Oculus verkündete die Termine der vier anstehenden eSports-Finals auf der Oculus Connect 5. So finden innerhalb eines Zeitraums von zwei Tagen, die finalen Begegnungen der Profispieler in den VR-Titeln Onward, The Unspoken, Echo Arena und Sprint Vector statt. Für sämtliche Spiele sind zum aktuellen Zeitpunkt noch Plätze offen, die in Turnieren vergeben werden.
Oculus Connect 5 – Termine für die eSports-Finals der vier VR-Titel veröffentlicht
Vom 26. bis 27. September treten die VR-Profis in vier verschiedenen Spielen, um einen Gesamtpreispool in Höhe von 120.000 US-Dollar gegeneinander an. Die Spieler/innen erkämpften sich den Platz über zwei Monate hinweg in der zweiten offiziellen Saison der VR League.
So finden am 26. September um 20.30 Uhr nach deutscher Zeit die ersten beiden Finals der VR-Spiele Onward und The Unspoken statt. Im taktischen Shooter konnte sich Team Globochem nach einer beeindruckenden Leistung auf den Onward Invitiational einen Platz im Finale sichern. Zwei weitere Plätze sind derzeit noch offen und werden ab dem 11. August in einem Open Qualifier vergeben. Die Anmeldungen für Fünferteams sind bis zum 10. August möglich.
Am darauf folgenden 27. September treten die Kontrahenten in Echo Arena und Sprint Vector gegeneinander an. Im gravitationslosen Multiplayer-Titel Echo Arena kämpfen die beiden Teams ec.LiP.se und das europäische Team BLAST um den Titel. Im Last Chance Qualifier erhalten weitere Spieler/innen vom 14. bis 15. August die Chance auf den Eintritt ins Finale. In Sprint Vector kämpfen die besten acht Runner um den ersten Platz. Eine Qualifikation ist hier ebenso noch möglich.
Die Matches werden per Livestream auf den entsprechenden Facebook-, Twitch– und YouTube-Kanälen der Oculus Connect 5 übertragen.
If I’ve learned anything over the past couple of years, it’s that VR is very likely the future of esports. Competitive gaming has taken the world by storm and it’s exciting to watch masters of their craft expertly play the hottest video games, but when you can see someone physically competing in virtual reality, it’s even better.
Earlier this year Oculus, Intel, and the ESL teamed up again for Season 2 of the VR League with $220k in total prizes on the line and $120k total just for OC5 Finals. Now, the VR League Finals are coming up soon with live competitions at Oculus Connect 5 from September 26th – 27th at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center. Live coverage of the VR League Finals will begin at 11:30AM PT on September 26th on Facebook, Twitch, and YouTube. The first day will feature Onward and The Unspoken with day two dedicated to Echo Arena and Sprint Vector.
For Onward, competition has been heating up lately as VR League has partnered with VR Master League. One team has already secured a spot for the OC5 Finals through their domination at the Onward Invitational and starting on August 11th, the VR Master League will run its open qualifier tournament to award two teams spots at the Finals. The fourth and final team slot will go to the winner of the September 2nd Onward Last Chance Qualifier, which will be hosted live at ESL Studios in Leicester, UK. More details on all thins Onward here.
Half of The Unspoken’s lineup for OC5 finals is already set, after an initially shaky period of uncertainty of whether or not it would even be included in VR League. The remaining four slots will go to competitors from the World Finals Qualifier on August 18th (following the preceding Last Chance Qualifier on August 14th). More details on The Unspoken here.
There are still lots of chances to qualify for Echo Arena, including the Stage 3 Finals, Last Chance Qualifier, and World Finals Qualifier across multiple regions. And for Sprint Vector, rankings haven’t even happened yet. On August 17th during the World Finals Qualifier, the top eight players (based on points) will be selected to compete on-stage in San Jose for the VR League Finals. More details for Echo Arena and Sprint Vector can be found at each link.
Seeing a VR platform manufacturer like Oculus continue to not only support — but invest in — the competitive VR esports landscape is extremely exciting. Hopefully this leads to more competitions down the line, including a VR League Season 3 for next year.
To stay up to date on the latest with the VR Leage, make sure and follow their official Facebook and Twitter profiles. Let us know what you think of how the competitions have been thus far down in the comments below!
Correction: We fixed a typo that originally stated the wrong prize pool amount.
Editor’s Note: This was originally published on August 2nd but has been republished on August 10th to coincide with the Open Alpha period. More details here.
Original: When a game vanishes off the face of the Earth for over six months after an initial reveal, it’s usually a bad sign. But in the case of Virtual Battlegrounds, an upcoming VR battle royale game from developer Cyberdream, they were just working hard on their game for eight months. A lot has happened in that time.
The last time we covered Virtual Battlegrounds, the idea of a VR battle royale game was still unique. Stand Out existed already, but it was in its infancy and there wasn’t even a peep about Rec Royale or Do or Die VR yet. Now, the VR landscape is very different and it’s going to be tough for the small indie developer to still make a splash with their ambitious take on the genre.
This article will be focused mostly on my own hands-on impressions. If you want to see footage of the game and hear what the developer has to say, you can watch our feature video above.
The Difference Makers
If Cyberdream wants Virtual Battlegrounds to be successful, it has some stiff competition. On the one hand there are all of the existing battle royale games outside of VR that have made significant names for themselves, primarily being PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) and Fortnite, as well as others like Realm Royale and H1Z1. These titles are where the genre got started and where it’s been popularized. Just simply making a VR version of that concept isn’t really enough. People expect more than copy-paste developers.
Then on the other hand we’ve already got a few VR battle royale games on the market. There’s Rec Royale, a game mode in the free-to-play social VR platform, Rec Room, that’s got a ton of players across PSVR, Rift, and Vive, and we’ve got Stand Out: VR Battle Royale, arguably the first VR battle royale game to make a splash. There are others, but those are the main two.
After playing an in-development build of Virtual Battlegrounds while visiting Cyberdreams’ Orlanda, FL studio, clearly the most significant two ways they plan to differentiate themselves are: 1) map size/scope, and 2) physicality of gameplay.
The map itself in Virtual Battlegrounds is a massive 4km x 4km playspace with several landmarks, cities, villages, and a variety of terrain features and elevation. For those paying attention, that’s actually the same size as PUBG’s third, smaller map. But in VR, it feels enormous.
Standing on the loading ramp at the back of the helicopter as it flies over the map the sheer sense of scale really sets in. In a game of Stand Out or Rec Royale you can easily get to pretty much any corner of the map when you jump out no problem, but depending on your spawn point, you may not see entire sections of Virtual Battlegrounds for a while. The map is just simply huge.
Right now they’ve got the game optimized for 24 players at a time, with some bots, but are aiming to up that number to about 32 players at a time for launch. Including bots to pad out the experience and keep the action rolling is a good idea, especially considering how tough it is to maintain a strong playerbase in VR titles.
Getting Physical
From what I’ve seen, the most surprising and impactful feature that Virtual Battlegrounds has is its climbing system. I haven’t seen anything like this in any other shooter or battle royale game — VR or otherwise.
If you’ve ever played Climbey, The Climb, or Robinson: The Journey then you’ll have a pretty good idea of how the climbing mechanics work in Virtual Battlegrounds, but everything is pushed to the absolute limit. Buildings, trees, mountains, walls, rocks, skyscrapers — it doesn’t matter.
Basically, you can climb just about anything and everything in the game.
Similar to how the building mechanics make Fortnite a fundamentally different game than PUBG, the climbing system in Virtual Battlegrounds is a literal game changer. Instead of walking around a mountain you can go over it. Instead of looking for a door to take cover in a building you can hang from the wall, dangle from the ceiling, or jump in through a window. You can scale anything and everything that you can touch and it’s an exhilarating sense of freedom.
During my demo I approached every situation differently than I would have in another battle royale game. When I come across a building, I’m not just checking my corners in the hallways inside, but scouring the ceiling and listening for footsteps on the roof as well. It makes the whole landscape viable and forces you to be aware of your entire 360-degree surroundings at all times, a bit like Echo Combat.
That sense of physicality is also represented in other areas of the game as well. Similar to Skyrim VR, you have to actually move your arms to swim in Virtual Battlegrounds. When you jump out of the helicopter at the start of the match, you can stretch your arms in front of you to dive down or spread them at your side to slow your speed.
If you swing your arms downward like you’re lunging then you can jump in place. Driving vehicles requires two hands and careful steering. All of the weapons have to be physically manipulated with your hands like you’re actually holding them.
You’ve even got a backpack to store your excess gear that doesn’t fit in your primary weapon holsters and gear belt. That’s a lot of attention to detail.
Focusing On VR Esports
ESL Esports Promo Image
There’s been no greater time to be an esports professional in the history of video games than right now. The first Overwatch League season just recently ended and saw the game broadcast, live, on ESPN and in bars around the world. Contestants are winning thousands of dollars playing games like Overwatch, Dota 2, League of Legends, PUBG, Fortnite, and more.
And now with the second season of the VR League well underway, contestants are doing the same thing with VR games — but they’re doing so in a much more physical way. As impressive as professional Starcraft 2 players are, they’re still just sitting at a desk behind a keyboard. When you compete in a VR game like Echo Arena, Onward, or The Unspoken, you’re actually up and moving in a real, visceral competition. I strongly believe VR and esports have a long, bright future together.
Virtual Battlegrounds wants to tap into that. Onward is having success in the esports scene for a VR shooter, but not many others are yet. The battle royale formula lends itself perfectly to an esports setting, so Cyberdream is hoping to position their upcoming title as a veritable contender.
One way that they’re hoping to do that is by hosting a large esports tournament to celebrate the impending launch of Virtual Battlegrounds later this year. The event will likely be in September in Orlando, FL, and it will include cash prizes. Keep tabs on the company website for more details on that as they become available.
The Battle For The Best VR Battle Royale
Right now Virtual Battlegrounds has a steep hill to climb. Comparisons to PUBG are unavoidable, especially given the name and logo font, as are direct references to the likes of Stand Out and Rec Royale. But if Cyberdream can double down on what sets them apart (larger map, slower-paced matches, and physicality) then they’ve got a shot at making something notable here.
On paper, Virtual Battlegrounds sounds amazing. However, the build I played is not representative of the end vision Cyberdream has for the game. There were some hiccups and framerate drops, lots of quirky (but often hilarious) bugs, it was hard to tell if an enemy player was taking damage, the map isn’t populated with enough vehicles or buildings yet, and some features, like weapon customization and attachments, aren’t in the game yet.
But what is there currently and working — the climbing, the core gun handling, skydiving, swimming, etc — all feels really good and responsive. If the performance issues can get figured out and the rest of the features are included, I have no doubt that there will be an audience ready and waiting to dive into the harsh, post-apocalyptic locale of Virtual Battlegrounds.
Virtual Battlegrounds does not currently have a definitive release date, but Cyberdream is planning for it to be on Steam Early Access before the end of the year following a September 2018 Esports launch event (details will be posted on the company website). You can sign up for the upcoming brief Open Alpha period (from Friday, August 10th at 3PM PT until Saturday, August 11th at 9PM PT) by visiting the official website here.
Cyberdream and its publisher, Spiral Summit Games, paid for travel and lodging for us to visit their studio and provide this coverage. You can read more about our policy on this in our Code of Ethics.
Editor’s Note: Since publication, some screenshots have been changed/updated.
Almost two years ago Onward hit Steam and set the VR world on fire. Dante Buckley, a then-one-man-development studio that taught himself everything he knows after dropping out of college, has successfully built a team and company around his breakout success. In its wake, Onward has spawned other VR shooters like Pavlov and Stand Out, as well as showed the industry that the majority of VR gamers can handle smooth locomotion just fine.
Onward is a hardcore military simulation VR FPS that doesn’t hold back any punches. This weekend it’s free on Steam for anyone to download and play, so we figured this was a great chance to dive into the game. We haven’t played in months so we’re very rusty and there’s a lot of new stuff we haven’t seen yet. Wish us luck! If you decide to play as well, make sure and read our Field Guide of tips.
We’ll be livestreaming Onward on PC today using an Oculus Rift with Touch starting very soon as of the time this is being published (which means we’ll start at approximately 2:30PM PT) and aim to last for about an hour or so. We’ll be livestreaming directly to the UploadVR Facebook page. You can see the full stream embedded right here down below once it’s up:
Let us know which games you want us to livestream next and what you want to see us do, specifically, in Onward or other VR games. Comment with feedback down below!
Der Community-Manager von Downpour Interactive verkündete kürzlich auf Reddit, dass der taktische Multiplayer-Shooter Onward für Oculus Rift und HTC Vive dieses Wochenende vom 19. bis 22. Juli gratis auf Steam spielbar ist. Die kostenlose Testperiode soll der Spielerschaft die neuen Features des Hotfix v1.2.8. präsentieren von denen besonders Rift-Nutzer profitieren. Außerdem steht bereits der nächste Patch in den Startlöchern, der weitere Inhalte verspricht.
Onward für Oculus Rift und HTC Vive – Kostenlose Testperiode auf Steam
Der militärische Taktik-Shooter Onward für Oculus Rift und HTC Vive versetzt die Spieler/innen in Multiplayer-Gefechtssituationen, die neben Waffenskills eine Menge Teamplay fordern. In einer Fünfer-Konstellation pro Team tretet ihr gegeneinander an, um spezielle Missionsziele zu erfüllen und dadurch den Sieg für euch zu beanspruchen. Dabei stehen insgesamt 30 verschiedene Waffentypen für die immersiven Feuergefechte zur Auswahl. Der PvP-Shooter konnte sich seit seiner Veröffentlichung 2016 dank des gelungenen Gameplays eine große Community aufbauen und langfristig an sich binden.
Im Zeitraum vom 19. bis 22. Juli ist Onward kostenlos auf Steam spielbar. Besitzer einer Oculus Rift dürfen sich seit dem letzten Hotfix über eine Anpassung der Touch-Controller freuen. Zudem ist es nun möglich, Granaten aufzuheben und auf den Feind zurückzuwerfen.
Mit der Rift ist SteamVR nicht zwangsweise zum Starten nötig, da das Spiel die Oculus SDK von Haus aus unterstützt. Wenn ihr in den Einstellungen der Oculus-Desktop-App “Inhalte von unbekannten Quellen” aktiviert, könnt ihr den Shooter direkt über Steam starten.
Außerdem arbeiten die Entwickler/innen weiterhin stetig am Update 1.3, welches neue Inhalte ins Spiel integriert. Dazu zählen realistischere Animationen, neue Waffen, ein Zweibein zum Auflegen der Gewehre und die neue Map Abandoned
Nach Sonntag ist Onward für Oculus Rift und HTC Vive für 22,99 Euro auf Steam sowie für 24,99 Euro im Oculus Store erhältlich.
Onward, the multiplayer VR shooter in Early Access, is hosting another free access weekend, this time on Steam for owners of Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.
The popular mil-sim tactical shooter has hosted several free weekends since its Early Access release in 2016—and another fresh one is ready to be locked and loaded, starting July 19th at 10AM PST (local time here) until the 22nd at 1PM PST (local time here).
The game is primarily focused on online multiplayer, and includes 5v5 team deathmatch, objective-based gamemodes, solo/co-op vs AI, 30 different realistic weapons, and a host of artificial locomotion options including hand-relative locomotion, snap-turn, and of course room-scale locomotion. Check it out on Steam here.
Remember: there aren’t any HUDs or projected cross-hairs, so your shooting ability (and ability to communicate) will greatly influence your chances of nabbing that all-important victory.
The free weekend will only be available through Steam, a Downpour Interactive spokesperson announced via Reddit. For Rift users, SteamVR won’t actually be required since the game supports the Oculus SDK natively. Simply allow ‘unknown sources’ through the Oculus PC app, and boot the game directly from Steam.
To allow content from unknown sources:
Open the Oculus app on your PC.
Select Settings in the left menu.
Select the General tab.
Next to Unknown Sources, click to allow content from unknown sources.
Hey PC VR owners, envious about upcoming PSVR-exclusive shooter, Firewall: Zero Hour? There’s no need to be; Rift and Vive have a perfectly excellent military shooter of their own that you can try for free this weekend.
Downpour Interactive’s Onward will be free to play from July 19th to 22nd via Steam. The entire game (which is still in Early Access) will be free to jump into. It will give you the chance to experience the latest version of the game, which adds in controllers tailored to the Oculus Touch controllers (instead of just emulating the Vive controls as before) and the ability to catch and then throw back grenades, which must happen in real war all the time.
Elsewhere, yet more updates are coming to the game, including improved, more realistic player animations and a brand new map named Abandoned. You can also expect to equip weapons with bipods for greater accuracy and use a new stun gun.
Onward is a multiplayer military shooter that focuses on realism and has made a name for itself as one of the best competitive VR games out there right now.
Still no word on a full and final release yet, but we’ll keep you updated.
Over the last two and a half years we’ve gotten a lot of VR shooters. From zombie-slaying adventures and sci-fi romps through the stars, to hardcore military simulations and hunting dinosaurs on a lonely island, there’s been something for just about everybody.
Now with quite a few promising VR shooters on the horizon we’ve decided to round up our list of the very best 15 VR shooters that you can play right now on Rift, Vive, PSVR, and Windows VR headsets while you get ready for the next wave of intense FPS action.
All entries are listed alphabetically, any past entries that may have been removed are listed at the bottom before the “Coming Soon” section.
Arizona Sunshine(Rift, Vive, PSVR, and Windows VR)
Vertigo Games’ zombie-killing adventure, Arizona Sunshine, is still the best game featuring the walking undead. It’s got a solid campaign, cooperative multiplayer, and an addictive horde mode. Everything is ultra-polished and it’s just a joy to play. Can’t recommend this one enough.
Your eyes are not deceiving you: that video above is actually what Compound, a 2018 VR shooter, looks like. It’s honestly like you’ve set foot inside of a classic 90s-era PC FPS like Wolfenstein or Quake. From our preview: “[Compound] recaptures the revelatory 3D thrills of sneaking around Castle Wolfenstein, hugging a pixelated wall and quickly poking around a corner for a few pot shots at unsuspecting enemies, opening a door and leaping in fright at the sight of an armed goon opening fire, or the relief that comes with discovering a cache of health. But there’s renewed enthusiasm in unearthing the core of the first-person shooter that takes Compound far further than a faithful love letter.”
Farpoint was released as the flagship title for Sony’s PSVR Aim Controller and it does a great job of showcasing the device. We wouldn’t recommend playing it without the controller, in fact. What you’ll get is a decent campaign, 1v1 PvP maps, solo challenge maps, and co-op wave-based maps to play with a friend. It’s a lot of content and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a VR shooter that just feels better to play than Farpoint.
I’ll just quote my review here: “Firewall Zero Hour defies the odds by delivering a multiplayer-focused VR shooter that actually lives up to its potential. If you don’t have a PS Aim controller yet, then you should buy one for this game even though it technically supports DualShock 4 as well. If you don’t have a PSVR headset yet, then you should buy one for this game. With a few improvements and additions, First Contact could turn what is already a must-have PSVR game into a genre-defining one.”
Imagine if you took the ship management aspects out of something like FTL then married it with a procedurally generated roguelike with a Star Trek Away Team-style skin. That’s basically From Other Suns. It’s a blast on co-op and is basically infinitely replayable.
This is about the closest you’re gonna get to something like Borderlands in VR right now. The drop-in, drop-out co-op works great, missions are fun and replayable, and there’s a ton of stuff to unlock in terms of guns, weapon mods, and cosmetic items. The movement features a mixture of free locomotion, teleporting, and excellent floaty jumps. Oh — and there’s PvP!
Hunting dinosaurs is terrifying, but it’s also fun. That’s the underlying premise that Island 359 was founded on. Think of it as a survival shooter that drops you into a jungle and asks you to hunt deadly dinos for survival. With a lot of weapons and game modes to pick from, it’s the kind of VR game that keeps on giving.
While still technically in Early Access, this was really the original hardcore VR shooter to put competitive FPS games on the map for the immersive medium. It’s got excellent mechanics, a strikingly realistic gameplay feel, and it does a great job of making you really feel like you’re in the middle of a war. Highly recommended.
Pavlov is what you get when someone looks at a game like Onward and says, “What if that, but a little less hardcore?” That’s the long and short of it. Pavlov is basically Counter-Strike VR and it totally works.
About a year and a half after its release, this is still hands-down the scariest experience I’ve had in VR to date. Everything from the slow-building narrative, perfect shooter-based gameplay, gorgeously grotesque world, and horrifying violence make this a must-play for all PSVR owners.
If Raw Data and Robo Recall are a bit too tame for you, then Sairento may be able to scratch that itch. It’s got more high-flying action, time-slowing powers, and an excellent mixture of ninja elements to make you both look and feel like a badass superhero.
Serious Sam 3 VR: BFE (Rift, Vive, and Windows VR)
Croteam’s Serious Sam series is one of the longest-running pure adrenaline-based action shooter franchises on the market. It’s all about pure action with tons of enemies on-screen and lots of back-pedaling. Serious Sam 3 VR cuts no corners and even features online multiplayer.
Stand Out: VR Battle Royale(Rift, Vive, and Windows VR)
I don’t like rip-offs. That’s a blanket statement that covers my feelings on the topic…for the most part. In the case of Stand Out: VR Battle Royale I’m willing to make an exception. For all intents and purposes, this game is a rip-off of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) by taking that exact premise, art style, and even many minor rules and mechanics, and just adapting it for VR. In fact, even the logo looks about the same. It’s shameless, but damn if it isn’t a ton of fun despite the lack of polish.
Calling Superhot a shooter isn’t really accurate, but we had to include it on this list since it does feature lots of guns. In Superhot time only moves when you do, so it’s actually more of a puzzle game as you figure out how to take out all enemies without getting hit in this cerebral thriller.
This was a launch title for the PSVR and remains as one of the platform’s very best in terms of fun you can have behind a pair of dual-wielded guns. It’s actually just one 3-4 hour long roller coaster ride full of jump scares and bad guys waiting to be filled with lead. Beyond featuring some of the best sound design we’ve seen in a horror title yet, it’s also just a treat to play through.
(9/11/18 Update): This is a living, ever-evolving list. As of September 11, 2018, we’ve bumped Raw Data, Robo Recall, and Killing Floor: Incursion off of the list to make room for Stand Out: VR Battle Royale, Firewall Zero Hour, and Compound.
Coming Soon
Zero Killed (September 26th, Rift and Vive)
PC VR users already have Onward and Pavlov and PSVR users now have Firewall Zero Hour, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for more realistic military shooters out there. This one is shaping up to be a mixture of Rainbow Six and Counter-Strike with tactical combat that still leans heavily on fast and intense gameplay. We’ll have impressions of this one very soon on the site.
Evasion (October 9th, Rift, Vive, and PSVR)
There are lots of single player-focused shooters on this list and the handful of multiplayer ones are mostly all about slow-paced tactical warfare — but not Evasion. Described as part co-op VR shooter and part “bullet hell” game, this one is all about staying mobile, leveraging your class abilities, and dodging enemy fire. The PSVR edition will support the Aim controller as well so this is one worth keeping your eye on.
Echo Combat (2018, Rift Exclusive)
Since it’s already gone through Open Beta, we imagine it’s not far off from release. Echo Combat takes the innovative movement system from Lone Echo and Echo Arena and marries it with Overwatch-style payload-moving FPS action.
Space Junkies (2018, Rift, Vive, and Windows VR)
Having just come off of a Closed Beta last weekend, Space Junkies is likely not far off from release either. This one feels a bit like the VR spiritual successor to Unreal Tournament with lots of zero-G jetpack flying action.
Defector (2018, Rift Exclusive)
If you’ve ever wanted to feel like the star of your own Mission Impossible film, then Defector could be the perfect game. Like, seriously. That’s what this is.
Zero Caliber (Early 2019)
We don’t know much about this one yet, but it already is on our list of most-anticipated VR shooters for sure. The art direction is beautiful and the co-op action looks like a great implementation of the sci-fi setting.
We undoubtedly missed some of your favorite VR shooters. Let us know what they are down in the comments below!
As the events of the World Cup continue it is time for another entry of This Week In VR Sport. Every weekVRFocusbrings you a number of sports and eSports related virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) stories. Keeping to the theme of the beautiful game there are two stories on the World Cup this week including download numbers for the BBC World Cup VR App and a VR penalty kick experience. Elsewhere, the Onward Invitational eSports event has been continuing and a number of matches are now available to watch including one with the developers.
BBC World Cup VR App Downloaded Over 325K Times
Getting to the topic of the FIFA World Cup 2018 right away, it has been revealed that the BBC World Cup VR app has been downloaded over 325,000 times. The app allows views to enjoy a wide range of content from the event in immersive VR and put themselves closer to the sport then ever before. The number of downloads, though tiny in comparison to non-VR viewing of the World Cup is still an impressive number on its own. It shows that there is a growing audience for the media even if there is still a long way to go.
All of the 33 World Cup games from the BBC, including the final, are to be available via the BBC Sport VR 2018 FIFA World Cup app. According to the figures, as reported by Broadcast, non-VR viewings of the World Cup have passed more than 40 million live and on-demand request for the BBC’s coverage across BBC Sport and BBC iPlayer.
It will be interesting to see if the number of downloads for the VR app continue to grow as the World Cup continues or if we have already hit the peak. VRFocus will be sure to let you know should the BBC reveal more data.
Onward Invitational Matches Available To Watch
As VR videogames continue to become more common in the eSport’s scene the VR League and ESL have been putting select titles into the limelight. Recently, during the Onward Invitational, eSport team Stack Up went head-to-head against the Onward development team, Downpour Interactive in a heated multiplayer match. Since it’s airing the whole match is available to watch YouTube and can be seen just above.
The Onward Invitational is ongoing so for all the latest from the VR League, keep reading VRFocus.
Test Your Penalty Shoot-Out Skills In New VR Experience
Finally this week, another piece of World Cup goodness. If you have been thinking you could do a better job then some of the players when it comes to penalty kicks there is now a VR experience that will let you prove it. The Straits Times has created a lightweight VR penalty shoot-out challenge for fans of the World Cup and lets them pick from the 32 countries taking part and try to lead them to victory.
Needing to score the as many kicks as possible, players will start from the bottom and work their way up through the rounds until they are in the finals. As you progress so to do the other teams, with a performance comparison available at the end of the experience to see how they fared. The experience is designed for mobile devices but can also be enjoyed on a computer using a mouse. You can try it for yourself here.
That is all for This Week In VR Sport. For more on immersive sport news keep reading VRFocus and remember to check back next week for another This Week In VR Sport.
Developer Downpour Interactive released their virtual reality (VR) tactical military shooter back in late 2017 and have now revealed that Onward is available to play for free this weekend on the Oculus Store. This means that anyone who was wondering what it is like to be immersed within a modern set military title can do so, completely for free.
Focusing on five-versus-five battles in a modern setting, players will find themselves needing to make every step and action count. With only one life and next to information being displays on screen, this is the closest to real-life warfare as you can get. Working together with friends or computer controlled team members, players will need to complete objective-based game-modes and use tactics, communication and coordination along with weapon skills to come out as the victor.
Back in May of this year, the team at Downpour Interactive released a new update which brought will it a number of big improvements and features to the title. This included updates to the shadows and lighting effects across all of the titles maps, improvements to the inventory system to allow for better navigation. Items were also made ambidextrous, along with being made to be shared between players as well as dropped.
A number of new weapons came in the update as well which give players more options in how they want to approach a fight. Night vision and IR lights were also added to the title along with night-time maps to the title as well. The update also brought with it the implementation of the EasyAntiCheat (EAC) system to help deal with any potential cheaters that might be causing trouble within the title.
The free weekend of Onward is available now on the Oculus Store, and is running until 8am (BST) on Monday, 18th June. Players who want to keep going after this time can do so by picking up the title at discounted price of £10.99 (GBP) down from £18.99 as part of the free weekend.
VRFocus will be sure to bring you all the latest from Downpour Interactive in the future so make sure to stay tuned for more.
