Halloween is almost upon us and while the events of 2020 may hamper traditional activities such as Trick or Treating, there are plenty of other ways to enjoy the season. You could carve some pumpkins, dress up in some ghoulish face paint or if you’re really really brave play some of the virtual reality (VR) videogames listed below.
AFFECTED: The Manor
This scary title has been doing the rounds for several years now, available on most platforms with recent updates adding a speedrun mode called The Gauntlet whilst The Darkness update upped the intensity by adding just a single candle for illumination. AFFECTED: The Manor isn’t so much a game rather a haunted house experience with multiple routes and endings if you can handle returning.
The long-running franchise came to VR in 2019 and was all the better for it. Full of bite-sized mini-games that will get your heart racing, the scenes from the previous editions have been updated for VR whilst new ones were added. If you like jump scares (or don’t) it doesn’t get much more intense than this.
Whether it’s In Deathfor PC VR and PlayStation VR or In Death: Unchainedfor Oculus Quest, what you get is a frantic fight against hordes of demons, with only a bow for company. Procedural levels mean that each run is never quite the same and death sees you placed back at the start.
A good horror game needs to be super creepy, usually with a nice mix of impending doom and some horrible looking monsters. If that’s what you’re looking for then Drifter Entertainment’sLies Beneath should suffice. With some striking artwork and a comic book style delivery, this should easily keep you on edge.
Set in a hauntingly twisted mansion, Layers of Fear VR is a remake of the pancake original, adding immersive controls for a more intense experience. You play as a painter trying to finish his Magnum Opus yet as you wander his Victorian mansion his mind begins to unravel.
Time for one of the newest horror titles on this list, Propagation VR is the work of French team WanadevStudio. Normally creating videogames for VR arcades this is a wave shooter set in a dilapidated subway station after a virus has broken out. With no locomotion the action comes from all sides, creeping out of the darkness for some frightening moments. And the best bit is Propagation VR is completely free!
The current indie hit on Steam which only arrived into Early Access during September, Phasmophobia is a 4 player online co-op psychological horror. Whether you’re in VR or on PC, you and your team are paranormal investigators searching haunted locations for evidence of ghostly activity.
For those after an awesome zombie survival experience in VR then look no further than Skydance Interactive’s The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners. From the safety of your base where you can craft weapons and useful tools you need to head into the streets of New Orleans, searching houses for resources and finding other survivors to uncover their stories. And of course, removing a few walkers along the way.
Maybe not everyone’s definition of a horror experience, those that love a good atmospheric puzzle title should take a look at The Room VR: A Dark Matter. Expanding upon the popular mobile series you’re sent back to London circa 1908 to the British Institute of Archaeology where an esteemed Egyptologist has disappeared and a spine-tingling world awaits.
Pretty much a staple of most VR horror lists, The Exorcist: Legion VR was released back in 2018 by British studio Wolf and Wood. An episodic story spilt across five chapters, you play the role of a detective investigating grisly murders. Needless to say, these all have a paranormal twist.
This final is a little extra because it’s not quite out yet. Another standard game port into VR, Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition has been redesigned for the headset with lots more interactive features. This probably makes it more terrifying to play as you wander into those haunted woods. It’s set to arrive just in time for Halloween on 29th October 2020.
Today In Death: Unchained developer Superbright announced that its upcoming Quest 2 enhancement update for the popular VR roguelike will render the “whole world at once” in-game dramatically improving draw distance in addition to several other upgrades and optimizations. The update is coming later this month, but there’s no specific date yet.
In Death is a VR roguelike in which you play through a repeating gauntlet of levels in the afterlife battling all manner of unholy enemies across a citadel in the sky. Eventually you’ll progress deeper into later environments that up the difficulty even further. It’s an ever-changing world though, because each time you die your progress unlocks new modifiers and changes to the layout, enemy types, and items found within ensuring that no two runs are ever the same.
Click to enlarge:
In Death: Unchained Quest 2 Enhancements
You can see two great examples of the improvements made in the images above. Notably, the draw distance is dramatically improved. Since you primarily use ranged weapons such as your bow and arrow or crossbow, being able to see further, and more clearly, is crucial. That could significantly improve the playability of an already great game.
According to a press release from the company, Superbright developed the game using a “heavily modified” Unreal Engine and the Quest 2 version will soon have special “upgrades and optomizations” not possible on Quest 1 hardware. Specifically, the press release mentions the ability to “display the game’s whole world at once” explaining the improvements to draw distance, as well as “additional visual elements” filling out the world. There is also mention of “sharper visuals, increased comfort, and smoother gameplay” as well.
You can read or watch our full review of the game as it was at launched on Quest 1 back in July, 2020 right here or down below:
In Death was already one of the best looking games on Quest, so we’re excited to see how it looks once the new update rolls out for Quest 2 later this month. Superbright is also working on new DLC that’s planned to launch in November.
Let us know what you think down in the comments below and check out our list of the best VR roguelikes here for more recommendations, or read our review for Until You Fall on Quest for another roguelike available on Quest specifically.
Superbright announced that the first in-game event for In Death: Unchained has begun and will run until August 4th. The top 10 scores achieved by Oculus Quest players during the event will be immortalized in-game, as permanent recognition of their achievement.
The Superbright team have now revealed that the event is live and available for In Death: Unchained players on Oculus Quest. Any player can compete, with the top 10 players at the end of the event period receiving their name and score immortalized on a stone plate in-game, in Sanctuary.
Any score achieved between now and 11:59pm PST on August 4 is eligible, but the event is an archery contest only — that means you’ll have to use the default bow and arrow and not the crossbow in order for your score to be recognized. Superbright will update the scores every day on social media at 10am PST, and also teased that additional prizes and surprises will be revealed throughout the event.
If you’re interested in competing but haven’t tried the game out yet, you’re best off starting as soon as possible — the more you progress, the easier it will be to achieve higher scores, and the competition will probably be quite fierce.
In Death: Unchained may have just released last week, but developer Superbright has wasted no time in providing updates for the game and detailing plans for new content.
Developer Superbright is already supplementing the game with quick updates and plans for future content. The team has already pushed a 1.0.2 update that arrived in time for the launch last week, which made some significant changes to the graphics and also added smooth locomotion. The screenshot below, provided by Superbright, shows the upgraded crossbow model and visuals. This was one asset we specifically singled out in our comparisons video as downgraded, so it’s great to see it improved.
Additionally, the 1.0.2 update includes many other improved visual changes. As per Superbright:
Once a solid version of the game was in the reviewers’ hands, and the launch was secured, we decided to push for even more quality, and were finally able to land a couple of important visual updates, including reflective shaders for both the environment and the enemies, more advanced fog that now has a beautiful sun scattering effect, and more. But the most exciting update is the huge upgrade to color reproduction which makes the whole game look a lot better across the board. This was a huge undertaking that required deep changes in the Unreal Engine. Needless to say, we’re incredibly excited to and proud to be able to put it in your hands.
Having quickly tried the update out myself, I can definitely say that the fog, colors and reflective surfaces have been upgraded and improved from the review version of the game. While the changes are not revolutionary, it’s great to see Superbright continue to improve the game’s visuals where possible.
They’re not done yet, either! The team announced on Reddit that more graphical improvements are on the way as part of a larger update due out on July 30. Plus the team also announced a new ‘In Death Hall of Fame’ event, further details of which are set to be announced today. On August 2nd, the team will also announce “a new game mode intended to make the game even more exciting and adding to the variety of play the game offers.”
There’s a lot on the horizon for In Death: Unchained players! Have you been enjoying the game? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to check out our review if you haven’t already.
With a few caveats, In Death: Unchained is basically the same experience you can have on SteamVR headsets and PSVR with its forebear In Death (2018), which we gave a respectable [8/10] for the PC VR platform. Two years have passed since it launched out of Early Access on PC, and most of the positives are reflected in the new, Quest-exclusive version of the game. It would be a sin to say it’s the exact same game though. While Unchained inevitably bucks against inside-out tracking capabilities of Quest, you’re still sure to have a fun time experiencing the roguelike bow-shooter’s specific flavor of abject failure.
In Death: Unchained Details:
Developer: Superbright Available On: Oculus Quest Release Date: July 23rd, 2020 Price: $30
Gameplay
If you haven’t played In Death on any other platform, you’re in for a death march that, depending on your personality type, might actually just be a guilty pleasure. It’s a difficult game that rewards perseverance with new, more deadly ammo upgrades, gold for the spending, and all the achievements you can shake a bow at. Like all roguelike games, you’ll die and die again—if only to feel alive.
Image courtesy Superbright
The procedurally generated game is brutally unforgiving. In Deathoffers up three different levels—Purgatory, Paradise Lost, and the new addition to the game, a Hell-like realm called Abyss. After one lap around all three levels you’re then served up the Sisyphean task of entering Purgatory II, where you’ll again duel against increasingly difficult enemies. You continue on to Paradise Lost II, Abyss II, Purgatory III, etc – until you either die in the game, or the Universe experiences heat death—whichever one comes first.
Outside of the game’s intelligent mix of ground and air-type enemies, three devilish bosses will put your resolve to the test. Dying even once will put an end to your run, so make sure you have all of your best ammo on hand. Thankfully there are a few save spots to help lower your time commitment to each play session, however once you’re dead, you’re back to square one, albeit with new unlocked upgrades and enemies to match. It’s a fun, if not excessively punishing game with just enough reason to come back for more each time you progress (aka fail).
Image courtesy Superbright
I’m going to come out and say it: In Death obviously wasn’t conceived for the inside-out-tracked generation of Oculus headsets of today. Archery games rely on the ability of the VR headset to accurately resolve the user’s dominant hand at a naturally close distance to the user’s face, which is something the original 2016 Rift and SteamVR-tracked headsets are capable of doing with relative ease.
Holding your hand either too close to Quest’s camera sensor or just outside their field of view results in your dominant hand either locking in place as the controller is no longer tracked, or wigging out as the headset tries to make sense of the controller’s position relative to your face. Your shot will be inconsistent in either case, requiring you to intentionally alter your shooting style—lest you suffer the slings and arrows of a demon’s maleficent retribution, something you might not notice as you hammer away at a room full of enemy archers. Bow-shooting is one of the most challenging game types for the Quest to accommodate. In spite of this, In Death: Unchained still manages to deliver a well-rounded gaming experience, as it replicates the action on other headsets to admirable effect.
Image courtesy Superbright
What about the crossbow, you say? True, the game’s crossbow does sidestep the tracking volume issue, since you’re basically using a manual gun and not a bow that requires a wide draw. I won’t weigh in for either camp, but In Death’s long-term player base is still conflicted over whether the crossbow elevates or diminishes the overall experience.
To hardcore In Death players, the leaderboard is the only thing that matters, and even after a few hours since the game has gone live, crossbow players have topped the global charts in user points. That said, the crossbow makes a good deal of sense on Quest, as you’re afforded a near perfect 1:1 gaming experience across all platforms. It’s also pretty satisfying to gank a crowd of ghoulies with a rapid fire reload technique.
The PC VR version of the game reigns as graphical champion, and while the Quest port has predictably lowered the fidelity to fit on a mobile chipset, it still offers up a game that feels mostly all there graphically speaking. If I had to nitpick, Unchained presents a much more ‘cloudy’ rendering distance, making it harder to resolve enemies for long-distance shots. Most of your combat will be fairly close quarters, so it’s not really a problem at the forefront.
Image courtesy Superbright
The controls aren’t entirely intuitive; you may have to go through the full set of buttons to just grab a health chalice or new arrow type, but it’s something you eventually develop the muscle memory for.
As we mentioned in our review of the game on PC, the game’s beautiful Gothic architecture of church steeples, monastic courtyards and long bridges make for impressive scenery.
In Death was first designed to include teleportation only, and while it makes sense from a comfort standpoint to play exclusively by using either the teleport arrow or handheld teleport shard, the developers have also added in smooth locomotion and variable snap-turn.
Smooth locomotion is set at a slow, plodding pace, although the game’s expectation of constant dodging and resultant lateral movement may be somewhat uncomfortable for extended periods.
The biggest comfort upgrade, if you can call it that, is definitely the game’s ‘unchained’ nature. It feels awesome to finally go without cables so you can fully explore your ability to dodge incoming arrows and crouch down behind barriers. It’s easy to lose your original tracking area, so make sure your Guardian is on and calibrated correctly.
Still, the game can be played seated mode, although you’ll definitely need a good range of movement for both hands since shooting a reloading is so involved.
From today you can head to hell in In Death: Unchained on Oculus Quest. But should you dive in if you already own, or have access to the PC VR version?
We’re back with our usual graphics comparison to help answer that question. Let’s start off with the obvious advantages that In Death: Unchained brings. As we said in our review, being able to play the game in full without any wires is a major upgrade from a comfort and immersion side. This is an active, demanding game that requires players to take advantage of any help they can get, and tether-free gameplay really does enhance the action.
Unchained also brings an exclusive level as showcased in our preview last week. We’d argue that, if you haven’t already sprung on any version of the game, that might be enough to dig in here.
But if visuals are especially important to you, you should be prepared for a bit of a downgrade here. In Death was one of the better-looking PC VR titles when it launched a few years back and, while new developer Superbright has done it’s best to maintain the core aesthetic, the differences are obvious. Character models are stripped down and environmental textures are much blurrier. You can notice a striking difference in the grainy quality that wooden weapons boast on PC against the more uniform versions on Quest.
Even so, these concessions were no doubt necessary to get the game running on Quest, and the pros far outweigh the cons. Unchained brings more of the In Death you know and love to a great VR headset, and it comes with our full recommendation. The game’s out now for $29.99.
In Death released for PC VR and PSVR in 2018, but today it releases for Oculus Quest with some new content and a revamped title — In Death: Unchained. Does this version live up to the PC VR original? And what’s the new content like? Read on for our full review of In Death: Unchained on Oculus Quest.
Earlier this week, I completed a fairly good In Death run. Happy with my progress, I realized as I respawned that I was absolutely starving. It was lunchtime and I needed to eat, but a voice inside me whispered “just one more run, then lunch.” I gave into the voice, and that’s when I knew I was properly addicted to In Death.
It’s not without its faults, but In Death: Unchained feels like one of the best gaming experiences available on the Oculus Quest. The only big disclaimer is that it’s a roguelike, which is a genre that many enjoy but can also be quite polarizing. That being said, the ‘pick up and play’ feel that comes with the genre does lend itself very well to the ‘take anywhere, play anywhere’ ethos of the Quest. If you’ve got 20 minutes to jump into VR, you might soon find yourself swapping out Beat Saber for a quick dive into Unchained instead.
But just to be clear — this is a very different type of Quest game. It’s not a VR experience you’ll be demoing to your family to show off the device. Instead, it’s one you’ll want to come back to in private whenever you’ve got a bit of spare VR time for yourself.
Unchained and Upgraded
In Death: Unchained is a reworked Oculus Quest version of the original game. It’s set in the afterlife, except heaven is not quite as peachy as you would expect — it’s been overrun by zombies, templars, headless monks and many other creepy enemies. There’s lots of religious imagery and themes, and it works well as an aesthetic backdrop to an otherwise unimportant and minimal story.
Most of the game’s core content remains the same, except paired down visually to run on Quest and with the addition of a whole new world, The Abyss, alongside Sanctuary and Paradise Lost from the original release. While the original game was developed by Solfar Studios, this new Quest version was taken over by a different studio, Superbright. You can read more about this in our recent interview with Wojtek Podgorski, Superbright CEO. It’s safe to say that the Quest version will be the studio’s focus from here on, leaving the PC VR and PSVR versions behind — Quest will receive new content and DLC, but other platforms will not.
The game is a VR shooter that concerns itself solely with archery combat. Unlike other roguelike games, you don’t unlock an array of different weapons or armor as you progress — there’s only two weapons to choose from throughout the entire game. However, as you attempt a run, die and try again, the game will get significantly harder and constantly keep you on your toes, spawning more enemies, tougher foes, and entirely new ones as well.
There’s not a melee weapon insight — you start off with just a bow and arrow, and soon unlock a crossbow as an alternative. While they have their pros and cons, it’s still all essentially arrow-based combat. There’s also arrow variants to unlock and pick up during the game, such as fire, ice or exploding arrows with different effects on certain enemies. You’ve also got a shield you can use to block attacks, plus a small dagger you can throw to quickly dodge enemies (but don’t get excited, it doesn’t deal any damage)
There are three worlds to progress through — Sanctuary, Paradise Lost, and the Quest-exclusive world The Abyss — each with their own aesthetic, theme and procedurally generated layouts. Each run will never quite be the same, as the layout and enemy placement is randomized. As you progress, you’ll unlock achievements that grant you progress percentage, which then unlocks new arrow types and harder enemies.
At first, you’ll be restricted to just the first world, Sanctuary — after you achieve 20% progress through achievements and you clear the entire first world, culminating in a boss fight, you’ll unlock Paradise Lost. Likewise, after clearing that world and reaching 40% progress, you’ll unlock The Abyss, the Quest-exclusive world. It’s an appropriate addition to the content of the original game, providing the same enthralling gameplay with a much welcomed new visual theme. Superbright have done well to match the existing game’s heritage while putting their own stamp on the new content.
Living Up To The Title
In Death is an excruciatingly hard game. You’ll quickly realize that dying is part of the game. To give you an example of the difficultly, we played The Abyss in a special preview build of the game, separate from the review build, that skipped straight to that world. With the full review copy, we weren’t able to progress quick enough to reach The Abyss, even after days of playing. That game isn’t designed in a way that lets you zip through everything. The first few achievements are fairly easy to unlock, and grant you a bit of progress quickly. However, you’ll reach a point where some achievements become more difficult and some simply just take time grinding through runs to unlock.
That being said, this is definitely not a negative — the core gameplay loop is incredibly addictive. Combined with the slow burn of the game’s progression, you always have something to work towards and the game still feels fresh after many runs. Even when you unlock and clear all 3 worlds, you’ll start over again with access to harder version of each one. It’s empowering, exciting and refreshing to see such a lengthy, in-depth and challenging experience on the Quest. The game constantly has you on the edge and never lets you rest.
There’s also smart break points placed in each level, new to the Quest version, where you can quit the game and return later on. These are incredibly helpful, as In Death can be an exhausting game to play, especially in long sessions. There’s never a dull moment, which means you’ll be lifting your arm up for 20 minutes or more at a time, leading to some soreness and fatigue. That being said, playing the game for review definitely doesn’t help in this regard — players at home will likely only play in short bursts, making this much less of a problem.
There’s a robust scoring system that grants you bonuses and more points for things headshots or killing certain types of enemies. With leaderboard integration, you’ll be able to compete for a global high score or just to beat your the score of your Oculus friends.
In Death: Unchained Review –Comfort
As it stands, In Death: Unchained only offers teleport locomotion, though a smooth option is coming soon too. Movement in the game is entirely comfortable with this option, but keep in mind that In Death is a very active experience and you may well feel fatigued after a short play session.
Nocking it out of the Park
In terms of combat, archery mechanics are some of the best we’ve tried in any VR game. This was a sticking point for David in his review of the PC VR original, and the same applies here — the bow is incredibly satisfying to shoot. Long range headshots feel amazing to pull off, as does unleashing a quick flurry of arrows to kill a bunch of enemies at short range. It’s just incredibly good and unmatched by any other VR archery system I’ve tried.
The other weapon, unlocked midway through the game, is the crossbow. Its inclusion is an interesting choice, as the method of fire can make it feel more like a machine gun at times. Not only does it deal significantly more damage across the board, but it’s much easier to shoot several arrows in quick succession at close range. It’s easy to see the intended system here — if you prefer mid to long-range, opt for the traditional bow. Likewise, for short and mid-range action, go for the crossbow instead.
However, in practice, it doesn’t feel quite as balanced as that. The reliability of the crossbow at short range means you can teleport right up in a enemy’s face and kill them with a single headshot before they even have time to react. Of course, this isn’t possible in large groups of enemies, but it still feels like it takes away from some of the strategy and the patience that the bow requires. It’s fantastic to zip around the map one-shotting enemies with the crossbow for a little while, but I found myself returning to the bow when I wanted to play seriously.
The movement system for In Death is integrated beautifully into the game’s core mechanics. At launch, the only movement options is teleport. However, it’s not your traditional button-press teleport system — you can load a special teleport arrow using the A or B buttons, which you can shoot from your bow to be teleported to wherever it lands. It’s a fantastic, intuitive and easy to use system that easily beats out traditional teleport mechanics.
You might be wondering how such a detailed, large and intense game can run on the Quest. Isn’t there always a big payoff in cases like this? Well, the answer is yes, and that payoff is exactly where you would expect it — the graphics.
Set in the afterlife, the original game on PC VR has a heavenly sheen to it. There’s some beautiful lighting effects from the sky, gorgeous warm oil lamps inside and nice reflections off shiny surfaces, like the Templars’ helmets. While the general visual style has been preserved in Unchained, there’s no denying it’s a significant downgrade. Textures look much lower resolution and most of those beautiful, heavenly lighting effects are dialed down or missing completely. It’s the same game, but missing a lot of the visual panache from the original. Given the significant limitations of the Quest, this is all understandable from a development perspective, but it’s still a bit disappointing.
The enemy animations can also be predictable and repetitive, which is a gripe that feels amplified by the other visual downgrades on the system. There’s also some weird bugs and inconsistencies with hitboxes and enemy arrows as well — while they can feel unfair, they’re all easily adjusted to.
In Death: Unchained on Oculus Quest — Final Verdict
It’s clear that some big visual sacrifices had to be made to get In Death running on the Oculus Quest. While the game does lose some of its unique visual identity in the translation, the gameplay more than makes up for it. More often than not, you’ll be having such a fun time grinding through runs that the visual fidelity becomes unimportant. I was too wrapped up in chaining headshots, avoiding enemies and maximizing my high score to care about what the game looked like. You can easily lose yourself in the intense combat.
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. If you’re a fan of roguelikes, you won’t be disappointed. If you’re new to the roguelike genre, we’d encourage you to give In Death a try — it may be a difficult game, but the concepts are simple to understand. You’ll be mastering and improving your bow and arrow combat for hours, constantly readjusting as the game increases in difficulty to match your progress.
In Death: Unchained is a unique, unparalleled game on the Quest system at the moment. It’s more than a game you’ll play once on the weekend and never pick up again. If you’re looking for something to commit and return to over several sessions, then Unchained seems like a great bet for Quest owners.
For more on how we arrived at this score, read our review guidelines. Agree or disagree with our In Death: Unchained review? Let us know in the comments below!
Get ready to go back to hell this week, and this time it’s wireless!
Yup, In Death: Unchained hits Oculus Quest on July 23rd. Unchained sports a brand new, exclusive level for the VR roguelike, which finds itself in the hands of new developer Superbright. We spoke to Wojtek Podgorski, Superbright CEO, about the ambitious port. Below, he speaks to the challenges of getting the game to fit onto Quest, and what the studio’s plans are for the future.
How did Superbright come about to be working on In Death?
We’ve loved the original ever since it came out. We spent a lot of time playing it but it always felt like it would tremendously benefit from wireless play. Once the Quest was announced, it felt like it’s genre and its replayability were a perfect fit for the headset, and that was still from the fan’s perspective of the game.
Our friends at Solfar approached us about helping them to bring In Death to Oculus Quest, and over time that has evolved into much more than that, it really always felt to us like the game deserved to have more than “just” a port, and it felt like Oculus’ interest in bringing it to Quest would help make such changes possible.
Very early we had a clear vision of what we wanted to do, and Solfar were not just supportive but encouraging of these changes, and so was Oculus, who truly was an amazing partner throughout the process. We were still talking it over when Solfar changed their company’s course and set off on their new adventure outside of VR and it became clear if it wasn’t going to be us, and focusing on Quest, then In Death would not get a new life in any form. Everything else happened very naturally, and with Solfar’s blessing and Oculus’ support we set out to make In Death: Unchained happen on Quest.
What exactly has changed about the game for the Quest release?
It would actually be pretty hard to answer “exactly”, because a lot has changed, while retaining what players loved about the game.
The most obvious difference of course, is the whole new world called The Abyss but also unlocks after a certain level of game progression. It’s hard, it’s intricate, it’s in your face, and it was built by Superbright from the ground up for Quest. It includes new enemies, designed to challenge the players in new ways, it has two new Pits – these optional areas with high risk/reward factor for the more adventurous gamers. Oh and The Abyss ends in what we believe is the toughest, most exciting boss fight in the game. It also continues the trend of procedural generation and actually offers even more replayability than the first two original worlds.
We have a completely new tutorial that fills in a few gaps and we’ve made calculated adjustments so the game is more welcoming to new players early on, where previously they could get overwhelmed too quickly without getting to a point where they understood dying is part of the game.
Most importantly the game adapts to the mobile headset format of play by adding the ability to save sessions mid-game. We’ve fixed a ton of small UX annoyances. We’ve also rebuilt the code behind teleporting to make it way more reliable – gone are the moments of frustrations where the teleport fails for no reason. The shard has also been modified to have a clearly different use from regular teleport now. The shield works more reliably. You get notified when you get a new achievement. You get a really awesome weapon skin as a reward for beating each of the game’s bosses for the first time. And then there’s a laundry list of tweaks under the hood so it’s difficult to name them all without making a wall of text. All in all, a lot of effort has been given this game, both originally by Solfar and now by us.
How does the game benefit from the wireless nature of Quest?
So the lack of cables and inside-out tracking are by far the two biggest benefits for a game like this.
For games like Beat Saber, where you’re facing one direction, having no wire is a much, much welcome but bonus comfort. For a game like In Death it’s a necessity – when you’re changing directions drastically and frequently (and can find yourself in surprising locations in your house afterward), when the enemies and their arrows come from every direction and angle, it’s a massive feature.
This type of game needs to track you correctly regardless of the position and direction you’re facing in real life and these parameters shouldn’t affect your gameplay, your fun or your immersion. When you play freely, instead of standing statically to not mess up the cables or the tracking, you become the weapon. And the game can become a bit of a workout 🙂
Also, since one run in the game can potentially last hours, especially if you’re a more careful player, having the option to stop playing and just pick it up the next day to be back in the game in a matter of seconds is a big deal. It’s what mobile devices do, but it wasn’t really an option in the original. So we’ve added the ability to save the game state mid-run while also keeping the game fair (you can’t just save before the boss fight, lose and try again in a game with global leaderboards). But for this we needed to remake a ton of code, and as any developer will know, adding game saves to an existing code base can be incredibly challenging, but now, true to the headset’s mobile nature, you can just start “one more level” knowing you don’t have to finish it in one go.
Was it a challenge to get the full experience working on the headset?
Oh boy, where to begin. It’s been incredibly intense, mainly because we were juggling on multiple fronts all at the same time – the original, adding all our own extra content, optimizing it all, and then finally making a ton of improvements and tweaks.
Ultimately, we have the same number of “stuff” on screen at the same time as on the PC and more than in PSVR, including the enemies, old and new, even more types of arrows, more environment building blocks, everything. I’m incredibly proud of the team and what we’ve been able to do, especially since, like in every ambitious endeavor, you have these moments of doubt.
Because right out the gate the question was just how much of the original we could even retain? Have we bitten more than we can chew? It’s a resource hungry game with its large, outdoor procedural environments often all visible at the same time, it has many dynamic, animated enemies spawning and shooting projectiles at you etc. And then there’s the distinct heavenly look which used a lot of post-processing and layering on the PC that you just can’t do on mobile. And so now we had to get all this working at 72 fps on a mobile device, in UE4.
All this effort required and was made possible because of a major technical push across the whole pipeline. We modified Unreal Engine quite extensively throughout development, including things like how emissive colors work in the engine. We’ve rebuilt or optimized every single asset in the game and built an automated pipeline that basically reconstructs the game from smaller pieces multiple times a day. We’ve re-engineered Solfar’s procedural generation and implemented our own to make The Abyss even more diverse both visually and gameplay-wise.
I’ve told them this in private multiple times, but I feel now is a good moment to publicly thank all the people at Oculus for being fantastic partners on this. Together with them, our team was able to accomplish something that on the technical side, is nothing short of amazing and I’m so proud and thankful to them that we pulled it off together.
Will older versions of the game be seeing any of these updates?
At the moment no. As I’ve explained we were already juggling multiple flaming balls to even bring it Quest altogether, and it was not only simply impossible to also update the other versions at the same time, but also many of the changes we had to or wanted to make for this to be a great Quest title, just didn’t work on the other platforms.
The products diverged early, and not only in obvious ways, and it’s not “In Death by Solfar” but “In Death on Quest by Superbright” now. The ability to focus on Quest was what made it possible in the first place. We love Quest, we think it’s the first true consumer-ready headset, it’s the future and this is where the game plays the way it’s been meant to be played.
What’s next for Superbright?
In the short term, it’s all about the In Death: Unchained release along with our plans to keep supporting it with updates and talking with the community, which is already bearing fruit because we’re making changes based on their feedback, including optional free locomotion.
Most excitingly for the game, we’re planning a DLC for Halloween. It’s something we’re really pumped about. Developing Unchained was about juggling on multiple fronts, but with the DLC we can focus on using all of that knowledge, all the little tricks and ideas we learnt and just focus on creating new content.
Beyond this, we have some ambitious concepts we’ve been prototyping for a while. Getting actual real-life experience with making a Quest release was one of our motivators before going for some really ambitious projects. So with Unchained under our belts and having a great relationship with Oculus we’re really looking forward to making bigger splashes in the future.
Get ready to go back to hell this week, and this time it’s wireless!
Yup, In Death: Unchained hits Oculus Quest on July 23rd. Unchained sports a brand new, exclusive level for the VR roguelike, which finds itself in the hands of new developer Superbright. We spoke to Wojtek Podgorski, Superbright CEO, about the ambitious port. Below, he speaks to the challenges of getting the game to fit onto Quest, and what the studio’s plans are for the future.
How did Superbright come about to be working on In Death?
We’ve loved the original ever since it came out. We spent a lot of time playing it but it always felt like it would tremendously benefit from wireless play. Once the Quest was announced, it felt like it’s genre and its replayability were a perfect fit for the headset, and that was still from the fan’s perspective of the game.
Our friends at Solfar approached us about helping them to bring In Death to Oculus Quest, and over time that has evolved into much more than that, it really always felt to us like the game deserved to have more than “just” a port, and it felt like Oculus’ interest in bringing it to Quest would help make such changes possible.
Very early we had a clear vision of what we wanted to do, and Solfar were not just supportive but encouraging of these changes, and so was Oculus, who truly was an amazing partner throughout the process. We were still talking it over when Solfar changed their company’s course and set off on their new adventure outside of VR and it became clear if it wasn’t going to be us, and focusing on Quest, then In Death would not get a new life in any form. Everything else happened very naturally, and with Solfar’s blessing and Oculus’ support we set out to make In Death: Unchained happen on Quest.
What exactly has changed about the game for the Quest release?
It would actually be pretty hard to answer “exactly”, because a lot has changed, while retaining what players loved about the game.
The most obvious difference of course, is the whole new world called The Abyss but also unlocks after a certain level of game progression. It’s hard, it’s intricate, it’s in your face, and it was built by Superbright from the ground up for Quest. It includes new enemies, designed to challenge the players in new ways, it has two new Pits – these optional areas with high risk/reward factor for the more adventurous gamers. Oh and The Abyss ends in what we believe is the toughest, most exciting boss fight in the game. It also continues the trend of procedural generation and actually offers even more replayability than the first two original worlds.
We have a completely new tutorial that fills in a few gaps and we’ve made calculated adjustments so the game is more welcoming to new players early on, where previously they could get overwhelmed too quickly without getting to a point where they understood dying is part of the game.
Most importantly the game adapts to the mobile headset format of play by adding the ability to save sessions mid-game. We’ve fixed a ton of small UX annoyances. We’ve also rebuilt the code behind teleporting to make it way more reliable – gone are the moments of frustrations where the teleport fails for no reason. The shard has also been modified to have a clearly different use from regular teleport now. The shield works more reliably. You get notified when you get a new achievement. You get a really awesome weapon skin as a reward for beating each of the game’s bosses for the first time. And then there’s a laundry list of tweaks under the hood so it’s difficult to name them all without making a wall of text. All in all, a lot of effort has been given this game, both originally by Solfar and now by us.
How does the game benefit from the wireless nature of Quest?
So the lack of cables and inside-out tracking are by far the two biggest benefits for a game like this.
For games like Beat Saber, where you’re facing one direction, having no wire is a much, much welcome but bonus comfort. For a game like In Death it’s a necessity – when you’re changing directions drastically and frequently (and can find yourself in surprising locations in your house afterward), when the enemies and their arrows come from every direction and angle, it’s a massive feature.
This type of game needs to track you correctly regardless of the position and direction you’re facing in real life and these parameters shouldn’t affect your gameplay, your fun or your immersion. When you play freely, instead of standing statically to not mess up the cables or the tracking, you become the weapon. And the game can become a bit of a workout 🙂
Also, since one run in the game can potentially last hours, especially if you’re a more careful player, having the option to stop playing and just pick it up the next day to be back in the game in a matter of seconds is a big deal. It’s what mobile devices do, but it wasn’t really an option in the original. So we’ve added the ability to save the game state mid-run while also keeping the game fair (you can’t just save before the boss fight, lose and try again in a game with global leaderboards). But for this we needed to remake a ton of code, and as any developer will know, adding game saves to an existing code base can be incredibly challenging, but now, true to the headset’s mobile nature, you can just start “one more level” knowing you don’t have to finish it in one go.
Was it a challenge to get the full experience working on the headset?
Oh boy, where to begin. It’s been incredibly intense, mainly because we were juggling on multiple fronts all at the same time – the original, adding all our own extra content, optimizing it all, and then finally making a ton of improvements and tweaks.
Ultimately, we have the same number of “stuff” on screen at the same time as on the PC and more than in PSVR, including the enemies, old and new, even more types of arrows, more environment building blocks, everything. I’m incredibly proud of the team and what we’ve been able to do, especially since, like in every ambitious endeavor, you have these moments of doubt.
Because right out the gate the question was just how much of the original we could even retain? Have we bitten more than we can chew? It’s a resource hungry game with its large, outdoor procedural environments often all visible at the same time, it has many dynamic, animated enemies spawning and shooting projectiles at you etc. And then there’s the distinct heavenly look which used a lot of post-processing and layering on the PC that you just can’t do on mobile. And so now we had to get all this working at 72 fps on a mobile device, in UE4.
All this effort required and was made possible because of a major technical push across the whole pipeline. We modified Unreal Engine quite extensively throughout development, including things like how emissive colors work in the engine. We’ve rebuilt or optimized every single asset in the game and built an automated pipeline that basically reconstructs the game from smaller pieces multiple times a day. We’ve re-engineered Solfar’s procedural generation and implemented our own to make The Abyss even more diverse both visually and gameplay-wise.
I’ve told them this in private multiple times, but I feel now is a good moment to publicly thank all the people at Oculus for being fantastic partners on this. Together with them, our team was able to accomplish something that on the technical side, is nothing short of amazing and I’m so proud and thankful to them that we pulled it off together.
Will older versions of the game be seeing any of these updates?
At the moment no. As I’ve explained we were already juggling multiple flaming balls to even bring it Quest altogether, and it was not only simply impossible to also update the other versions at the same time, but also many of the changes we had to or wanted to make for this to be a great Quest title, just didn’t work on the other platforms.
The products diverged early, and not only in obvious ways, and it’s not “In Death by Solfar” but “In Death on Quest by Superbright” now. The ability to focus on Quest was what made it possible in the first place. We love Quest, we think it’s the first true consumer-ready headset, it’s the future and this is where the game plays the way it’s been meant to be played.
What’s next for Superbright?
In the short term, it’s all about the In Death: Unchained release along with our plans to keep supporting it with updates and talking with the community, which is already bearing fruit because we’re making changes based on their feedback, including optional free locomotion.
Most excitingly for the game, we’re planning a DLC for Halloween. It’s something we’re really pumped about. Developing Unchained was about juggling on multiple fronts, but with the DLC we can focus on using all of that knowledge, all the little tricks and ideas we learnt and just focus on creating new content.
Beyond this, we have some ambitious concepts we’ve been prototyping for a while. Getting actual real-life experience with making a Quest release was one of our motivators before going for some really ambitious projects. So with Unchained under our belts and having a great relationship with Oculus we’re really looking forward to making bigger splashes in the future.
In Death: Unchained makes its way onto Oculus Quest this week with all-new content, but there’s yet more to come.
Developer Superbright is currently planning to add new DLC to the game in time for Halloween. “It’s something we’re really pumped about,” CEO Wojtek Podgorski told us in a Q&A we’ll publish tomorrow. “Developing Unchained was about juggling on multiple fronts, but with the DLC we can focus on using all of that knowledge, all the little tricks and ideas we learnt and just focus on creating new content.”
No word on exactly what the DLC will include right now, but Halloween seems an appropriate time to release new content for a game about descending the depths of hell to slay demons, no?
On that front, Superbright currently isn’t planning to bring Unchained’s new content — including a new level called The Abyss — to the original In Death on PC VR and PSVR headsets.
“The products diverged early, and not only in obvious ways, and it’s not “In Death by Solfar” but “In Death on Quest by Superbright” now,” Wojtek explained. “The ability to focus on Quest was what made it possible in the first place. We love Quest, we think it’s the first true consumer-ready headset, it’s the future and this is where the game plays the way it’s been meant to be played.”
In Death: Unchained releases on July 23rd on Oculus Quest. We’ll have a full review of the game ready for launch. For now, you can check out some of the big changes to the game we’ve spotted in a preview build.
