We might be learning more about Sony’s next VR compatible console, the PS5, later this month.
Bloomberg cites “an official at the PlayStation unit” in saying that the next PS5 announcement is “tentatively” scheduled for this month. Sony will host a State Of Play broadcast later today to announce new games for PS4 and PSVR, but has already warned that there won’t be any big PS5 updates during the show.
A PS5 announcement, meanwhile, doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ll be getting another big showcase like Sony’s Future Of Gaming reveal show in June. That said, PS5 is due out this holiday season and there’s still a heck of a lot to learn about the console. We still don’t know its exact launch date or its price, for example.
Meanwhile the official PlayStation page for the PS5’s DualSense controller confirms that the device has updatable software. This is a new concept for a PlayStation ecosystem, but you can already see it in other VR compatible setups – both the Oculus Touch and Valve Index controllers require updates from time-to-time, for example. It’s more used to keep compatibility in line than it is, say, to add exciting new features, though.
We know PS5 will support the original PSVR and, earlier this week, Sony announced that practically all existing PSVR peripherals will connect to the console for backwards compatibility, too. What we don’t know is what the future of PSVR on PS5 looks like, but reports have suggested Sony is making a follow-up headset and, presumably, we’d be playing at least some games on it with the DualSense controller. We’re hoping to see new motion controllers too, though. Here’s everything we know about PSVR 2 at this point in time.
We’ll be watching the State Of Play later today for all the updates on PSVR content. What do you think this month’s PS5 announcement could be? Let us know in the comments below!
Sony’s next State Of Play digital broadcast is coming this week, but it won’t place a huge focus on PS5.
Instead the show, which airs on Thursday, August 6th at 1pm PT, will focus on PS4 and, more importantly, PSVR games. There will apparently be a few PS5 game updates from third parties, but it isn’t really the focus of this show. The company’s anticipated console launches this holiday season.
That might be disappointing to some, but we’re excited to see what’s in store for PSVR. Off the top of our heads, there are only a few big PSVR games we can really think of on the horizon. One is the PSVR port of Star Wars: Vader Immortal, which was promised for this summer (making release information a likely candidate on Thursday). The other is the PSVR support for Star Wars: Squadrons, which would also be a good pick. Budget Cuts, After The Fall and Sniper Elite VR could also be on the cards, but we’ll have to tune in to find out.
This week’s show will be 40 minutes, so expect plenty of other updates. That said, Sony said there won’t be any new games from its first-party studios, so don’t expect to see a big new VR exclusive game being published or anything.
Elsewhere, Sony just confirmed that PS5 will support the original DualShock 4, PlayStation Move Controllers and PSVR Aim Controller for backwards compatible PSVR games.
What are you hoping to see in this week’s State of Play broadcast? Let us know in the comments below!
Want the ultimate in VR shooter immersion? Then you’ll want to check out the best PSVR Aim controller games.
Sony’s rifle-shaped controller has been on the market for a few years now and remains a curious little thing. In some ways, it answers the problems we have with the original Move controller, combining position-tracked motion with dual analog sticks for easy movement.
It’s also had fairly decent support since launch, with some of the headset’s best titles integrating the controller either from day one or adding a patch later down the line. So if you’re only just picking one up, here’s our picks for the best PSVR Aim controller games. Remember you can pick all of these up on the PlayStation Store, but some are available in bundles with the controller, too.
Best PSVR Aim Controller Games
Crisis Vrigade 2
The most recent game on our list is this Time Crisis-style shooter for VR masochists. The Crisis series gives you a limited number of lives and a short amount of time to clear any one of its handful of levels. Though tough, the difficulty really helps the series stand out and we love the focus on cover-based action. If you have a PSVR Aim controller and a good camera setup, that’s the definitive way to experience it, too. As such, it’s one of the best PSVR Aim controller games.
Borderlands 2 VR
Gearbox’s looter shooter makes the most sense in VR when you’re kitted out with the Aim controller. Borderlands 2’s huge assortment of weaponary feels great given the context of this controller, and it helps you better naivgate the world than you can with two Move controllers. If you’re thinking of picking up Borderlands 2 VR, we’d say the Aim controller is an essential add-on.
Firewall: Zero Hour
In many ways the Aim controller’s defining headset is this multiplayer tactical shooter that takes after the likes of Rainbow Six. Firewall pits you in team-based, small scale firefights that provide endless hours of fun. It’s like laser tag in your living room, and a genuine contender for the best game on the platform as a whole. Firewall is still getting new content to this day and, even if it takes a while to get into a match, it still remains very much worth your time.
Farpoint
Farpoint has a well-earned spot on our list of best PSVR Aim controller games because it was the first titles to support the kit. In fact, this sci-fi shooter was built specifically with the rifle in mind, offering a VR take on Starship Troopers. You fight your way through swarms of bug-like aliens, but it’s the game’s surprisingly human story that might leave the biggest impression.
Arizona Sunshine
Vertigo Games’ debut VR shooter may have aged like a zombie in the sun since 2016, but it’s still one of the few, full single-player VR campaigns you can play with the Aim controller right the way through. In fact, Vertigo went back and redesigned the game, swapping out pistols for rifles, to make sure you get the full immersive experience. We’re hoping the studio’s upcoming After The Fall pays similar attention to the controller.
A new trailer landed for the upcoming Hatsune Miku DLC, coming very soon to Space Channel 5 VR: Kinda Funky News Flash.
The DLC pack, officially called the “Space 39 Miku Pack”, is a collaboration with the virtual pop star Hatsune Mike. It will take players “to a stage where you can dance with Ulala and Hatsune Miku, but also allow you to change the looks and outfit to the Hatsune Miku version of Ulala.”
Space Channel 5 VR: Kinda Funky News Flash was the first game in the franchise in 18 years, and we were excited that the return would be exclusive to PSVR. However, in his review Jamie found the end product quite disappointing. You can read the full review for a better breakdown, but here’s an excerpt:
Developer Grounding seems painfully aware of the risks of dancing around in VR (and the way your PSVR can slide around on your head). It’s an understandable concern, but one that casts a long shadow over Space Channel 5 VR … It’s a softer, less calculated version of the game without any of the original’s immediacy and, to boot, an alarming lack of things to do.
Space Channel 5 VR should have been a glorious return to form, but this cult hit series can’t keep up with the beat set by its competitors. The surprisingly brief campaign coasts on by without ever pushing your skills and, once it’s over, there’s very little else to do. Ulala and co are long overdue a return to the main stage, but this isn’t it.
The Hatsune Miku DLC pack will release next week on July 27.
Will you be buying the Hatsune Miku DLC for Space Channel 5? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
The development team behind the dark fantasy action game Swords of Gargantua announced that the game’s PSVR release has been delayed, alongside the planned content updates that were due to release for all platforms after that.
The Dark Souls-esque VR fantasy game Swords of Gargantua released last year on Quest and PC VR, with cross-buy for Rift for the former. The cooperative sword-fighting game lets you and up to three additional players team up to take down gigantic foes with VR melee combat.
The development team at Thirdverse (formerly known as Yomuneco Inc) had laid out a content plan for the future, with a PSVR release initially slated for spring of this year. While that spring date has clearly come and gone, the team announced on the Swords of Gargantua Discord server that the PSVR release and future content for all platforms has been officially delayed due to the ongoing global pandemic:
We have decided to postpone the release date of the PSVR version of Sword of Gargantua, PvP mode and Ooparts Labyrinth.
The reason behind the postponement is due to a major revision of the development plan due to the impact of prolonged COVID pandemic. As well as future development, we are also working on quality improvements to the currently released version of the game.
We don’t have any updates on release dates as for right now, but when we do, we’ll inform you here. We understand that many of you are eager for the updates above, and we apologize for any inconvenience this update may cause.
While there’s no revised dates for either the PSVR release or the planned PvP content, we hope it’s not much longer of a wait for those fans. It’s worth mentioning that a member of the Thirdverse team recently confirmed to a user in the Discord server that the PSVR and PC VR versions of the game will not support crossplay either.
Following our interview with Media Molecule yesterday, the developer clarified to UploadVR that Dreams creations published before July 22nd’s free PSVR update will automatically disable VR support, but authors can change that.
Yesterday we posted an article based on a discussion with Dreams Creative Director, Mark Healey. During our talk, Healey stated that all of Dreams’ existing VR content could be played with the PSVR headset, and that the game had comfort options in-place to optimize the experience, while creators could also choose to make their content unavailable in VR, VR exclusive, or support both play styles.
However, Media Molecule today clarified to us that, while any content in Dreams can be played in PSVR, content published before this week’s patch will have VR switched off by default. This label is known as ‘Non-VR’. To enable VR, authors have two choices.
The first is to go back into their creations and switch from ‘Non-VR’ to another label, ‘Not Sure’. This label does not require authors to test their content inside PSVR before letting others play it. However, VR players must first head into their own filter options to opt into seeing ‘Not Sure’ content. On top of that, Dreams itself will issue a warning upon entry that the content may not be properly optimized for PSVR.
There are two other labels, ‘VR Compatible’, which means content can officially be played both on a TV and inside PSVR, and ‘VR Only’, which means it’s only viewable the headset. To be able to select these two options, the author must have first accessed their creation inside PSVR themselves. Only then will they have access to these tags and be able to publish VR content that won’t carry any optimization warnings, nor will it need users to tinker with their filters.
Any content published after tomorrow’s update will automatically be published under ‘Not Sure’ unless the author selects ‘Non-VR’ or can test it for official VR release.
Much of what Healey told us still stands, then, it’s just that authors will have to jump through some extra hoops to enable PSVR support, should they so desire. And it makes sense; letting any player dive into untested VR content without awareness could trigger a lot of nausea and headaches, both for players and for Media Molecule.
Don’t expect Dreams to have an explosion of VR compatible content as soon as the update hits tomorrow, then, but hopefully authors will start enabling support soon after, either via the ‘Not Sure’ label or by testing PSVR support for themselves. We’ll have more Dreams PSVR content as the update starts rolling out tomorrow.
Dream PSVR support finally becomes a reality this week with a free update to the PS4 title on July 22nd. But there’s still a lot we don’t know about the promising integration.
Creative Director Mark Healey helped clue us in a little.
We spoke to Healey last week to learn as much about the ins and outs of Dreams PSVR integration. We’ve been following the hugely ambitious creation platform since its early days, even diving into the beta to find out what makes the flatscreen version tick.
Based on our talk with Healey, though, we’re more curious than ever to start tinkering this Wednesday. Here’s 11 things we learned from our chat.
You Can Play ALL Of Dreams’ Existing Content With It
Now this is really surprising. When Dreams VR support launches on Wednesday, every game and experience made for the platform so far can be played or viewed inside the headset. “It’s really important that it is the full thing, it’s not just ‘Oh, we’ve added VR and it just means you can look at sculptures in VR’, it’s the full shebang,” Healey says.
That means if you’ve been building a game and thinking it would look great in VR, you can take a look the second the update downloads. There’s no starting from scratch with a VR box checked or comfort/performance settings to pass; it’ll just work.
As exciting as that sounds, Healey also acknowledges how hectic it could get. “Whether that actually ends up being good or not is going to be a bit random because people didn’t necessarily make that to be VR,” he said, later pointing to a recent play session where he’d jumped into a first-person shooter only to discover the scale was entirely off.
“It’s just hilarious because I was walking down the road with this hand and this gun that was the size of a house,” he says. “It was ridiculous but it was kind of cool that I’d found that, you know?”
But Authors Can Turn VR Off Or Make It Exclusive
That said, if you’re creating something with a specific vision in mind, there’s a good chance VR doesn’t fit into that. For that eventuality, Healey says Media Molecule will give players the option to turn off VR support. On the flip side, you can make your content VR-exclusive, too.
“And then we’ve given authors of any content the ability to say ‘Actually this is VR only, or this is not for VR or this actually works in both VR and non-VR,'” he reasons. “But it’s fun that the default is everything just works.”
There Are Smart (And Optional) Comfort Settings
Of course, with all this unwieldy potential, it would be a little irresponsible not to provide some comfort tweaks. Those are all there and turned on by default, but the team has also come up with some smart solutions for existing content.
“Let’s say someone’s made a simple thing where you’ve got a character walking around the landscape,” Healey explains. “The default setup for that in Dreams is that the camera will follow the character and you can rotate around. If you have the comfort settings on, that changes. That same piece of content, you can still play it but now the camera’s fixed — obviously you can look around — the character walks a certain distance and then the camera will just teleport, essentially.”
Even with these options, we’d wager a large amount of existing content will be strange to experience in VR, but these are smart inclusions all the same.
There Are No Extra Limits To How Much You Can Build
Another surprising fact; Creator Mode with Dreams PSVR support won’t impose any additional limits. You’ll be able to create the exact same content as you could on PS4 without the worry of hitting any early memory limits. One reason for this? Some players will want to use VR to make non-VR games.
“I think it’s very valid to use VR to make a non-VR experience, actually,” Healey says. “Because of the extra intuitiveness, you get from sculpting and the 3D space.”
But There are Contingencies For When Things Get Too Much
Inevitably, though, some of the content that you can play in Dreams just won’t run well in PSVR. For those moments, Media Molecule has an intriguing (and, again, optional) solution: boot you out to PSVR’s Cinema Mode.
“We automatically kick you out into the sort of virtual cinema mode that’s on the PlayStation,” Healey says, “But you can, in the menus, opt out of that if you like. So you can be ‘I don’t care, just give it to me, even if it’s a low framerate’.”
The platform can also dynamically change the resolution to help cope with demand but, again, we’d imagine some of Dreams’ most ambitious existing games will have your PS4 shuddering.
There’s New Gadgets For Putting Things On Your Head And Hands
What’s the first thing you ever did in VR? I bet for a good chunk of you, it’s put a hat on your head. Maybe you were in Cole Phelps’ office in LA Noire, or grabbed a hard hat in Half-Life: Alyx. There’s just something satisfying about it, an affirmation that the technology works. Healey explains that there’s a new Head Tracker gadget specifically for that.
“So if you want to put some big horns on there or an elephant trunk or whatever, that becomes really easy,” Healey says. “And that also benefits the non-VR side of things too, because that just means in non-VR it sticks to the player camera.”
There’s a similar tool for your hands, too, making it easy to customize a pair of virtual hands for first-person experiences, or stick items like weapons into them.
Media Molecule Made Some New Content Too
This week’s update won’t just drop its new tools without warning, though. Media Molecule will also help ease you into VR with ‘Inside The Box’, a virtual gallery of exhibits and games to tease the potential of VR support. “It’s basically a big kind of brutalist architecture gallery space that you can go into,” Healey says. “We’ve got a bunch of sort of interactive sculptures and exhibits if you like, and there’s actually three games we’ve made in there too. There’s like a puzzle game and a shooty game and a platformer game. And each of those games also comes with a Modular Kit so you can easily make extra levels for that type of game.
You Could Make Makeshift Local Multiplayer Games
Dreams PSVR support won’t include Sony’s social screen integration, which gives people outside of VR a separate view on the TV to control a different character with. Healey says that feature could come if there was demand for it, but you could also just hand over a controller to someone else while you’re in VR to play as another character. Co-op Astro Bot, anyone?
Name Your Lightsabers ‘Energy Prodders’
Having been available since February (and in Early Access long before then), Dreams is no stranger to the battle against letting people make what they want and companies wanting to protect their own IP. Healey and co have always strived to encourage and promote original content on the platform, though Healey does liken making themed content to learning guitar covers to help get better. Obviously there’s things everyone wants to do in VR like, wield a lightsaber or swing from a building as Spider-Man. You’ll still be able to do that here, you’ll just need to be careful with how you frame it all.
“Whether the VR thing is going to introduce more of that or not, I don’t know,” Healey says. “But as you say, a lightsaber is probably one of the things that everyone is going to want to make I imagine. They’re just going to have to call it something else, like a light stick or something, or an energy prodder.”
It Might Get Aim Controller Support, If There’s Demand For It
Dreams might not be a first-person shooter itself, but you can bey people are going to start making great VR shooters right off the bat. But what about support for Sony’s rifle-shaped Aim controller, then? The device, best seen in Farpoint and Firewall: Zero Hour, can do wonders for VR immersion and would make for another brilliant tool to the Dreams arsenal.
“I mean something that’s come up a few times is people asking about Aim support, the specific peripheral that was made,” Healey says. “If there was big demand for that I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t add that.”
You heard him – get asking if you want to see Aim in Dreams PSVR (apologies in advance to Media Molecule for any spam).
It’s Going To Open Some Floodgates (Again)
If you’ve been following our coverage of Dreams here at Upload, you’ll know we think it’s potentially a very significant release. User-created VR content is one of the most promising areas of this new industry, currently led by amazing art apps like Tilt Brush and Quill. Dreams represents a chance to raise that bar, offering a robust, accessible toolset on a platform much more welcoming to most consumers and then giving them the chance to go a step further and turn their content into games.
I ask Healey if the team has considered what a milestone for VR that could be. He says he hadn’t quite thought about it that much, but agrees the potential is there.
“It’s like sort of crowd-sourcing what VR experiences can be, in my mind,” he says. “Putting it in the hands of the PlayStation community, giving them the opportunity just to express whatever crazy ideas come into their mind without the baggage or having to please a publisher or worry about whether it’s going to make money or bla bla bla.
“I think it could be really liberating and potentially be really exciting. It could open up almost some new sort of genres or ways of thinking about what VR can be.”
The rhythm game Dance Collider by emergeWorlds is coming to PlayStation VR this week, after launching for PC VR back in 2018.
Rhythm game fans rejoice, because a new VR title is coming to PlayStation VR this week that’ll have you moving to the beat in a dance battle set in an apocalyptic cyberpunk setting. Dance Collider is the work of emergeWorlds, a small 3-person team based in Brisbane, Australia, and it originally released for PC VR back in 2018.
The game sees you hit notes to the rhythm kind of like Beat Saber, except more fluid and dance-focused. The game features 44 songs, all by an electronic artist called F-777. You’ll take on 8 different dancers in the game’s campaign before facing off against the final boss, a super AI called Uriel.
It’s all coated in a neon, cyberpunk aesthetic that looks quite stunning, as you can see in the trailer embedded above. As part of that cyberpunk setting, one of those 8 dancers actually stand in front of you and dance against you during each level. The characters were animated using motion capture technology, so their movements are impressively fluid and natural, and it will no doubt look even better when you’re immersed in VR.
While we’ve seen a number of different rhythm games across VR platforms, it’s nice to have that one that melds the genre with some amazing motion-capture animation. It’s even more impressive when you watch this behind-the-scenes video and see that all of the dancers were captured using Microsoft Kinects, as opposed to motion capture suits.
Dance Collider is available for PC VR now and releases on PSVR on July 9.
Originally due for release this past May, the PSVR version of Budget Cuts just suffered another delay.
Neat Corp’s original VR stealth game has been a long time coming for Sony’s console. In March, we reported the game would arrive the following May but, a few days into that month Neat delayed it to July 10th. At the time the developer cited complications caused by the COVID-19 pandemic as the reason for the push back. Now, with a week to go before that new date, the game’s been delayed again, this time to September 25.
But it’s not all bad news; the PSVR version of the game will also sport a new level named the Panopticon. In this newly-designed map (seen above), the player has a clear goal to reach, but a variety of ways to get there. “We wanted to encourage the player to pave their own path forward, either through brute force and action or through stealth and sneaking their way around in order to reach the center of the level,” designer Olle Axelsson wrote on the PlayStation Blog.
It’s a shame to see the game delayed again, but at least there’s a little extra content to sweet the deal. No word yet on if Neat will also bring last year’s sequel, Budget Cuts 2: Mission Insolvency, to PSVR, nor if a Quest port could be on the cards after a PSVR release, but fingers crossed. Meanwhile, Neat also continues to deliver updates for its Early Access VR title, Garden of the Sea.
Want to make your X-Wing VR experience as immersive as possible? We’ve got good news for you: you can turn off the Star Wars: Squadrons HUD (heads-up display) elements.
Developer EA Motive confirmed as much talking to IGN. The VR-compatible flight combat game will feature a ‘Hardcore Mode’ that will take some of the HUD and user interface (UI) elements away.
“When you start the story,” creative director Ian S. Frazier explained, “we ask if you want the standard experience – which we’d expect most players to take – or a hardcore mode, which gets rid of a bunch of UI that helps you localize yourself in space, and makes you rely entirely on the readouts in the cockpit. So for the folks that are newer to the genre, I’d expect them to play standard, and for the folks that have tonnes of flight experience, they might want to try that out.”
We’d imagine that plenty of VR players will also want that more immersive experience, though it might be necessary to get used to the game with those elements enabled first.
In another win for authenticity, though, Squadrons will also let you disable visible customizations for both your craft and other players’. In other words, if someone wants to decorate their X-Wing with a decal, you’ll be able to choose if you can see that, or just the regular X-Wing skin.
“Some players aren’t going to want to see any of that,” Frazier explained. “It won’t matter how plausible it is, they just want to keep it to exactly what we’ve seen in the films, no more and no less, and we totally get that. And so we have an option in the game to hide everybody else’s cosmetics. So if you flip that on, then all of a sudden, if you want to put a racing stripe or whatever on your own TIE Fighter, you’ll see it, but everybody else’s is just going to look like a normal boilerplate TIE Fighter for you.”
Again, this seems like a move that will speak to a lot of players that want the authentic Star Wars experience in VR. Squadrons is out on October 2nd with optional support for PC VR headsets on PC and PSVR on PS4. You can find out everything else we know about the game right here.
Will you be playing with the Star Wars: Squadrons HUD disabled and cosmetics off? Let us know in the comments below!
