Demonic Trials, a new event coming to In Death: Unchained, will mix up the core gameplay over the course of three weeks, starting from May 24.
The event will introduce three ‘Demonic Sigils’, one for each week, which will “completely change all of the known game rules and set brand new goals for the players.” Interestingly, the event will also let players choose from all of the chapters and environments featured in the main game, allowing those who have never progressed to later stages of the main campaign to experience some of the later environments.
Unlike other In Death events, Demonic Trials is not a tournament and players won’t compete against each other — instead, everyone will be working together to earn ‘Legend Points’ and rewards. You won’t be rewarded on your score, but on the collective effort from all players across runs in the event.
Developers Superbright do warn that this event will be more demanding than the main game, with “more challenging rules and requirements for ending the run and killing enemies.”
This event is the latest in a string of similar limited-time challenges and post-launch updates that Superbright have brought to In Death: Unchained since release. We were big fans of the game in our review written at the time of its Quest release in mid-2020, but since then there’s been loads of new content and visual improvements to enhance the experience for new and existing players.
There’s something alluring about the entire creepy feel of In Death: Unchained.
When that haunting chorus of voices starts up over the Superbright logo, the tone is set perfectly and you know you’re in for a good time.
This isn’t a new revelation for me – In Death is a game I thoroughly enjoyed back when it released for Quest, as you can read in my review – but it is a reaffirmed one. I largely put the the game down after launch, but returned this week to check out what’s been added since then, including the Siege of Heaven mode added in late 2020 and updated this week. I came away very impressed.
Siege of Heaven is a wave-based defense mode that is designed for simpler, shorter chunks of gameplay. You still get that addictive archery mechanic, but in a smaller package that does away with the macro roguelike structure from the main campaign. It’s the best parts of In Death’s gameplay, in a different format.
If you’ve played any other wave shooter, the concept is simple to grasp – you stand in one position, largely stationary, shooting down enemies before they can reach a gate or area. As waves progress, enemies get faster and numerous — let too many through, and it’s game over.
There’s now quite a number of maps available for Siege of Heaven, all based on worlds and environments from the original campaign mode. The most recent update, released this week, adds two new levels to the mode, based on the campaign world Desolation.
One of these levels is the first 360 degree level for the mode, requiring you to defend from all angles and upping the pressure, as seen in the video embedded above. While the gate-based levels are equally as fun, the pressure of the 360 degree layout feels particularly potent. The use of spatial audio on this map is also fantastic, really allowing you to pinpoint enemies locations before you can see them.
But no matter which map you play, Siege of Heaven feels like an absolutely perfect addition to Unchained’s offering on Quest. Not only does it provide an option for a quicker style of game, but it also retains all the best mechanics, just in a more accessible format. There’s still a strong sense of place – all of the environments look absolutely stunning, and the entire mood created by the set dressing and the enemies is unmatched. Everything still feels very tangible – the bow and arrow is as satisfying to use as ever, as is the giant church bell you shoot to start each wave. Enemies look just as creepy, but their attributes take on new meanings in this mode – faster enemies are more of a threat, flying enemies can be troublesome to manage, and summoners will duplicate enemies to cause extra mayhem.
Your score on each run can also be bolstered by different types of skill shots, such as long distance shots or shots you land through gaps in the environment. Every enemy can also be taken down with one single, well-placed headshot, which adds fantastic depth and challenge to every moment. If you’re good enough, you can take down enemies in quick succession and build up a combo while you’re at it — landing four or five quick shots in a row has never felt better.
This recent update also adds in achievements for Siege of Heaven, giving players even more reason to replay runs and improve. The feeling of working toward multiple goals, be it achievements or high scores, really enriches the mode and makes it feel much more than something that was just tacked on post-launch.
Siege of Heaven is now an essential component of the In Death offering on Quest. For those that want to full roguelike experience, there’s still the campaign, but otherwise, the Siege of Heaven content takes most of what makes the campaign so fun and spins it across an equally delightful and accessible new format.
A new update coming to In Death: Unchained will begin the game’s fifth season and includes a bunch of new content to the game’s Siege of Heaven game mode.
This is very different to In Death’s main game mode, where you explore levels and fight off enemies in a roguelike format, dying and repeating over and over again to get further than last time.
Plus, players will now be able to select their starting special arrow for all Siege of Heaven runs, plus work to unlock 15 new achievements added to the mode.
In Death first released for PC VR but was ported and updated for Quest in 2020, released as In Death: Unchained. Since then, the Quest release has received several exclusive updates, surpassing the PC VR version and offering much more new content. We enjoyed the game at the time of release and gave it a ‘Great’ in our review, but it’s fair to say that since then, a great deal more has been added to Unchained.
The Siege of Heaven: Desolation update is available from today, launching alongside the game’s fifth season on Quest.
Oculus Quest roguelite, In Death: Unchained, is getting an all-new level as part of free DLC next month.
The game’s Desolation update arrives on November 3 and will introduce a mysterious new area to conquer, complete with four new enemy types and three new arrow types. This will also mark the start of the game’s fourth season.
Developer Superbright is going further still with a host of other additions. Author Peter V. Brett has penned a backstory for the game’s lore that will also be introduced in this update, for example. Previously we just knew we were fighting angels and demons in both heavenly and demonic landscapes.
Also introduced in this update is a new real-timing lighting system and volumetric fog, with realistic reflections also aiming to push the visuals on the Quest platform.
This is just the latest in a series of expansive free updates for the game, which was ported from PC VR and PSVR to Quest in 2020. We gave the game a ‘Great’ rating at launch, saying: “It’s refreshing to see a game arrive on Quest that offers such depth and difficulty. Unlike many other one-and-done games or short campaigns available on the system, Unchained offers a style of game that will players occupied for multiple sessions, potentially months, to come.”
Are you going to be checking out In Death: Unchained’s latest update? Let us know in the comment below.
In Death: Unchained hat auf der Oculus Quest einen großes Update erhalten, welches einige neue Inhalte und ein Season-Format einführt.
In Death: Unchained erhält großes Update
Damit den Spielenden in In Death für die Oculus Quest nicht langweilig wird, führen die Entwickler und Entwicklerinnen nun unterschiedliche Seasons ein. Diese werden eine eigene Rangliste enthalten, euch Legend Points verdienen lassen und euch Zugriff auf spezielle Skins ermöglichen.
“Wir hoffen, dass das saisonale Format dazu beiträgt, das Spiel frisch zu halten. Es erlaubt uns, Balance-Anpassungen vorzunehmen, während das Spiel fair bleibt. Die ursprünglichen Legenden des Spiels werden weiterhin belohnt, während neue Spieler/-innen ihre Chance auf Ruhm bekommen”, sagt Superbrights CEO, Wojtek Podgorski.
Außerdem wird mit dem neuen Update der “Siege of Heaven“-Modus mit neuen Maps versorgt und generell soll die Grafik in diesem Modus deutlich besser aussehen, da man diese komplette überarbeitet habe.
Die zweite Season hat offiziell bereits begonnen und wenn ihr das Spiel für die Oculus Quest oder Quest 2 besitzt, dann sollte der Download automatisch beim nächsten Start durchgeführt werden.
In Death: Unchained has received its biggest update yet, introducing a new season to the main game and new content to the Siege of Heaven mode.
Each season of In Death will see players accumulate “Legend Points”, which are converted from scores of their runs, as well as player levels.
There will be unlockable skins for weapons and shields, pictured below, and a leaderboard that is reset at the beginning of each season. Player progress, saves and achievements will be retained across seasons, but the new format will allow the team to make balance adjustments and provide an ongoing incentive for new players.
14 achievements have been added to the main game as well, along with some adjustments to the difficulty of some of the more challenging parts of the main game.
The Siege of Heaven mode was added last December and is a shorter, wave-based mode that Superbright describes as more “beginner-friendly.” With the new Season 2 update, Siege of Heaven will receive new ‘Chapter II’ maps, as pictured below, featuring new mechanics that “bring a twist to the already super-fun alternative game mode.”
Superbright also says that the graphics of the entire mode have been overhauled, with improvements to lighting, geometry and new volumetric fog effects. Skill shots have also been adjusted in Siege of Heaven to “reward more diverse play and new strategies.”
In Death: Unchained launched midway through last year for Oculus Quest. It’s a revamped version of the original In Death, which released for PC VR and PSVR in 2018, with new content and fairly regular updates. The original game was developed by Solfar Studios, but the Quest version was taken over by Superbright and will be the focus moving forward, leaving the PC VR and PSVR versions behind.
Season 2 of In Death: Unchained is available now for Oculus Quest.
It’s been quite the year for the Oculus Quest platform, both positive and controversial. The standalone headset has gone from strength to strength with a growing catalogue of videogames and let’s not forget about the arrival of Oculus Quest 2. Whether you’re new to VR or not, here are VRFocus’ recommendations from 2020.
Below you’ll find 10 of the best videogames for Oculus Quest and this list is by no means exhaustive. It really was difficult narrowing down the selection and there are many more great titles on the store.
The Best Oculus Quest Games of 2020
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners
For those who love a good zombie apocalypse Skydance Interactive’s The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is worth a look. Having to survive the mean streets of New Orleans, you’ll deal with dangerous humans and walkers alike. Scavenge houses for useful parts to keep you healthy or to craft more weapons, whilst uncovering the underlying storyline.
Go in silent with blades or a bow to avoid attracting attention or make some noise with pistols, rifles and more – just be ready for the horde. Plus in January 2021 a free horde mode ‘The Trial’ will provide wave-based action.
Cubism
Simple, elegant puzzle gaming, Cubismis the work of solo developer Thomas Van Bouwel. Featuring 60 puzzles, twist and turn them to try and fit the various colourful pieces inside. Easy to pick up yet difficult to put down Cubism is an indie gem to enjoy.
Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition
The horror genre has been well represented in VR and Bloober Team’s Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition is a great example why you should avoid the woods at night. Taking the standard 2019 title and giving it a VR twist, you have to explore the creepy woodland looking for a missing lad.
Along the way you have to deal with some strange events as well as your characters own PTSD and panic attacks. Lucky, by your side is your faithful pooch Bullet who can find hidden items as well as alert you to danger. Full of suspense and puzzles to solve, this isn’t for the faint of heart.
Until You Fall
When you just want a pure arcade hack-n-slash Schell Games’ Until You Fallis an energetic roguelite which ticks all the right boxes. Set in the neon fantasy world of Rokar you play a Rune Knight tasked with ridding the land of evil.
Gameplay revolves around runs through the world which changes each time due to procedurally generated levels. Combat is melee based, where you buy and upgrade various swords and knives adapt and conquer each run. Die and you return to the beginning a try again. Hectic and brutal, this is one videogame to get your heart pumping.
Population: One
Mixing the massive battle royale genre with VR’s interactive gameplay is Population: One. Taking place across one giant map which supports 18 players, across six squads with three players each, drop pods launch you onto the battlefield to see who can survive the longest.
Weapons and useful items are littered throughout the world as well as resources to build quick platforms for defensive and offensive capabilities. You can also climb anything you want and then glide across the map to gain an advantage. A relentless first-person shooter (FPS), one to keep you entertained for hours.
Phantom: Covert Ops
For a far more subtle shooter where you can be as stealthy or gung-ho as you like then nDreams’ Phantom: Covert Ops is a good choice. Playing as an elite operative infiltrating an enemy base, the unique element here is that you’re entirely confined to a kayak throughout.
So you can silently paddle through waterways, hide in reeds, and then snipe enemies to complete the task. Or with some C4 and the assault rifle tear the place up, your call. Completing mission-specific objectives or finding hidden secrets will unlock levels in the Challenge Mode, so there’s more to keep you entertained after the campaign is over.
Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted
The only other horror title on this list, Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted goes for the classic jump scare, using it to great effect. A compilation of all the previous Five Nights at Freddy’s plus some made for VR content, all the levels are bite-sized mini-games where you have to survive the night.
With killer animatronics hunting you down encounters can include playing a security guard keeping an eye on monitors or crawling into claustrophobic ventilation systems to repair them. You know they’re coming, but it doesn’t make it any less scary!
Cook-Out: A Sandwich Tale
Pure multiplayer madness for up to four people, Cook-Out: A Sandwich Tale is all about preparing delicious lunches for your customers. They all have their own preferences with some more exacting than others, so it’s up to you and your team to deliver, no one person has all the ingredients. Therefore good communication and some speedy chopping skills are in order.
You have access to a fridge full of ingredients as well as a grills to toast (or burn) ingredients. Plus you’ll need to clear and clean plates as no customer wants their sandwich on a dirty plate. There’s also a single-player mode where you can team up with a kitchen robot assistant to tackle the various campaign levels. Good clean/messy fun.
In Death: Unchained
In a similar roguelite vein to Until They Fall, In Death: Unchained has procedural levels and single run-throughs where death puts you right back at the start, a little wiser and a little stronger. Here though, all you have is a bow – a crossbow can be unlocked – and an assortment of magical arrows to take down Templar Knights, demons, evil monks and other unearthly creatures.
One for those who love a challenge, there’s plenty to keep you entertained as the developer has just released a new gameplay mode called ‘Siege of Heaven’. Plus, like many on this list if you have an Oculus Quest 2 there are visual enhancements which make the world more impressive.
The Room VR: A Dark Matter
Fireproof Games took its hugely popular mobile series The Room and built The Room VR: A Dark Matter specifically for VR gaming. With an original storyline set in London, circa 1908, you play a detective called to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a renown Egyptologist from the British Institute of Archaeology.
Que elaborate puzzles, dark magic and fantastical gadgets to aid the investigation. These are all fully interactive to help engross you in each element plus the gameplay uses specific teleportation points so it should be a very comfortable experience for all players.
Top-rated VR roguelike In Death: Unchained for Oculus Quest is getting a free DLC expansion next month titled Siege of Heaven, introducing a new wave-based defense mode.
In Death: Unchained – Siege of Heaven DLC
In Death: Unchained is an excellent VR roguelike that strikes a near-perfect balance between offering a steady stream of content that gets more difficult the further you go, while also shuffling its layout and enemies around to keep you on your toes. Just as your own skill improves, the game tends to respond by upping the difficult ever-so-slightly at a steady pace.
This new mode aims to offer something completely different. Whereas the typical game sees you exploring a vast labyrinth in the clouds, this new mode will task you with fending off waves of enemies from a more stationary perspective.
“It’s a fully-featured game-within-a-game, with shorter more “snackable” session times, where players can focus on having fun shooting for 15 minutes, from a safe stationary position, enjoy the game’s beautiful visuals and arguably VR’s best archery mechanics,” says Superbright’s CEO Wojtek Podgórski in a prepared statement.
The new mode promises to keep the expected brand of difficulty intact and even includes new leaderboards, new challenges, and new achievements so even the most skilled veteran players have something to look forward to.
But it’s also a more approachable and accessible way of playing the game if you don’t want to fully dive into a tough-as-nails unforgiving roguelike.
“Our goal was to enhance the game in a way that will engage and challenge the advanced players, and boy it’s that and more – but we also wanted to make it approachable for everyone else,” says Podgórski in the same prepared statement. “We’ve heard our players say they’d love to be able to share the fun with friends and family, but maybe the game was too scary or too demanding. And we listened – we’ve all loved the archery from The Lab, this is how most of us got started in VR. With this DLC we hope to bring this experience to VR’s best platform – Oculus Quest, so anyone should be able to pick up the game and enjoy the best their Quest has to offer, at their own pace.”
With the launch of Oculus Quest 2 last month a fair few developers who’ve released titles for the original headset either rolled out or confirmed incoming updates to make use of the extra processing power. Superbright was one of them, initially teasing improved draw distances for In Death: Unchained. Now further details have been released ahead of that update.
The most notable difference is with that environmental distance which has a big effect on the overall feel and atmosphere of the experience. In between firing arrows into templars’ skulls, you’ll notice the Oculus Quest 2 version of In Death: Unchainedis now closer to the original PC edition, offering a far more grandiose world.
Players will also notice a new volumetric, multi-layered custom fog which permeates the entire landscape, bringing the videogame closer to the heavenly look the team desired. All the levels also have additional elements to fill them out a little more, such as floating islands, whilst a scrolling cloud shadow effect adds further visual variety.
There are plenty of subtle additions which you may not notice but all help. Superbright has been able to turn off Fixed Foveated Rendering to crisp up the visuals, a new snow shader makes the fluffy white stuff more realistic, and the texture LOD’s/mipmaps are tuned differently for sharper graphics.
We’d like to establish Unchained as a visual benchmark, so that means we’re going to keep working on the visuals and pushing that limit,” said Wojtek Podgorski, Superbright CEO in a statement. “In the end, we’d like this to be a game that everyone needs to have just to see how cool things can look in VR. Our upcoming free DLC is going to support this idea too by giving even casual players something fun to do, enjoying the views and shooting without.”
No further details have been released regarding the DLC but the studio has previously said it’ll arrive this month. As for these Oculus Quest 2 enhancements, players should see these arrive tomorrow, Tuesday 3rd November. For further updates on the rogue-lite shooter, keep reading VRFocus.
Developer Superbright continues to refine its already-excellent VR rougelike, In Death: Unchained. This month, it’s publishing a new update with improvements specific to the Quest 2.
Like many Quest 2 updates, the list of improvements to the latest build are numerous and range in significance. Plus it can be harder to spot side-by-side differences in procedurally generated titles like this. But we do have the expected immediate benefits, like the loss of fixed foveated rendering and updated texture filtering that uses the headset’s improved horsepower to provide slightly sharper scenery.
In Death: Unchained Quest 2 vs Quest 1 Graphics Comparison
But the big change Superbright is keen to point out is the increased draw distance in the game as it now loads the entire world at once. The effect is still somewhat subtle, as In Death already delivered some impressive vistas on Quest, but you’ll be able to see more of the game’s architecture from a distance here, with closer assets appearing in better detail than they did before.
Quest 1 vs Quest 2 volumetric multi-layered fog in action
Part of this is owed to the Quest 2’s new fog effect, which Superbright says is a volumetric, multi-layered approach. It’s perhaps the most noticeable effect in the Quest 2 build, with the original version’s more persistent wall of mist providing a more static, simpler form of lighting, whereas Quest 2’s rolling fog gives repeated playthroughs a touch more variety. Overall this update adds some appreciated touches, then, making it the best way to play the game overall.
You should see the update rolling out to everyone soon. Will you be checking out In Death: Unchained’s graphics update? Let us know in the comments below!
