflight for particular aircraft. “We want some emergent — almost — survival type of gameplay where you engage the enemy and see how long you can survive and how many kills you rack up,” a blog post explains.

Moving on from that, competitive dogfighting is on the cards with a closed beta to be held in the next month. No further details on that just yet but it’ll certainly evolve the franchise even further as it’s been entirely single-player so far.

As for additional content, a racing plane and air races will appear later in the year as DLC. Bit Planet Games will be listening to player feedback to help shape and expand Ultrawings 2 in the future.

Finally, there’s the PC version for Steam and the Oculus Rift store. Initially marked for February on Steam, the studio has now earmarked March for the PC launch which will support Rift, Valve Index, HTC Vive, and Windows Mixed Reality. Also confirmed is cross-buy on Oculus Store.

As these new features are rolled out, gmw3 will keep you updated.

February 7, 2022

Buy HTC Vive Pro 2 and Get After the Fall for Free

If you’ve got an awesome PC and want to take your gaming to the next level then you’ll want to explore the world of virtual reality (VR). There are several headsets on the market, of which the HTC Vive Pro 2 is one of the very latest, having launched last year. Today, HTC Vive has announced a brand new promotion gifting you a free copy of After the Fall, one of the hottest co-op shooters to arrive in 2021.

The promotion begins today (7th February) at participating retailers in Europe, the Middle East, and North America – Amazon, Scan and Overclockers in the UK – with Vive.com running the promotion starting this Wednesday, 9th February. If you’re in Australia you’ll find the After the Fall deal has already begun, with the offer also applicable on Vive Pro and Vive Cosmos headsets.

HTC Vive Pro 2 is the company’s high-end, tethered VR headset for consumers and enterprise customers. Available just as the headset – if you’re upgrading – for £719 GBP or £1,299 for the Full Kit, Vive Pro 2 boasts a 5K resolution display delivering 2448 × 2448 pixels per eye. There’s a 120-degree field of view (FoV), a 120Hz refresh rate; a manually adjusted inter-pupillary distance (IPD) from 57-70mm and built-in headphones for clear spatial sound.

With the Vive Pro 2 Full Kit, you also get the latest Vive controllers and Lighthouse Base Stations (2.0). As with any Vive Pro 2 headset purchase, you’ll get a free 2-month membership to Viveport Infinity, HTC’s hardware-agnostic store featuring a lot of the most up to date VR experiences.

Of course, if you’re going for this deal then you’ll be wanting to try After the Fall right away. The latest monster shooter from Vertigo Games, After the Fall is primarily a multiplayer experience where you go on Harvest Runs through a frozen Los Angeles, collecting vital resources to upgrade your weapons along the way.

Whilst the videogame does support single-player by way of bots, the runs allow up to four players to team up and try to survive the nightmarish Snowbreed. After the Fall features 32-player hubs to socialise in, and there’s also a 4v4 competitive multiplayer for something different.

For continued updates on all the latest VR deals, keep reading gmw3.