Oculus Flash Sale: Get up to 75% Off on 80+ VR Titles, Sale Lasts Today Only

It’s been exactly one year since Oculus launched Touch, the motion controller that made Rift a truly competitive room-scale headset. To celebrate, the company is hosting a dedicated flash sale of up to 75% on 80+ major Touch titles. The sale expires today (December 6th) at 11:59 pm PT (your local time).

The flash sale features a number of big titles, including Lone Echo (2017), Superhot VR (2017, From Other Suns (2017), and The Gallery Bundle with Episodes 1 & 2 to name a few. Check out the full list below.

You can find links for each game on the official flash sale page here.

Lone Echo $30 $39 Fly to Kuma Maker $6 $15
SUPERHOT VR $10 $25 Dig4Destruction $6 $12
From Other Suns $30 $40 Titan Slayer $4.50 $13
Tilt Brush $10 $20 Final Goalie $10 $20
Arktika.1 $15 $30 Sketchbox $7.50 $15
I Expect You to Die $10 $25 VR Toolbox $8 $10
Skyworld $20 $40 Super Kaiju $10 $20
Dead & Buried $1 $20 Old Friend $1.50 $3
Ultrawings $13 $25 Show Must Go On $6 $15
theBlu $4 $10 Unearthed Inc. – The Lost Temple $10 $25
Gunheart $14 $35 Twisted Arrow $10 $20
Loco Dojo $10 $20 Fantastic Contraption $15 $30
Star Chart $4 $10 Giant Cop $10 $25
Job Simulator $18 $20 Sneaky Bears $7.50 $15
The Gallery – Episode 1: Call of the Starseed $5 $20 The Tower $3.50 $7
The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone $24 $30 Archangel $15 $30
The Gallery Episode 1 & 2 $24 $45 The Pierhead Arcade $4 $10
The Wizards $10 $20 Trickster $4.50 $13
Don’t Knock Twice $10 $20 VR Invaders $9 $18
Racket NX $10 $20 Zero-Gravity Tennis Plannes $7.50 $15
Masterpiece VR $15 $30 Konrad the Kitten $5 $10
Crowe $4.50 $9 Kittypocalypse $6 $15
Blasters of the Universe $6 $15 Overkill VR $10 $20
Carnival Games VR $5 $20 Boogeyman $2.50 $5
Mervils $10 $20 Dead Hungry $10 $20
Smashbox Arena $8 $20 Gnomelings $2.50 $5
Sports BarVR $10 $20 Jam Session VR $1.50 $3
Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope $30 $40 Guns ‘N’ Stories: Bulletproof VR $5 $10
Ancient Amuletor VR $10 $20 Gravity Lab $10 $20
Guided Meditation VR $6 $15 Holoball $6 $15
Elven Assassin $5 $10 Music Inside $7.50 $15
Chocolate $1.50 $30 Beats Fever $6 $15
VR Everyday Golf $15 $30 Counter Fight: Samurai Edition $5 $10
Form $6 $15 Cosmic Trip $10 $20
Nanite Fulcrum – Issue One $2.50 $5 Drunkn Bar Fight $6 $12
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes $6 $15 Kingspray $6 $15
Crashimals $10 $20 Snow Fortress $7.50 $15
Island 359 $10 $20 ZR Zombie Riot $10 $20
Range Day VR $9 $18 Space Dragon $7.50 $15
DisasSembled V3 $6 $15 Karnage Chronicles $10 $25
Perfect $4 $10 Ramen Shop Simulator $4 $8
Firebird La Peri $4 $10 VR Sports Challenge $15 $30
Final Approach $6 $15 Makebox $5 $10
Annie Amber $4 $8 Mars Odyssey $4 $8
Obscura $5 $10 Enigma Sphere $10 $20

 

Miss the sale? While we can bet they’ll at least be one more sale before Christmas time, you can always keep an eye on Oculus ‘promotions’ section on the Oculus Store for new savings.

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Oculus and Marvel Announce New Rift Co-op Title ‘Powers United VR’

Announced at Disney fan expo D23 today, Oculus are teaming up with Marvel to bring a new Rift exclusive title which lets you play as one of “more than a dozen” characters from their comic book universe, with a little help from the Oculus Touch controllers.

Take one iconic Marvel superhero, The Incredible Hulk, and throw him into a co-operative, first person VR action game with two slightly less iconic ones Rocket Racoon (Guardians of the Galaxy) and Captain Marvel, and you have Oculus Studios’ latest title Powers United VR. These are the first three characters to be demonstrated for the game, which will eventually offer up more than a dozen playable Marvel characters at launch.

The game, developed exclusively for the Rift & Touch by Sanzaru and Oculus Studios, lets you join 2 other friends to battle “across the Marvel Universe”. As Hulk you can, well, smash stuff with Rocket Racoon bringing his love of exotic weaponry to bear alongside Captain Marvel’s photon blasts.

With the exception of that, and the fact that we’ll have to wait until 2018 to play it, Oculus’ blog post was a little light on details. Except to state that if you’re attending this year’s San Diego Comic Con you can be one of the first to get your hands on the game July 19 -23 at Marvel’s booth.

It’s interesting that Oculus saw fit to highlight “full locomotion” as a headline feature, with more and more VR gamers seemingly demanding to choose a more immersive, if potentially less comfortable way to move through VR gameworlds.

You can stay tuned to the official teaser website for more info later in the year.

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New ‘Lone Echo’ Launch Trailer

Lone Echo, the upcoming zero-G, sci-fi adventure from Ready at Dawn, has a brand new trailer proceeding its July 20th launch date.

In the game’s initial announcement trailer, we got a look at its unique locomotion scheme as well as some of the drama that plays out around a certain anomaly that wreaks havoc nearby your home space station. You, as a service robot, have to repair important systems and navigate puzzles alongside a human companion.

From the new trailer, we get a better look of life aboard the mining rig, set just off the rings of Saturn in the year 2126. As an android named Echo-1 (‘Jack’), you act as a sort of ‘comfort-bot’ to Captain Olivia Rhodes, the ship’s sole human.

image courtesy Ready at Dawn

According to Ready at Dawn, you “solve an increasingly threatening mystery as you use futuristic tools, clever problem solving, and interactive dialogue to engage with the world around you.”

The VR sports game Echo Arena, built as a multiplayer counterpart launching alongside Lone Echo, demonstrates just how comfortable the unique zero-G locomotion system is, which uses a combination of boosters and self-propelled momentum as you push off of objects and structures. Echo Arena will be free, and will also launch on July 20th.

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The 10 Best Games for Oculus Rift

So, you’ve either got your hands on an Oculus Rift or an Oculus Quest with the help of Link, and now you want to know what to download first (besides the free stuff). Here’s our breakdown of the top 10 Rift platform games that you should definitely play. Like right now.

Before we start, don’t forget that your Rift (and Quest with Link) also works with compatible games purchased through Steam. Thanks to Valve’s open SteamVR platform and OpenVR APIs, Steam supports HTC Vive, Windows VR, Valve Index, and Oculus Rift equally, so you can shop around for even more titles that aren’t published on the Oculus Store provided the developer enabled support.

HTC Vive owners can play all of these too with the help of Revive, a software hack that hooks Vive into Oculus Store exclusives. Without further ado, these are our top 10 Rift games in no particular order.

The 10 Best Oculus Rift Games

Stormland

From Insomniac Games comes the open-world adventure Stormland, a real study in good shooting mechanics, excellent locomotion schemes, and not to mention a two-player co-op mode so you and a Rift/Quest-owning buddy can battle all the evil robots the cloud-filled world has to offer. Half of the fun is picking your combat tactics; are you a silent killer, ripping out an unsuspecting enemy’s heath pack and skitter away to safety, or are you the ‘jump from a 200-foot tower like Deadpool’ kind of person with reckless abandon? It’s up to you!

‘Stormland’ on Rift

Check out why we gave Stormland a [9/10] in our review.

Asgard’s Wrath

I don’t know about you, but being a Viking god was always on my list of things to do before leaving this world for Valhalla. It just so happens that Sanzaru Games has produced one of the best VR games to date, as this melee combat adventure has so much story, combat, dungeon crawling, and looting that you’ll easily invest 20 hours on the low side, but come back for at least 40 to get everything out of what has turned out to be one of the funnest and most well-realized VR titles to date

‘Asgard’s Wrath’ on Rift

Read our review of Asgard’s Wrath to find out why we gave it an [8.8/10].

Lone Echo & Echo VR

Here we have two halves of the same zero-G coin: first-person action-adventure game Lone Echo (2017) and it’s multiplayer counterpart Echo Arena (2017). As impressive feats of engineering in their own rights, both games feature an undoubtedly comfortable zero-G locomotion system that lets you fly through the air without the slightest hint of motion sickness.

Lone Echo is the sort of cinematic sci-fi narrative that engages the player with its excellent voice acting, impressive visuals, and a deep and memorable story. Combined with its innovative locomotion system, it’s truly a gem of a game worth playing—if only to say you’ve been to the edge of the Universe and back. Check out why we gave Lone Echo a solid [9/10] in our review.

‘Lone Echo’ on Rift ‘Echo VR’ on Rift

Where Lone Echo is plodding and tactful in its storytelling, Echo VR amps up the speed, throwing you in an online team sport that’s a fun mix of soccer and ultimate Frisbee… in space. The best part? It’s free to own permanently. Echo Combat, the first-person shooter expansion to Echo VR, isn’t here yet, but it’s also shown that the high-flying, zero-G locomotion mechanic is definitely suited to other game genres.

Vader Immortal: A Star Wars Series

This three-part Star Wars cinematic experience arrives from ILMxLabs, Lucas Films’ skunkworks which is known for having churned out some of the highest-quality immersive content to date.

‘Vader Immortal’ Series on Rift

Vader Immortal is more of a VR ‘experience’ than it is a outright game, presenting the user with a 45-minute adventure for each episode, however each comes with its own game area that lets you practice all of your Jedi skills in what’s called the ‘Lightsaber Dojo’. In other, less capable hands, this would be a hokey add-on, but here it actually works and makes sense. All in all, it definitely deserves to be on the list however you slice it.

Beat Saber

Created by Prague-based indie team Beat Studio, Beat Saber (2018) is a funky and incredibly stylish rhythm game that will have you slicing blocks to the beat of high-BPM dance music. While the idea is simple, the execution is magnificent. Beat Saber gives you a mess of songs to play, each with four difficulty levels to master, the highest being expert which will have you feeling like a 21st century techno-Jedi.

‘Beat Saber’ on Rift

Check out our review of Beat Saber on PSVR to find out why we gave it a [8.9/10].

SUPERHOT VR

If you haven’t played the PC or console version of SUPERHOT (2016) before, get ready for a new take on the FPS genre with its strategy-based shooting missions. Designed from the ground-up for VR headsets, SUPERHOT VR (2016) is an entirely separate game in the same vein as its flatscreen counterpart. The iconic red baddies (and their bullets) move only when you do, so you can line up your shot, punch a guy in the face, dodge a bullet, and toss a bottle across the room, shattering their red-glass heads in what feels intensely immersive and satisfying—because you’re doing it all with your own two hands. That and you’ll feel like a badass no matter whose basement you live in.

‘Superhot VR’ on Rift

Find out why we gave Superhot VR [9.1/10] in our review.

Robo Recall

People used to think that fast-paced, high-action games would be too disorienting for new virtual reality users, but in Epic Games’ Robo Recall (2017)you can teleport around at full speed as you blast away at the game’s evil (and hilarious) robot army. If being able to tear your enemies literally limb from limb and beat a robot over the head with their own dismembered arm isn’t astounding enough, the level of detail and polish put into this game will make you reassess what’s possible in VR.

‘Robo Recall’ on Rift

Find out why we gave Robo Recall [8.5/10] in our review.

Trover Saves the Universe

From the co-creator of Rick and Morty comes the 3D platformer Trover Saves the Universe. Your dogs have been dognapped by a beaked lunatic who stuffed them into his eye holes and is using their life essence to destroy the universe. You’re partnered with Trover, a little purple eye-hole monster who isn’t a huge fan of working or being put in the position of having to save the universe.

‘Trover Saves the Universe’ on Rift

We haven’t had a chance to review Trover Saves the Universe, although it’s currently sitting at a very respectable [4.76/5] on the Oculus Store.

I Expect You to Die

Schell Games has only just pushed out the last DLC installment of the hit spy-themed puzzler I Expect You to Die (2016). It’s on basically every platform now, and for good reason: it’s incredibly clever, well-built, and easy enough to pick up while being hard enough not to want to put down.

‘I Expect You to Die’ on Rift

I Expect You to Die is currently sitting at a good [4.66/5] on the Oculus Store.

Moss

Once a PSVR exclusive, Moss (2017) has now made its way to PC VR headsets, letting you control your cute little mouse buddy, Quill, on your adventures through a large and dangerous world. Stylistically, Moss hits a home run with its impressive diorama-style visuals and interactive elements that lets you, the player (aka ‘The Reader’) move puzzle pieces around and also take over the minds of enemies as Quill slashes through the world to recover her lost uncle. Puzzles may not be the most difficult, but Moss has effectively set up a universe begging for more sequels to further flesh out the enticing world Polyarc Games has created.

‘Moss’ on Rift

See why we gave it a [7.9/10] in our review on PSVR.

Honorable Mentions

  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR: While not an Oculus Store game, Bethesda’s Steam version of Skyrim VR fully supports Oculus Rift, letting you engage in multiple tens of hours of exploring the beautifully realized open world environment. What else is there to say? It’s Skyrim in VR.
  • No Man’s Sky: Unlike Skyrim VR, this is a free update to the game, which you can grab on Steam. It’s a bit flawed, but it’s an infinite galaxy of opportunities, so it always has that going for it.
  • Job Simulator: Tongue in cheek madness as you enter a far off future where robots rule the world, and consequently also have no idea how the past actually was. Smash stuff. Silly Robots. Hilarity ensues.
  • Vacation Simulator: Owlchemy Labs’s followup to Job Simulator. More story, a more open environment to traverse (albeit node teleportation) and a ton of vacation-style activities to explore and play. Arguably better than the first.
  • Arizona Sunshine: Offering you a chance to explore, collect real-world guns and indiscriminately shoot them at every moving thing (in this case zombies), Arizona Sunshine fills a very special place in many people’s hearts. The story mode does offer some thrills, but isn’t really groundbreaking as such.
  • Onward – A fan favorite with a hardcore playerbase, the OD green of mil-sim shooters Onward gives you that VR battle you’ve always wanted, including tactical team-based gameplay and plenty of guns.
  • The Mage’s Tale:  Touch – Crafting elemental magic, exploring foreboding dungeons, battling giants and stealing their treasure. There’s all of this and more in The Mage’s Tale. Although story-wise the game comes too close to campy and played out for its own good, it’s still a solid investment for the enterprising young wizard among you.
  • DiRT RallyGamepad/steering wheel – Driving through the forest with a beer in your hand isn’t ok…in reality. But in DiRT Rally you’ll need all the soothing ethanol you can get as you stomach the twists and turns of an exciting car simulator, that while rated ‘intense’ on the Oculus Store, is ultimately a fun and exciting way to burn some time perfecting your Initial D drifting skills. Ok. Better leave out the alcohol anyway.
  • Edge of Nowhere (2016) Gamepad – A third-person VR survival horror game created by Insomniac Games that strands you in the icy wasteland of Antarctica, Edge of Nowhere leaves you with only a pick-axe, a shotgun, and some rocks to defend yourself against a bloodthirsty ancient species that lurk inside the snowy caverns.
  • Chronos (2016): Gamepad – A third-person adventure by Gunfire Games, Chronos will have you slashing at enemies with the long-trained penchant for beat-em-ups will get you exactly nowhere in this Zelda-inspired, Dark Souls-ish-level of difficulty game where dying in the game physically ages your character.

If the list doesn’t have the game you’ve been eyeing for months, definitely check out our reviews for some more gaming greats on Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PSVR.

Update (November 19th, 2019): We’ve done a long-due overhaul of the list, expanding it from five to 10 games. We’ve also done away with the ranking system. If you’re looking for a more quantified list by user review rankings, check out The Top 20 Best & Most Rated Rift Games & Apps.

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‘Echo Arena’ Extends Open Beta to Monday, July 17th

Echo Arena, the VR sports game from Ready at Dawn and Oculus Studios, went back into open beta last week. Although it was supposed to end yesterday, the developers are extending the access window so Oculus Rift owners can rocket around in the game’s micro-gravity environment mere days before its official July 20th launch.

Update 07/11: Info on open beta extension added.

Celebrating a critically successful first open beta session last month, Echo Arena is back by popular demand. The game, which is technically considered a multiplayer mode for the upcoming first-person adventure Lone Echo, will be free to all Oculus Rift owners at launch later this month.

The game requires Oculus Touch, the platform’s optically-tracked motion controller.

image courtesy Ready at Dawn

Featuring a ‘full contact’, zero-G mix of Ultimate Frisbee and an exceedingly comfortable locomotion system that lets you fling yourself through virtual space, Echo Arena really hits the sweet spot of speed, comfort and replayability—something that some are calling the “killer app” of VR.

Stepping into last month’s open beta, only basic matchmaking was available and the party-creating feature wasn’t supported. According to Ready at Dawn, the goal with the second open beta was to further test network updates, skill-based matchmaking, and the first iteration of the Echo Arena Party system. Besides more pre-launch bug fixes, the teams is also prepping a ‘VR Challenger’ series, which they’ll be revealing soon.

‘Echo Arena’ on Oculus Store

For first time players, Oculus has published a ‘tips and tricks’ guide so you can get a better handle on the nuances of throwing the game’s disc, jetting around with your hand-mounted boosters, braking in mid-air, and maneuvering around the space so you can get a leg up on your opponent (and punch their lights out).

You can download the beta for free right now on the Oculus Store and jump in before the game officially launches on July 20th alongside Lone Echo.

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Watch: ‘Throttle Powah’ is a Crazy VR Racer That Gives You Motorbikes for Arms

Early in development, Throttle Powah is a promising looking multiplayer racer with a VR locomotion mechanic which seems entirely unique and more than a little insane.

It’s refreshing to watch the still young virtual reality development community flourish, not least thanks to creators that are willing to throw caution to the wind and create things we’ve never seen before. Thanks to VR motion controllers, we’re seeing innovative ways to move around synthetic worlds on an almost weekly basis. But there’s been none recently that have made me smile more than Throttle Powah.

The game’s at an extremely early stage in development, but its core mechanic is in place. In short, your in-game avatar possesses two powered unicycles for arms and its with these you speed your way around the physics defying ‘tracks’. Tilt your virtual arms to steer and launch yourself into the air by lowering your arms and perhaps add a little sideways flick to freestyle some stunts while you’re at it.

The developer’s Steam and Facebook pages state an early version of the title is available for download right now, however it seems to be currently AWOL from Itch.IO as of now. However, it is stated that the game has now received a Greenlight from the Steam community and that a new version of the game will appear in the next few days.

Clearly Throttle Powah is at a pre-alpha stage right now, with little to no structured gameplay in place, but the central gameplay mechanic seems like solid, original and genuinely fun idea and, frankly, I wanted to share with Road to VR readers. The game seems to channel the essence of Geoff Crammond’s 8/16 bit classic Stunt Car Racer with perhaps a dash of the cult SNES classic Uniracers and Tony Hawks thrown in for good measure.

Follow along with Throttle Powah‘s development at their Steam page here, or via their Facebook page here.

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Watch: ‘TO THE TOP’ is an Exhilarating Climbing Game With Great VR Locomotion

Electric Hat Games’ TO THE TOP is a vibrant, rapid-paced climbing game that demonstrates a brilliantly innovative locomotion technique that the development team claims results in “zero motion sickness”.

Take Crytek’s The Climb, mix in a dash of Mirror’s Edge and sprinkle over a little inspiration from Survios’ latest and impressive locomotion prototype and you have TO THE TOP, a new climbing action game from Electric Hat Games.

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Hands-on: 'Sprint Vector's' Breakthrough Locomotion Could Inspire an Entirely New Genre of VR Games

The premise is simple: reach the end of the course with your limbs unbroken. That course takes the form of bright, vibrant and vertiginous trail, marked our with coloured tracks, hand holds, pipes and so on. The twist here is that, in order to move through the world, you use only your hands to gain both traction and velocity. Unlike the aforementioned The Climb, which took a largely slow-paced, considered approach to its gameplay, TO THE TOP encourages you to gain and maintain as much speed as possible.

Recently, we took a look at Survios’ Sprint Vector, an infinite runner title which required the player to launch and vault through a series of largely linear courses at breakneck speed. The company called the game’s locomotion system ‘Fluid Locomotion’ and has the player swing their arms whilst holding motion controllers to gain speed and initiate climbs and jumps. Ben Lang tried this out and was surprised with how effective the title was at providing satisfying input but, more importantly, how comfortable the experience proved to be.

TO THE TOP has a slightly different approach, with movement through the world made via coloured areas which you grab with your virtual hands, again tracked with motion controllers – where you look, you launch. The other difference is that the levels through which these coloured paths are set is rife with verticality and alarming some heights. Add to that a bizarre world with some dead-on production design and crazy roller-coaster courses

Electric Hat Games say that their motivation for the title’s locomotion was to “create a movement mechanic that is simple to use, takes advantages of VR input, and feels very comfortable to play.” The team say they spent a year fine tuning the approach until they were sure they had something that worked and was fun. TO THE TOP is the realisation of this work.

The title is currently available via Steam for both HTC Vive and Oculus Rift + Touch controllers and for your money you’ll get 30 levels with 5 ‘goals’ per level to complete. Also, the developers have teased that online multiplayer functionality is coming, an intriguing prospect.

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Conan O’Brien Plays ‘Wilson’s Heart’ in Latest ‘Clueless Gamer’ Segment

Wilson’s Heart, the latest exclusive on the Oculus Rift and Touch, has launched to much fanfare, including a funny take on the game (and VR in general) by Conan O’Brien.

Conan O’Brien is the long time late-night talkshow host of Conan which includes a segment called ‘Clueless Gamer’ where Conan tries his hand at playing anticipated titles, despite not being a gamer himself. In the latest segment he tries Wilson’s Heart, a story-driven VR title that puts players a black and white world that takes on the feel of a ’40s horror film. See the video heading this article.

See Also: ‘Wilson’s Heart’ Review – A surreal, violent and visually intense trip through ’40s pop culture

This isn’t Conan’s first time with VR however. Recently he visited YouTube’s mixed reality lab in New York City to try a number of different VR experiences on the Vive.

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Oculus ‘Medium’ 1.1 Update Brings Major Improvements

On April 12th, Oculus Medium received the 1.1 ‘Large’ update, which added several highly-requested features, including the ability to import reference images. Medium is Oculus’ flagship creative tool for the Touch motion controllers, recognised for its intuitive sculpting and modelling features.

Debuted at Oculus Connect 2 in September 2015, and bundled free with Oculus Touch controllers at the hardware launch in December 2016, Medium achieved its goal of delivering an accessible 3D modelling tool for the masses by emulating real-world clay sculpting, being more intuitive and approachable than professional software like ZBrush. But Medium also appealed to the pros, keen to integrate the tool with their workflow, resulting in a long list of feature requests.

The Oculus Medium “Large Update” is here! Dive in for reference images, Home screen redesign, 2D video, mesh reduction, Oculus avatar integration, and new tutorials!

Publié par Oculus Medium sur mercredi 12 avril 2017

Since the December release, the Medium team has addressed bugs and improved features in several smaller updates, such as the sharing functionality and the layer UI, but 1.1 represents the most substantial changes. The software now includes a collection of common reference images, with shapes, anatomy, guides and stickers, and you can import your own images easily. You can surround yourself with images or set them to ‘move with sculpt’, ideal for tracing and filling out basic proportions of a model. This feature alone is seen as a game-changer, making the tool much more practical for many creators.

In addition, the homescreen has been re-designed, with asset support on the Medium Newsfeed, allowing users to view and download sculpts within the headset. Improved menus allow for easier file browsing, feature discoverability, and usability, and new tutorials running within VR demonstrate sculpting techniques and tool use, with more planned in the future.

2D videos can now be recorded without having to leave VR, which show your movements represented by your Oculus Avatar, which has now been integrated. There are also new stamp collections, including bones, household objects, fruits and traditional clay tools. Other improvements include mesh reduction (the ability to export a reduced-poly-count mesh with the colours in a texture map), layer naming, and revised smoothing tools that provide more granular control beyond the analogue trigger.

On April 6th, renowned artist Steve Lord previewed the 1.1 update during a Facebook livestream, which remains one of the best demonstrations of the changes. During the stream, the team responded to questions and requests from the live chat, indicating that many more improvements are planned.

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‘Robo Recall’ Update Brings Additional Improvements to 360 Degree Tracking

One of the slickest titles on the Rift right now, Epic Games’ arcade shooter Robo Recall has received an update which addresses one of the bigger criticisms the title received at launch, 360 degree tracking for the Oculus Touch.

Update (4/6/17, 10:33PM PT): Today Epic released a new update to Robo Recall which brings additional improvements to 360 degree tracking. With the 180 degree tracking, players could use the thumbstick to decide which direction they wanted to be facing after the teleport, however this option wasn’t available to players using the newly added 360 degree tracking feature. Thanks to feedback from the community, Epic has updated the game to add this option to 360 degree tracking, along with a few other improvements, as noted by their patch notes:

  • Based on feedback, we’ve added support for directional teleporting with 360 tracking.
  • Added a “tracking settings” prompt that should show up one time, on the main menu, for people who have 3 trackers, or have 2 trackers pointing towards each other.
  • Re-enabled some optimizations in the physical animation code that had been disabled during development.
  • Removed half-finished text localization from the build, as it was accidentally being activated for some users.
  • Improved the feedback for players who’ve stepped away from their “center” position.

Original Article (4/1/2017): Robo Recall is a rare example in VR, a title that represents what can be achieved with the right funding, technology and developers behind it – one of the few titles on VR which comes close to the polish and production values expected of Triple-A titles in the traditional gaming world. It’s also bloody good fun too!

However, one sore point which was highlighted in our review of the game and vocally by the VR community at large, was the emphasis the game put on a front-facing experience – one that’s seen as optimal for those with a standard ‘out of the box’ Oculus Touch tracking set up (i.e. two Oculus Sensors). Thanks to the game’s built-in mod support, the community tackled that issue in no time at all, along with a full-locomotion version of the title to boot. However, Epic acknowledged that there was an issue to address and promised to tackle it in a future update.

SEE ALSO
'Robo Recall' Review

That update is now here and the new version of Robo Recall now offers a new 360 tracking mode, which is selectable within the game’s settings menu. We’ve not yet had a chance to give this a try, but the hope if that those with a more robust Oculus Sensor (i.e. 3 or more) can now benefit from their investment.

The update also includes a raft of bug fixes and improvements, all of which are listed below, with one curious item a new music track which accompanies the end credits. The poignant sounding “Shooty Shooty Gun Hands” didn’t quite make it into the initial release of Robo Recall, and if you’re curious what this musical masterpiece sounds like, you can check it out below.

Robo Recall Update Release Notes:

  • Added support for 360 tracking mode. Available in Settings->Tracking Options.
  • Replaced ending credits music with “Shooty Shooty Gun Hands”, the masterpiece that came in too hot for launch.
  • Improved and stabilized teleporting up onto ledges.
  • Fixed a bug that caused crawlers to be wiggidy-wack when you grabbed them during one part of their “get up” sequence.
  • Added more unique colors for high multiplier numbers. People are tearing it up on Youtube!
  • Fixed a bug that caused flickering between LODs in a very narrow window.
  • Some improvements for spectator leaderboard functionality.
  • Fixed a small bug on the Holo-table that caused weapon dangly bits to misbehave when weapon was dropped.
  • Fixed “Whip Slam” damage scoring events and made damage scale with impact velocity.
  • Some audio performance improvements.
  • Fixes for font caching that wasn’t working properly. Players should now experience fewer small hitches the first time unique text is rendered.
  • Fix bug where Boss VO wasn’t being affected by VO volume settings.
  • Misc audio bug fixes.
  • Spectator leaderboard now correctly states when player is in “All Star Mode”.

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