Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is releasing later this week on December 11th for PC VR headsets via SteamVR and the Oculus PC client. You can play the game easily on an Oculus Quest if you’ve got a powerful VR gaming PC, but there’s no firm news on a Quest-native port just yet.
Unedited gameplay footage is not allowed to be shared just yet — the preview and review guidelines were very clear that any footage must be edited into a video preview to be shared. Since the review itself is fast-approaching I’m just focusing my efforts on that video instead.
My entire time with Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond has been on an Oculus Quest 2. I’ve tried it using both Oculus Link and using Virtual Desktop and I can say without a doubt I prefer it with Virtual Desktop.
If you want to play Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond on Quest you have two options: Oculus Link or Virtual Desktop. Oculus Link should have less latency, which means you won’t perceive any delay at all between what you’re doing and what you see in the headset, but you’ve got a cord dangling from your head. Virtual Desktop on the other hand is a fully wireless way of connecting to your PC, however depending on your Wi-Fi signal and router quality you may perceive a small amount of latency.
For me personally, I prefer Virtual Desktop every single time. Guy Godin’s software is incredible and it allows me to access both my SteamVR and Oculus PC Store libraries, at once, without ever needing to connect my Quest to my PC with an actual cord.
To be frank, playing PC VR games wirelessly is extremely liberating. The visual fidelity is far beyond what a standalone headset such as the Quest is capable of, so being able to experience high-end VR, such as Medal of Honor and other PC-exclusive games, from the ease of access found within a wireless standalone device, feels like magic.
After playing games like Onward, Contractors, Solaris, and more on Quest natively, I didn’t want to go back to a wired experience — especially with Medal of Honor VR’s multiplayer — so I simply didn’t and it works great.
Granted, I’ve got a strong home network and a very good connection speed. Things download very quickly for me and that’s a major factor when considering how playable a VR game would be for you over a streamed wireless connection. But if your internet is up to snuff, this is absolutely the best way to enjoy Medal of Honor VR. I did not notice any added latency, at least not that I know of, was able to get in the top 3 of most multiplayer matches, and had no trouble playing through a lot of the campaign as well.
Do you plan on playing Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond and if so, would you do it wirelessly using an Oculus Quest and Virtual Desktop? Let us know down in the comments below!
Community Download is a weekly discussion-focused articles series published (usually) every Monday in which we pose a single, core question to you all, our readers, in the spirit of fostering discussion and debate. For today’s Community Download, we want to know if you plan on playing Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond when it releases later this week?
Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is just around the corner. The latest shooter from Respawn Entertainment drops exclusively for PC VR later this week on December 11th on the Oculus PC Store and SteamVR for Rift, Vive, and Index and it aims to deliver a full single-player campaign that lasts over 10 hours, a wave-based survival mode, and online multiplayer.
You can read our first impressions of the online multiplayer here as well as our round up on everything you need to know about the game’s modes, maps, guns, and more. The recommended specs are high, as is the amount of hard drive space required, so this is certainly one of the beefiest VR games to date that puts it up there in the same tier as Half-Life: Alyx and Asgard’s Wrath for sheer digital footprint required.
So, that brings us to the ultimate question: Do you plan on playing Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond when it releases? If so, which PC VR headset will you use? Are you holding out hope for a Quest port of some kind?
Let us know your plans later this week once Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond releases down in the comments below!
A new Winter event to celebrate the holiday season is coming to Population: One, starting on December 3.
The event is called 12 Days of Chaos and will add new bonuses in-game and change the map to a Winter-themed setting.
Developers BigBox VR shared some early details of the event with us, which it says will be Population: One’s biggest event yet with double the rewards. Players will be able to collect 100 snowflakes spread around the map and also boost points and gain rewards faster when playing with friends.
The event begins on December 3 and will run until December 14.
We also received a new screenshot showcasing some holiday season skins, pictured below, which will presumably be available to purchase through microtransactions in the game’s store.
Population: One released early last month and we labeled it the new king of VR battle royale games. It’s available on PC VR and the Quest platform with cross-play support, along with cross-buy support between Rift and Quest on the Oculus Store.
You play in teams of three players (there’s no solo mode, only squads) in a stock-standard battle royale format that follows almost all conventions of the genre. However, Population: One’s key distinctive feature is the ability to climb any structure in a Breath of the Wild-esque manner, which leads to some interesting encounters and interactions.
BigBox VR says more content is coming in December, including “continuous map updates, and additional character and gun skins.”
A new Winter event to celebrate the holiday season is coming to Population: One, starting on December 3.
The event is called 12 Days of Chaos and will add new bonuses in-game and change the map to a Winter-themed setting.
Developers BigBox VR shared some early details of the event with us, which it says will be Population: One’s biggest event yet with double the rewards. Players will be able to collect 100 snowflakes spread around the map and also boost points and gain rewards faster when playing with friends.
The event begins on December 3 and will run until December 14.
We also received a new screenshot showcasing some holiday season skins, pictured below, which will presumably be available to purchase through microtransactions in the game’s store.
Population: One released early last month and we labeled it the new king of VR battle royale games. It’s available on PC VR and the Quest platform with cross-play support, along with cross-buy support between Rift and Quest on the Oculus Store.
You play in teams of three players (there’s no solo mode, only squads) in a stock-standard battle royale format that follows almost all conventions of the genre. However, Population: One’s key distinctive feature is the ability to climb any structure in a Breath of the Wild-esque manner, which leads to some interesting encounters and interactions.
BigBox VR says more content is coming in December, including “continuous map updates, and additional character and gun skins.”
Solaris: Offworld Combat is getting squad support in its biggest post-launch update yet this week. The update will also introduce a brand new map, several fixes and improvements, and will enable players to freely move their non-primary hand.
When Solaris first launched it delivered on the promise of fast-paced, easy-to-pickup-and-play thrills with addictive gameplay, satisfying gun mechanics, and vibrant map designs. However, the inability to group up and play with friends was a huge issue.
According to developer First Contact Entertainment via email, squad support was “probably the most requested feature” since launch, so it’s finally getting added.
A new version of Fury is coming as well, dubbed Fury Major, which will focus on centralizing player engagement with more close quarters combat moments. Stamina is also getting reworked so you no longer lose any for sprinting and you’re only impacted for spamming slide over and over.
The other major change which should improve player immersion dramatically, at least in my opinion, is that now your free hand has full tracking. Previously whichever hand was not your primary hand (for example your left hand if you are righthanded) would just be glued to the gun at all times even if you moved the controller around. Now, they’ve unattached it, just like in the main menu, so you can move it freely. Weapon accuracy is unaffected.
There are a handful of other changes as well, such as crouching in real life triggering a slide if you’re sprinting, daily XP bonuses and weekly challenges, balance adjustments, and more.
For more on Solaris: Offworld Combat follow the game’s official Twitter and YouTube and make sure to check out our full review and launch day livestream right here.
It’s a time of plenty and a time of fear. And something else, a horror yet to manifest, lurks under the surface. This is Hinge from Arcadia VR, a psychological horror game that starts with a party.
During the intro, a noted philanthropist celebrates the completion of his new skyscraper and you’re invited. But the art deco facade masks something far more sinister and otherworldly about the building’s owner. Once night falls, the question becomes whether you can make it out alive with your sanity intact.
With Hinge, Arcadia VR blends history and the occult with a daring goal in sight: redefining what makes a game terrifying.
“There hasn’t been an AAA VR horror game since 2017 [and] there are so many unexplored possibilities for horror games in virtual reality,” Arcadia’s Oleg Smirnov said. “We tried to develop gameplay mechanics that are only viable in VR.”
Smirnov is likely referring to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, the PSVR-exclusive horror game from Capcom. It’s available on PC and Xbox One as well, but the VR support is only on PSVR. Achieving that same level of success for Arcadia means doubling down on Hinge’s atmosphere to approach the concept of terror in a different, more immersive way. Smirnov feels they’re well-suited to the task.
“Hinge is our first PC VR game, but as a game dev studio, we’ve been existing for longer,” Smirnov said. “Three years ago, our team was working on the opening of the largest VR LBE venue [a kind of VR theme park experience] in Europe called Another World.”
Arcadia has three LBE venues in Russia, and another two were set to open in London and Paris respectively, when the COVID-19 pandemic derailed their plans. It wasn’t all bad, though.
“We’ve been planning to develop games for Steam VR for a long time,” Smirnov said. “But the pandemic just accelerated us working on that.”
The first step in creating their ideal VR horror atmosphere was getting Hinge’s setting right. Smirnov said the team started from the basic desire to scare players, but it had to be something they could “spice up” with Lovecraftian horror elements. What they ended up with was an eclectic cocktail of 1920s America and creeping dread.
“We decided that the player should be placed in the Great Depression, because that era is fraught with something depressing and desperate,” Smirnov said. “It didn’t seem difficult for us to fit these things together. The player can find similarities between 2020 and the 20s of the last century [and] these three components work great together because [much of] the work of H.P. Lovecraft falls precisely in the Roaring Twenties.”
Smirnov and the team didn’t settle for a surface-level trip into history, though.
The early 20th century was the height of rational thinking and belief in science, but there was a strain of darkness and superstition flowing alongside reason and logic. Smirnov said that’s what the team tapped into for Hinge, and Lovecraft is just the tip of the occult iceberg.
“Our game designer wrote over 100 documents and around 20 books specially for Hinge’s in-game environment. The information for these books was taken from real occultist’s books by Aleister Crowley and Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre.”
Though probably better known now as the subject of Ozzy Osbourne’s song “Mr. Crowley,” Aleister Crowley attracted a fair deal of notoriety throughout the first half of the 20th century. He claimed he contacted multiple spirits from other worlds and was even expelled from Italy in 1923 after a follower died during what was called a “sacrilegious ritual.”
Beyond influencing cults and writing arcane tomes, what Crowley and d’Alveydre did is show people there was much about the world they had yet to understand — and not all of it was benign. That sense of uncertainty and the fear it inspires permeates every corner of Hinge.
“We want players to feel like absolutely anything could be around the next corner, to feel like anything in the environment he should be afraid of,” Smirnov said. “We think we succeeded in making the atmosphere where the player feels like even the skyscraper is trying to kill them.”
While Hinge features multiple different monster types, some of which Smirnov said have never been seen before in horror games, don’t expect a bunch of ghouls jumping in your face as the main scare tactic. Smirnov was keen to avoid spoilers, but he did say the team is keen to avoid what they called the overused jump scare mechanic.
“We did a lot of research overall on the scariest things usually found in the horror genre, and we made our own combination of scares that works perfectly. First [on our list] is scares related to surrounding sound effects,” Smirnov said.
Since Hinge is a psychological horror game at its core, expect plenty of mind skullduggery as well. Smirnov said the second scare type they focused on revolves around “scares that play with your attention — when you look at some familiar subject, but at some moment it turns out to be a ghost.”
Beyond things going bump in the dark and dreadful night, the entire story messes with players’ perceptions of reality.
“The rules of the game are obscured for players,” Smirnov said. “You will not be able to fully understand what is happening in the game. You’ll have to put all pieces of the story together from scraps that you’ll find in the game and make conclusions by yourself.”
You’ll be able to draw those conclusions and experience Hinge for yourself once it launches on November 27 for SteamVR headsets and on the Oculus Rift PC store. Let us know what you think of Hinge so far down in the comments below!
It’s a time of plenty and a time of fear. And something else, a horror yet to manifest, lurks under the surface. This is Hinge from Arcadia VR, a psychological horror game that starts with a party.
During the intro, a noted philanthropist celebrates the completion of his new skyscraper and you’re invited. But the art deco facade masks something far more sinister and otherworldly about the building’s owner. Once night falls, the question becomes whether you can make it out alive with your sanity intact.
With Hinge, Arcadia VR blends history and the occult with a daring goal in sight: redefining what makes a game terrifying.
“There hasn’t been an AAA VR horror game since 2017 [and] there are so many unexplored possibilities for horror games in virtual reality,” Arcadia’s Oleg Smirnov said. “We tried to develop gameplay mechanics that are only viable in VR.”
Smirnov is likely referring to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, the PSVR-exclusive horror game from Capcom. It’s available on PC and Xbox One as well, but the VR support is only on PSVR. Achieving that same level of success for Arcadia means doubling down on Hinge’s atmosphere to approach the concept of terror in a different, more immersive way. Smirnov feels they’re well-suited to the task.
“Hinge is our first PC VR game, but as a game dev studio, we’ve been existing for longer,” Smirnov said. “Three years ago, our team was working on the opening of the largest VR LBE venue [a kind of VR theme park experience] in Europe called Another World.”
Arcadia has three LBE venues in Russia, and another two were set to open in London and Paris respectively, when the COVID-19 pandemic derailed their plans. It wasn’t all bad, though.
“We’ve been planning to develop games for Steam VR for a long time,” Smirnov said. “But the pandemic just accelerated us working on that.”
The first step in creating their ideal VR horror atmosphere was getting Hinge’s setting right. Smirnov said the team started from the basic desire to scare players, but it had to be something they could “spice up” with Lovecraftian horror elements. What they ended up with was an eclectic cocktail of 1920s America and creeping dread.
“We decided that the player should be placed in the Great Depression, because that era is fraught with something depressing and desperate,” Smirnov said. “It didn’t seem difficult for us to fit these things together. The player can find similarities between 2020 and the 20s of the last century [and] these three components work great together because [much of] the work of H.P. Lovecraft falls precisely in the Roaring Twenties.”
Smirnov and the team didn’t settle for a surface-level trip into history, though.
The early 20th century was the height of rational thinking and belief in science, but there was a strain of darkness and superstition flowing alongside reason and logic. Smirnov said that’s what the team tapped into for Hinge, and Lovecraft is just the tip of the occult iceberg.
“Our game designer wrote over 100 documents and around 20 books specially for Hinge’s in-game environment. The information for these books was taken from real occultist’s books by Aleister Crowley and Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre.”
Though probably better known now as the subject of Ozzy Osbourne’s song “Mr. Crowley,” Aleister Crowley attracted a fair deal of notoriety throughout the first half of the 20th century. He claimed he contacted multiple spirits from other worlds and was even expelled from Italy in 1923 after a follower died during what was called a “sacrilegious ritual.”
Beyond influencing cults and writing arcane tomes, what Crowley and d’Alveydre did is show people there was much about the world they had yet to understand — and not all of it was benign. That sense of uncertainty and the fear it inspires permeates every corner of Hinge.
“We want players to feel like absolutely anything could be around the next corner, to feel like anything in the environment he should be afraid of,” Smirnov said. “We think we succeeded in making the atmosphere where the player feels like even the skyscraper is trying to kill them.”
While Hinge features multiple different monster types, some of which Smirnov said have never been seen before in horror games, don’t expect a bunch of ghouls jumping in your face as the main scare tactic. Smirnov was keen to avoid spoilers, but he did say the team is keen to avoid what they called the overused jump scare mechanic.
“We did a lot of research overall on the scariest things usually found in the horror genre, and we made our own combination of scares that works perfectly. First [on our list] is scares related to surrounding sound effects,” Smirnov said.
Since Hinge is a psychological horror game at its core, expect plenty of mind skullduggery as well. Smirnov said the second scare type they focused on revolves around “scares that play with your attention — when you look at some familiar subject, but at some moment it turns out to be a ghost.”
Beyond things going bump in the dark and dreadful night, the entire story messes with players’ perceptions of reality.
“The rules of the game are obscured for players,” Smirnov said. “You will not be able to fully understand what is happening in the game. You’ll have to put all pieces of the story together from scraps that you’ll find in the game and make conclusions by yourself.”
You’ll be able to draw those conclusions and experience Hinge for yourself once it launches on November 27 for SteamVR headsets and on the Oculus Rift PC store. Let us know what you think of Hinge so far down in the comments below!
It’s been over a year since IRIS VR Inc. first introduced us to LOW-FI via Kickstarter and we’ve been excited ever since. Having previously released a separate cyberpunk project for VR, Technolust, IRIS now aims to bring us an open-world sandbox game to VR, giving players full creative freedom.
Playing a police officer assigned to city-block 303, this new cyberpunk game promises open-ended choices, allowing you to “Patrol the streets and the skies, solving mysteries, fighting crime, or giving in to corruption and your own desires”. Promising a non-linear structure, this world is free to explore as you wish, choosing which crimes you wish to investigate and multiple ways to resolve them.
LOW-FI Cyberpunk VR Adventure
It smashed that initial Kickstarter target to reach over $81k in funding and hit several stretch goals, such as an additional “wastelands” area with a larger action focus and your own cyber-wolf companion. These goals also included the promise of a “Next-Gen PSVR” port, notably becoming the PlayStation 5’s first confirmed VR Game.
With Jim Ryan ruling out new VR announcements in the near term, we reached out to Blair Renaud at IRIS to discuss the implications this has on LOW-FI’s announced PS5 edition, also taking the opportunity to discuss just what we can expect from its gameplay.
Henry Stockdale, UploadVR: Firstly, thank you for joining me here Blair. For any readers unfamiliar with LOW-FI and it’s development, could you please introduce yourselves?
Blair Renaud: Hey, I’m Blair Renaud. CEO and director of IRIS VR INC. Grumpy old game dev. Probably best known for LOW-Fi and Technolust (Oculus Rift Launch title). I’ve been in the game industry for about 25 years now.
UploadVR: You’ve described LOW-FI as a huge open-world game, bringing us a sandbox style adventure with action elements. What inspired yourselves to create such an ambitious project?
Renaud: VR is one of the greatest artistic tools humanity has devised. We have the ability to transport the user into a new world of our creation. I’m a huge fan of 1980’s cinematic classics like Blade Runner, Robocop and Total Recall. So it’s natural for me to want to build similar worlds. If I had a holodeck, this is the type of program I would want to enjoy.
UploadVR: Considering the setting, LOW-FI has often compared to a VR version of Cyberpunk 2077, something you’ve also done via Twitter. In terms of gameplay though, would you say there’s much common ground between the two?
Renaud: No not really. I mean, I havent played CP2077, so I can’t really say how similar it is. Did I compare it? Maybe just to say I have flying cars and they don’t? haha. I really don’t think it will be very similar at all outside of the general genre of cyberpunk. LOW-FI will have optional gunplay, whereas it seems to be the focus of CP2077. We have no fail states. What I’m trying to create is more of an open world for a player to do whatever they feel like doing, whereas CP2077 seems to be a bit more scripted and (dare I say) linear. Though we will have multiple story-lines for the player to follow, I like to think that we’re doing something a bit different with LOW-FI.
UploadVR: Within the game, we’re playing a police officer that’s been assigned to a crime-ridden section of city-block 303. What sort of characters can we expect to meet along this journey?
Renaud: Most of the human inhabitants of the world are permanently jacked into The Platform, a sort of Facebook metaverse. The only people left are the other “low-fi”, who for one reason or another can’t or won’t subject themselves to it. Some have medical reasons, others ideological. We’ve got all types though. Corporate execs, Ugly Bob the pawnshop owner and his robot companion Penny, a mechanic who deals in illicit firmware, a cybernetics dealer named Juan who’s trying to steal advanced tech from the AI who reached an intelligence singularity and many more. On top of that there are a ton of robots of various types left behind by the singularity.
UploadVR: You’ve described it as a non-linear experience with a branching narrative, so I’d like to ask about story progression. Is that dependent on what crimes you investigate, or is there set criteria to meet before players can advance?
Renaud: That’s something I want to leave completely up to the player. For example; right off the bat, you’re told about the officer you’re replacing, who is dead in the morgue. If you want to investigate that, you’re free to do so. Clues and twists await. Or, if you want to just go to the casino and pay the slots in hopes of buying a cool arcade machine for your apartment with your winnings, you can do that too. I really want to leave it all open ended. As I said. No “save the world” stuff.
UploadVR: A morality system is also featured, giving players creative freedom in how they solve crimes, from simple arrests to accepting bribes. Does that factor into the branching paths, or are there other consequences to your actions?
Renaud: There isn’t really a morality system per se. There are however a lot of morally grey options for the player to explore. They have consequences in the same way they would in the real world. If for example, you accept a bribe, that’s on you. You’re really the only law in town, so you’ll probably get away with it. What consequence letting someone get away with a crime might have really depends on the crime though. I want those feelings to be on the player. I’m not here to tell you what I think you should do in any given situation. There’s no score system, outside of maybe money. A lot like life.
UploadVR: Does gunplay factor into that too? It’s been mentioned as an optional feature previously, so it sounds like you can solve crimes without resorting to weapons.
Renaud: Gunplay is completely optional and will be limited to use against AI. I feel like if someone want’s to play shooty-man VR, they have plenty of outlets for that. That’s said, there will be full quest-lines involving hunting down rogue androids if they player chooses to pursue them. They pay well, but I can’t guarantee some of the androids wont try to tug at your heart strings.
UploadVR: LOW-FI garnered attention as PS5’s first VR game but right now, a new PSVR headset is unconfirmed and existing headsets can only be used via backwards compatibility, Hitman 3 and No Man’s Sky being prominent examples. Jim Ryan seems to have ruled out a successor being released before 2022, so where does that leave LOW-FI’s PS5 edition?
Renaud: I can’t speak to anything about a possible PSVR 2 outside of saying that if/when it becomes available, we fully intend to port LOW-FI to it. In the meantime, we are a registered Sony developer, and are also working on a non-VR version of the game.
UploadVR: You’ve ruled out a PS4 version previously, but previous comments suggest that was more about the PS Move controllers than the console itself. Was this truly an insurmountable hurdle?
Renaud: Though the PS Move controllers are a terrible fit for the game, that’s not the only reason. PS4 is very last-gen at this point. LOW-FI is a next-gen VR title.
UploadVR: During the Kickstarter campaign, “Next-Gen PSVR” was mentioned and PS5 support was a Kickstarter stretch goal. Has Sony given you any indication to their future plans?
Renaud: Yes, but I can’t speak to them. Nor am I sure that they haven’t changed. Recent announcements indicate that they may have.
UploadVR: Your last Kickstarter campaign update confirmed a pitch had been sent to Oculus, regarding a LOW-FI spin-off called Agency for Quest. Has there been any further developments on this?
Renaud: Yes! It’s been approved! It still needs funding to justify taking people away from LOW-FI though. Fingers crossed for us!
UploadVR:Lastly, is there anything you’d like to share with LOW-FI’s fans?
Renaud: I want to thank all the current backers for their support of course! They have made my dreams come true! I’m a holodeck programmer! And if anyone want’s to help support next-gen VR and get in on the action they can purchase LOW-FI at https://anticleric.itch.io/low-fi and get immediate access to the development build which we update all the time. Then, when the game is released, they’ll be able to choose what platform they get a key for (Steam, Oculus, ect.).
Fore more on Low-Fi, be sure to check out our coverage hub and let us know what you think down in the comments below!
After spending plenty of time with the multiplayer-only VR battle royale shooter, here is our full Population: One review. We played on Oculus Quest 2, but it’s crossplay between Quest 1, Quest 2, and PC VR headsets with cross-buy on Rift and Quest.
Out of every game that released in the 2010s, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds probably ranks in the top 5 for me in terms of hours spent. I played a lot of that game when it first debuted in Early Access on PC with a single map and plenty of jankiness to go around. It’s grown a lot in the years since, expanded to consoles, Stadia streaming, and even mobile and is a very different game now. Those first couple of years it was a huge part of my gaming rotation.
In Population: One the setups is extremely familiar. You and your team of two others are dropped down into a map tasked with battling it out until there is only one person (or one team) left standing. Despite what the name would imply, there is no solos game mode — it’s trios only here with just six teams total.
The scope is a far cry from the 150-player lobbies of Call of Duty Warzone, but given the scale of the map and how differently things are perceived in VR, it’s okay. There is a damaging field that closes in, slowly shrinking the map, and you need to quickly search for guns and loot while trying your best to stay alive.
Matches are pretty quick and since you’re able to move so quickly and cover great distances in a matter of seconds with the wingsuit the play area feels smaller than it is without sacrificing map diversity.
More so than any other VR battle royale I’ve played, they’ve done a good job here of making each region of the map feel particularly unique. The graveyard, for example, is littered with tombstones and has plenty of cover points. It’s also the most reliable place to get good loot, in my opinion. The giant tower in the middle of the map can be seen from anywhere and the outcroppings of cities an other regions all have a personality of their own.
I just wish things were a bit more dynamic. There is only the one map and after enough matches you’ve really seen it all. Each game is always different thanks to the variability of where you land and where everyone else lands, but the map is very static. Some events that could pop up and change the layout or create hot zones to draw people in would be great, if not full-on map alterations of some kind. We’ve been told those sorts of things are planned but there are no details right now.
As expected, there are microtransactions in Population: One, just like basically every other battle royale game, but it’s all optional and you can earn everything by just playing the game too. This is all in the form of cosmetics like costumes and skins. They will keep adding more stuff over time and are planning seasonal-style events.
I don’t think I’ll ever spend near as many hours in Population: One as I did PUBG, but it’s got a similar appeal. Just like PUBG, it wasn’t the first battle royale game for its platform — H1Z1 and others preceded PUBG some people forget — but it definitely put the format on the map for the general public. I think Population: One has that kind of staying power for VR.
The main reason is how polished and smooth gameplay feels and just how effective its new twists on the format are at delivering fresh, exciting moments consistently. It’s able to maintain a breezy pace thanks to three key features: you can climb anything, you can glide through the air, and you can build walls and cover on the fly.
Obviously the “building” mechanic is lifted straight out of Fortnite and the “climbing” mechanic has been in several other VR shooters, such as Zero Caliber and Virtual Battlegrounds. But when you combine them together, alongside gliding, it creates a frantic playground of verticality and constant movement that makes everything feel more dynamic and unpredictable.
Population: One Review – Comfort
Comfort options are about what you’d expect in a fast-paced shooter like Population: One. This is a smooth-movement only multiplayer-focused VR game. You can pick snap turning and turn on an FOV dimming vignette, but even then it can still feel intense compared to other games due to the gliding and climbing. Ian Hamilton from UploadVR got very motion sick even with all the comfort options turned on. I personally turned everything off and felt fine, but this sort of thing affects everyone differently. I’d consider this one of the least “accessible” VR games out there in terms of comfort, so if you struggle with VR sickness you might want to approach with severe caution.
You’ve got your usual assortment of weapons like SMGs, Assault Rifles, Shotguns, Snipers, and so on. There isn’t a lot of variation within each gun type though, other than rarity levels denoted by color. But I didn’t notice a major difference between the tiers while playing. On top of that there’s also shield power-ups, bananas and soda cans for health, and grenades.
Combat has enough options for now, but hopefully they continue adding new gear regularly. Reloading is sort of a hybrid between something realistic like in Onward and a more arcade-style system since you only need to mime the actual gun manipulations and exact accuracy with hand placement isn’t needed.
Population: One Review Final Verdict
If you’re looking for a new, addictive VR shooter to sink your teeth into then you can’t go wrong with Population: One. The verticality and freedom of movement is unrivaled and the smooth, snappy gameplay feels fantastic even on the lower-powered Oculus Quest. My only significant gripe is that I wish there was a bit more diversity in content available, but they’ve got an amazing foundation to grow from here. Population: One is definitely the best VR battle royale shooter on the market and will hopefully find a strong audience for quite some time.
It looks like the Oculus Studios-funded Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond from Respawn Entertainment and EA has a chance of getting an Oculus Quest port after all — although it might only be for Quest 2.
On Reddit today, Oculus Studios producer Mike Doran replied to a comment asking about whether or not the PC VR-exclusive first-person shooter, Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, ever had a chance of coming to “Quest 2 natively.” Doran said that they are “going to try, once the PC SKU is finished,” and that Respawn/EA are “fully involved and onboard with this ambition.” He then added they “don’t know yet” how long that would possibly take.
This is pretty big news. Every bit of information we’ve heard about Medal of Honor seemed to indicate that it would remain a PC VR exclusive game given the scope of the project. I got a chance to go hands-on with it briefly over a year ago on Oculus Rift S and came away impressed with the direction the campaign is taking and am eager to see how multiplayer shapes up.
As exciting as this news is, it isn’t entirely surprising. Back when Medal of Honor VR was first revealed I asked Game Director Peter Hirschmann from Respawn about a Quest version and he didn’t deny it. Instead, he told me the company was “focusing on Rift” but then added that they “love the Quest” as well.
We’ve reached out to Facebook for further comment and will update this story if we hear back.
