GIVEAWAY: Win A Free ‘Pink Cassette’ Limited Edition Of Pixel Ripped 1989 On PSVR

ATTENTION VR GAMERS: We’re teaming up with ARVORE to give away a free ‘Pink Cassette’ Limited Edition version (releasing April 12th) of cult classic nostalgia-charged VR game, Pixel Ripped 1989. Details below!

pixel ripped 1989 Pink Cassette limited edition

The Pink Cassette Edition is exclusive to the Perp Games Online Store and only 1,500 will ever be sold. This makes it a must-have for collectors and a very rare giveaway option for fans of the series and fans of VR in general.

This extremely limited Pink Cassette Edition includes an exclusive, limited-edition retro-styled 1980s game box with a physical boxed edition of Pixel Ripped 1989 on PlayStation VR inside, a limited edition retro pink cassette USB drive which contains the digital soundtrack, wallpaper, exclusive art, and three limited edition postcards, including one signed by Pixel Ripped’s creator, Ana Ribeiro.

For more details on the game itself, here is what I had to say in my original review from 2018:

Pixel Ripped is a love letter to all things classic gaming. From the inventive melding of retro graphics with a modern VR game setting to the way it subverts medium stereotypes by putting you in the dress and shoes of a grade school girl with a trusty Gameboy, it’s hard not to smile while playing this nostalgia-fueled adventure. A few minor hiccups hold it back from truly transcending the medium as a whole, but anyone that has fond memories of video games from the 80s and 90s absolutely needs to check this one out.

And if you love Pixel Ripped 1989, definitely check out the sequel, Pixel Ripped 1995, which builds on everything that made 1989 great and delivers an even better (in my opinion) nostalgia trip that’s dripping with charm.

GIVEAWAY: Win A Free ‘Pink Cassette’ Limited Edition Of Pixel Ripped 1989 On PSVR!

To enter into the giveaway fill out the form above or at this link here. A winner will be randomly selected and contacted via email on April 9th. You’ll send us your shipping information and we’ll give that to Perp Games so they can ship you the physical Limited Edition.

Let us know if you have any questions down in the comments below!

Delayed Pixel Ripped 1989 Pink Cassette Edition for PlayStation VR Arrives in April

Pixel Ripped 1989 Poster

Not long after the launch of Pixel Ripped 1995 for PlayStation VR last May, Perp Games in collaboration with developer ARVORE announced predecessor Pixel Ripped 1989 would be getting a couple of physical versions including a limited Pink Cassette Edition. Initially slated for an August 2020 release, that date got pushed back with Perp Games now confirming the launch will take place next month.

Pixel Ripped 1989

PlayStation VR fans will be able to choose from two physical editions, the standard Pixel Ripped 1989 Physical Edition which retails for £19.89 GBP and the far more coveted Pixel Ripped 1989 Pink Cassette Edition – limited to 1500 copies – which will set you back £29.99.

Inside the Pink Cassette Edition you’ll find the original videogame for PlayStation VR, a Pixel Ripped branded pink cassette USB containing digital goodies like the soundtrack, wallpapers and artwork, and a set of 3 postcards signed by series creator Ana Ribeiro. in keeping with the 80’s vibe all of this will be housed in a retro videogame box.

If you’re interested in picking either edition up, the Pixel Ripped 1989 Pink Cassette Edition is exclusive to the Perp Games Store with pre-orders now open. UK customer can order directly through the shop but for those outside the UK, you’ll need to send an email to perpstore@perpetual-europe.com to get a quote for international shipping. The standard edition will also be exclusive to the store but won’t be limited.

Pixel Ripped 1989 new screenshot17

If you pre-ordered in 2020 after the initial announcement and you’ve been waiting patiently then the wait is (almost) over. The launch date is now set for 12th April 2021.

VRFocus’ review of Pixel Ripped 1989 said: “Pixel Ripped 1989 is very much one of those quirky VR experiences some will love while others won’t see the point of it. VRFocus is very much in the former camp when it comes to this. Pixel Ripped 1989 offers a unique gameplay experience that’s hard to put down, combining the addictive elements of classic platformers with the immersive stylings of VR.”

Pixel Ripped 1989 and 1995 are available across multiple VR headsets, offering a homage to 80’s and 90’s gaming. There’s still more to come as ARVORE has an expansive series planned covering several more eras of the industry’s past: 1978, 1983 and 1999. As details on these emerge, VRFocus will keep you updated.

Original Pixel Ripped Finally Hits Quest As 1989 DLC

In something of a surprise launch, the original Pixel Ripped 1989 has finally arrived on Quest, though not in the expected fashion.

The full 1989 is available inside the game’s sequel, Pixel Ripped 1995 as paid DLC. The game costs $14.99, which is the same price as the full game on other platforms, though it’s currently got a 25% launch week discount.

The Pixel Ripped series pays tribute to different eras of gaming’s past. Players time travel back to the titular years to play fictional games on virtually-recreated retro consoles. 1989, for example saw players use a Game Boy-like system, whereas 1995 pays tribute to rental stores and 16-Bit systems like the SNES.

It’s an interesting move, especially when considering that Facebook initially rejected the game for release on Quest, despite approving its sequel for release last April. In a prepared statement, ARVORE Creative Direct Ana Ribeiro said the team was “really happy to have found a way together with Oculus to bring the game to so many more fans!”

Facebook never provided specific reasoning for why 1989 had been rejected from the store.

Still, it’s great to see Pixel Ripped 1989 arrive on Quest in whatever form it can. We reviewed the game back in 2018, saying: “Pixel Ripped is a love letter to all things classic gaming. From the inventive melding of retro graphics with a modern VR game setting to the way it subverts medium stereotypes by putting you in the dress and shoes of a grade school girl with a trusty Gameboy, it’s hard not to smile while playing this nostalgia-fueled adventure.”

Will you be picking up Pixel Ripped 1989 on Quest? Let us know in the comments below!

How Pixel Ripped 1995 Is A Nostalgia-Fueled Time Machine For Gamers

Nostalgia hits different in VR; it can recreate not only the things that what you once loved, but also the environment you were in when you loved it. There’s no better example of that all-encompassing nostalgia than Pixel Ripped 1995.

[UploadVR regularly commissions freelance writers to review products, write stories, interview subjects, and contribute op-ed pieces to the site. This article is a feature piece from an experienced journalist unaffiliated with UploadVR.]

Our rose-colored memories of how things used to be are a powerful force in their own right. But, blind to the world, headphones over your ears, tracking controllers mirroring the movement of your real-world hands, VR is more than just normal nostalgia.

“We have, as developers, the possibility to recreate other memories, not just the game itself, but the interaction of playing that game in that period, how it felt to play a game when I was in my bedroom at night and I had to hide the game from my mom,” says Ana Ribeiro, an indie developer at Brazilian VR studio, Arvore Immersive Experiences.

Ribeiro isn’t just referencing a common experience that many players share. She’s citing an actual example from Pixel Ripped 1995, which launched on Steam, PSVR and Quest earlier this year. Ribeiro was creative director on Pixel Ripped 1995 as well as 2018’s Pixel Ripped 1989, a similarly nostalgia-driven VR game.

pixel ripped 1995 castlevania

Drawing Nostalgia During Development

In Pixel Ripped 1995, players assume the perspective of David, an American kid growing up in the 1990s, who is faced with a dilemma: he wants to play video games all the time and his mom doesn’t want him to play video games all the time.

This conflict is gamified in a few different ways. During one section, David uses a Nerf gun to shoot objects on the kitchen counter, using the sound to distract his mother. In another bit, David is sneaking in some gaming time in his room at night. But, his parents are asleep in the next room, and if he doesn’t manage to stop playing before his mom wakes up and barges into the room, she’ll turn the console off.

Throughout this process, players see the world through David’s eyes. The left and right tracking controllers become David’s hands, cradling the in-game controller. Pixel Ripped 1995 presents the experience of playing a game within a game.

“Because of the power of immersion we have with VR, we have a much stronger nostalgic experience, because you’re putting yourself in that world and we can explore all those little things,” Ribeiro says. “Having to deal with parents or people who don’t want you to be playing games. Things that people can relate to. Every gamer has memories of struggling to play games, because we always have to be so productive, right?”

Arvore drew on the diverse experiences of its team for this collection of memories. Ribeiro alludes to the childhood experience of Arvore CEO, Ricardo Justus, who was friends with the game’s art director, Rodrigo Blanco, while growing up.

“They were telling us, ‘Oh remember that time we were playing Final Fantasy and we had to play in the night, hiding from our parents because we had to get up, and we had no electricity from the room so [we] had to get electricity from the [bathroom] and someone closed the [bathroom] door and pulled the cord from the game and we lost all their progress and [we] had to play the whole Final Fantasy game again because it didn’t have the memory card?’” Ribeiro says.

“So we kind of tried to put everyone on the team’s memories [in the game],” she says. “And I think that really helped to make the game more relatable.”

pixel ripped 1995 arcade

Representing Diverse Genres

Arvore created this collage of memories in hopes of providing a “time machine” for nostalgic players.

“That was the reason why I created the game, and I’m happy this is still what shines the most in the game: the power of transporting people to their childhoods,” Ribeiro says. “I’m happy that it actually ended up being one of the best things about the game because it was the first inspiration I had when I started building this game. I wanted to make a time machine and I wanted to relive moments of childhood because I grew up in the ‘80s, and we’re never going to have this explosion in the industry like we had [then].”

Of course, the proliferation of new games in new genres provided challenges as Arvore attempted to distill a wide variety of nostalgic memories into one 3-5 hour game. Not everyone is nostalgic for the same things. You might have spent the ‘90s honing your beat-em-up skills in brawlers like Streets of Rage. I might have spent my time riding the sprawling plains of Hyrule in The Legend of Zelda.

The small team at Arvore had to somehow make a game that hit nostalgia pressure points for as many players as possible. All while making their genre tributes fun to play in their own right. According to Ribeiro, that limited the depth of what Arvore could do with each.

pixel ripped 1995 zelda living room

“We can say that we reference a Streets of Rage, beat-em-up game,” Ribeiro says. “But, we cannot say that that’s a really, really good beat-em-up game like we want it to be, because we couldn’t explore each genre deep. So the beauty of the game is when you put it all together. But, if you have one of these levels separated and released as a full game, we wouldn’t be happy. We wouldn’t explore as much as we wanted, you know? But, putting it all together, I think it’s a big achievement.”

But, what makes Pixel Ripped 1995 unique is not just its recreation of ‘90s genres. It’s the way it uses VR to allow you to dip into the various locations from the era that aren’t as prevalent today.

“There were some locations — like the pier or the arcade and the rental store — that have that nostalgic feel, that [as] gamers, we all remember, like, ‘Wow, I’m going to the rental store.’ But, other locations, like the car, it was more related to let’s bring back those memories of being a kid,” Ribeiro says. “We all remember being in the back of the car… I had three brothers, so I would usually go in the back of the car and I remember looking out the window. So we wanted to [capture] that feeling of being a kid, and that feeling of imaging things happening, like when you start seeing Tetris blocks everywhere when you play too much Tetris.”

Recreating diverse locations helped the team to keep the game feeling fresh. Pixel Ripped 1989’s locations were pretty limited by contrast, taking place entirely in a school.

“But in 1995 we really wanted to explore [and] make more environments. The nostalgia you can bring [with] different environments, it’s so much stronger than if [you’re]  in the same place, right?” Ribeiro says.

“And we can explore much more interesting things with VR when you change environments, change the set-up, change where the characters are coming from. ‘The mom is coming from that corridor and we can explore that.’ The main reason, of course, is nostalgia, [but] also it adds to the gameplay, adds to the overall experience, that feeling of progress when you go to a new environment.”

pixel ripped 1995 rental store

The Future Of Arvore’s Nostalgia

With Pixel Ripped 1995 completed, Arvore can begin looking to the future of nostalgia. The team still has a lot of ground to cover. Ribeiro says there are plans to hit 1978, 1983, and 1999 at some point down the line. There’s even a tease for the next game hidden in 1995. But, the team isn’t only looking to span time periods. They also want Pixel Ripped to span time zones. 1989, which Ribeiro began developing while in school in England, is set in the UK. And 1995 takes aim at the ‘90s in America. That’s great for those audiences, but neither game has given the team the opportunity to explore all the specifics of their own nostalgia in Brazil.

“At some point, we definitely want to set one in Brazil, because there is so much we want to explore and I think we could make something so amazing with the experience we have being Brazilian, it would be ridiculous not to explore that,” Ribeiro says. “We had this console called [the] Phantom System [and] it was just released here… This console actually is my favorite console. I grew up saying this is my favorite console, but no one knows about this console [outside Brazil]… It was a console released in Brazil in the period that Nintendo wasn’t releasing games here.”

Developed by Gradiente, the Phantom System was an NES clone that could play NES games. But, it didn’t look anything like the NES.

“You would play with controllers that were exactly like SEGA Genesis. It was bizarre. So you would be playing Nintendo games, and also they had Brazilian games just released here,” says Ribeiro. “You could play with Sega Genesis controllers, it looked like an Atari and it played Nintendo games.”

So, while Pixel Ripped 1995 serves up an immersive experience of American-inspired ‘90s nostalgia, it will be interesting to see Arvore dive deep on the intricacies of Brazilian bootleg culture perhaps sometime soon. 1995 hits hard on my nostalgia. But, I can’t wait to see Arvore fully explore their own.

Pixel Ripped 1995 SNES

Pixel Ripped 1995 is available on Steam for PC VR headsets, the PSN Store for PSVR, and the Oculus store for Oculus Quest for $19.99 on all platforms. You can read our full review of the game here and watch a previous interview with Ribeiro from our UploadVR Holiday VR Showcase in 2019 here.

Pixel Ripped 1995 Receives Ultimate Challenge Update, Available Now

A new update has arrived for Pixel Ripped 1995, called the Ultimate Challenge Update, which adds several new features and modes to the game.

Pixel Ripped 1995 is a nostalgia-filled VR game that released earlier this year for PC VR, Oculus Quest and PSVR. A sequel to Pixel Ripped 1989, the experience plays out like a game-within-a-game — you’re a young boy, David, who plays a bunch of video games that reference all-time classics like Mario, Mega Man and many more. You’ll play as David while he plays the games on consoles, handhelds and arcade machines, but you’ll also eventually find yourself transported inside several of the games as well.

Now, the game has been updated with a significant amount of new content, dubbed the ‘Ultimate Challenge Update’. This includes a Hardcore Mode, adding a new difficulty to all six levels, and the addition of Golden Cartridges, which are hidden collectibles that will unlock “super-secret content” when found, including “something special” at the end of the game.

There’s also a new ability called the Ripped Boost ability, which will allow “hardcore players and speed-runners to devise new strategies”, alongside new Pixel Doors that offer alternate routes to explore but will “only open for the best players.” There’s also an interactive comic book added into David’s room, as well as a new after-credits scene and a new score system that makes it easier to keep track of your records on each level. You can read the full changes over on Steam.

Overall, it’s a pretty huge amount of new content that seems to cater to the hardcore players that want to speed run the game, unlock new content or just discover alternate ways to play the game.

The Ultimate Challenge Update is available now for Pixel Ripped 1995. If you missed it, be sure to check out our review.

The post Pixel Ripped 1995 Receives Ultimate Challenge Update, Available Now appeared first on UploadVR.

A Pink Cassette Special Edition of Pixel Ripped 1989 for PlayStation VR is Coming

Pixel Ripped 1989 Poster

Pixel Ripped 1995 only arrived last month for the PlayStation VR, offering a mix of retro gaming goodness in a virtual reality (VR) package. If you’ve not played the original then Perp Games has a special physical version coming called the ‘Pink Cassette Edition’ with lots of extras for collectors.

Pixel Ripped 1989

The ‘Pink Cassette Edition’ of Pixel Ripped 1989 will be limited to 1500 copies, containing the original videogame for PlayStation VR, a Pixel Ripped brand pink cassette USB containing the soundtrack, wallpapers and artwork. Plus a set of 3 post signed by series creator Ana Ribeiro. All of this will be housed in a 1980’s style videogame box for that extra retro feel.

To get hold of one, the special edition will be sold exclusively via Perp Games’ store for £29.99 GBP. The launch will take place on 25th August but pre-orders go live on the store today. UK gamers can order directly through the shop but for those outside the UK, you’ll need to send an email to perpstore@perpetual-europe.com with your full address to receive a quote, including postage. Or if you just want a normal physical edition of Pixel Ripped 1989 then that’s available for £19.89 and won’t be limited.

Pixel Ripped 1989 launched back in 2018, offering a modern take on the boom in retro gaming. It’s a homage to the late ’80s era in which it is set, with a storyline involving Dot, a digital character trying to save her world from an evil goblin called the Cyblin Lord who wants to cause chaos. You play as Nicola, a videogame-obsessive who needs to use her ‘Gear Kid’ handheld console to try and beat him by controlling Dot.

Pixel Ripped 1989 new screenshot11
Pixel Ripped 1989

In its review of Pixel Ripped 1989VRFocus said: “Pixel Ripped 1989 is very much one of those quirky VR experiences some will love while others won’t see the point of it. VRFocus is very much in the former camp when it comes to this. Pixel Ripped 1989 offers a unique gameplay experience that’s hard to put down, combining the addictive elements of classic platformers with the immersive stylings of VR.”

With Pixel Ripped 1995 now out developer ARVORE plans on continuing the series covering more retro eras. As details of these are released, VRFocus will let you know.

Pixel Ripped 1995 Review: Leveling Up Your Gaming Nostalgia

Pixel Ripped 1995 takes everything that made its predecessor, Pixel Ripped 1989, and cranks the nostalgia up to 11 without missing a beat. Read our full review for more details!

When Pixel Ripped 1989 released back in 2018, I deeply enjoyed the obvious and gratuitous amount of pure nostalgia baiting. Everything from Mega Man to Mario and Gameboys was overtly parodied and celebrated in a way that only VR could allow. Using society’s greatest and most immersive piece of modern technology in conjunction with memories of the past is powerful and supremely enjoyable.

The premise here is a little complex in theory but simple in execution: you are Dot, a video game character that needs to save the digital and physical world from an evil, magical wizard. To do so, you take over the body of a young boy that’s very good at video games named David (wow, great name) and guide him through a series of challenges. Not only do you embody the child playing games past bedtime in Blockbuster-style rental stores and more but you also eventually find yourself inside many of the games themselves. It’s a very trippy and extremely cool Inception-like experience.

Playing Pixel Ripped is really like playing two games at once that co-exist across two different layers. On the one hand, you’re physically pressing buttons on VR controllers that correspond to virtual buttons on a gamepad inside the VR world to control a character on a VR screen. But then at the same time, the VR world, not the game your character is playing, is still happening around you.

Since David’s mom hates video games and thinks they’re bad for you (again, a very 90s thing for a parent to believe) you need to distract her to keep playing, or avoid alerting her that you’re still awake playing games late at night. It’s a clever and delicate balance.

pixel ripped 1995 rental store

Pixel Ripped 1995 is definitely easier than 1989. The first entry relied heavily on trial-and-error style mechanics and tricky platforming to force deaths and require repeating levels. This time, there’s just a lot more variety all around. You’ll go from a mixture of Super Metroid and Castlevania to a top-down action-adventure RPG similar to The Legend of Zelda before switching back to a racing scene or another platformer more akin to Sonic the Hedgehog. In this way, developer ARVORE has written a finely constructed love letter to the 90s and 16-bit eras of video games.

In the first game it would sometimes feel like a chore or like a gimmick occasionally, but this time around there’s a lot more variety. Not only do you play games in David’s bedroom, but in the living room of the home, at the previously-mentioned video game rental store, at an arcade, and more. In this way, the world feels more fully realized and fleshed out.

On the flip side of all that, Pixel Ripped relies very heavily on the strength of its nostalgia hooks and environmental detail over its characters. All of the pixelized game characters are shallow and one-dimensional without any development and the voice acting (for David’s mom especially) just doesn’t sound very good. The only memorable character is a young boy named Mike that serves as a semi-rival, semi-bully, for David that puts on a good face when adults are around. It feels like a missed opportunity to not lean into the characters and storytelling more here.

It’s easy to look past those gaps though. I was born in 1990, so I grew up in this exact era of video games. The Sega Genesis is the first game console I had entirely to myself after my brothers moved out and took the NES / SNES. Getting to play a VR game that put me in the shoes of a young boy that needed to play clones of Sonic, Streets of Rage, Phantasy Star, Zelda, Metroid, and more to save the world — yeah, that hits pretty strongly for me.

pixel ripped 1995 castlevania

Fortunately, ARVORE doesn’t fall into the same trap that plagued Path of the Warrior from Twisted Pixel. In that game, which is heavily inspired by sidescrolling beat ’em ups such as Streets of Rage and Final Fight, players take on the role of a character from the first-person perspective. You go through levels, punching enemies, and poking around colorful environments for a couple hours before packing it up. It’s super basic and bare bones.

The problem with that is not every genre under the sun needs to be remade for first-person VR, or put into VR at all. Instead of putting you in the shoes of game characters you don’t know and trying and fabricate a sense of familiarity while being inside the game, Pixel Ripped has you reminisce about what it was like to be the kid in front of the screen that’s playing the game. That’s where the power of nostalgia lies, especially when paired with VR.

pixel ripped 1995 zelda living room

One of the main downsides to Pixel Ripped overall is that it lacks any real depth at all. If you find yourself truly enjoying one of the games and really want to play it more or keep going past the pre-determined chunks it has you play through, you can’t. Just how thin the illusion is becomes apparent when you realize how linear the experience is, how you can’t move around any environments at all, and you’re essentially just playing through a series of demos that do little more than imitate shadows of the games that inspired them.

It’s extremely fun, memorable, and very nostalgic, but it’s certainly a one-trick pony. You could play it again to look around more and try to find things you may have missed, but I’d wager the vast majority of people won’t get much more out of Pixel Ripped 1995 other than the prescribed ~5 hours it takes to finish — and that’s totally fine.

Pixel Ripped 1995 Review: Final Verdict

Pixel Ripped 1995 is a bigger, bolder, and even more nostalgic walk down memory lane that shifts the focus from the late 80s to the early 90s — perhaps the most iconic and formative decade of the video game industry to date. By mixing together riffs off of popular games such as Castlevania, The Legend of Zelda, Streets of Rage, Sonic the Hedgehog, Mario, and more, Pixel Ripped is a sleek and powerful blast of nostalgia that brings back potent memories of hunching over CRT TVs in the dead of night playing games. I want to spend more time in this world and get to know its characters even better and this is a truly solid improvement over Pixel Ripped 1989.


Final Score: :star: :star: :star: :star: 4/5 Stars | Really Good

pixel ripped 1995 pro con list review

You can read more about our five-star scoring policy here.


Pixel Ripped 1995 releases on April 23rd at a price of $19.99 for PC VR on Steam, the Oculus Store for Rift, and Quest. The PSVR version releases in May. This review was conducted using a Steam version of the game using Oculus Rift S with two Touch controllers.

The post Pixel Ripped 1995 Review: Leveling Up Your Gaming Nostalgia appeared first on UploadVR.

Pixel Ripped 1995 & 1989 Will be Getting Physical PlayStation VR Editions

Pixel Ripped 1995

There’s one big virtual reality (VR) release next week and that’s ARVORE’s retro sequel Pixel Ripped 1995. The launch will only be for Oculus and SteamVR platforms at the moment, with PlayStation VR owners having to wait until May. One bit of good news for those PlayStation VR collectors out there is that physical versions for both titles are also in the works.

Over on Twitter, the official Pixel Ripped account confirmed Pixel Ripped 1989 and Pixel Ripped 1995 will be coming in disk form at some point, all thanks to Perp Games the UK publisher behind many PlayStation VR physical editions.

This was then followed by ARVORE saying: “You will be able to purchase them from their website for sure. Not sure about stores just yet.” To which Perp Games responded: “Full details coming very soon :)” Whether this will happen in May to coincide with the digital release has yet to be confirmed.

Both videogames are homages to the era’s in which they’re set, offering an overarching story involving an evil goblin called the Cyblin Lord who wants to cause chaos. In the first you play as Nicola, a videogame-obsessive who needs to use her ‘Gear Kid’ handheld console to try and beat him, while the sequel put you in the shoes of a 9-year-old boy named David. The main hook in both is being able to play 2D games inspired by retro classics, from RPGs and brawlers to platformers and space shooters, all inside virtual worlds which also offer interactive elements.

Pixel Ripped 1995

In its review of Pixel Ripped 1989, VRFocus said: “Pixel Ripped 1989 is very much one of those quirky VR experiences some will love while others won’t see the point of it. VRFocus is very much in the former camp when it comes to this. Pixel Ripped 1989 offers a unique gameplay experience that’s hard to put down, combining the addictive elements of classic platformers with the immersive stylings of VR.”

Pixel Ripped 1995 will be coming to Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index and Windows Mixed Reality headsets on 23rd April. When VRFocus has a PlayStation VR launch date, both digital and physical we’ll let you know.

Retro Love Letter Pixel Ripped 1995 Gets an April Launch Date for Oculus & SteamVR

On New Years Eve 2019 VRFocus published its Most Anticipated VR Games Coming In 2020 and those on that list which have arrived including Half-Life: Alyx, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners and Paper Beast haven’t disappointed. ARVORE’s retro sequel Pixel Ripped 1995 was also on that list and today the released date has been announced, set to arrive next week.  

Pixel Ripped 1995

After the success of 2018’s Pixel Ripped 1989 Brazilian developer ARVORE and original creator Ana Ribeiro announced the sequel the following year, showcasing the title for the first time during Oculus Connect 6 (OC6). Still featuring the same mechanics where you take on the role of a kid tasked with playing various videogames to defeat an evil villain, the title pays homage to videogames of that specific era.

Set during an exciting time for videogames when the 16-bit era was making way for the onslaught of 32-bit gaming, you play a 9-year-old boy named David who has to battle an evil goblin, the Cyblin Lord, from the first title. Set across six levels that contain nods to 1990s action RPGs, brawlers, platformers, space shooters, and racing games.

“Thanks to the success of the first game, we were able to dedicate more resources and use more experience to create a game that is an even crazier nostalgic adventure. The setting of 1995 gives us a lot of great classics to reference and a whole new world to explore,” says Ricardo Justus, CEO and Co-Founder of ARVORE.

Pixel Ripped 1995

For those wondering why 1995 was chosen, it was actually the fans who got to decide. When players completed Pixel Ripped 1989 they were present with a time machine that allowed them to choose their favourite year which then influenced the sequel. Ribeiro has previously said there are plans to make further entries in the series with 1978, 1983 and 1999 earmarked.

For a taste of what’s to come, check out VRFocus’ preview of Pixel Ripped 1995 which noted: From what’s been shown so far the sequel retains the atmosphere and humour of the original, whilst updating it with some awesome 90s mechanics and gaming references.

Pixel Ripped 1995 will be coming to Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index and Windows Mixed Reality headsets on 23rd April. A version for PlayStation VR is slated for next month, the team saying: “It has already been submitted to the Sony QA and certification process, and is expected to launch in May.” For further updates on Pixel Ripped 1995, keep reading VRFocus.

Pixel Ripped 1995 Hits Quest & PC VR Next Week, PSVR In May

The next entry in ARVORE’s love letter to gaming, Pixel Riped 1995, hits Oculus Quest and PC VR headsets very soon.

The game will launch on Facebook’s standalone headset as well as the Oculus Rift and SteamVR stores on April 23. PSVR fans will have to wait just a little longer, though; the developer says the game has been submitted to Sony for review but is expecting launch to follow on in May. Check the game out in our Holiday VR Showcase segment below.

Pixel Ripped 1995 follows on from 2018’s Pixel Ripped 1989, continuing the adventures of a young girl obsessed with a fictional videogame series. In the first game you had to complete levels in the fictional title (named, you guessed it, Pixel Ripped), while avoiding detection from a teacher at school.

ARVORE is building on that concept for Pixel Ripped 1995, paying tribute to the SNES-era of gaming. This time around you’ll visit arcades and sneak in play sessions between the watchful eye of your parents trying to ensure you’re sleeping. There’s six full levels that ARVORE promises will feel like entirely different games.

Despite the impending launch on Quest, the original game in the series won’t be arriving on the headset. Earlier in the year ARVORE revealed that Pixel Ripped 1989 had been denied for release on Quest. Facebook declined to comment on the reason for the game’s rejection at the time.

Will you be picking up Pixel Ripped 1995 next week? Let us know in the comments below! You can wishlist now on Steam and Oculus.

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