UK-based VR developer nDreams today announced its next project, a PSVR exclusive shooter named Fracked.
The game was announced over on the PlayStation Blog today. It’s coming to PS4 but will, of course, be playable on PS5 via backwards compatibility with some enhancements exclusive to the console. The game is a first-person shooter (FPS) designed around momentum. Players will engage in fast-paced shootouts on foot with free running options, but also take part in skiing action sequences and clamber up walls with climbing mechanics. Check out the first trailer below.
In the game, you fight off an army known as the Fracked that house themselves inside a mountainous fracking facility. PS Move controllers are required to play. nDreams is promising versatile level design that takes full advantage of VR, and physical combat that requires you to duck and weave in the face of danger.
“No on-rails gameplay and cinematic cutscenes here, everything is 1:1 and driven by the player’s controls, movements, and actions,” Creative Director Steve Watt said of the game. “Combat is unconstrained too, combining free movement for outflanking foes with 1:1 grabbable cover and tactile weapon reloading. What we’ve shown so far is just scratching the surface – we can’t wait to show the breadth and variety of the game in the coming months.”
nDreams teased the game earlier this week on its Twitter account, and we speculated it could be a sequel to last year’s Phantom: Covert Ops. That guess was way off.
nDreams has a long history with VR, releasing titles and demos for tech as old as the original Oculus Rift DK1 and Innovator Edition of the Gear VR. But the team’s best known for its 2020 Oculus exclusive, Phantom: Covert Ops, a stealth game in which players infiltrate a Russian naval facility via kyack. We thought the game represented a big step up for the studio, awarding it 4/5 in our review. It’s since become one of 60 titles to generated more than $1 million in revenue on Quest alone.
Will you be checking out Fracked. Let us know in the comments below!
Phantom: Covert Ops was one of our favorite games from last year. We gave it a 4/5 score in our review and dubbed it nDreams’ best VR game to date. It’s quite a unique game and definitely sounds less exciting on paper than it is in practice. In Phantom, you play as a stealthy elite operative that must infiltrate enemy bases and assassinate bad guys from a distance — all while navigating rivers and canals in a kayak. Yes, the whole game takes place with you seated in a kayak and it’s actually a genius workaround of the VR locomotion vs immersion conundrum.
The first tweet is a stylized ‘X’ that, to me, looks like two oars crossing to make the symbol. That’s the heavy implication in my mind that this could be a Phantom: Covert Ops sequel. After that was a tweet with a pickaxe, which could allude to being able to climb mountains rather than just explore in a kayak. Then there’s of course a gun in the next tweet. Finally there’s the tweet embedded at the top of this article which includes all three icons.
Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long to find out whatever these tweets are teasing. There is of course also the chance this could be related to their new publisher fund, rather than a creation of their own making.
nDreams has been developing VR games for as long as consumer-grade VR headsets have existed, so we’ve got our fingers crossed that whatever it is will build upon what they learned from working on Phantom: Covert Ops.
If you’re developing a VR game, you may be able to strike a deal with one of the most senior VR studios out there. nDreams, a developer and publisher of VR games, announced the creation of a $2 million fund which it will use to co-fund and publish externally developed VR titles.
The studio says it’s looking for VR games that “embrace the immersive, high-agency potential of the medium,” which essentially means only true ‘VR natives’ need apply.
nDreams says that in addition to providing development funds, the studio is also capable of offering publishing support, market knowledge, data insights, first-party relationships, and game marketing & sales experience. Additionally, nDreams says it can provide QA, localization, production, and technical/design consultation.
nDreams has created many titles across all VR headset hardware since it started developing VR games back in 2013, including Phantom: Covert Ops, Shooty Fruity, The Assembly, and VR meditation app Perfect. As one of the most senior VR studios out there, nDream’s publishing team also boasts 20 years of collective experience in VR, having additionally worked for AAA publishers including Ubisoft, Capcom, SEGA and WB Games.
“We know how difficult it can be to get a VR game to market successfully” said David Corless, VP of Publishing. “We want to share our knowledge with other studios to help them make the best game they can and to give those titles every chance of becoming a huge success, whether that be through development funding or solely publishing support.”
Developers interested in partnering with nDreams can get in touch via publishing@ndreams.com for more information.
nDreams, the British virtual reality (VR) specialist behind Phantom: Covert Opsand Shooty Fruity has announced a new £2 million fund. This will be used to co-fund and publish VR content from third-party developers which are now being actively sought.
The initiative will be led by nDreams’ David Corless, VP of Publishing and Steve Tagger, Business Development Director. They’ll be looking for projects that embrace VR’s potential, providing immersive gameplay that can’t be found on any other medium.
Studios selected for funding won’t just receive development cash, they’ll also gain full publishing support as well as nDreams’ VR expertise. This ranges from market knowledge, data insights, sales experience and game marketing to QA, localisation, technical/design consultation and more.
“We know how difficult it can be to get a VR game to market successfully,” said Corless in a statement. “We want to share our knowledge with other studios to help them make the best game they can and to give those titles every chance of becoming a huge success, whether that be through development funding or solely publishing support.”
The team has a strong track record both in VR and in the general videogame industry. Gaining experience working for AAA publishers such as Ubisoft, Capcom, SEGA and WB Games, nDreams’ publishing team also boasts over 20 years of combined knowledge in VR.
nDreams’ most recent title Phantom: Covert Ops was a big success when it launched last summer for Oculus Quest and Rift. It managed to achieve $1 million in gross revenue in the first month and when Facebook announced all those titles making it past the million-dollar marker nDreams tweeted that Oculus Quest revenue for Phantom: Covert Ops had exceeded $1 million on its own.
Other titles in its roster include 2016’s The Assemblyfor PC VR and PlayStation VR, Danger Goat for the now defunct Google Daydream, and Bloody Zombiesdeveloped by Paw Print Games.
As the VR studio unveils new projects its either working on or helping publish, VRFocus will let you know.
Every weekend VRFocus gathers together vacancies from across the virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) industry, in locations around the globe to help make finding that ideal job easier. Below is a selection of roles that are currently accepting applications across a number of disciplines, all within departments and companies that focus on immersive entertainment.
Don’t forget, if there wasn’t anything that took your fancy this week there’s always last week’s listings on The VR Job Hubto check as well.
If you are an employer looking for someone to fill an immersive technology related role – regardless of the industry – don’t forget you can send us the lowdown on the position and we’ll be sure to feature it in that following week’s feature. Details should be sent to Peter Graham (pgraham@vrfocus.com).
We’ll see you next week on VRFocus at the usual time of 3PM (UK) for another selection of jobs from around the world.
It’s the time of the season again for reflection, when we look back at this year’s greatest achievements in VR gaming and remind ourselves just how far we’ve come in the four years since consumers first delved head-first into truly immersive worlds.
Due to the ongoing pandemic, this year was plunged into an global economic cooldown which saw many industries grind to a halt. Comparatively unaffected though was the games industry, which could thankfully continue as developers took to finishing their projects at home from a safe distance.
In our fourth annual Game of the Year Awards, we again put ourselves to the task of celebrating this year’s greats in VR gaming. Moreover, we salute all developers for offering up their hard work and steadfast curiosity in the face of the same personal adversity we’ve all no doubt shared. We’re grateful for having safe places where we can connect and explore, and for lighting a world which at times may have seemed grim and unrelenting.
For many, this steady stream of VR games has been a lifeline to sanity, as physically stepping outside of our homes could mean either putting ourselves or our loved ones in danger’s path. We thank you for willing your virtual realties into existence for all of us to enjoy.
If you would have told anyone back in 2016—the year the first consumer PC VR headsets hit the market—that Valve (of all companies) would one day build a AAA Half-Life game (of all franchises) specifically for VR, we’d say you were crazy. Yet here we are, in 2020, giving Half-Life: Alyx our PC VR Game of the Year Award.
But before the release of Alyx earlier this year, there was still plenty of skepticism to go around. It was Valve’s first full-fledged VR game and the first Half-Life game in more than a decade. Could Valve deliver anything to possibly meet all that hype?
Well, the answer is now resoundingly clear. It turns out that Valve’s old-school, methodical (if sometimes messy) approach to game design works just as well for VR games as it does for non-VR games.
From the very opening scene—where players are, for the first time, truly standing before the monolithic Citadel in the middle of City 17—Alyx is immersive through and through thanks to heaps of detail, an engaging and interactive world, and one of the most memorable sequences seen in any VR game to date… the dreaded ‘Jeff’.
With excellent pacing that weaves together combat, exploration, and puzzles, Alyx takes players on a seamless journey through the well-realized streets, cellars, and rooftops of City 17, all the way to a mysterious conclusion that has serious consequences for the future of the franchise.
Against all odds, one of the most legendary game developers brought one of the most legendary franchises to VR in stunning fashion. Given that the studio stood to make tens of millions (if not hundreds of millions) more in revenue by making a non-VR game, it’s hard to call Alyx anything but a love letter to the VR medium.
Half-Life: Alyx stands as VR’s new benchmark in graphics, immersion, and scope, and I’m sure that Valve itself is as eager as the rest of us to see who will be next to raise the bar.
While it surely brings ample opportunity, there’s nearly an equal amount of risk in using the likeness of an iconic character like Iron Man. While the character has plenty of backstory to draw from, delivering the experience of actually stepping into the character’s shoes—the experience of actually being Iron Man rather than just watching him—is no trivial task, especially in the still young and often ill-defined medium of VR.
Before Iron Man VR arrived to the rescue, there really were no standout superhero games in VR. There were attempts, certainly, but none that truly planted a flag and said “this is how it’s done.” Developer Camouflaj, however, turned out to be up to the task.
And they did it in a most ambitious way. While choosing to focus their game on a superhero that didn’t fly would have surely avoid plenty of headaches, picking one that did fly forced them to tackle the serious challenge of keeping players comfortable even as they sailed through the sky.
What’s more, the game’s innovative flying system was specially designed around Iron Man’s character—around his palm-mounted repulsor jets specifically—bringing an immersive flair to the way players control themselves in the game by aiming their hands to control thrust. The result was a truly fun and thrilling method of locomotion that balanced high-speed maneuvering with aerial combat.
But more than just coming up with a novel flight system for VR, Iron Man VR contextualized its gameplay with an engaging story that explored the man behind the mask, Tony Stark, nearly as much as his superhero persona. Combined with immersive details sprinkled throughout, Iron Man VR delivered a package that felt whole and delivered the fantasy it promised.
It wasn’t clear what to expect from Skydance Interactive’s take on the storied The Walking Dead zombie franchise. The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners could have easily been a ham-handed attempt at shoehorning a standard first-person shooter into VR. We’ve seen them before, and they weren’t pretty.
As soon as you start the game though, it becomes immediately apparent that Saints & Sinners demands the player to invest themselves completely in the experience—it’s a true VR native. In this scaled-down RPG, moral choices meet zombie-killing carnage in a way we simply haven’t seen in VR up to this point. You’re instantly thrust into a world where supplies are scarce, crafting useful items is key, and coming in contact with any zombie is a fight for survival.
It’s a gruesome and realistic experience in all the right ways: a zombie can be hacked to pieces with any manner of sharp object, but you’ll lose precious stamina than you’ll need as you run away from the evening horde. If you’re a decent shot, you can try to stick to headshots the entire way, but as the mob grabs at you, you’re left with very little choice but to look them straight in the eye sockets and brain them with a knife, cleaver, or pointy stick. Complete your mission and get the hell out of dodge, or face the consequences; with each zombie presenting potential death, the horde isn’t something you’ll ever want to face.
Outside of its impressive physics-based melee and gun combat, one of the most frightening parts is navigating the muddy waters of the New Orleans gang life, where you literally choose to side with one faction by stoking blood fueds by personally executing NPCs, or by walking your own path as a freelancer. Although the adventure isn’t open-world, discrete maps are so large and rich in detail that you’ll probably forget in the first five minutes anyway.
The standalone version of the game on both Quest and Quest 2 is lower res than its PC VR forbear, but that’s saying very little. As is, the game is more than the sum of its parts, and shines even with the obligatory knock in visual fidelity for a game of this scale, polish, and depth.
Each year we try to come up with games that shine in specific departments, so we tend to highlight titles that haven’t already won our platform-based awards. This year though, there’s simply no ignoring the titanic effort that went into making Half-Life: Alyx the most immersive VR game of 2020.
From the liquid shaders inside the many errant bottles laying around, to flippable light switches, to the full baby grand piano, every object has been loving realized with one thing in mind: immersing the player into the world of Half-Life like never before.
While full, unfettered object interaction is great for immersion, this also lets players get creative with how to use seemingly banal stuff to their advantage, like carrying a basket full of grenades when you run out of space in your inventory.
In Half-Life: Alyx, there are only a few misses in terms of immersion, which are more linked to stylistic choices by Valve. You can’t melee enemies, and the gesture-based menu pulls you out a bit from the action, but even with those minor offenses, Valve has effectively created VR’s most detailed game to date that will be difficult to rival in the years to come.
Building a new car is, for the most part, putting new spin on a concept that’s largely already been figured out by those that came before. While non-VR game development similarly stands on the shoulders of past giants, in VR, almost any step you take is likely to mean breaking fresh ground—right down to rethinking how players will even move around your game world.
Developer nDreams embraced the unknown and built an entire game around a novel locomotion scheme that had players sleuthing through sluices in a tactical kayak.
It might sound a little ridiculous on the surface, but dive a little deeper and you’ll see that it really fits VR well. Not only is paddling a much more immersive and intentional way to get around than using using a joystick, the kayak worked great as a sort of ‘inventory’ system for the player thanks to weapon and ammo holsters along its sides.
While a smooth moving and turning kayak could surely prove challenging from a comfort standpoint, nDreams managed to come up with a snap-turn solution that worked seamlessly with the kayak locomotion, allowing more players to enjoy their time on the waterways.
The locomotion innovation of Phantom: Covert Ops makes us excited to see what the studio comes up with next.
Flying an X-Wing in VR has been the dream ever since EA Games released the free X-Wing VR Mission DLC for Star Wars: Battlefront Rogue One in 2016 on PS4. And in a big way, EA’s Motive Studios delivered on that dream with this massive first-person dogfighter, which lets you play through an well-crafted singe-player campaign, or cross-platform online battles.
Motive Studios took on the mantle of making Star Wars: Squadrons feel like a native VR game which lets you play with a giant pool of players, delivering support for PC VR, traditional PC monitors, PSVR, PS4, and Xbox One players together. And when it comes to dropping in for a casual dogfight, you simply can’t waste time waiting around.
To boot, playing in VR has its clear advantages, as you can naturally track enemies by looking through your cockpit’s canopy windows, all while keeping an eye on your 3D radar. One of the hopes we had for the game was motion controller support for added immersion, however simulator enthusiasts know that the most immersive way to control a vehicle in VR is using a HOTAS setup, which lets you play with physical thrusters and flight sticks so you can truly feel like you’ve stepped into your own Star Wars universe spaceship. You can also play with gamepad, which is fun too since the game offers up arcade controls instead of pure simulator-style flying like you might find in Elite Dangerous (2014).
Both the world inside and outside of your canopy is a visual treat. While cinematic cutscenes are reduced to 2D windows, the game makes up for this by putting you on the deck of each ship to speak face-to-face with some of the most detailed character models we’ve seen in VR. Crafted with motion capture, the game’s NPCs seem to inch very close to the far side of the Uncanny Valley—something you’ll appreciate more from the inside of a VR headset.
In all, Star Wars: Squadrons gives VR gamers everything it has to offer on traditional platforms and more. It also sends a clear message to AAA studios that VR doesn’t have to be a second class citizen when it can slot in so well.
Cubism is a spatial puzzle game that shows that an interface can be beautiful through simplicity. The interface strikes a perfect balance between recognizable affordances and VR native flourishes like the use of depth and placement within arms reach. When it’s done the job selecting a level, it gets completely out of the way, allowing the player to directly interact with the puzzle before them.
The interface also hides a little secret which also doubles as a subtle but enjoyable means of ‘progression’ in the game. Each puzzle you complete represents a musical chord which you can hear when you select the level. Played one after another, each of these chords is part of a complete song which is every bit as beautiful in its simplicity as the interface itself. Once you complete all puzzles, the song is yours to enjoy.
There’s not much else to say—and that’s the point. Cubism’s interface does exactly what it needs to do and nothing more.
Indie studios take risks that larger, more established names in the industry simply won’t. And supporting those indie devs can mean playing some of the most unique and inventive games out there. Granted, there was a tad less risk involved for Pixel Ripped 1995, a retro-inspired VR game that follows in the footsteps of its popular predecessor, Pixel Ripped 1989 (2018). Still, it’s an amazingly creative slice of mid-90s nostalgia that’s expertly interwoven into the pioneering genres that made so many of us fall in love with games in the first place.
Pitching a unique ‘game within a game’ storytelling style, Pixel Ripped 1995 acts as the setting for its constant flights of fancy, mashing up the fourth console generation’s pioneering genres into a charming 3D world. Without brushing to close to infringe on any copyrights, Pixel Ripped 1995 authors a love letter to the generation’s colorful platformers, side-scrolling beat ’em ups, and RPGs.
At five hours of gameplay, it’s short and sweet, but critically doesn’t overextend itself either. Its linear gameplay offers a virtual smorgasbord of variety as you’re always left guessing at what’s next, leaving little room for boredom.
Release Date: Available from July 7th- November 15th, 2020
The Under Presents (2019) wasn’t released this year, but it did host a very special limited time immersive theater show to Oculus Quest and Rift-owning audiences that delved into some seriously interesting experimental territory. In a sea of graphical and technical marvels this year, the game’s immersive reinterpretation of William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest took the cake.
In a time when live actors are mostly out of work, The Under Presents invited expert thespians to lead groups of up to eight VR users through a rejuvenated retelling of the popular 17th-century theater piece. Built with user participation in mind, it felt more like acting in a high school theater play, with roles dolled out on the fly.
Showing up in the lobby, which is conveniently placed at the entrance of the game’s main area, participants were greeted with interesting toys and magical object to play around with as you hang with your fellow amateur actors. Once the show begins, you’re transported to a campfire to meet a live actor, who in the show’s meta-narrative took on the role of Prospero and many others. The guide weaves the story throughout dreamlike set pieces, and gets everyone involved in acting out parts in the story. Since players are mute, your guide acts as a professional voice over artist by filling in your lines.
In a time when interacting in large groups can be dangerous, The Under Presents The Tempest offered up a truly novel and creative experience that, even with its low-poly art style, felt like a tantalizingly real break from reality. We’re hoping to see more from developers Tender Claws in the near future, whether it be encore presentations of the experience or entirely new interactive theater pieces yet to come.
Note: Games eligible for Road to VR‘s Game of the Year Award must be available to the public on or before December 13th, 2020 to allow for ample deliberation. Games must also natively support the target platform as to ensure full operability.
nDreams Latest shooter Phantom: Covert Ops arrived back in June with a positive reception from players. The studio followed this up with a free Challenge Pack 1 update and has now released details of what’s set to arrive by the end of the year.
With Oculus Quest 2 set to launch next week, nDreams has just released a quality of life update for Quest and Rift platforms. This includes general fixes, several new achievements, optimisation for the Oculus Quest 2, and rebalancing of the campaign’s scoring system to make the unlockables more attainable.
Then tomorrow will see Phantom: Covert Ops on sale for one day only for Oculus Quest. It’ll cost £20.69 GBP / $26.99 USD / €26.99 EUR during the 24hr sale period.
As for the challenge packs, the second free challenge pack will be released on 22nd October. It’ll feature new cheat-based challenges to test your kayaking and shooting skills on. Then a third and final Challenge Pack will be released before the end of the year. More details regarding the content in both packs will be released soon.
Phantom: Covert Ops had a decent launch with nDreams revealing the title achieved over $1m in gross revenue during the first month on sale. It takes a unique approach to the stealth FPS genre by taking place completely on water, where players have to infiltrate a secret military installation by silently paddling through the waterways on a kayak.
When reviewing the videogameVRFocus commented: “Phantom: Covert Ops offers a decent slice of immersive VR gaming that will be well suited to most gamers.” Going onto say the videogame: “is entertaining and there’s enough to keep you invested for a good few hours. Hopefully, nDreams will build upon this concept rather than letting it sink into the depths.”
As further details regarding Phantom: Covert Ops’ updates are released, VRFocus will let you know.
Phantom: Covert Ops (2020), the stealth action game for Oculus Rift & Quest, got its first ‘Challenge’ pack today, bringing a host of new content to get you back into the seat of the game’s tactical kayak.
The free update lands today on Rift and Quest, bringing with it five new Challenge Maps. Developers nDreams also say the so-dubbed ‘Challenge Pack 1’ also features bug fixes and some quality of life updates too.
The extra content is certainly welcome, because if you’re like us, you probably completed the campaign mode in around four hours and then played a bit around with the mini-game-style Challenges and Free Play mode before hanging up your oars for another title.
Anyway, here’s all of the new Challenges coming to Phantom: Covert Ops:
Loose Cannon brings an infinite ammunition grenade launcher.
Powder Keg makes high-value targets have exploding heads.
Unfathomable introduces a difficult time trial which reverses kayak controls.
Target Hunt sees you paddle around the levels finding and shooting pop-up cut-outs of enemies, like a shooting range on the river.
Broadside gives you the chance to take the SV-54 Assault rifle out to the watery shooting range for some target practice.
If you haven’t played yet, you’d be surprised at how immersive being tied to a military-grade kayak really is in VR. It’s not the brainiest of games out there, but shooting, paddling sneakily through shadowy waterways, and liberally exploding baddies was definitely a fun and well-crafted enough experience to earn a respectable [7/10] in our review.
Considering this is only Challenge Pack 1, we’re expecting a few more in the pipeline from nDreams. How many packs the studio has planned, we’re still not sure, but if they sound as fun as these (minus the reverse time trial because we’re not sadists), then we should be looking forward to plenty of mini-game content on the horizon.
Phantom: Covert Ops, the latest Oculus exclusive game, has reached the $1 million revenue mark “a few weeks” after launch, according to developer nDreams. The studio has also teased post-launch content planned for the game and dropped hints of brand new VR projects in the works.
“We did it! Phantom: Covert Ops has smashed $1m in gross revenue within the first few weeks from launch. I think it’s a sign of how far VR has come in the last few years, and shows that it is now a very viable, commercial and exciting space to be in,” he said.
At $30 per game, $1 million in revenue would translate to 33,333 units sold so in a month or less. A good start, but probably not yet enough to break even on the game’s production costs.
Phantom: Covert Ops appears to be faring better with users than its critical reception would have suggested. While the game scored an average of 75% from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic, user reviews currently stand at 90% on Quest and 86% on Rift.
Between the two platforms, it looks like the game has sold much better on Quest than Rift, at least as much as can be inferred by the number of reviews; Phantom: Covert Ops has been reviewed 637 on Quest and 81 times on Rift. Indeed, O’Luanaigh seems quiet happy with the standalone version of the game.
“We’ve been particularly delighted with the Quest version of the game. The headset is phenomenal, but I’ve been blown away with how hard the team have pushed it technically and what we managed to achieve,” he said.
While the Quest version may be impressive compared to other games on the headset, some Rift users assert that it came at the cost of underwhelming graphics on the Rift version of the game, highlighting the challenge of maximizing the potential of two headsets with vastly different levels of computing horsepower.
Phantom: Covert Ops offers cross-buy, meaning that purchasing either version also unlocks the game on the other headsets. That gives Quest players the option of playing with the headset’s onboard processor or plugging into a capable computer to play the PC VR version of the game with enhanced graphics.
Post Launch Content Coming to Phantom: Covert Ops
Image courtesy nDreams
nDreams also teased more content coming to Phantom: Covert Ops. “[…] this is only the beginning… We’ve got some exciting plans for post-launch content which we’ll be announcing more on very soon!” the studio wrote in a post on its website.
Exactly what that content will look like isn’t clear just yet, but there’s a few obvious forms it could take. For one, the game’s ‘Challenge’ missions are short mini-games which challenge the player’s aim, maneuvering abilities, and more. Players are scored on each challenge and ranked on a global leaderboard. It would be relatively easy to add more challenges with an update to the game.
Less likely, but still possible, would be to add additional content to the game’s short four hour campaign. Phantom: Covert Ops is structured in a way that sees players traversing around different areas of a single large map; building more missions around the same space without needing to create a brand new environment seems like it could be an efficient approach to creating more content for the game.
nDreams Teases New VR Games
It sounds like the studio has plans well beyond Phantom: Covert Ops. As a studio with 110 people that’s now “hiring rapidly,” according to O’Luanaigh, nDreams is very large compared to most VR game studios. All of those people have to be working on something…
“I wish I could share a little something on some of the exciting new VR projects that we’re currently working on, but for now all I can say is we’ll likely have a couple of big announcements between now and the end of the year,” he said. “[…] we’re investing an increasing amount in R&D as we explore new mechanics and VR gameplay, and come up with new original VR concepts and prototypes.”
That’s good news, as one of the things we liked most about Phantom: Covert Ops was its totally unique locomotion concept which has the player gliding around in a kayak throughout the course of the game. The whole industry will benefit if nDreams continues to explore innovative movement and game structures in their future VR titles.
One of the big virtual reality (VR) releases of the summer was nDreams’ Phantom: Covert Ops, exclusive to Oculus Quest and Rift. That happened a month ago and now the studio has announced that the title has achieved over $1m in gross revenue in that short time.
Patrick O’Luanaigh, CEO of nDreams made that announcement, saying: “We did it! Phantom: Covert Ops has smashed $1m in gross revenue within the first few weeks from launch. I think it’s a sign of how far VR has come in the last few years, and shows that it is now a very viable, commercial and exciting space to be in.”
He didn’t go into details regarding how that figure split down between the two headsets but as Facebook has been keen on announcing software sales figures for Oculus Quest, its likely the standalone headset played a major part.
O’Luanaigh did go onto mention: “We’ve been particularly delighted with the Quest version of the game. The headset is phenomenal, but I’ve been blown away with how hard the team have pushed it technically and what we managed to achieve.”
Phantom: Covert Ops is a stealth shooter which takes place entirely on water, with players infiltrating a secret base using a kayak. This means players have to paddle their way past guards or kill them depending on the approach they wish to take, armed with an assortment of weapons.
Giving Phantom: Covert Ops a four-star review, VRFocus found that: “Phantom: Covert Ops offers a decent slice of immersive VR gaming that will be well suited to most gamers.” Going onto say the videogame: “is entertaining and there’s enough to keep you invested for a good few hours. Hopefully, nDreams will build upon this concept rather than letting it sink into the depths.”
By the sounds of it, nDreams will be doing just that. “We also intend to continue to support Phantom which, as you can probably tell, is an IP that we’re really proud of, and as a company we’re hiring rapidly, whilst also continuing to look for new opportunities and partnerships,” states the CEO. Plus the studio has some big announcements planned for later in the year regarding new projects.
As further updates are released, VRFocus will let you know.
