ready at dawn – Page 6 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

June 12, 2019

‘Lone Echo II’ Roughly 50% Larger Than Its Predecessor, E3 Demo Reveals New Gameplay

This week at E3 2019, Oculus is showing their first ever demo of Lone Echo II, the anticipated followup to 2017’s Lone Echo. While the first game was an achievement in VR locomotion, interaction, and storytelling, Lone Echo II aims to up the ante with more dynamic gameplay, which starts with a new enemy that’s a more dynamic threat than anything seen in the original game.

Released in 2017, Ready at Dawn’s Oculus exclusive Lone Echo set an impressive bar for VR locomotion, interaction, and storytelling, and remains one of VR’s most critically and popularly acclaimed games.

The game is unique from many VR titles in that it lacked weapons, combat, or even any sentient enemies. Instead, it focused more on light puzzles, storytelling, and simply surviving in hostile environments.

With Lone Echo II, developer Ready at Dawn plans to present the player with more dynamic threats and gameplay, while continuing propel the story of protagonists Jack & Liv.

I got to check out the first ever demo of Lone Echo II at E3 2019 this week and got to see one of these new dynamic threats first hand. Players from the first game will recall the ‘biomass’ that was an environmental hazard that the player had to avoid. In Lone Echo II, parts of the biomass have ‘evolved’ into ‘ticks’, little floaty organic sacks covered in antenna and suckers-like orifices.

I’m not sure if it’s intentional, but these agile little critters are actually kinda cute in the way that they move and how they just want to hug you… the only problem is that you die if they do.

The ticks are attracted to any source of energy, and if you get too close they’ll make a beeline for you and attach themselves for a hug-of-death which drains all your power and forces you to shutdown and reboot into a new android body (which is effectively the game’s ‘death’ mechanic, as introduced in the original Lone Echo).

In order to avoid their deadly affection, you’ll need to figure out how to focus their attention on other sources of power in the environment (powered doors, batteries, terminals, etc), enable you to slip by safely. One way to do this is by using electromagnetic cargo cranes found on the ship you’re in, which you can intuitively manipulate using the handles at the top, allowing you to rotate it as needed, as well as rails at the top to slide it from point to point.

In that sense, the ticks are enemies, but they’re also part of Lone Echo II’s puzzle gameplay, which is made more interesting and dynamic by incorporating entities that have a mind of their own.

Beyond the ticks, the Lone Echo II demo at E3 2019 leans heavily on the well established interaction mechanics of the original. You’ll find the usual lever pulling, door opening, laser cutter panels, and battery charging stations that will be familiar (and still satisfying) to players of the first game.

However, Ready at Dawn teases that there’s lots more in the way of new gameplay systems yet to be revealed in Lone Echo II, much of which is said to come in the form of new tools that the player will attain throughout the game. There’s also new characters coming, which sound like they’ll be key to the narrative, though Ready at Dawn wasn’t ready to reveal more.

Speaking of characters, Liv is of course back, but this time Ready at Dawn says she’s been upgraded to be a more dynamic part of the game. While in the original Lone Echo her movements and actions were heavily scripted, in Lone Echo II she’s said to be able to move more freely around the environment, allowing her to more naturally accompany the player throughout.

While the E3 2019 demo set up the game’s narrative (which will continue to focus on the bond between Liv and Jack and their struggle for survival in unknown territory), and offered a glimpse of new gameplay, a Ready at Dawn developer tells me that Lone Echo II is roughly 50% larger than the original game (which took us around six hours to complete) in both actual size and gameplay content, so it sounds like there’s still much to be revealed.

– – — – –

While it was initially set for launch in 2019, this week Ready at Dawn confirmed that Lone Echo II has been delayed to Q1 2020. As an Oculus exclusive title, it’ll only be available on the Oculus platform, and so far slated for release only on Rift. Last year, Ready at Dawn release a VR trailer for Lone Echo II which can be watched on Rift and Oculus Go; a non-VR cut of the trailer is also available on YouTube.

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June 10, 2019

E3 2019: Ready At Dawn Is Bringing Echo Arena To Quest

Ready At Dawn announced today it is bringing its Echo Arena multiplayer to Oculus Quest “in all its glory.”

During UploadVR’s E3 VR showcase, RAD CEO and creative director ‎Ru Weerasuriya revealed the popular Oculus Rift multiplayer game will make the zero gravity jump to the Oculus Quest standalone VR gaming console.

The Irvine-based studio is also continuing the groundbreaking 2017 single-player VR adventure Lone Echo with Lone Echo II for Rift and Rift S. Weerasuriya previewed the upcoming PC VR game during the showcase as it continues the close relationship explored in the original between Captain Olivia (“Liv”) Rhodes and Jack, an artificial intelligence.

“You’’ll be able to reprise your role as Jack in this story,” said Weerasuriya. “Lone Echo II really reinforces this idea that you and Liv are like family and that you and her basically will go through anything against all odds.”

Ready At Dawn is the studio behind PlayStation Portable games in the God of War and Daxter franchises and they took the jump to VR with their Echo series for Oculus headsets. The Echo games explore a variety of interactions in zero gravity with Lone Echo focused on the intimate storytelling of VR. Echo Arena is a bit like the sport played by the kids in Ender’s Game and its active gameplay makes for highly competitive matches and it is embraced by Oculus as a VR esport. Similarly, Echo Combat is a first-person shooter spin-off from Echo Arena that features gun-based shooting in zero gravity. Ready At Dawn recently announced optimiziations for the Insight tracking system deployed on Rift S as well.

With Echo games forthcoming on both of Facebook’s Oculus Touch-equipped systems, look for Ready At Dawn to lead the way in showing what’s possible with storytelling, interaction and multiplayer on both Rift S and Oculus Quest.

Tagged with: Echo Arena, Echo VR, lone echo, Lone Echo II, ready at dawn

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May 27, 2019

Lone Echo II Interview — What Ready At Dawn Has Learned From Its Third VR Game

In Lone Echo II, Captain Olivia Rhodes and the android Jack are stranded on a strange spaceship near the rings of Saturn. They have to explore the environment and find a way to safety amid mysterious biomass.

I checked out a demo of the narrative adventure game from Ready At Dawn Studios. The virtual reality title is coming out in the first quarter of 2020 on the Oculus Rift and Rift S. It is a sequel to Lone Echo and Echo VR, which debuted in 2017 from Oculus Studios. Oculus will publish the new title as well.

I talked with Ru Weerasuriya, the CEO and creative director of Ready at Dawn, about what it’s like to make the studio’s third major title in VR, even as virtual reality is still struggling to take off in consumer markets. In this game, you play as Jack, and you try to solve various puzzles as you make your way through the dangerous space vessel. The goal is to make repairs, get around barriers, and find out what the heck is going on.

Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.

Above: Ru Weerasuriya is CEO and creative director at Ready At Dawn Studios.

Image Credit: Dean Takahashi

GamesBeat: Which part of the game are you showing here today?

Ru Weerasuriya: It’s pretty early on, in the first act of the game. It’s a moment where, as I talked about before, we’re revealing the connection between you, the player, and Liv.

GamesBeat: This is right after the previous demo?

Weerasuriya: Right. There’s still a portion of it after Jack gets repowered and what we did for the announcement, where you actually see him being repowered and she says, “I have so much to tell you.” There’s a part of the game that happens afterward where you learn a lot about what’s going on and what’s really at stake here. But then this part happens, where you’re navigating through the station we see here. You finally get out of that and you realize what’s going on in the world that you’re in, in the 26th century.

GamesBeat: Can you remind me where we are?

Weerasuriya: We’re in the rings of Saturn. The first game leaves you in the rings of Saturn, but 400 years in the future. After you finish Lone Echo you’re thrust into this future and you have no idea what’s going on. You arrive there and look around, and I think Jack’s last words are, “What are we going to do?” “Well, we’ll improvise.” The beginning of the game is understanding what’s happened, what this future is about, and what’s going on. You’re still in the rings of Saturn, and over the course of the game you’ll find out what’s been happening.

Above: You can interact with the environment with hand gestures in Lone Echo II.

Image Credit: Ready At Dawn/Oculus

GamesBeat: What is the biomass?

Weerasuriya: The biomass is something that started in the first game. If you remember after the big alien ship arrives in the first game–it appears about two-thirds into the game and destroys the Kronos station. Out of it comes this bioengineered weapon that was found on the ship. What they found out is that somebody sent a torpedo with this biomass into the ship to try and destroy it. That caused a temporal anomaly, which caused this ship from the 26th century to appear in the 21st century. When that happens, the biomass started spreading. It destroyed part of the satellites in the first game. It goes all over the place. Liv went inside the ship had this moment where she was threatened by it, and Jack saved her.

In the end, the biomass is the thing that makes them jump again into the 26th century. When you come to the 26th century, you’ll realize that the biomass you found in the first game is still there. That’s what you have to discover – why it’s there and what it’s doing.

GamesBeat: Do you have an estimate of how many hours the game will take?

Weerasuriya: It’s definitely longer than the first game. Time estimates have been really hit and miss for us. We’re trying to target a game that’s going to be about eight or 10 hours, but the reality right now is that it’s growing. I’ll probably be able to answer the question better a few months from now, when we have more of an understanding of the flow. We’re targeting release sometime early next year.

Above: Olivia Rhodes is unraveling a mystery with the robot Jack in Lone Echo II.

Image Credit: Ready At Dawn/Oculus

GamesBeat: It’s for the Oculus S and the Rift, but not the Quest, right?

Weerasuriya: Not the Quest, no. We’re pushing the platform as far as we can. As a studio, that’s been our approach to the platform, trying to break it in any way possible. [Laughs] This game is getting to a point where we’re really pushing it.

GamesBeat: Are there particular functions in the game that drove that kind of decision?

Weerasuriya: It’s pretty heavy on the CPU and the GPU right now. On the PC it’s running well, but we’re pushing the boundaries of what we can do as far as rendering. We’re taking a look at the Quest right now, but we’d need to really gauge whether or not this experience could be replicated on a platform like that before making any decisions.

GamesBeat: Is the storytelling going to be very similar to the first game, or different in some ways?

Weerasuriya: There are many similarities. We definitely want to build on what worked in the first game. We’re happy with how people perceived that connection. In the beginning, a lot of that was risky, because we didn’t know where people would connect – not only with the narrative, but with what the narrative does to the connection between you and Liv. We’re doubling down on some of that stuff to build a stronger bond. But there are also differences. The cast, you’ll see, is very different in the second game. We’re trying to explore more around what we can do with the relationships between the characters. The third character you met in the demo here is central. We’re understanding what kind of dynamic we can build with more characters.

GamesBeat: How are you handling the Oculus S sensors? Do those work for things like turning around in a circle, or putting your hands behind your back?

Weerasuriya: The predictive stuff is pretty good. If you play the demo, there are plenty of times where your hands move all around. We’ve been able to mitigate a lot of the things people would foresee as problems. The game plays amazingly well. We’re developing on S, and it’s definitely a learning experience, but the advantages have been amazing. Just to be able to have that freedom of movement, without cameras to set up, has been amazing. From what we’ve done with the demo and the other games I’ve played, it’s working really well.

Above: You have to figure out how to get past barriers in Lone Echo II.

Image Credit: Ready At Dawn/Oculus

GamesBeat: Are there some things that are still more challenging? Is this a more difficult game to do?

Weerasuriya: It’s been more difficult because of the scope of what we’re handling. On the Rift S side, there are things like—we don’t have that reliance on cameras that see everything, so there’s more work to be done. We’re working with the Oculus hardware group to get a better understanding of what the future holds, how to use the controllers.

In the game side itself, it’s definitely more ambitious. The first game was a foray into space exploration. It’s a pretty large world. You can keep going and exploring space, doing all that stuff. This game is even bigger. There are challenges in rendering, challenging in loading. How big do you make the environments? How complex can they be? We’re doing more work on the facial side, on the acting. Troy and Alice are back, the two actors from the first game, and we’re exploring a lot more about their relationship in the writing. There are new challenges that we’re tackling, and we’re expanding on the old challenges that we’ve already worked with.

GamesBeat: Is it getting easier, doing your second or third VR project?

Weerasuriya: It’s our third VR title, after Lone Echo and Echo Arena, and then the second one was Echo Combat. I won’t say it’s getting easier, because we knew there were certain things in the first game we needed to improve on. There are new challenges. But knowing more about the hardware makes some things easier. The first time around we had to relearn everything.

Understanding that immersion, it’s something that’s hard to break away from now. We’re working on a triple-A console title right now as well, something we’re developing internally, and funny enough, a lot of the lessons we’ve learned about narrative and immersion and gameplay mechanics, we’re taking some of those lessons into console. It might not be the same display device, but the play agency we learned to do in this game—you’re always there. You can never expect the player to do what you want them to do. They’ll do whatever they want. That’s something we’re carrying with us to the console.

Above: Jack and Olivia are aboard a mysterious ship in Lone Echo II.

Image Credit: Ready At Dawn/Oculus

GamesBeat: Are you announcing that one any time soon?

Weerasuriya: No, not yet. It’s incubating internally. It’s in the prototype phase, where we’re building a lot of things internally. We’re funding it ourselves right now. It’s been a lot of fun taking some of those lessons and bouncing them back and forth between the two projects.

GamesBeat: It’s The Order 2, right?

Weerasuriya: [Laughs] That’s a bigger question. Soon enough we’ll be able to talk about it, hopefully. As you might imagine, we get that question quite a lot.

GamesBeat: What else is going on for you?

Weerasuriya: We’re growing. We’re moving studios. It’s an interesting time. We’re a month and a half away from moving into our new home. We’re growing and splitting into Ready at Dawn VR and Ready at Dawn console. It’s a weird time, but it’s a good time. We realized that although we were fixated for a long time on console, having the two balance each other out has been very healthy for the company culture. We’re about 135, 140 people, and we’re moving into a space that can accommodate upwards of 200 or 250 people. We’ll see where we go with this. It’s an organic growth

This post by Dean Takahashi originally appeared on VentureBeat.

Tagged with: ready at dawn

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May 16, 2019

Ready At Dawn Explains How Echo VR Will Work With Oculus Rift S Inside-Out Tracking

Echo VR developer Ready at Dawn explained in a short blog post how the game will work with the inside-out tracked Touch controllers on Oculus Rift S.

The developer also praised the higher resolution display of the Rift S, claiming it makes it “easier to read name tags and help pick out snipers from far away.”

Inside-Out Controller Tracking

Whereas the original Rift used external USB sensors for tracking, the Rift S uses five onboard cameras instead.

The headset tracking works using advanced computer vision algorithms, but the controller tracking operates in a similar way to Rift- the cameras track the infrared LEDs under the plastic of the tracking rings. The difference is that the cameras are on the headset instead of external.

Like Windows MR headsets, these cameras use wide angle fisheye lenses. But unlike Windows MR headsets, there are a total of five cameras instead of just two. This means that the tracked range extends far beyond your visual field of view, even to the sides, above, and somewhat behind.

The Problem For Echo VR

Even with five cameras, there are still situations in which a controller will not be in view of any of them. If you’re facing one direction and extend your hand out in another direction, for example. Or if you reach completely behind your back.

This is a real problem for Echo VR because the game uses a fairly unique locomotion system based on grabbing and pushing against the environment. You often need to push off a wall directly behind you, or directly behind the headset when looking away from the wall. Echo VR’s highly competitive nature means that if your controllers can’t track these movements, you simply won’t be able to keep up.

Ready at Dawn’s Solution

Ready at Dawn stated they are “working closely together with Oculus to bring the highest quality tracking to Echo VR on the Rift S“. The developer explained the solution they’re working on:

We’re able to use both the in-game context, knowledge about our movement system, and the internal IMU sensors to accurately predict what the player is doing.

The IMU is the chip within all VR controllers which is composed of a gyroscope and accelerometer. Normally, cameras and IMU work together to determine the controller’s position with sub-mm precision. When not in view of any camera however, the IMU output can still be used.

RAD’s Lead Programmer, David Neubelt, playing Echo Arena on Rift S

Based on Ready at Dawn’s description, they are seemingly using the accelerometer to determine how you are pushing or throwing when your hand is out of view. For example, if your hand was grabbed onto a wall behind you when tracked and then a strong acceleration is sensed in that direction, the game can determine that you’re trying to push off that wall.

We’ll make sure to do a thorough test whenever the patch with this functionality ships, but Ready at Dawn seems optimistic that it will work well.

Superior IMU

Ready at Dawn also praised the IMU in the new Touch controllers, calling it “extremely innovative” (though we’re not sure exactly what that means).

The company suggested that it is superior to the IMU in the original Touch controllers, claiming that it actually enables better tracking of high speed movements:

Furthermore, the internal sensors of the Oculus Touch for Rift S hold up amazingly in high speed maneuvers, which allow throws in Echo Arena to withstand more force and maintain accurate tracking when players are putting everything they have behind a move.

Additionally, we believe we’ll be able to predict more accurate release timings which in turn will increase accurate long-distance throws because of these new sensors.

Oculus Quest Port?

This solution opens up the question of whether we could see Echo VR come to the Oculus Quest standalone headset one day. Quest has fewer cameras than Rift S and they’re positioned at the front corners, not the sides. So whether it could get Echo VR would seemingly depend on just how well this IMU prediction system works.

At Oculus Connect 5 back in September Ready at Dawn was listed as working on an Oculus Quest game or port. In January, the developer stated that they were “experiementing” with Oculus Quest, and that fans should “Keep an eye out for updates in the future.”

We don’t recommend getting your hopes up, but if the game did come to Quest it could easily be the headset’s flagship multiplayer title.

Tagged with: Echo VR, oculus rift s, ready at dawn

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April 2, 2019

Super Ultra Hyper Turbo Edition Revealed for Echo VR

Ready At Dawn’s Echo VR with it’s two multiplayer titles Echo Arena and Echo Combat have been two of the most successful online multiplayer experiences for Oculus Rift, maintaining a solid position in the VR League. The studio has now rolled out a new update – yesterday in fact and not an April Fool’s – called Super Ultra Hyper Turbo Edition.

Echo Arena image

Super Ultra Hyper Turbo Edition is a new gamemode for the Echo Arena portion of Echo VR. Echo Arena is a zero-gravity multiplayer sports experience where teams of players have to score goals by throwing a disc. In Super Ultra Hyper Turbo Edition, in teams of four players must fight their way to the other side of the Arena and score goals while avoiding oncoming fire.

The studio has paid special attention to balancing between expert players and casual ones. Thanks to the inclusion of guns, those new to the gameplay can stay back and provide defensive cover as they learn the ropes in casual matches. In more competitive games, that same gear makes executing passes and other moves more difficult, requiring proper team tactics.

“This is the culmination of all the hard work we took on when we first entered VR development,” said Ru Weerasuriya CEO of Ready At Dawn in a Medium blog. “We had to force ourselves to think outside the box to find what would sit at the very top of VR immersion and entertainment. We are so thankful for the encouragement every fan out there has shown us. This latest release in Echo VR is as much of an achievement for us as it is for them. From all of us at RAD, ‘it’s Turbo Time!’”

Echo Arena new

Super Ultra Hyper Turbo Edition of Echo VR is freely available to play now for any Oculus Rift user, players simply have to queue up for a match in the Echo VR lobby.

Ready At Dawn is also working on single-player sequel Lone Echo II having been officially revealed during Oculus Connect 5 last year. It’s due to be released this year although a date has yet to be confirmed, plus which of the new Oculus headsets it’ll support. As soon as details arrive, VRFocus will let you know.

March 8, 2019

Why Lone Echo’s Olivia Rhodes Is VR’s Best NPC Yet

“Bulldogs are a symbol of the British spirit,” Captain Oliva ‘Liv’ Rhodes tells you as you inspect her Union Jack-sporting dog ornament wearing a Churchill hat. “We don’t want to know when the odds are against us.”

“Ah,” your character, an android named Jack, replies. “Sounds familiar.”

In a few hours’ time, it will to you too.

Lone Echo did a lot of things really, really right. From the revelatory zero-gravity locomotion to the unmatched visual fidelity, Ready at Dawn’s VR debut remains a must-play. But much of the game’s atmosphere and action would be for naught if it wasn’t down to the remarkable bond you grow with Liv. It’s arguably the game’s crowning achievement.

VR itself plays a part in that. Liv, an assured and regimented captain, isn’t afraid to get right up to the player’s eyes and make sure they meet her own. The developer’s flair for visuals also helps. Liv is one of VR’s most expressive and detailed NPCs. She shows herself to be equal parts confident and kind, ready to get the job done but with compassion for those that do it. Her tone is stern but welcoming. Actor Alice Coulthard gives her equal parts authority and approachability.

But it’s also true that Liv herself is a compelling companion. She’s funny and fierce, with little time for the protocols and formalities her rank implies. In the opening, Jack is trapped. He begins to over-explain a possible malfunction. Liv waves her hand to interrupt and bangs on the pod. A lever appears to release you. She shoots you a playful smile. “You’re all set.”

She’s strong and capable, too, held back only by her own mortality. When a mid-game development leads her to believe Jack is gone, she packs up and ventures into uncharted space on an ironically suicidal survival mission.

It’s Liv’s curious relationship with Jack that gives it all weight, though. It feels partly paternal but somewhat cautiously romantic, too. Dialogue between the two is relaxed and open, yet Liv is playing one part mother, one part partner. At some points she mockingly picks at Jack’s AI constraints as if he’s a child learning the ways of the world. In others, she fondly recalls the pair’s relationship as if it were something more intimate. The game opens to Liv learning she’ll leave Jack behind when she finishes her tenancy at a mining facility. It’s a conflict she carries with her for the rest of the story, informing every fond memory with a hint of sadness.

Lone Echo’s closing act solidifies that work. The climactic ending, in which you battle to save Liv’s life, carries genuine desperation. But, perhaps more tellingly, it’s how Jack inherits some of her qualities that shows you her strength. “I will walk you through the procedure,” an AI construct named Apollo says, referring to how to keep your ship intact.

“Or, we could just break them,” Jack replies.

And yet, like I said in my review two years ago, we stop short of getting definitive answers as to what these two are to each other. Lone Echo plays like the first act in something wider rather than the complete story. Getting back in to further explore the dynamic between Jack and Liv is one of the main reasons I can’t wait for Lone Echo II. The five minutes we spend with her in the experience trailer suggest Ready at Dawn is reassured in who Liv is. She plays cards with your dismembered arm and shrugs it off when you notice. It also hints we might see more of the history between the two explored.

What Ready at Dawn did with Liv in Lone Echo was lay a foundation. Not just for the developer to build upon with a sequel, but also for others to start experimenting with. Years from now, Liv will be one of the original templates for VR character interaction. We’re eager to see how she evolves from that.

“Just sit tight,” the British bulldog says with a wink in the Lone Echo II teaser. We’ll gladly wait.

Tagged with: lone echo, ready at dawn

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February 21, 2019April 26, 2019

5 Upcoming Oculus Exclusives That Could Carry Rift S

Facebook is launching a replacement for the Oculus Rift this Spring called Rift S.

Every Oculus VR headset launch so far has been accompanied with a collection of new games. These five major Oculus exclusives launching this year could be Rift S’s big hitters.

All five games are fully funded by Oculus Studios, Facebook’s VR content division. All will work with the current Oculus Rift headset. Rift S is a refresh, fully backwards compatible.

Stormland

Insomniac Games

Stormland is a AAA open world co-op adventure from Insomniac Games.

The game features a vast open world that is part procedural and part hand-crafted. It also features mechanics like crafting, gliding, and climbing. The graphics look incredible from what we’ve seen when we went hands-on with it. This honestly may be the best looking made-for-VR open world title yet.

When we tried it at PAX West last year we were blown away, concluding that it could be something truly special.

Insomniac’s previous VR titles were the 3rd-person Lovecraftian adventure Edge of Nowhere [9/10], a lackluster top-down view brawler Feral Rites [5/10], and 1vs1 wizard dueling game The Unspoken [9/10]. Outside VR they’ve developed hit titles like Spyro the Dragon, Ratchet & Clank, Sunset Overdrive, and the Resistance series. More recently they developed Marvel’s Spider-Man.

Asgard’s Wrath

Sanzaru Games

Asgard’s Wrath is a AAA Norse-inspired action RPG.

In Asgard’s Wrath you take on the role of a Norse God with the power to inhabit the bodies of mortals. Throughout the 30+ hour adventure you’ll frequently swap back and forth between the perspectives of a towering God with an epic sense of scale and the perspective of on-the-ground mortal warriors to take advantage of the game’s brutal melee combat.

Sanzaru Games’ previous VR titles were Touch launch titles VR Sports Challenge [8.5/10] and Ripcoil [6.5/10], as well as 2018’s blockbuster Marvel Powers United VR [6.5/10].

Lone Echo 2

Ready at Dawn

Lone Echo 2 is the sequel to the hit 2017 voice acted story from Ready at Dawn.

We loved the original Lone Echo, giving it 8.5/10 in our review, stating that it was a “landmark achievement” in locomotion, UI, and interaction, and that the character-driven storytelling creates “a compelling sense of presence that few VR games could hope to match”. Our biggest complaint was that it simply felt incomplete, making us hungry for a full-fledged sequel.

Not much is known about Lone Echo II yet, but if it’s anything like the original, it’s sure to be a title to look out for.

Defector

Twisted Pixel Games

Defector is an action packed spy game that turns you into Jason Bourne (or James Bond, if you prefer). Originally slated for 2018, the game was delayed to some time this year.

We’ve tried this game a few times now — most recently at Oculus Connect 5. Each time we tried it we had a blast. This game probably won’t make you think a whole lot other than deciding how to smooth talk your way out of trouble, but its exhilarating over the top action sequences are downright fun.

Twisted Pixel previously developed Wilson’s Heart [9/10], an incredible VR black & white mystery thriller reminiscent of The Twilight Zone.

Untitled FPS

Respawn Entertainment

At Oculus Connect 4 in 2017 it was announced that the developer of Titanfall is working on an Oculus Rift exclusive for launch in 2019.

No details have been given so far, other than it is definitely not a Titanfall VR spinoff, but given Respawn’s impressive catalog with Titanfall, Titanfall 2, and Apex Legends all outside of VR we’re expecting big things from this shooter.

What do you think will be the big games poised to carry Rift S (and for that matter, Rift itself) this yea? Let us know down in the comments below!

Tagged with: Asgard's Wrath, Defector, Insomniac Games, Lone Echo II, Oculus Exclusive, oculus rift, oculus rift s, Oculus Studios, ready at dawn, Respawn Entertainment, Stormland, twisted pixel

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January 11, 2019

Echo VR Dev ‘Experimenting’ With Oculus Quest: “Keep An Eye Out For Updates In The Future”

Ready At Dawn stated on Twitter they are ‘experimenting’ with Oculus Quest. Asked by a fan whether Echo VR would see a port, the studio responded “Keep an eye out for updates in the future!”

The developer was listed at Oculus Connect 5 as working on a Quest game or port- that’s the Ready at Dawn logo in the center.

Ready at Dawn developed the hit VR singleplayer voice acted story adventure Lone Echo. Funded by Oculus Studios as a flagship Rift exclusive, we consider it one of the best VR games made yet. We even gave it our 2017 VR Game of the Year award.

Due to the game’s scope and graphical fidelity, it’s unlikely it will ever come to Quest, as the headset is significantly less powerful than a gaming PC. What could potentially come however, and what the fan on Twitter was asking about, is its standalone multiplayer- Echo VR.

Echo VR originally launched in 2017 with Lone Echo as ‘Echo Arena’. With the release of the second gamemode ‘Echo Combat’ this year, both together became Echo VR. It’s far more likely to come to Quest than the singleplayer game since the graphics aren’t particularly important to the gameplay.

What could be an issue on Quest however is the controller tracking. In Echo Arena you often have to reach behind your back, and Quest’s top cameras only slightly face backwards. We haven’t had a chance to test out these kind of interactions yet though- the controllers’ accelerometers might possibly be able to handle this.

How much this Tweet really means is as yet unclear- but if Echo VR does in fact come to Quest it could be its flagship multiplayer title. We’ll keep you updated on any further news from Ready at Dawn.

Tagged with: Echo Arena, Echo VR, Oculus Quest, ready at dawn

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December 19, 2018

Echo Combat Tips: Beginner’s Guide To The Zero-G VR Shooter

Oculus Rift exclusive Echo VR is one of the more interesting VR games out there for its unique usage of hand presence. You can climb or grab practically any object and propel yourself around in zero gravity. I haven’t played too many other games that use zero-g to make themselves as immersive as Echo VR does, but it stands out because you aren’t just using a thumbstick to move around in the game’s world.

Since Echo Arena (Echo VR’s original title) first came out, I always wanted to play a laser tag variant with the same zero-g VR mechanics present in the existing game. Apparently I wasn’t alone in wishing for one, and Echo Combat (a $9.99 expansion pack to Echo VR, sold on the Oculus Store) is the direct answer to that itch.

As a new player, how should you go about playing Echo Combat if your primary interest is competing and winning rounds? There are actually a few important mechanics to the game that you need to be aware of if you want to have any hope of annihilating other players.

Grab Cover

You can literally grab and/or climb anything in Echo’s environment, making it a viable tactic to grab a nearby surface and pull yourself behind it for cover. Echo Combat can be difficult if inertia gets the best of you when you find yourself out in the line of fire. Instead, always focus on staying near walls, floors, and other surfaces that you can use to quickly propel yourself around.

Wait For Your Teammates To Spawn

This is a big one. Respawns happen at various intervals and the last thing you want is your team to drip into the arena, where individual teammates can be picked off one-by-one. When you die and respawn, wait for at least one other teammate to respawn before you pop back onto the field and start shooting again. You can also use the acceleration of your other teammates to move onto the field faster if you launch yourself off of them at full velocity, or vice versa.

Fission Map Tips

Fission is a map that should feel a bit reminiscent of Overwatch, where one team is pushing a payload across the map while the other team is trying to defend the checkpoints.

As attackers:

When you’re first coming out of the spawn zone, don’t let yourself get pinned down by the opposite team. Rush them as soon as you can and get a foothold on the payload. While you’re moving up, huddle on the payload and use it for cover as you push towards each gate.

As defenders:

Try to draw individual enemy players away from the payload. The more time they waste, the better shot you have at winning the match. It’s your objective to keep them stalled, so have at least one teammate sniping from a remote position. Your team should be getting on the payload to push it backwards as well.

Combustion Map Tips

Combustion is a king of the hill map, with a central capture point that your team must stay near long enough to win. If you’re currently on the capture point, it provides cover. But it’s also exposed from all sides and enemies can maneuver their way around the nearby tunnels to flank you. If you’re attempting to take the capture point away from the opposite team, watch for blind spots around its central pillar where hiding enemies can isolate and kill you at short range.

Dyson Map Tips

Dyson is another king of the hill map, but significantly larger and more open. This is the only map in Echo Combat with multiple spawn points. You can opt in for instant spawns that are much further away from the capture point, or you can wait for a timer to countdown on the Back Pad, which puts you right next to the capture point. You should spawn at the Back Pad or the Tunnel whenever possible, because you might as well wait for your teammates to respawn anyway.

The capture point on this map is much more exposed than Combustion, but it’s defensible if you’re willing to huddle your team around the point and use the glass railing for thin cover. You might find yourself needing to move from cover to cover far more often, but you’ll want to keep all 360 degrees accounted for.

Equipment Tips

Weapons

Pulsar: Your standard automatic weapon, great for short-medium range battles and for providing suppressing fire at longer ranges. This is the one that’s easiest to learn and use.

Nova: A shotgun which overheats quickly and takes its time to cool down. Definitely use it for short range combat where you can quickly get in and land a headshot or a few solid body shots.

Comet: A laser-pointed sniper pistol which you can charge up for maximum damage. Use this one from long range.

Meteor: This is basically a handheld rocket launcher. Use it at short-medium range, but be careful to land your shots carefully because of the hefty cooldown timer on each.

Ordinance

Arc Mine: When you throw this, it automatically activates midair and generates a boundary. When that boundary is crossed, the Arc Mine ignites and stuns nearby enemies. While it’s obvious when an Arc Mine is ready to blow, as it shows a visible boundary, you should use the Arc Mine to create access denial areas inside of important chokeholds.

Stun Field: A projectile that stuns enemies that it touches. This is almost like a get out of jail free card if you find yourself up close with an enemy and your gun is overheated. It activates as soon as you throw it, and can be used to immobilize enemies just long enough for you to eliminate them. Many players like to use the Stun Field because of how simple, easy and effective it is to deploy.

Detonator: A remotely detonated grenade that you can throw and/or use like a mine if you’d like. If it takes damage, it ignites on its own. However, you can bounce it off of surfaces to get it behind an enemy position, and then remotely detonate it for maximum damage.

Instant Repair: A device that instantly repairs your chassis, as the name suggests.

Tac-Mods

Phase Shift: This makes you unable to take or dish out any damage, but you still have the full functionality of movement. Use this to get into or out of tight corners very quickly, or even to distract your enemies.

Repair Matrix: This is an area of effect heal, which at least one team member should always carry on them for large-scale healing across the entire team. If a teammate is outside of the device’s range, they will not receive healing from it.

Threat Scanner: This is also an essential tac-mod for at least one teammate to use at all times. It instantly scans the map for each enemy position, and then tags that position for your entire team. Anybody on your team can also see enemies through walls when they’ve been tagged.

Force Field: This allows you to set up a stationary shield that you can get behind and use as cover. Use this when you’d like to fortify a mid-air position with a long range weapon.

Echo Combat is a lovely zero-G FPS that you can grab from the Oculus Store for $9.99. If we left out any useful tips today, please let us know in the comments!

Tagged with: Echo Arena, Echo Combat, Echo VR, lone echo, ready at dawn

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November 28, 2018

Echo Combat Review: VR Shooter Meets Zero-G Movement

Shooting guns in VR feels natural at this point. When VR headsets first hit the market games like Space Pirate Trainer made novel use of motion controllers by letting us gun down robots and other enemies from inside the immersive, virtual realm. But now, almost three years removed from the debut of consumer VR, pointing and shooting is second nature for most. That is, until you add zero-gravity gameplay into the mix.

Lone Echo is a shining beacon of the possibilities with VR storytelling and Echo Arena was a groundbreaking moment for multiplayer VR games and VR as an esport with its Quidditch meets Ultiamte Frisbee in zero-G concept. Now with Echo Combat, Ready at Dawn is back with a new format for its renamed ‘Echo VR’ platform, delivering an Overwatch-style objective-based multiplayer shooter that pits two teams against one another with a variety of weapons and powers in free-roaming zero-gravity arenas. The results are truly intense.

Echo Combat is, in a nutshell, a team-based first-person shooter with the novel twist of each map existing in a zero-gravity dome environment. Tis means that many of the classic FPS tropes gamers are accustomed to are all here (recharging shields, objectives to capture or hold, different weapons, various abilities, etc) but feel unique given the medium and environment.

For example, in a game of Battlefield V I might hunker down behind a sandbag for cover and pop my head out to take aim at enemies approaching in the distance. There are some elements of elevation at play, but generally speaking it’s just a question of distance and aiming my gun in front of me. Echo Combat applies that same logic to a full 360-degree environment. While floating through the air enemies could be above, below, behind, or any variation around you. This is amplified by the fact that weapons have actual force knock back based on their kinetic force. That’s why holding onto a surface for cover and stability is essential.

But then that brings us to the most genius part of the entire Echo VR lineage of games: the grappling and movement system. Since it’s a zero-gravity environment you can push off of surfaces to traverse areas, or simply climb along walls and objects hand-over-hand like you would at a playground. That small action is immediately satisfying and immersive in a way no other locomotion system is in VR. You can further tweak movements with wrist rockets that let you boost around like Superman.

Most of that applies to Echo Arena as well though, what sets Echo Combat apart is the focus on gunplay. There are a handful of unique weapons, from an auto pistol, to a long-range rail gun, to a short-range burst shotgun type of gun. Loadouts can be further customized by selecting from different sorts of projectiles to detonate, as well as special abilities like shields, healing, or pinging enemy locations in the UI through walls.

There are two basic game modes (Payload movement with an Attacking and Defending team and control point capture and hold king of the hill-style with two equal teams) across three maps all of which are set to an auto-cycle playlist similar to games like Firewall Zero Hour or Overwatch.

It’s a good and balanced selection overall, but not great. Part of the charm of Echo Arena was that it felt entirely original. We’d seen similar things in films like Ender’s Game or Tron, but we’d never seen or done anything like that, physically, in VR or any other game before. Echo Combat is basically just Overwatch with fewer nuances, dramatically fewer characters, maps, and modes. It gets the job done as a novel VR shooter, but comparatively it feels less inspired than its Echo-predecessor.

Don’t get me wrong — Echo Combat is a great game — but it doesn’t feel like a watershed moment for multiplayer VR like Echo Arena did since it’s really just an iteration on an existing formula. However, this does open up the door to more iterations on this formula and a curious concept of what that might look like a few years down the road with a potentially even wider assortment of modes and game types.

Whereas Echo Arena was all about careful planning, teamwork, and skill-based wrist-flicks, Echo Combat falls into a much more familiar gameplay loop of shoot, hide behind cover, die, and respawn. The teamwork aspect is still there, but it’s far less emphasized since simply shooting the bad guys is all you really need to do. This breeds a slightly different core community than the collaborative and creative matches of Echo Arena, for better and worse.

Final Score: 8/10 – Great

Echo Combat is a polished and well-balanced VR shooter in zero-gravity that mixes the locomotion from Echo Arena and Lone Echo with the team-based dynamics of shooters like Overwatch. It feels great to play and has a ton of action for fans of the genre. While it may not be quite as creative and groundbreaking as Echo Arena was at the time, Echo Combat scratches a very specific itch in a way that only a AAA-caliber development studio like Ready at Dawn can.

Echo Combat is available for $9.99 within the Echo VR portal as an Oculus Rift exclusive on Oculus Home. Read our Game Review Guidelines for more information on how we arrived at this score.

Tagged with: Echo Arena, Echo Combat, Echo VR, lone echo, ready at dawn

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