Oculus Rift – Page 2 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

February 21, 2022

Green Hell VR Demo Arrives as Part of Steam Next Fest

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

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

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

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

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

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

February 18, 2022

Roguelite Adventure Outlier Steps Onto Steam in March

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

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

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

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

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

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

February 17, 2022

Music Sandbox Virtuoso Hits PC VR & Quest 2 in March

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

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

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

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

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

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

February 9, 2022

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

February 7, 2022

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

February 2, 2022

Steam Sales and Events Revealed for Next 6 months

Steam’s sales events are quite legendary – and consistent – with hundreds of titles always available. Heck, there’s even one going on at the moment with the Steam Lunar New Year Sale ending tomorrow. But this week has also seen Valve reveal its plans for the next six months, detailing what sales and events will be heading your way.

First on the agenda is a big one, Steam’s Next Fest. If you remember last year’s, it’s a pure festival of gaming demos, with a bewildering array of virtual reality (VR) and non-VR videogames to sample. It’ll run from 21st – 28th February, hopefully giving you enough time to play all those demos. And if you somehow miss that one, there will be a summer Next Fest in June, with exact dates to be confirmed.

When it comes to sales the next big event is the annual Steam Summer Sale which is scheduled to take place between 23rd June – 7th July 2022. Valve notes that: “Any game released at least 28 days before June 21 is welcome to participate.”

Continuing with the sales theme, are Themed Sales, dedicated to highlighting particular categories of videogames. This should give some titles greater visibility that may get lost during the larger discount events. Five themed events have been announced so far with more planned later in the year to highlight even more genres.

Metaverse — Image credit: Chaosamran Studio, Shutterstock

Themed Sales

Remote Play Together: 28th February to 7th March
JRPG: 14th – 21st March
SimFest – Hobby Edition: 28th March – 4th April
Die-a-lot: 2nd – 9th May (includes Roguelites, Metroidvanias or Souls-like games)
Racing: 23rd – 30th May
Survival: 18th – 25th July

In addition to these sales events, Steam will also be changing several of its discount rules for developers, rolling out from 28th March. Devs will be given greater flexibility to discount their games, so the time between discounts will change from six to four weeks (28 days). Other rules include not being able to alter price while a promotion is live and that it’s: “not possible to discount a product by more than 90% or less than 10%.”

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

February 1, 2022

Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister Heads to PC VR in March

Pixel Toys released Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister as a Meta Quest platform exclusive back in 2020, where you could unleash your wrath against the forces of Chaos. As gmw3 reported back in January, the title was stencilled in for its Steam release on the 12th before being delayed. Today, the studio has confirmed that the PC VR edition of Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister will now arrive in March.

The developer hasn’t said if the PC version will include any improvements such as upgraded graphics but from the new trailer (seen below) they certainly so seem of a higher quality than the Quest 2 videogame. However, Pixel Toys has confirmed that the Steam version will include all the content updates the Quest title has received including Last Bastion, the co-op multiplayer mode.

Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister is a non-stop action-adventure where you play the role of Sister Ophelia, a veteran Sister of Battle who is searching for her long lost twin sister whilst fighting to save all of humanity. As Ophelia you have access to a brutal assortment of weapons, being able to switch between close quarters and long-range combat.

Staying completely faithful to the Warhammer universe and its lore, you can choose from Bolters, Plasma Pistols, Flamers, Las Rifles, Power Swords and Chainswords to cut down heretics and Chaos Space Marines. Additionally, you also have access to special abilities to aid each encounter, creating protective force fields or slowing time.

Gmw3 reviewed Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister saying: “Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister has some great set piece moments, and the general gameplay is enjoyable throughout. Its action all the way, so there’s not much depth to the experience and no secrets to uncover. Just grab a gun and start blasting, which is no bad thing.”

The Steam version of Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister will launch on 8th March 2022 for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index and Windows Mixed Reality headsets; priced at £14.99 GBP/ $19.99 USD. For further updates keep reading gmw3.

January 13, 2022

MMO Zenith: The Last City on Track to Launch in Two Weeks

Virtual reality (VR) platforms have some big titles you can spend hours and hours in, experiences like A Township Tale and OrbusVR two of the most well known. The next to join this group will be Zenith: The Last City, a VR MMORPG by Ramen VR scheduled to launch towards the end of January.

Zenith: The Last City is the brainchild of Lauren Frazier and Andy Tsen, the co-founders of Ramen VR. Work on the project began back in 2019, garnering massive interest from VR players thanks to the scale of the project and its gorgeous aesthetic. Since the initial Kickstarter campaign, the studio has grown to ramp up production, helped by a $10 million Series A investment round.

The title promises to be an action-packed experience set in the sprawling world of Zenith. In this fantasy realm, you’ll be able to go on quests with countless other players, fighting monsters with physical and magical attacks. As a community-driven videogame, Zenith: The Last City will encourage players to forge alliances and join guilds before taking on raids and epic world events.

With such a big expanse to explore there will of course be a variety of unique locations to discover. From the titular city of Zenith to the Fractured Plains, home to rural towns or the Emerald Desert filled with ruins, in total Ramen VR has created five biomes.

This wouldn’t be a VR videogame without some physicality to the proceedings and Zenith: The Last City shouldn’t disappoint on that front. Whether you’re blocking and parrying opponents attacks with a couple of swords or getting a better look at the environment by climbing up a rock face, you’ve got the freedom to do so. The developers have ensured that every surface can be scaled and once you’re up to the top you can then glide to your next destination.

Currently, Ramen VR has stencilled in 27th January as the launch date for Zenith: The Last City across Meta Quest, PlayStation VR and PC VR platforms for $29.99 USD but with a caveat that it could change depending on final approval from the relative VR stores. Check out the new trailer below and for further updates keep reading VRFocus.

December 22, 2021

Third Episode of Space Explorers: The ISS Experience Available Now For Meta Quest

If you love all things related to space then you’ve probably been closely following the rather epic project that is Felix & Paul Studios’ Space Explorers: The ISS Experience. Over the last few years, the studio has partnered with NASA and Time to record some amazing 360-degree footage aboard the International Space Station. Released episodically, today sees the launch of UNITE, the third instalment of the series.

As the title implies, UNITE focuses on the crew members aboard the ISS. More specifically, the episode sees crew members from the same astronaut training class reunite. “A space culture evolves between the select few who have had the chance to live and work aboard the International Space Station. Old friends arrive, and for the first time, half of an entire astronaut class reunites on the station. The cycle continues as, once again, one mission ends and another begins. The crew’s unique shared perspective grows stronger as colleagues realize dreams of the humanization of space together,” the synopsis details.

The astronauts featured in this particular episode are: Nick Hague, Christina Koch, Andrew Morgan, Jessica Meir, Luca Parmitano, Hazzaa Almansoori, Alexey Nikolaevich Ovchinin, Oleg Ivanovich Skripochka and Aleksandr Alexandrovich Skvortsov.

Space Explorers: The ISS Experience has been pushing technological boundaries as it captures life onboard the station orbiting 250 miles above the Earth’s surface. In August the teams announced that the first 3D, 360° scenes in space had been captured using the highly specialised Outer Space Camera, a customized Z-Cam V1 Pro housing nine 4K sensors to record scenes at 8K resolution. Expect to see those in the final episode.

Space Explorers: The ISS Experience “UNITE” is available now for free. You can watch all three episodes on Meta Quest and Oculus Rift either via the Space Explorers app or on Oculus TV. This isn’t the last instalment either. The fourth (and final) episode Expand is due for release in Spring 2022.

For continued updates on Felix & Paul Studios projects, keep reading VRFocus.

December 22, 2021

Oculus Rift Store Download Issues Being ‘Actively’ Worked On – Meta

Meta says it’s “actively working” on issues some Oculus Rift users are experiencing that prevent them from downloading games.

We’ve seen multiple reports of Rift users not being able to install titles they previously purchased over the past few weeks, and we’ve also had this issue ourselves. Games start to download but seem to reset just a few minutes in and prompt you to try again. We tried this with several titles on the Rift store earlier this week and today and success seemed somewhat random – some apps that wouldn’t install one day did on another, for example.

We reached out to Meta about the issue. A company spokesperson replied: “We’re aware of the issues people are having downloading Rift (and Go/Gear) apps and are actively working on it.”

Hopefully, then, we’ll see the issue resolved in the very near future. Rift, Go and Gear VR may no longer be the focus of Meta’s VR efforts, but plenty of people have built up vast libraries of content on their respective storefronts. Not to mention that Quest users can access PC VR content via Link connections, so this issue is potentially barring them from access too.

We’ll bring you an update just as soon as we know the issue has been resolved.