We’re back again with another livestream planned for 7/11/19 @9:00AM PT on the UploadVR Twitch.
For today we are playing Defector, a brand new spy action thriller from Twisted Pixel and Oculus Studios that is just releasing today. You can read our full review on the site right now for more details. It’s an Oculus Rift exclusive full of action, branching story missions, and some really fun cheats.
We’ve recently switched back over to Twitch after experimenting with livestreams on YouTube for a while. Since we’re affiliated on Twitch we have some really cool perks we can offer such as awesome sub badges to reward subscribers, fun emotes, the ability to donate bits to support the stream and fund improvements, as well as a fun meta game of earning Loyalty Points to redeem for future events. We’re gonna do lots of fun stuff like giveaways too very soon that will all be automated within the stream chat.
This stream we will be using an Oculus Rift S and two Touch controllers to play Defector via Oculus Home. Here is where you can find today’s stream once it starts around 9:00AM PT and will last for about an hour or two:
Since we are migrating from YouTube you can see our most recent past archived streams over in our YouTube playlist, which is where you can watch gameplay highlights from Twitch streams in the future too. There’s lots of good stuff there so make sure and subscribe to us on YouTube as well!
And please let us know which games or discussions you want us to livestream next! We have lots of VR games in the queue that we would love to show off more completely.
With virtual reality (VR) able to blur the line between films and immersive entertainment it’s no wonder that movie studios have been promoting their franchises with VR. Paramount Pictures did this way back in 2015 for the launch of Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. This proved to be popular because last year Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul developer VRWERX announced it was working on a new experience based on the Mission: Impossible franchise. Today, location-based entertainment company Nomadic has confirmed its role in the project.
With VRWERX now collaborating with Nomadic on the VR experience they will co-develop a location-based tactile walkaround multiplayer VR videogame which will make use of Nomadic’s untethered system. As for the standard title VRWERX had been working on for HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR that’s still taking place, with the location-based experience looking to compliment the home consumer version.
“Introducing the Nomadic and VRWERX tactile Mission: Impossible VRwalk-around experience marks the next generation of location-based entertainment,” said Doug Griffin, CEO and founder of Nomadic. “We’re thrilled to work with VRWERX and Paramount to bring this beloved franchise to a new form of entertainment.”
Actual details on the gameplay and what it looks like haven’t been revealed just yet, just that the title will be based on the franchise – rather than one particular movie – and that ‘participants will experience the legendary film series like never before.’ So the likelihood is that you might not be playing Tom Cruise’s character Ethan Hunt, more an agent of the Impossible Mission Force (IMF) sent out on secret missions.
“We’re excited to work with the fantastic Nomadic team to bring our Mission: Impossible VR game to their revolutionary platform”, said Alex Barder, VRWERX Co-Managing Partner. “With Nomadic, we’ll not only enable the audience to be immersed in the Mission: Impossible world, they will also be able to touch and play inside of it, heightening their immersion to levels we’ve never seen before.”
The Mission Impossible VR experience will debut in Orlando in Spring 2019, joining Nomadic’s first project Arizona Sunshine: Contagion Z. For further updates on the project, keep reading VRFocus.
What makes Nomadic’s installations so amazing compared to other location-based experiences I’ve tried is just how interactive they are. Sure, you can carry a gun in Sandbox VR, or push some buttons in The Void, but with Nomadic the entire installation itself is mapped to the VR environment. I was opening drawers, walking across planks, hanging onto chain linked fences, and riding a moving, vibrating helicopter. They truly know how to make the virtual a reality.
To be clear, this is old test footage. The actual experience and sets are far more elaborate now.
Combine that with the game development talent of VRWERX, who really brought the Paranormal Activity IP to life in VR, and that’s a recipe for something special.
To be clear we have not seen this VR experience for ourselves and we have no idea whether or not it lives up to expectations, but the potential for a high-quality escape room meets VR game is so perfect with this property it seems like a match made in VR heaven.
According to a press release from a company representative:
“Visitors can expect to literally step into the virtual shoes of an agent of the Impossible Mission Force (IMF) and feel exactly what it would be like to go on a secret mission… The new Mission Impossible experience is set to open early next year and will allow players to reach out and feel their way around various locations that tie back into what they are seeing through their headsets.”
PUBG Mobile, the version of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds available on iOS and Android, teamed up with the movie Mission: Impossible -- Fallout for a new crossover in-game event.
Editor’s Note: We’ve recently played an updated demo since this preview originally published on April 13th, 2018, and since the core mechanics (and our thoughts) are the same we’ve republished this hands-on once again. More coverage to come.
Becoming a secret spy is the ultimate fantasy for a lot of people. You get to drive fast cars, use special gadgets, and take down international crime syndicates with style and flair. Not to mention the awesome J.B. names like James Bond, Jason Bourne, and Jack Bauer. Defector, the latest VR game from Wilson’s Heart developer Twisted Pixel, taps directly into that fantasy to deliver a fast-paced thrill ride of an action game.
The closest thing to Defector I’ve seen in VR so far would have to be PlayStation VR World’s The London Heist, which is the basis for Blood & Truth, another upcoming PSVR-exclusive from the same London Heist team. What Defector does is take that core concept of being an action hero and layer it with heaps of espionage and branching missions.
The gameplay video above shows a great example. About a third of the way through the mission I’m presented with a decision: should I strap the parachute on myself and jump out of the plane to try and grapple onto the neighboring plane? Or should I shoot my way through the cargo bay and drive a sports car out of the plane like a complete badass? You get to see both outcomes if you watch the entire video.
Twisted Pixel was clear when I talked with them about the game that they want their missions to have real, meaningful branches that actually alter the course of the story and gameplay. While the overarching narrative will stay the same regardless, the path you take to each mission’s conclusions could be dramatically different — as mentioned above. This not only incentivizes multiple playthroughs (especially when considering each mission’s laundry list of bonus objectives) but it gives the player an increased sense of agency which is so crucial in VR games.
On top of that, Defector really did make me feel like a Mission: Impossible-esque spy. During dialogue scenes I can pull up a dossier full of information on my target to analyze their personality and weaknesses. How I handled conversations directly influences things and contributes to how the level might play out.
Even though my demo ended with me driving a car out of a plane (Fast & Furious style) the developers teased that it was one of the more tame levels by comparison. I’m not sure my heart rate can handle something much more intense than that. I could feel my adrenaline pumping and my stomach lurching as I plummeted towards the other plane after leaping from an expensive muscle car. Honestly there’s nothing quite like it in VR right now.
Ultimately it’s going to come down to how well the levels are balanced overall and what type of gameplay variety there will be. If every mission boils down to walk around under cover or hiding, take out some enemies, then executive a bombastic escape plan, it’s gonna get real boring real fast.
But I’ve got my fingers crossed that they have a few tricks up their sleeves. The gunplay felt good and accurate, requiring me to take cover in the environment and aim my shots well. The demo featured full smooth locomotion (a far cry from Wilson’s Heart’s pre-scripted teleportation spots) and once I enabled smooth turning it really opened up the possibilities for gameplay. In a way, it feels like the game Blood & Truth desperately wants to be but can’t.
Defector has the potential to set the tone for the next coming wave of VR-only titles. In an era that’s currently dominated by VR ports of non-VR games (LA Noire, Skyrim, Fallout 4, Resident Evil 7) it will be interesting to see if a built-for-VR first title like this has enough juice to command the discussion for longer than just its launch week. At least it isn’t another wave shooter.
Defector is slated for a 2018 release exclusively for the Oculus Rift with Touch. Let us know what you think of the game so far down in the comments below! And for more on Twisted Pixel’s work in VR, read (or watch) our Wilson’s Heart review right here.
Es scheint so, als würde in nächster Zeit eine Welle an Spielen auf uns zu rollen, die sich auf Film-Lizenzen spezialisiert haben. Neben der Ankündigung, dass im Mitte März die Grusel-Reihe Paranormal Activity ihren Einstand in VR geben wird, soll jetzt auch eine andere bekannte Filmreihe, Mission Impossible, als VR-Spiel erscheinen.
Mission Impossible VR als eigenständiges Spiel
Spiele, die auf Film-Lizenzen beruhen, haben meist keinen guten Ruf. Die Entwickler von VRWERX aus Los Angeles wollen das scheinbar ändern und nehmen sich Tom Cruises Agenten-Film-Reihe Mission Impossible vor. VRWERX zeigt sich ebenfalls für das bereits angekündigte Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul verantwortlich. Bei der neuesten Ankündigung soll es sich wie bei dem Horror-Schocker um einen eigenständigen Teil innerhalb des Mission Impossible Franchises handeln, der von den bisherigen Filmen inspiriert sein soll.
Der erste Film der Reihe erschien 1996 und zog bis jetzt vier Fortsetzungen nach sich. Die Filmstreifen, die sich um die Erlebnisse des Geheimagenten Ethan Hunt, dargestellt durch US-Schauspieler Tom Cruise, drehen, werden dabei meistens von einem anderen Regisseur inszeniert. Darunter finden sich so illustre Namen wie Brian De Palma, John Woo oder J.J. Abrams.
Hacken und von Seilen hängen
Bis jetzt ist noch nicht viel darüber bekannt, was den Spieler erwarten wird. Auch einen offiziellen Titel gibt es noch nicht. VRWERX hat nur verlauten lassen, dass das Gameplay strategisch orientiert sein wird. Als Spieler soll man allerdings von der in den Filmen vorkommenden Organisation IMF (Impossible Mission Force) als Agent rekrutiert werden.
Wie die Entwickler das Spiel umsetzen werden, bleibt spannend. Denn immerhin kommen in den Filmen einige halsbrecherische Aktionen vor, die wir gerne in VR erleben würden. So hängt Tom Cruise im ersten Teil an einem Seil, während er sich in einen Regierungscomputer hackt oder klettert im vierten Teil an der Fassade des höchsten Gebäudes der Welt entlang.
Mission Impossible VR soll zuerst für die HTC Vive und Oculus Rift erscheinen. Die Veröffentlichung für Playstation VR soll kurz darauf erfolgen. Es ist nicht das erste Mal, dass sich die Mission Impossible Reihe in die VR-Welt wagt. Bereits 2015 erschien ein immersives VR-Erlebnis, bei dem man sich an ein Flugzeug hängen konnte. Ein sechster Mission Impossible Film soll übrigens 2018 in die Kinos kommen.
Videogame tie-ins to movies are usually pretty bad, but LA-based VRWERX is hoping the same isn’t true for VR tie-ins; the company has just announced a new VR game based on the Mission: Impossible franchise.
This is the second movie-based VR experience from the studio, the first being the upcoming Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul. As with that experience, the Mission: Impossible game will tell an original story inspired by the action film series that stars Tom Cruise as elite agent Ethan Hunt. An official name has not been revealed.
There’s little else to go on right now, though VRWERX co-managing partner Alex Barder did state the game would cast players as an IMF (Impossible Mission Force) agent. It’s set to feature “strategic gameplay” with the team’s “proprietary movement system” which apparently allows players to run, climb, fight and perform the kind of stunts you’d expect to see from one of the movies.
It’s going to be very interesting to see how the movement system works, as the series’ fast-paced action doesn’t necessary seem suited to a comfortable VR experience. Still, we’d love to experience some of the iconic set pieces, like danging from a wire as we hack a government computer, or climbing one of the tallest buildings in the world with nothing but a pair of gloves, in VR.
It’s probably not a coincidence that this announcement comes around the same time as a sixth Mission: Impossible movie starts to ramp up production. It’s not the first time the series has mixed with VR; a promotional experience was created for 2015’s Rogue Nation, attaching users to the side of a plane.
Mission: Impossible VR is coming to the HTC Vive, PlayStation VR and Oculus Rift. We haven’t heard a release date yet, although Paranormal Activity VR is set to release on Rift and Vive in Early Access form on March 14th, with a PlayStation VR launch coming later down the line. We got hands-on with the game at GDC this year and found a promising horror title that will try to scare players in different ways depending on how they react.
