Category: robo recall

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New Oculus Rift and Gear VR Releases For Week Of 02/26/2017

New Oculus Rift and Gear VR Releases For Week Of 02/26/2017

Buckle up; it’s a big week for Oculus Rift and Touch owners. GDC has been going on for the last five days and Oculus has made some big announcements during the show, including a Rift and Touch price cut and a new Gear VR. It’s also launched some of the biggest and best games and apps on its platform to date, and there’s new content for Gear VR too, so let’s get stuck in.

If you missed last week, you can see those new releases here. And don’t forget that UploadVR has a Steam community group complete with a curated list of recommendations so that you don’t have to waste any money finding out what’s good in the world of VR.

Plus — check out our list of the best Oculus Rift games and best Gear VR games for more suggestions!

Robo Recall, from Epic Games
Price: Free (Rift)

Highly-anticipated by Rift fans everywhere, Robo Recall is the first full VR game from Gears of War developer Epic Games, and it’s available absolutely free for Touch owners. When helper robots malfunction and turn on the human race it’s up to you to dismantle them and call them back in, and you do so with style.

Recommendation: We think Robo Recall is really good and, seeing as it’s free, there’s no reason not to pick it up.

Tethered, from Secret Sorcery

Price: $24.99 (Rift)

The debut game from this UK indie studio came to PSVR last year, but now jumps over to Rift with Touch controls. You raise and protect tiny ‘peeps’ that will gather resources and grant you spirit energy. It’s a tough strategy game that people looking for a little challenge shouldn’t pass on.

Recommendation: We really liked Tethered on PSVR and its Touch controls should make it even better. Pick it up.

Cries of Harvest, from Mindfield Games
Price: $2.99 (Gear VR)

The developers of P.O.L.L.E.N. return with something a little different to last year’s story-driven adventure. Cries of Harvest is a runner in which you “embrace your inner demons and enter the harvest” to “consume embryos to fertilize an egg older than time itself.” Uh, okay then?

Recommendation: Give it a try at this price.

Dark Mechanism, from Field of Vision
Price: $0.99 (Rift and Gear)

A runner where your obstacles are the inner workings of a giant clock. Cogs and gears whirl past you as you shoot forward at high speeds, trying not to touch anything. There are infinite levels to see here, so you can keep playing just as long as you’d like.

Recommendation: At less than a dollar it can’t hurt to check out.

Quiz Night Tonight!, from Mardonpol Inc.

Price: $9.99 (Rift)

Welcome to your virtual game show! Quiz Night Tonight puts you in the spotlight as you try to answer thousands of questions spread over various topics. There are also a couple additional modes for hitting targets and completing puzzles.

Recommendation: Very cool concept but don’t pull the trigger just yet. Keep an eye on a potential sale.

Sort ‘Em, from PeanutButter VR

Price: $2.99 (Rift)

Sort ‘Em tests your spatial organization skills by dropping you into the role of a sorter at a virtual grocery store. As levels progress you’ll have to deal with more complex items and also have to stop kids from taking items off the conveyor belt.

Recommendation: It flips a mundane job into a fun casual gaming experience. Grab it.

Spooky’s Jump Scare Mansion: HD Renovation, from Albino Moose Games

Price: $6.69 (Rift, Currently Discounted)

In Spooky’s Jump Scare Mansion you’ll have to explore 1,000 rooms of beings that start off cute but devolve into terrifying creatures. The game has been updated from it’s Game Maker origins and recreated in the Unity engine.

Recommendation: A great update to a game perfect for VR. Very solid if you’re into this style of game.

Roomscale Coaster, from Blue Entropy Studios LLC

Price: $2.99 (Rift, Currently Discounted)

On this coaster you’re not just being treated to a fast and intense ride, you’ll have to sidestep and duck obstacles as you collect objects to increase your score.

Recommendation: A solid flip on VR coasters with solid visuals. Grab it.

The Body VR: Anatomy Viewer, from The Body VR LLC

Price: Free (Rift)

The Body VR welcomes you into a virtual space that will display anatomy generated from CT and MRI scans. It’s intended to be a tool for medical professionals, students, and patients to view things in a new way.

Recommendation: Very interesting look at health and our bodies. Get it if you’re interested.

Locomancer, from Eric Lipschutz

Price: $13.49 (Rift, Currently Discounted)

In Locomancer players can build and ride their virtual model trains in a layout of their own design. The toy box style game aims to recreate the sensation of playing with real life model trains and has a variety of rail cars including a cannon car with working weapon.

Recommendation: A bit expensive for anyone that’s not a model car aficionado but, if that’s you, grab it.

Stage Presence, from Sea Green Games

Price: $8.99 (Rift, Currently Discounted)

Ever wanted to be a rock star? Well, Stage Presence…is not that. This game is a horror/comedy twist on the karaoke genre where you’ll have to entertain a crowd with special unlockables while everything goes wrong with your band. If the crowd gets angry, beware flying projectiles.

Recommendation: This is a pretty unique flip on the genre that definitely takes advantage of the platform. The multiplayer even lets you be a heckler. Get this.

Constellation Distantia, from Skanerbotten

Price: $13.39 (Rift, Currently Discounted)

Constellation Distantia is a sci-fi survival game where you experience war, get sent on missions, trade, and must unravel the mysteries of Distantia. You’ll be able to use either a nuclear mining ship or a smaller exploration vessel and there’s over 200 pages of storyline.

Recommendation: Keep an eye on this one. There’s a lot of great, solid content but VR control issues may need to be ironed out.

HearpVR, from Richard Fox, John Gibbons, Jonathan Haggard, Joe Cantasano

Price: Free (Rift)

In HeapVR you’ll use your VR controllers to stack as high as you can in a couple different game modes. In the first, you stack as floating blocks attempt to impede your progress. In the 2nd, you’ll be able to snap blocks together to build 3D structures.

Recommendation: Free casual fun. Grab it.

LookVR, from Looker

Price: Free (Rift)

LookVR is a platform where you can view various collections of your data in a virtual space via graphs, charts, and more. The program connects to the Looker API and allows you to filter through datasets and even climb up your data in “Big Data” mode.

Recommendation: It’s geared toward a certain crowd, but functional if it fits your desires. It’s a cool way to research data.

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VRLO Returns To London This Month With Microsoft, BBC, Epic And More

VRLO Returns To London This Month With Microsoft, BBC, Epic And More

GDC is nearing its event but the VR events won’t be stopping there. VRLA might be the expo to head to if you’re on the west coast of the USA right now, but those living in the UK have plenty of options too. VRLO is returning this month, for example, and it’s bringing some big names with it.

VRLO 7 will take place on Monday March 20th at the new location in the Picturehouse Central, not far off from Piccadilly Circus. From 5:30pm – 9pm you’ll be able to check out some new VR demos, meet others in the industry, and listen to talks from industry leaders. Tickets just went live over on the event’s meetup page.

Speakers at this month’s event include representatives from Rowland Manthorpe, Start Editor at Wired UK, Tom Burton, Interactive & Technology Lead at BBC Studios, Leila Martine, Director of Product Marketing at Microsoft and Daryl Atkins, Creative Director/Visual Artist at REWIND, the VR production studio that hosts the show. HTC and AMD will also be giving talks on the night.

There are also demos in the form of Robo Recall [Review: 7.5/10], the just-released Oculus Rift shooter from Epic Games, BBC’s Home – A VR Spacewalk and ROM: Extraction being exhibited by AMD, and a new VR glove from Noitom.

Tickets to the event are absolutely free, which means they’ll no doubt be gone very soon. Picturehouse is a tiny bit smaller than the previous venue near Marble Arch, too, so make sure not to miss out.

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Robo Recall: Mod sorgt für fehlerfreien 360°-Modus, Patch angekündigt

Viele Besitzer von Oculus Rift und Touch konnten gestern bereits Robo Recall von Epic Games kostenlos herunterladen. Wahrscheinlich befassen sie sich noch immer ausführlich mit dem Teleportationssystem des Spiels.

Probleme beim Teleportieren

Anprdnung Sensoren Oculus Rift Touch

Die Mechanik wurde so entworfen, dass dieses System von nur zwei Oculus Constellation Trackern unterstützt wird. Dementsprechend können die Touch-Controller nicht verwendet werden, wenn ihr euch zu weit entfernt oder die Sicht auf die Geräte blockiert ist. Wenn ihr also die beiden analogen Sticks von Touch zum Teleportieren nutzt, könnt ihr sie drehen, um eure Richtung zu ändern und euch weiter bewegen. Dies ist ein wenig umständlich, aber noch die beste Lösung für diejenigen, welche die Sensoren von  Rift und Touch nutzen.

Virtual Reality Tracker Anordnung, Constellation Tracker

Doch obwohl Robo Recall nur „Front-Face“ als unterstützten Tracking-Modus listet, könnt ihr auch mit drei Sensoren spielen. Schon in den ersten Schlachten wird das Spiel recht hektisch, und ihr müsst euch auf der Stelle drehen, anstatt das Teleportationssystem zu nutzen. Problematisch wird es immer dann, wenn ihr beim Teleportieren von den vorderen Sensoren wegschaut. Dann landet ihr am Ende stets in der entgegengesetzten Richtung. Wenn ihr mit einem 180-Grad-Setup spielt, müsst ihr euch also immer noch zu diesen Sensoren hindrehen, um in die Richtung zu schauen, die geplant war.

Mod-Support von Huge Robot

Das Spiel erhielt jedoch schon jetzt vollen Mod-Support. Huge Robot, der Entwickler des Freedom Locomotion VR-Systems, hat einen der ersten Mods für das Spiel erstellt und dafür gesorgt, dass 360-Grad-Setups (mit 3 Oculus Constellation Trackern) problemlos gespielt werden können. Auf die Frage, ob Epic Games Pläne verfolgt, drei Sensoren offiziell zu erlauben, antwortete ein Sprecher, dass das Unternehmen in diesem Monat einen offiziellen Patch freigeben wird, der dieses Problem lösen soll.

(Quelle: Upload VR)

Der Beitrag Robo Recall: Mod sorgt für fehlerfreien 360°-Modus, Patch angekündigt zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!

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Robo Recall Mod Already Adds 360 Play, Official Fix Coming

Robo Recall Mod Already Adds 360 Play, Official Fix Coming

If you, like many Oculus Rift and Touch owners, downloaded Epic Games’ Robo Recall [Review: 7.5/10] when it launched for free yesterday, you’re likely still getting to grips with the game’s teleportation system.

The mechanic is designed to support those with only two sensors, thus can’t use their Touch controllers as well when turning away from them and blocking their view of the devices. As such, when holding down one of Touch’s two analogue sticks to teleport, you can rotate them to change the direction you’ll face when you move. It’s a little tricky, but it’s the best possible solution for those only with the sensors included in the Rift and Touch boxes.

But not everyone will be playing with two sensors.

Though Robo Recall only lists ‘Front-facing’ as its supported tracking mode, those with three sensors can still play the game without worrying about occlusion blocking the Touch tracking. Even in its earliest battles the game gets hectic, and you’ll need to spin on the spot to quickly take care of enemies rather than using the teleportation system, so three sensors are pretty handy.

The problem is if you teleport when you’re looking away from where the game considers the front sensors to be, you’ll end up facing the opposite direction to where you’re looking. Why? Because if you’re playing with a 180 degree setup, you’ll still then have to turn back towards those sensors to see what you wanted to see. That’s all well and good for players with two sensors, but the feature reportedly doesn’t turn off when using three sensors.

That means these players that are spinning around to natrually face enemies in the game are sometimes teleporting and finding themselves facing the wrong way. You can imagine how annoying that could get in the heat of battle.

Luckily, the game’s full mod support — an Epic Games staple — is already here to help. Huge Robot, the developer of the Freedom Locomotion VR system, has become one of the first to make a mod for the game, removing this feature, so 360 setups can be played trouble-free.

Mods are nice, official integration is always preferable, so we reached out to Epic Games to ask if they have any plans to allow three sensor-users to remove this feature. A spokseperson told us that the company will be releasing a patch later this month that will address this issue. Until then, you can download the free mod.

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Robo Recall Now Available for Free, Includes Full Source Mod

Epic Games’ Robo Recall has been one of the most highly anticipated virtual reality (VR) videogames since its debut at Oculus Connect 3, San Jose, in October last year. Today, the company has launched the full version of the videogame exclusively for Oculus Rift with Oculus Touch compatibility, available to download now for free via the Oculus Store.

Robo_Recall_OC3_A4_screenshot_05

In addition to a fully featured videogame experience, Epic Games has included mod compatibility with the title at launch. Robo Recall will support user-created content through the distribution of a complete non-commercial Robo Recall Mod Kit with full videogame source code. This will be available with C++ source through UnrealEngine.com with mod kit downloads managed by the Epic Games launcher, similar to that of the ARK Mod Kit and NVIDIA VR Funhouse Mod Kit.

According to Epic Games, “The mod toolkit will contain samples and link to tutorials demonstrating the creation of new guns, new enemies and new maps. Modders will be able to package their mods into .robo files that can be shared via hyperlinks (e.g. via forums supporting file attachments, Dropbox, or file sharing).”

Those who download the Robo Recall Mod Kit will gain access to the Robo Recall development team’s original assets and full source code to extend and build upon or recreate from scratch. They’ll be able to take any enemy, gun or level in Robo Recall and make their own version of it for others to experience. Furthermore, any combination of mods can be loaded at any one time.

Robo Recall screenshot

As an example of what can be created, Epic Games is also releasing a selection of the company’s own in-house mod packs, including a Fortnite Weapons Pack available from today.

Robo Recall is available to download via the Oculus Store now, for free. VRFocus has of course prepared a detailed review of Robo Recall, which will be available for your reading pleasure very soon.

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Review: Robo Recall

With a myriad of wave-based first-person shooters (FPS) available for virtual reality (VR) head-mounted displays (HMDs), the genre is becoming increasingly saturated to the point where a new release needs to do something special to get any recognition. Epic Games has become renowned in the industry for its Unreal Engine software and tech demo Bullet Train, but can it pull of the increasingly difficult task of providing an FPS that consumers will want to play. With the release of Robo Recall it just might.

An exclusive for Oculus Touch, Robo Recall combines the studio’s VR expertise in providing game development tools with its pedigree in producing home spun titles. Taking the lessons it learnt from Bullet Train, the team has combined what are essentially VR standards now – teleportation, hip mounted guns, etc – and added a layer of polish and precision that’s still a rare occurrence in VR.

Robo_Recall_OC3_A4_screenshot_02 (1)

Robo Recall starts with the flair and grandeur  very reminiscent of 90’s videogames. This is an action title that doesn’t take itself seriously, it’s all about having fun, shooting robots, ripping them apart, then moving on to continue the carnage. Highscores are the name of the game here, stick with one tactic and you’ll get through, but that multiplier won’t increase significantly. Mix things up and that’s where you’ll gain the most points. Use your handguns, shotguns, grab an enemy’s gun or just simply use your hands.

Highscores aren’t just about online bragging rights, points mean prizes here, unlocking stars which will allow you to upgrade your weapon loadouts with higher capacities, reduced recoil, laser sights and more. This not only makes latter levels somewhat easier, but more importantly it aids racking up those maximum points.

While the action can be intense, it’s certainly beautiful. The aesthetics of Robo Recall are pure AAA all the way through. It might just be cityscapes but it’s no less impressive, with towering skyscrapers that are pin sharp. The hordes of robot enemies are lovingly detailed and richly coloured, decapitating one creates a mass of twisted and sparking wires.

Robo_Recall_OC3_A4_screenshot_05

It’s the simple things that Robo Recall does that showcase it as an exemplary VR experience. When used, teleportation for example is a crucial mechanic that can make or break a VR title. Both sticks on the Oculus Touch controllers allow you to warp, and a twist of the stick changes the direction you’ll face. Nothing groundbreaking but it works, feeling snappy and accurate. Adding to this is a feature needed specifically for Touch’s two sensor setup. Turn away from the dual sensors and Robo Recall will begin indicating that you need to turn back around, thus ensuring you’ll have no loss of tracking mid fight.

Does Robo Recall have its flaws, of course it does. Some may find it somewhat short, or just aren’t interested in another FPS, but they’d be missing out. Robo Recall elicits such a high standard that future FPS titles will be measured by it, and should be considered a killer app for Oculus Touch. And the best bit of all, Touch users get Robo Recall for free, so what’s there to moan about?

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Robo Recall Review – Dancing Through a Storm of Bullets

Robo Recall Review – Dancing Through a Storm of Bullets

One, two, three shotguns blasts and the most dangerous robot is junk. I teleport behind the two already shooting at me, grabbing my revolvers from my hips. As they fall, I turn to look at the newcomer already firing. I grab a bullet mid-air and fling it back at him, then teleport to the other side of the street. I take another shotgun from my back and prepare for the next wave.

Robo Recall is the latest free release for Oculus Touch, this one a collaboration between Oculus Studios and Epic Games, the company behind the ubiquitous Unreal Engine, Gears of War, and Unreal Tournament. Robo Recall has been presaged by Epic’s Showdown and Bullet Train demos, but now the full results of the company’s labor have arrived.

The First Person Shooter (FPS) is one of the most revered genres of PC gaming, but it is probably the hardest to do well in VR. Most traditional FPS games move you at a pace that will make most people absolutely sick in VR. And aiming with a crosshair inside an HMD via mouse or Xbox controller isn’t very intuitive, but the arrival of motion controllers like the Vive wands and Oculus Touch banishes that limitation.

In Robo Recall, you are Agent 34 of the Robo Ready corporation. Your task is to “recall” robots that are out of control in the city, slowly uncovering that the seemingly random malfunctions are the work of an AI named Odin. Through three levels divided into nine total missions you will face him and his mechanical minions.

But is your duty as a Recall agent any fun? Well, how could teleporting around and destroying robots be anything but fun? You point with a Touch controller, gesturing with both your arm and the analog stick, painting a spot with a target. When you let go of the analog stick, you teleport there. Time is temporarily slowed, allowing you to shoot enemies leaping through the air or running at you. Just grab guns from your back or your hips and start firing away.

Waves of robots come in a variety of types with different weapons. So you are hopping around to dodge attacks, get better angles on enemies, or get away from being surrounded. And you shoot in response, managing the use of your four weapons, always balancing out the ammo so that you aren’t stuck waiting there while an empty gun is still being respawned.

If you are weaponless, you can get close and grab enemies from certain points indicated by white circles. Rather than holding the Touch’s grip button like when you hold a weapon, you press the button to hold the robot. Then you can even use the other hand to grab another part of the bot and tear it in two. Ripping your arms about in those instances  is incredibly satisfying. You can also grab a robot’s guns to use against them.

The moments of just teleporting around and dispatching enemies are interrupted by Time Trials to destroy a certain amount in two minutes or capture a particular number of robots by grabbing them and throwing them into an energy funnel that will teleport them away. Other times you might defend a relay for two minutes by killing all the enemies that try to attack it. And there are of course boss battles to survive.

If the frantic turning and teleporting, weapon juggling and bullet throwing overwhelms you, you will take damage. If not enough time passes for your life to regenerate, the screen turns red and you’re dead. After a 10% respawn fee you are immediately back in the action.

This is a minor setback, except that loss of points might cost you. As you make kills, you earn points. Do more stylish things like headshots, juggles, and simultaneous kills, and you get more points. The more points you get on levels, the more stars you earn. Hitting certain thresholds of stars will unlock new weapons or upgrades for the weapons you already have, such as laser sights, bigger ammo magazines, and more.

Each level also has a variety of challenges that earn you additional stars. Kill 10 robots by ripping them apart or only use scavenged weapons for a whole mission. And after finishing all of the challenges in a level, you unlock All-Star mode for it, where the difficulty of the game is kicked up a notch. There are leaderboards so you can compare how your score in each mission or All-Star version of it compares to the rest of your friends’ or the world’s.

These challenges and leaderboards, after beating the game’s 9 missions gives you a slight reason to go back and play Robo Recall again. Completionists will find getting all the stars difficult, but it is impressive to see the guns evolve into more and more lethal weapons. And it does help to have an excuse to jump back into a mission from the beginning of the game long after you have defeated Odin.

But this replayability also points to the game’s biggest flaw: repetition. The nine levels aren’t really that different, except for a handful of new enemies that come up and the boss fights on every third level. That is a nearly identical bossfight in missions 1-3, 2-3, and 3-3. And within the levels you are either shooting freely, shooting within a time limit, capturing within a time limit, or fighting the boss. More variety would be appreciated. There is mod support available for users to tinker with, but who knows how much variety that will really bring over time — it’s up to the community.

Final Score: 7.5/10 – Very Good

Robo Recall has solid graphics and fun gameplay. As a free title for Oculus Touch it is more than worthwhile to give the game a go. Those frantic moments of shooting action are so thrilling that you are just swept up in it. But after several instances of such moments, the thrill dies and the barebones story and light humor doesn’t elevate the game enough in a meaningful way. You may not have the endurance to keep playing to beat your highscores, earn more stars, and upgrade your weapons — enabling you to beat your highscores and begin the process all over again. But even if you aren’t in the game for the long haul, the initial trip of ~3 hours is quite a ride worth taking.

Robo Recall will be available for free on Oculus Home to all Oculus Touch owners as of today. Read our Game Review Guidelines for more information on how we arrived at this score.

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GDC 2017: Robo Recall Available Now, With Full Mod Support

GDC 2017: Robo Recall Available Now, With Full Mod Support

Today at the Game Developers Conference, Epic Games announced its VR shooter Robo Recall is available now for free on Oculus Rift with Touch. In addition, Robo Recall comes with full mod support at launch.

The Robo Recall mod editor allows you to manipulate various aspects of the game including environments, sounds, physics, skins, fire rate and object reactions. It also comes with a number of assets from various Epic properties, including Kallari and Twinblast models from Paragon, the ruler sword and baseball bat from Fortnite and even full maps such as DM-Chill from Unreal Tournament.

Judging from the demo today, you can change and tweak a variety of variables with ease, and since it’s built on Unreal Engine 4, you can use the Blueprints scripting environment to test all of your creations quickly to see how they interact with the game.

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GDC 2017: Robo Recall Adds Weapon Upgrades and New Guns

GDC 2017: Robo Recall Adds Weapon Upgrades and New Guns

Robo Recall from Epic Games is one of the most anticipated VR games of 2017. When we first learned about the title last year at Oculus Connect 3 (OC3) and went hands-on for the first time, it blew us away.

The controls are tight, the action is intense, and the tongue-in-cheek humor was a breath of fresh air. And all of that is crammed into a game that will be released totally for free for all Oculus Touch users.

In our previous demo we only really had the chance to try out a couple of pistols on our hip and two shotguns on our back, but this time at GDC 2017 Epic turned things up a notch. As lead designer Nick Donaldson told us, “’I wish I could… I wish I could… I wish I could…’ pretty much describes our entire design philosophy.”

“We want you to feel as badass as possible,” art director Jerome Platteaux added.

Before I dove into one of the game’s later levels, they unlocked all of Robo Recall’s various guns and upgrade attachments. In addition to the standard pistol, I could choose a revolver, an energy rifle, and even a large rocket-blasting gun.

In my left hand I opted for the standard pistol with upgraded sights and an automatic firing system. The revolver in my right hand switched to one that shot two bullets at once, resulting in only four shots total before needing to reload, but it packed a major punch. With the energy rifle I could hold the trigger and let it slowly ramp up its firing speed until red balls of energy blasted out at all angles. Finally, after shooting a rocket from my last gun, I could swing my arms in a direction to curve missiles through the air.

When I loaded into one of the mid-game levels (they said it was a little over an hour into the journey) I had the freedom to explore the city using the point-to-teleport mechanic that works similar to Arizona Sunshine. I press forward on the analog stick and point at the ground, then release to teleport, but I can also press a different direction to change which way I am facing after the teleport completes.

I jumped around the city, fighting off robots, eventually dying with only 10 seconds left on my final objective. It’s easy to get overwhelmed if you’re not careful. Getting a one-shot kill with a revolver was probably my favorite way of killing the robot scum.

Epic wouldn’t confirm a definitive release date just yet, but it should be very soon. It was also teased that this isn’t all of the secrets Robo Recall has left to uncover. When it does finally launch, it will be a free download for all Oculus Touch owners.

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Oculus Head of Content Teases ‘Months of High Profile VR content’ On the Way

Jason Rubin, Head of Content at Oculus, has recently teased ‘months of high-profile VR content’ for the hardware. In a recent tweet, he points towards the upcoming release of Rock Band VR, an exclusive title for Rift and Touch, as the starting point.

Launching March 23rd, Rock Band VR is a big deal for Harmonix and Oculus, having announced the title as exclusive to the Rift back in 2015. Some may feel that the plastic instrument craze peaked before 2010, but Oculus believe that VR has the potential to reinvigorate the rhythm game genre, giving players a genuine sensation of being a rock star, playing to a crowd. Oculus’ confidence in their investment is probably best illustrated by the Rock Band VR connector that is included with every Touch controller package.

In a recent tweet, Jason Rubin points to the Oculus blog announcement of the Rock Band VR preorders going live, teasing that it represents the start of “months of high profile rollouts” for the Rift. Rubin’s optimism is likely to be fuelled by the progress of some of the big-hitters we already know to feature on the 2017 roadmap…

Arktica.1

This sci-fi first-person shooter is developed by 4A Games, the Ukrainian team behind the acclaimed Metro FPS series, renowned for its stunning, atmospheric presentation. Arktica.1 continues the studio’s production quality with extreme attention to detail and customisation options on its wide array of futuristic weapons, and is expected to feature a lengthy campaign. Further details are available in our full preview.

Lone Echo

American studio Ready At Dawn make a huge departure from their last title, The Order 1886, with this zero-gravity action game where you assume the role of an advanced artificial intelligence robot transported to an advanced mining facility within the rings of Saturn. It uses the Touch controllers to great effect, allowing smooth movement through space as you pull and push on objects and interact with equipment in interesting ways. While not much is known about the single-player story, the multiplayer sports mode is very promising, as we detail here.

Wilson’s Heart

In Wilson’s Heart you assume the role of hospital patient Robert Wilson, voice acted by RoboCop’s (1987) Peter Weller, who wakes up to discover that his heart has been replaced with ‘a mysterious device’. With its unique black-and-white style, the character driven story looks to be ripped straight from an episode of The Twilight Zone (1959-1964) or Night of the Living Dead (1968).

Wilson’s Heart is an intriguing psychological VR thriller which has you exploring your haunted surroundings, utilising Oculus Touch motion controls to interact with your environment, and it’s the implementation of those ‘virtual hands on’ elements (some of which you may can to catch in the above trailer) which we think may set the game apart.

Robo Recall

As a result of the hugely positive reaction to early Oculus Touch slo-mo combat demo Bullet Train, Epic Games were able to expand the concept into a full game, at the request of Oculus, who will provide Robo Recall for free to all Touch owners. The game features a comedic style, promoting the action-packed virtual smashing of robots in countless ways, using virtually anything you can grab with your Touch controllers. The use of Epic’s new forward render means this is one of the most spectacular games we’ve seen in VR. See our preview for more info.

When asked by Road to VR whether the high-profile rollouts included unannounced games, Rubin further hinted “Answering that would be an announcement of sorts”.

Additional reporting in this piece provided by Scott Hayden

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