ROTU Entertainment revealed only last month that its second virtual reality (VR) title Eolia would be heading exclusively to Meta Quest 2 this summer. Eolia is now scheduled to arrive in exactly three weeks, mixing puzzle and music mechanics.
The sequel to 2021s Rhythm of the Universe: Ionia, Eolia continues the environmental narrative of the original, this time with you playing adventurer Conga Dholak who needs to save the desert world of Eolia from devastating climate change. Droughts and extreme weather patterns have destroyed the land, so you need to explore the remnants of a once prosperous civilisation and restore the ecosystem by solving musical puzzles.
Eolio utilizes Meta Quest 2’s hand tracking throughout the experience, from its innovative walking locomotion system and plucking the strings of magical musical instruments to jumping on the back of a Lhargo, grabbing its reins and riding through across the sun-kissed sands. Every interaction has been designed to maximise those hand tracked interactions to make the gameplay intuitive and immersive.
“In order for players to feel inspired to reflect on real-world issues, we needed to make sure EOLIA was accessible and evocative,” said Jason Parks, ROTU CEO in a statement. “Like our fragile real world, this fantastical one responds and reacts to every choice. And thanks to Meta Quest 2’s best-in-class immersion and ease of use, people of all ages and experience levels can play with this idea and join us on the journey to do right by our planet.”
Just like the first game, Rotu Entertainment will donate a portion of EOLIA’s proceeds to a climate-conscious non-profit selected by the ROTU social media community.
ROTU Entertainment will launch Eolia for Meta Quest 2 on 9th June 2022. It’ll have English voice and text support initially, with text localization for additional languages to come. Take a look at the new trailer below and for further updates, keep reading gmw3.
Last year ROTU Entertainment released its first virtual reality (VR) title in the form of Rhythm of the Universe: Ionia to a rather muted reception. The studio’s next project continues the same universe, building upon the lore to offer a bigger, grander adventure, this time simply called Eolia.
Just like its predecessor, Eolia will contain musical puzzles where you can learn weird and wonderful instruments to solve all manner of brain teasers. The big difference with Eolia is that the title solely employs hand-tracking, from the puzzle-solving to the locomotion, no controllers are required.
So players will be able to flick and pinch magical stringed instruments to play them, keep an eye on their quests by leafing through their journal and utilize an innovative locomotion system by pinching the air.
“Catastrophe looms for Eolia—droughts plague once-verdant fields and extreme weather cuts open the skies. Climate change weighs heavily upon the land, and only an empathetic embrace of the world’s musical mythology can save it,” explains the synopsis. “As adventurer Conga Dholak, you set forth on a journey of healing to stop the storm. Physically climb, jump, ride, and play instruments, uncovering melodies to restore the rhythm of the universe.”
“Unlike the endless worlds we explore in gaming, in reality, we only have one planet to call our own,” said Jason Parks, ROTU CEO. “Through VR’s ability to truly transport us and instill a tangible sense of place, we hope to inspire people to see the beauty in our natural world and consider brave actions in their daily lives.”
Just like Rhythm of the Universe: Ionia,Eolia sales will be used to aid charitable causes. A portion of Eolia proceeds will be given to a non-profit organization dedicated to fighting climate change – previously it was Wildlife Warriors Worldwide.
Eolia will be a Meta Quest 2 exclusive when it launches this Summer. Take a look at the first trailer below and for further updates keep reading gmw3.
Episodic videogames are a tricky proposition. They give developers plenty of scope to provide a more TV series-like structure to their narratives, one that can be tweaked and refined with each release. The downside is that gamers only get a small slice of the content, which can mean a short, unsatisfying experience. And as streaming services like Netflix have proven, the general public just loves their binging sessions. And so onto ROTU Entertainment’s launch of Rhythm of the Universe: Ionia, a gorgeous nugget of VR gaming that’s just too bittersweet.
Stepping into Rhythm of the Universe: Ionia for the first time the narrative and visuals offer a grand vision of a beautiful forest world, inhabited by strange and wonderful plants and animals all under threat. While the Oculus Quest version has noticeably taken a graphical hit, the PC VR version really does show attention to detail. Some of the epic visual set pieces look like you’re on Avatar’s world of Pandora, offering a rich tapestry of colour and glowing mushrooms that you can play.
And it’s that musical prelude that Rhythm of the Universe: Ionia is built around, from the playable shrooms to the puzzles that all have their own melodies. They’re all based on real instruments so in one puzzle you have to play a metal drum whilst a couple of others you get to jam on a xylophone that appears to have grown out of a tree.
ROTU Entertainment has really gone for the environmental element throughout the title, whether that’s habitats under threat of destruction to walking through old temples taken over by plant life. There’s a natural synergy to the whole experience. That’s also been reflected in the real world with a small percentage of sales going supporting the Wildlife Warriors Worldwide organisation.
Unfortunately, that’s where most of the goods points end because Rhythm of the Universe: Ionia doesn’t live up to the grandiose vision it has for itself. As mentioned, the problem starts with the episodic design, with the studio having previously said seven instalments are planned. Whether that’s still the case isn’t clear, what is clear is the 45-minute run time over five chapters. A good chunk of that time is taken up with backstory sequences to build up this fantastical realm, yet you’re given so little time to interact with it there’s no real connection. Especially when it comes to the briefly mentioned Tritone army that’s destroying the world, a part of the narrative you never get to see.
You play a mute lad called Allegro, who alongside his very talkative sister Allegra tries to save the Harpa, a mystical creature dying from all the deforestation. What this actually turns into is you listening to Allegra talk at the start of each chapter, follow, solve a puzzle then move onto the next level. There’s no exploration in Rhythm of the Universe: Ionia, just a very short point A to point B wander. It would be amazing to investigate the depths of the world, but you can’t.
The most you can do is climb. In fact, Rhythm of the Universe: Ionia has a significant amount of climbing for such a short adventure, with vines or jutting out bricks glowing yellow so you can see where you’re going. These sections are the closest you’ll get to feeling even slightly connected to the world of Ionia. The rest of the time you’ll be teleporting around.
It’s very easy to tell Rhythm of the Universe: Ionia was initially built around teleportation, making it nicely accessible to all players. Direct locomotion is there it’s just quicker to teleport – some sections even mandate it. If you are well acquainted with VR head to the options section and up the walking speed to the max as the default is slow; fully running feels like the proper walk speed. Crucially, do this before starting the videogame as none of the settings can be accessed mid-game. Worse, going back to the main menu means you have to start the chapter you’re on from the beginning!
There were other various bugs and glitches that hampered the overall experience like getting stuck on invisible walls when walking or Allegra’s twitchy animation – she also rarely looks directly at you, either off to the side or like she’s staring right through you which is both annoying and slightly unnerving. Yet the one glaring issue with Rhythm of the Universe: Ionia is the emptiness. Sure, there’s plenty of foliage giving the impression of a lush environment except you do want something to do. Those musical moments are too short and far between and are way too underused, symphony of the universe this is not.
What this all leads to is Rhythm of the Universe: Ionia giving the impression of a VR experience from a couple of years ago rather than a properly immersive 2021 videogame. There are plenty of issues that still need refining like opening the menu, lack of saving and lack of a properly seated option. Even with all of that, there’s still hope. The world-building and narrative ideas show great promise and it would be tremendous to see further editions expand the premise. Only then would Rhythm of the Universe: Ionia be worth exploring.
We talk to Rotu’s Jason Parks about the developer’s big VR launch, Rhythm of the Universe: Ionia.
The forest vibrates with song around you, as animals of all kinds follow their ancient rituals seemingly unimpeded. But the woods are also hurting, grappling with a pain only you can help ease. If you’re unsure whether I’m talking about a real-life ecosystem or Rhythm of the Universe: Ionia, that’s exactly what Rotu Entertainment CEO and executive producer Jason Parks wants.
Rhythm of the Universe’s roots go deep, down through a decade’s worth of music education, advocacy, and undercover environmental activism. Rotu Entertainment’s founders attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Parks started a film scoring group during his time at the college, and ROTU’s future CCO, Emir Cerman,approached him with a proposal to bring dozens of musicians and countries together for the project that eventually became Anthem for the World, the seed from which Rhythm of the Universe grew.
“We had a music video that the support team created that brought 90 different countries together, and they wrote a song of peace,” Parks told Upload during Gamescom 2021. “We literally had citizens of countries that were at war with each other at the same table, afraid to even share their real name because of the retribution they would face and that song went viral all over the world on YouTube, and ultimately led us to selling out Symphony Hall in Boston.”
ROTU continued working on documentaries and other advocacy music videos, and in 2015, the Amazon Aid Foundation approached them with a request. The foundation wanted ROTU to travel to the Amazon rainforest and film both the illegal mining and deforestation and how they affected the environment.
“That trip really inspired [Ionia] because it was all about going to this beautiful lush jungle, then coming across just absolutely devastated land and understanding this was human impact but ultimately, there was something we could do about it,” Parks said.
ROTU wanted to create something big out of this experience, their own Star Wars franchise or Avatar, Parks said. A friend introduced the ROTU team to VR around the same time. He’d purchased an HTC Vive headset and invited them over to see what it was like. Parks said the sense of immersion, particularly in a nature scene as they watched a whale swim by in the ocean, is what sold them on VR for ROTU’s dream project.
Immersion is key for Ionia. Parks wants it to feel like a lucid dream, something that pushes the boundaries of entertainment forward through interactive storytelling and imparts a message about humanity’s relationship with the environment like no other.
“Our message and our vision is all about creating empathy through our lore, through our stories and through our universe,” he said. “It’s a lot easier to do that in virtual reality because I can put you in front of a creature that you have to take care of. You have to progress through making decisions that help you understand the world around you.”
To that end, ROTU also partnered with Wildlife Warriors, the conservation organization the late Steve Irwin founded that’s branching into Europe and Africa, as well as its native Australia. 5% of proceeds from Ionia will go to the foundation to help further its efforts.
Parks said they recognized even creating Ionia was a risk, though, let alone pinning such hopes on it. Ionia’s conception took place before VR carved its niche in entertainment, but the ROTU team believed the medium was here to stay and would only grow bigger. Working on video projects with nonprofits and other clients led ROTU to Epic’s Unreal as their ideal production vehicle. The next step was recruiting a team with “decades” of experience working with game engines and no shortage of ideas for bringing Ionia to life.
Ionia’s gaming inspirations are too many to count, but Parks noted Uncharted, Ocarina of Time, Breath of the Wild, Moss, Lone Echo — anything with a unique approach to narrative and storytelling. Music was always at Ionia’s core, though. They vary as much as the games that inspired Ionia, from John Williams’ sweeping scores, to Ennio Morricone’s score for The Mission (1986) and its idea of music creating harmony among disparate cultures.
Ionia’s musical identity is its foundation, so much so that ROTU composed the soundtrack before even designing the first area. They build every stage, encounter, animal, and puzzle around some aspect of music theory. One puzzle Parks demonstrated has you using a basic understanding of intervals on a scale to align a set of stones and unlock the way forward. Another involves using the environment and music to care for a turtle and earn its respect to help heal the forest.
Even more spectacular, set piece events, such as traveling through a valley on zipline, weave a sense of wonder and curiosity into its soundscape. That area, in particular, comes from a brief, 30-second segment from John William’s “The Never-Feast” (Hook, 1991), the moment where Peter realizes that the imagination affects reality.
It affects ROTU’s reality as well. While Parks couldn’t divulge much about Rhythm of the Universe’s future, he said this transmedia franchise will only continue to grow. Ionia itself is just one region on the continent of Pangaea. Other regions — inspired by music modes, such as Locrian and Dorian, of course — exist with their own stories to tell. ROTU plans on telling them as standalone narratives anyone can access, regardless of how familiar they are with Ionia or any of Rhythm of the Universe’s other parts, with more information to come later this year after Ionia’s September 23 release date on Oculus Quest, PC VR and PSVR.
ROTU Entertainment’s Rhythm of the Universe: IONIA has looked like a promising combination of music and puzzle exploration ever since its first unveiling a couple of years ago. Now the studio has confirmed the multiplatform virtual reality (VR) title will be making its way to headsets at the end of September.
With its mixture of VR adventure and musical gameplay, Rhythm of the Universe: IONIA‘s narrative revolves around a message of environmental conservation. On a fantastical planet filled with a variety of creatures and plants, the goal is to save the Harpa, an endangered mythical being, by exploring the world solving puzzles rooted in music theory.
Designed for immersive gameplay, you’ll not only be climbing trees and ziplining across ravines but also playing musical instruments, drumming beats and tones on the flora and fauna. Plus, in keeping with its wildlife message, five percent of proceeds from Rhythm of the Universe: IONIAwill go to environmental non-profit Wildlife Warriors Worldwide.
“We had to make sure we didn’t just have a conservationist message without putting our money where our mouths are,” said Jason Parks, ROTU CEO in a statement. “When you’re virtually ziplining and trying to find your rhythm, just know that you’re supporting a great organization in Wildlife Warriors.”
“We are proud to be working with the team at ROTU to engage the virtual reality explorers of IONIA in the conservation of this planet’s precious wildlife and wild places. Thank you for supporting Wildlife Warriors Worldwide in the protection of injured, threatened, and endangered wildlife everywhere,” said wildlife conservationist and photographer Robert Irwin.
Rhythm of the Universe: IONIA is set for release on Oculus Quest and Rift, PlayStation VR and PC VR (HTC Vive, Valve Index and Windows Mixed Reality) from 23rd September 2021. VRFocus will continue its coverage of ROTU Entertainment, reporting back with further updates.
After many delays, Rhythm of the Universe: Ionia is set to release on September 23 for Oculus Quest, PSVR and PC VR.
The announcement came with a new trailer, specifically framed towards the PSVR version of the game, embedded below.
Originally scheduled for release in 2020 and then earlier this year, it finally looks like you’ll be able to play the first game in this new adventure series that puts a focus on environmental conversation and music theory.
As previously announced, five percent of proceeds from the game will go the environmental non-profit organisation Wildlife Warriors Worldwide, which was established by the late Steve Irwin and preserves his legacy today.
You will play as Allegra, a young girl who is trying to heal the forest of Ionia and save mythical beings called the Harpa. You’ll do this by solving music-based puzzles with her brother, Allegro. Here’s a new description from the developers, posted alongside the release date:
Save the Harpa, an endangered mythical being, by solving puzzles rooted in music theory. Hands-on interactions between VR controllers draw the sounds of sharp drum beats, soft bell tones, and other eclectic echoes from the flora and fauna of IONIA. Climb trees and zipline across ravines strewn throughout gorgeous environments. Saving the Ionian forest will require exploring this world and learning its rhythms.
Rhythm of the Universe: Ionia releases September 23 simultaneously on the Oculus Store for Quest and Rift, the PlayStation store for PSVR on PS4 and PS5, and Steam with support for Valve Index, HTC Vive and Vive Pro, Oculus Rift S and HP Reverb G2.
Every weekend VRFocus gathers together vacancies from across the virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) industry, in locations around the globe to help make finding that ideal job easier. Below is a selection of roles that are currently accepting applications across a number of disciplines, all within departments and companies that focus on immersive entertainment.
Don’t forget, if there wasn’t anything that took your fancy this week there’s always last week’s listings on The VR Job Hub to check as well.
If you are an employer looking for someone to fill an immersive technology related role – regardless of the industry – don’t forget you can send us the lowdown on the position and we’ll be sure to feature it in that following week’s feature. Details should be sent to Peter Graham (pgraham@vrfocus.com).
We’ll see you next week on VRFocus at the usual time of 3PM (UK) for another selection of jobs from around the world.
Every weekend VRFocus gathers together vacancies from across the virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) industry, in locations around the globe to help make finding that ideal job easier. Below is a selection of roles that are currently accepting applications across a number of disciplines, all within departments and companies that focus on immersive entertainment.
Don’t forget, if there wasn’t anything that took your fancy this week there’s always last week’s listings on The VR Job Hub to check as well.
If you are an employer looking for someone to fill an immersive technology related role – regardless of the industry – don’t forget you can send us the lowdown on the position and we’ll be sure to feature it in that following week’s feature. Details should be sent to Peter Graham (pgraham@vrfocus.com).
We’ll see you next week on VRFocus at the usual time of 3PM (UK) for another selection of jobs from around the world.
A new trailer in this year’s Upload VR Showcase revealed that ROTU Entertainment’s upcoming VR puzzler Rhythm of the Universe: Ionia will release in Q3 for Quest, PC VR and PSVR, with a portion of the proceeds supporting wildlife conservation.
The game is a puzzle VR game (the first of seven proposed games in the Rhythm of the Universe series) that focuses on environmental preservation and the power of music theory, which will factor into several of the puzzles. The latest trailer in today’s showcase explained how developers ROTU Entertainment are putting their money where their mouth is — a fraction of the game’s proceeds will go to the non-profit conservation organization Wildlife Warriors, established by the late Steve Irwin.
Here’s a prepared statement from ROTU explaining more:
“Five percent of proceeds from sales of IONIA will benefit environmental non-profit Wildlife Warriors. Established in 2002 by Steve and Terri Irwin, Wildlife Warriors continues Steve ‘The Crocodile Hunter’ Irwin’s legacy of protecting injured, threatened or endangered wildlife. Today’s new trailer features the Irwin family in support of ROTU Entertainment’s goal of raising awareness of environmental issues.”
Rhythm of the Universe: Ionia is set to launch later this year in Q3 simultaneously for Oculus Quest, PSVR and PC VR. You can wishlist the game on Steam here.
Rhythm of the Universe: IONIA has been delayed until Q2 2021, but will now release simultaneously across PC VR, Oculus Quest and PSVR.
The developers announced that the game would be pushed back yet again – originally, the game was announced in January 2019 with an aim to release sometime that same year. When that didn’t come to pass, we heard nothing until August this year, when a revised Q4 2020 release date was announced for PC VR.
However, with Q4 2020 almost done and dusted, that was looking less and less likely by the day, and now we have confirmation. The game will be delayed once again, this time to Q2 2020. However, on the flip side, the game will now release on more than just one platform – a simultaneous release across Oculus Quest, PSVR and PC VR is the new plan.
Here’s what ROTU CEO Jason Parks had to say:
“We’ve made the decision to delay our musical theory puzzle adventure so we can bring it to Quest and PSVR players at the same time. We want everyone with a VR headset to be able to explore the gorgeous world we’ve created from our experiences working extensively with international musicians and documenting the deforestation of the Amazon.”
The two trailers we’ve seen so far have look absolutely stunning, so it’s unfortunate that the game keeps getting pushed back. IONIA is the first of seven planned games in the series, and it will explore the issue of wildlife presentation while also incorporating music theory elements into the gameplay.
Rhythm of the Universe: IONIA is scheduled for release Q2 2020 on PC VR, Oculus Quest and PSVR.
