Developer Pocket Money Studios today revealed that Twilight Zone VR is set for a July 14th release date on Quest 2 and released an action-packed gameplay trailer.
Based on the iconic anthology series, The Twilight Zone VR is said to feature three self-contained single-player episodes which will span the sort of genres we’ve come to expect from the franchise: hard sci-fi to psychological horror.
Thanks to a new trailer revealed today we now know more about what the gameplay will look like.
The game promises to deliver “three self-contained single player episodes at launch and span multiple genres ranging from psychological horror to science fiction.”
Twilight Zone VR is set for release on July 14th starting on Quest 2. The game has also been confirmed to launch on PSVR but the studio says that will come at a later date.
Towards the end of 2021 virtual reality (VR) publisher Fun Train (The Exorcist: Legion VR, Tarzan VR) announced plans for a VR version of the infamous TV show The Twilight Zone. Just as with previous projects it would be episodic, supporting both Meta Quest and PlayStation VR. Today, the publisher has announced that The Twilight Zone VR is now scheduled for a Quest 2 launch in July.
— The Twilight Zone VR (@TwilightZoneVR) May 11, 2022
The Twilight Zone VR will be split into three episodes, all arriving together for July’s launch. Being developed by UK-based Pocket Money Games – the same team working on SIN (Safety in Numbers) and who ported Superhot to Meta Quest – each instalment will feature its own story that’ll: “span multiple genres ranging from technological horror to apocalyptic science fiction.”
The Twilight Zone VR episodes
Character Building: “A video game director discovers that workplace cruelty is a dangerous game.”
Terror Firma: “After an environmental apocalypse, one survivor must face mysterious phantoms as he searches the city ruins for a glimmer of Hope.”
Deadline Earth: “The clock is ticking for a science fiction writer who finds himself captive on an insidious alien vessel.”
“Whether you’re a horror fan, a sci-fi fan or simply love a good mystery, we have something in this game for you,” said Douglas Nabors, Fun Train CEO in a statement. “It was important for us to design each of these individual stories with as much variety as possible while also staying true to the heart of the show! We can’t wait to watch players experience this anthology of science fiction adventures firsthand. The worlds that the development team has built to achieve this vision are nothing short of surreal.”
“With Meta’s support we were able to utilize Asynchronous Space Warp (ASW) at a very early stage which has allowed us to push the graphical and performance boundaries of what is possible on Quest 2,” adds Frankie Cavanagh of Pocket Money Games. “Everything from subliminal messaging to haptic vests have been integrated into this game.”
The Twilight Zone VR is scheduled to arrive for Meta Quest 2 on 14th July 2022. There’s no mention of PlayStation VR today, with The Twilight Zone VRTwitter account saying: “Just Quest 2 for now, but that doesn’t mean never for other platforms!”
As further updates are revealed gmw3 will keep you updated.
The Exorcist: Legion VR has been scaring players since 2018, an episodic horror fest played out over five chapters. Now, publisher Fun Train has announced that production is already underway on a sequel. Called SIN (Safety in Numbers) as the name suggests, this time the horror title will have a co-op element so you can share the frights with a friend.
For the sequel Fun Train has teamed up with Pocket Money Games (Superhot, Dimension Hunter, The Twilight Zone VR), advancing the chilling storyline and mythology that made The Exorcist: Legion VR so atmospheric. SIN will feature both single-player and multiplayer modes, as well as “other mechanics and playstyles never seen before in a horror co-op game,” the developer notes.
Other than that not much else is known about SIN currently, no screenshots or gameplay has been released thus far with none in the teaser video below. What is expected though is an episodic release, as this is a hallmark of Fun Train with its other title Tarzan VR split across three chapters.
“We’ve received numerous requests for expansions of the Exorcist franchise and I’m happy to reveal it has been underway for some time,” says Douglas Nabors, Fun Train CEO in a statement. “Just a word of warning – if you thought the first game was frightening… luckily this time you won’t have to go in alone.”
The Exorcist: Legion VR
The Exorcist: Legion VR was one of VRFocus‘ favourite VR horrors. Reviewing the videogame back in 2018: “Its the presentation where The Exorcist: Legion VR shines. It is not long or complex, but it has bags of atmosphere and says what it needs to say with panache. The sense of presence is used effectively to give you a properly immersive horror experience.”
Pocket Money Games and Fun Train are looking at releasing SIN for Oculus Quest and PlayStation VR in late 2022. For continued updates on the horror sequel, keep reading VRFocus.
The Twilight Zone is getting a VR game, and it’s slated to release soon on Quest and PSVR.
Based on the iconic anthology series, The Twilight Zone VR is said to feature three self-contained single-player episodes which will span the sort of genres we’ve come to expect from the franchise: hard sci-fi to psychological horror.
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Image courtesy Pocket Money Games
Image courtesy Pocket Money Games
Image courtesy Pocket Money Games
Image courtesy Pocket Money Games
Developed by UK-based studio Pocket Money Games, The Twilight Zone VR features contributions from gaming veteran Rob Yescombe (The Invisible Hours, Rime, Farpoint) and screenwriter Dwayne Alexander Smith (Forty Acres). VR publisher Fun Train is serving as executive producer, known for its work on Tarzan VR and The Exorcist: Legion VR.
“The team of creatives and developers we’ve assembled are true visionaries who have a deep reverence for The Twilight Zone franchise,” says Douglas Nabors, Fun Train CEO. “Nobody has made an anthology like this before that encompasses so many divergent experiences – all in the same game.”
There’s no solid release date on Quest and PSVR, however the studio says it’s coming soon. In the meantime, the studio is offering slots for closed beta testing on Quest, which will support both Quest and Quest 2.
The developers say that, while a PC VR version isn’t currently in the works, it’s not entirely out of question.
Some days are really sent to test you. Nothing goes right, and instead everything goes very wrong indeed. It’s raining out, or cold, or both. Something expensive breaks. Someone reliable is not. You’ve no time for any of the things you need to do. Your post is nothing but bills and your next-door neighbour is still playing that same song over and over they started playing several hours back. What’s the worst is when these days happen to be on the weekend, supposedly days of rest.
Sometimes you just need to take a load off, and get away from it all. In this way virtual reality (VR) is especially valuable. After all, if the world’s full of nonsense why not go to a new one? Thankfully there’s always a deal here on the various stores where you can pick up a videogame on the cheap and work out some of the stress from a testing world.
Today’s selection of titles picked by VRFocus come from Steam, so check out the below and maybe save some cash on something good.
CROTEAM VR Bundle
Compatibility: HTC Vive and Oculus Rift
Remember what I said about combating stress above? Here’s a bumper pack of titles to cause havoc in.
Earlier in the week we told you about the release of Serious Sam 3 VR: BFE. Croteam have been busy throughout 2016 and 2017 converting some of their most iconic titles – the Serious Sam series – into VR compatible adventures for both HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. As well as that release Croteam also released a special bundle of all their VR related titles onto Steam.
It’s a five pack consisting of Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope, Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter, Serious Sam VR: The Second Encounter, the aforementioned Serious Sam 3 VR: BFE and also The Talos Principle.
The CROTEAM VR Bundle works out to be 51 percent off of purchasing the games separately; meaning you can pick up all five titles for £73.90 GBP rather than £150.95.
Racket: Nx
Compatibility: HTC Vive and Oculus Rift
“Racket: Nx is an out and out sports title, compare it to any game which involves a racket of some sort (badminton, tennis, table tennis, etc), just with a bit of sci-fi flare. Players are located in the centre of a dome, on a slightly raised platform. This dome is made up of hexagonal panels which illuminate with different options depending on the game mode or difficulty.” – Read Peter Graham’s preview for VRFocus.
Until the end of Monday Racket: Nx is available on Steam for £9.59 (GBP) rather than £15.99.
Karnage Chronicles
Compatibility: HTC Vive and Oculus Rift
“Karnage Chronicles is a first-person experience that performs in a similar fashion to the extremely well received Vanishing Realms: Rite of Steel. While Indimo Labs’ debut title nails the combination of puzzle solving and combat fairly solidly, Karnage Chronicles has two other ideals up its sleeve: character class divisions and co-operative gameplay.” – Read VRFocus Editor Kevin Joyce’s preview.
You’ve just over a day to get Karnage Chronicleson Steam at 15% off, for £16.14 (GBP) rather than £18.99.
ZomDay
Compatibility: HTC Vive and Oculus Rift
It seems like there’s always a zombie crisis somewhere isn’t there? In this fast-paced Early Access VR videogame from INTO GAMES a zombie outbreak has occurred throughout the world. You are a soldier of the Special Event Action Team, better known by the acronym S.E.A.T. It’s your job to convince the walking dead to stop the former, and stay the latter. With as many bullets as is necessary.
You’ve until November 17th to get 25% off of ZomDay, bringing the price down to £5.24 (GBP) from £6.99.
Aeon
Compatibility: HTC Vive
“Aeon is a VR shooting game. Use your Bullet Time (slow motion) ability, sharp swords and heavy caliber pistols to kill the enemy! Realistic details of hit reactions, real-time sword cutting system, Advanced IK to let you see your whole body.” – Developer Illusion Ranger
Another title scheduled to end just over a day from the time of writing, Aeon is available on Steam with a 10% discount currently. Buy it now at £17.09 (GBP) over the usual cost of £18.99.
Final Soccer VR
Compatibility: HTC Vive and Oculus Rift
In this videogame by Ivanovich Games, soon to celebrate its first anniversary you must take on the role of a football attacker or a goalkeeper and use your virtual skills in order to score goals or prevent them from being scored. Its as simple as that. Whilst for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift the striker side of the game is only for the HTC Vive – so do bear this in mind.
For a short time only you can get Final Soccer VRfor £7.49 (GBP) 50% off its usual price of £14.99. Its also a part of the Virtual Reality Arcade Bundle, which also features Lander 8009 VR, Operation Warcade VR and Off-Road Paradise: Trial 4×4. You can get all four of these titles for £26.60. 52% off the usual price.
Alpha Mike Foxtrot VR – AMF VR
Compatibility: HTC Vive and Oculus Rift
“Get ready for the Next Generation in Virtual Reality First Person Shooters! Focusing on fast-paced gameplay and immersive environments, Alpha Mike Foxtrot VR (AMF VR) delivers the goods. Put on your headset and engage in all-out warfare with Bots, Friends (or Enemies) around the globe.” – SUBLEVEL ONE STUDIOS
Developed by LastnOni and published by Frozen Dreams, Legendary Hunter is inspired by the classic NES videogame Duck Hunt – but Duck Hunt didn’t have a day/night cycle, and it certainly didn’t have wolves and crocodiles hunting you.
You’ve just over a day left on this offer, which gives a third off the regular £5.59 (GBP) price to give you a sale value of £3.74.
Super Ninja Hero VR
Compatibility: HTC Vive and Oculus Rift
If there’s one thing that’s bound to ruin your day it’s a bunch of ninja’s flying out of the sky. I mean it’s a Sunday. You’ve got things to do. That washing isn’t going to sort itself out you know. Take up arms in Wuhan Firegame Co.,Ltd’s first person battler which is on sale now for half its usual price of £6.99 (GBP). Another title in the Steam week long deal that is rapidly expiring, you’ve just over a day to act and acquire it.
Wacky Wings VR
Compatibility: HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and OSVR
A title that came out at the beginning of the year from Pocket Money Games, Wacky Wings VR doesn’t see you just fly aeroplanes, it also sees you take command of helicopters and even dragons! Navigate your way through ten levels of in-flight entertainment.
I had a funny case of deja vu last week. Firstly, I played and reviewed Henry The Hamster Handler, a game that caught me off guard with its quality seeing as I had never heard of developer Pocket Money Games before. Then I stumbled upon the trailer for Dimension Hunters (demo here), a new first-person shooter which again surprised me with just how good it looked. This time, though, I had heard of the developer.
You guessed it, it was Pocket Money Games.
Henry captured my attention with its solid mechanics and the value it offered players. Dimension Hunter, meanwhile, practically demanded our coverage with its stylish trailer that seemed to go a step above the polish we see in a lot of Vive shooters. Visually it reminded me of Platinum Games’ fondly-remembered, ultra-violent beat ’em up, MadWorld, while on-rails progression hinted at a game with more to offer than wave-based combat. Naturally, I was eager to get in contact, try out the game and talk to the developer, and that’s pretty much how I spent my weekend.
Pocket Money Games holds yet more surprises, though. Given what I’d seen from the developer so far I was expecting it to be formed of UK games industry veterans that had broken off from respected studios to try their hands at VR, a story we hear almost weekly in this scene. Instead, it’s headed up by Frankie Cavanagh, a lecturer at Northumbria University, who uses the studio as a vehicle to develop his student’s ideas with them.
“I wanted to create a studio that allowed any student work on a real product and get their name on a real game,” Cavanagh tells me over Skype. “The idea was I’d start the studio and we’d build games with these very talented students that struggle to get into the industry. The idea was to have an open door policy.”
The team has been active for about six months and is based in the same building as developers like Hammerhead VR, Wolf & Wood Interactive and Oculus’ own UK office. Dimension Hunter is its first stab at a shooter. As the name suggests, it casts you as a dimension-hopping warrior that visits 10 different worlds, each with its own theme and connected by a strange facility that you hop to and fro throughout the campaign. Each world you visit will sport wave-based gameplay, while traveling between portals at the facility uses the on-rails mechanics seen in the trailer.
A lot of ideas are flowing through the studio. In fact, Cavanagh tells me Dimension Hunter was actually going to be shelved at one point, though one student’s persistence saved it. He also builds on my MadWorld comparison, noting that a lot of inspiration — and an underlying hint of humor — comes from British comic books like 2000 AD. The developer’s location is a “huge part” of why it looks this way, he says.
“I’m friends with Hammerhead and things like that,” Cavangah explains. “I’m one artist, Hammerhead are a team of artists and animators. So we have to be clever, we have to be stylistic, we have to change things.”
Indeed, playing through a short sci-fi orientated section of the game feels like rooting myself in an early Judge Dredd story, with a touch of the cartoon zaniness of Epic Games’ upcoming Robo Recall. It’s complete with powerful weapons that I can change with a click of the Vive’s touchpads. Almost as if I was Dredd himself, my dual-wielded guns morph from standard pistols to more powerful bullets with a smaller clip size to chargeable shots with a big impact. You can mix and match which types to use, too.
Right now the standard pistol feels the most useful, perhaps due to ease of use, but you’ll be able to upgrade weapons so that others really start to shine too. It will be interesting to see just how in-depth that system goes; reload times, magazine sizes and damage dealt all feel very methodical, and balancing it out on your own could make for a great customization system.
I’ve only seen an on-rails section of the game, which Cavanagh regularly compares to Time Crisis, but I almost feel as if that’s doing it somewhat of a disservice. Yes, you move along a set path, dodging big bright bullets, and using the Vive wands compares to the feel of a G-Con gun, but there’s true FPS satisfaction to having to duck behind cover and pop in and out using positional-tracking. As fun as they are, light gun games started to age just as soon as Halo hit the console scene, and Dimension Hunter is anything but dated.
On-rails movement is slow and refined so as to avoid simulator sickness, and sections are tightly designed so that there’s always cover to take advantage of, and enemies can appear from unexpected places. There will be a mode with recharging health, but the demo is designed to be challenging, and hugging a wall as you’re flanked by two sets of soldiers proves it. This isn’t a VR shooter you can simply blast through, and that’s refreshing to see.
Plus, Pocket Money is allowing you to choose how you move in these sections, with automatic and manual settings, the latter described as a “push-rail system” that allows you to move back and forth. “We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel”, Cavanagh says, instead suggesting Dimension Hunters is more of a fresh, solid take on something you’ve played before. Based on what I’ve played so far, that’s fine by me.
But I’m eager to see more. The other dimensions will range from Atlantis to post-apocalyptic themes with different enemy types that go beyond the standard crash test dummy humanoids and drones I fought in the on-rails section. Each dimension will end with a boss encounter, where the studio will also introduce dash mechanics for dodging (or teleportation, if you’d prefer).
As mentioned, Pocket Money Games launched a demo for Dimension Hunters today, with plans for a full release at some point this quarter. From there, the studio will bring the game to the Rift and PlayStation VR respectively.
Oh and PS VR owners don’t worry; I could tell in the demo that this was a game designed to avoid occulsion and other issues, and Cavanagh confirms this was done with Sony and, to a lesser extent, Oculus’ headsets in mind.
Just like Henry before it, Dimension Hunter might not be the most ambitious VR game, but it looks to be polished and varied, and it’s most certainly something I’ll want to play when it launches soon.
Sometimes you don’t want to play anything too serious, just diving into some arcade style action gameplay that takes the edge off the day. Well PocketMoney Games has launched a new title for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and OSVR that about taking to the skies, called Wacky Wings.
Launched on Steam, Wacky Wings features ten levels of flying entertainment which must be navigated. Collect coins whilst weaving through cities, caves, canyons and more, not forgetting to pickup fuel on route to get to the end.
PocketMoney Games has included a bunch of unlockable extras with two gameplay modes Blitz and Endless, ten different ‘wings’, as well as increasing a pilot’s skill level for improving manoeuvrability. While Endless is self explanatory, Blitz switches the colourful scenery for a moodier black and white look, requiring player to shoot down opponents to collect fuel and stay in the air. And why fly a plane when there are drones, helicopters, dragons, time machines and loads more.
Wacky Wings can be downloaded for £4.79 GBP, and for further VR releases on Steam, keep reading VRFocus.
CROTEAM VR Bundle
Racket: Nx
Karnage Chronicles
ZomDay
Aeon
Final Soccer VR
Alpha Mike Foxtrot VR – AMF VR
Legendary Hunter VR
Super Ninja Hero VR
Wacky Wings VR
