Oculus Quest, the newly announced standalone 6DOF VR headset (ex-Project Santa Cruz), completely stole the show at this year’s Oculus Connect with the promise of offering some very Rift-like experiences in a mobile form-factor. There was a torrent of news surrounding the headset and its upcoming apps like SUPERHOT VR, but what seemed to fall through the cracks was the revelation that Oculus Quest marks the end of the company’s first-gen hardware.
“With Oculus Quest, we will complete our first generation of VR products,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said.
Oculus Quest is due to launch sometime in Spring 2019 at $400 for the 64 GB version, including a pair of optically-tracked controllers, also dubbed ‘Touch’ like the Rift’s controllers. Tracking is handled by on-board, head-mounted sensors, so there’s no need for a PC or external sensors.
Photo by Road to VR
At Connect, Zuckerberg outlined that the company will be pushing forward with the three hardware platforms—Oculus Go, Oculus Quest, and Oculus Rift—as definitive classes of devices that will eventually see new versions in the second generation.
“So from here we’re going to make big leaps in tech and content for the future generations for each of these products,” Zuckerberg continued. “We’re going to build each of these as platforms, so everything that you build for them today is going to work on future versions of these devices. This is all still early, but [Go, Quest, and Rift] is the basic road map.”
Notably, this means Oculus Go, the company’s standalone headset which has the same basic functionality of a Samsung Gear VR, likely won’t be subsumed by Quest, but rather continuing onward to fill the place of the company’s most affordable VR headset. Oculus CTO John Carmack has even outlined a few items o the company’s wishlist for Go’s second generation, further driving the point home that Go is here to stay.
Oculus announced that its Project Santa Cruz virtual reality headset will ship next year as the Oculus Quest, and we got to try out several new game titles on the Quest. Find out our impressions of VR without wires.
Every time I’ve played Superhot VR in the past, it has always been a bit bittersweet. On the one hand, the game’s levels are slick, clean, and wide open in a way that few VR games are. On Rift, Vive, and PSVR I can lean and move around enemies or reach out and punch them and watch them shatter into a hundred crystalline pieces. It feels amazing. But since the game requires you to physically move in order for time to move, it’s as if the world beckons you to more freely explore. I want to run around freely. But you’ve still got a wire connecting you to a PC or game console in all other versions of Superhot VR — that’s not the case when playing on Oculus Quest.
It didn’t take long for that to sink in during my hands-on demo at Oculus Connect 5 yesterday and once I started to take full advantage of the headset’s capability, it felt amazing and freeing in a way VR hasn’t really yet.
Obviously this isn’t the first example of wireless positionally tracked VR. I’ve used the TPCast add-on, the Vive Wireless Adapter, and even the Pico Neo. But those first two examples still need you to be within range of your PC and the latter has a content problem. When Oculus releases Quest next year, it side steps both of those concerns. I was playing a Rift-caliber VR game on a headset that was entirely standalone. It felt like magic.
Honestly, Superhot VR on Oculus Quest quite frankly feels like the way the game was always meant to be played.
In the video above you can see me moving around the wide open space without issue. For the first minute or so I was hesitant, but when I noticed how well the tracking worked, I threw all caution to the wind. I picked up bottles and tossed them at enemies, grabbed guns out of the air, reached behind my hand to throw a shuriken across the map. I did everything I’d have done if I were playing on Rift, but without the burdens that a PC-powered VR headset carries.
In my hands-on impressions of the Oculus Quest I wrote about how every now and then the tracking faultered, such as if I moved my hands out of vision for a while then brought them back slowly, or if I tried to grab something out of view. That was very rare and it wasn’t frequent. As you can see in the video at the top, I could reach back to throw an object without losing tracking, even when my hand passed behind the headset’s cameras.
I’ve got a feeling that, if developers are willing to take the time to port games down to the Quest’s Snapdragon 835 chipset, we could be opening up a whole new class of VR gaming. Games that previously suffered from movement restrictions and PC-tethering can be re-experienced in brand new ways, just like Superhot VR.
For VR users that already have a three-or-more sensor setup for Rift or have and HTC Vive, then Quest is going to seem less impressive — and that’s fine. If you have no desire of ever using VR outside of your dedicated VR space and you’ve got a wireless adapter of some kind, then Quest doesn’t offer much. But if you’re not in that upper-echelon of VR users already, the Quest is really impressive.
With over 50 launch titles on the horizon when Quest launches in Spring 2019 for $399, there is a lot to look forward to. In addition to Superhot VR Oculus has already confirmed Tennis Scramble, Dead and Buried, and Face Your Fears 2 (all three of which we’ve played) in addition to Moss, Robo Recall, and much more.
What do you think of Quest so far? We’ve been really impressed with it — let us know any thoughts or questions down in the comments below!
Facebook promoted its Oculus Connect 5 conference that kicked off yesterday as a look at “the future of VR.” After spending all afternoon trying four different demos on the upcoming Oculus Quest standalone 6DOF headset, I feel inclined to agree. Quest is due out in Spring 2019 for $399 and aims to deliver a “Rift quality experience” with full positional tracking and two Touch controllers without the need for wires or a powerful gaming PC to run it.
Before I cover my actual hands-on impressions, let me be clear: the Quest is not a standalone Rift. The Quest is also not a more powerful Go. As frustrating as it may be, Quest really does sit somewhere in between. It’s powered by a Snapdragon 835 chipset which is a few generations beyond Go, but it pales in comparison to some of the $1,000 gaming PC rigs people can build to power their Rifts. The controllers are very similar, but don’t expect Quest to entirely replace all Rifts next year or anything like that.
Oculus Quest Headset Design and Specs
In terms of physical design, Quest looks a lot like a Rift. We know it’s 1600 x 1440 per eye for resolution and has the same lenses as Go, but we don’t know the field of view yet but it felt about the same as Rift and Go. We’ve heard 72Hz mentioned in a session at OC5 as the refresh rate, compared to 90Hz for Rift. Anecdotally I will say it seemed to be about the same as the Rift in all meaningful ways, although the overall visual quality of the apps was a bit lower. But at the end of the day I can’t really know for sure without comparing them side-by-side. It’s reportedly powered by a Snapdragon 835 chipset and will feature 64GB of storage (for the $399 model) with over 50 launch titles.
The front of the device is smooth and rounded, not flat like Go. There are two velcro tightening straps on either side near your ears with a single thin strap across the top of your head — just like Rift. My glasses fit inside the unit just fine with a small light leaking nose gap. It didn’t seem to smash my face as much as the Rift does, which is relieving. It felt a bit heavier than the Go in the front, but that’s honestly to be expected with so much more power housed inside the unit.
Speakers are hidden inside the head strap, similar to Go, with improved audio performance. In all four of my demos the sound was crisp and clear, although at the end of the day if you’re using VR alone at home you’ll probably just want to plug in your own headset for the best audio experience.
On the underside of the headset, below the lenses, there is an IPD adjustment knob, similar to Rift, and a volume button, rather than volume controls on top like Go. There’s also a USB-C port for charging as well as a power button on the exterior.
Quest Touch Controllers Design
As someone that uses an Oculus Rift with Touch almost daily, holding the Quest Touch controllers for the first time was a bit jarring. They have the same type of analog sticks, two face buttons each, a menu button each, as well as a trigger and grip button each — but they just feel different.
The portion that actually extends down into your palm that you wrap your hand around seems a tad longer, which is actually nice since it felt like I had a better grip on them while swinging around in Tennis Scramble. But the tracking ring’s new placement to encircle the top of the controller, rather than the bottom, feels really strange. Perhaps it’s just because I’m so used to the existing Touch controllers that it bothered me, but they seemed noticeably top heavy from what I was used to. Obviously this was a necessary design change because the headset’s four tracking cameras (part of the “Oculus Insight” system) need to see the rings to maintain tracking, and it’s something that I did eventually got used to.
Buttons were responsive and felt great. My Touch controllers at home are starting to feel a bit stiff sometimes, so the smooth and fluid triggers on the Quest Touch controllers seemed really nice by comparison. I quickly forgot I was holding anything at all in most demos and just got sucked into the experience. If people can get used to the ring’s movement and weight distribution, these are just as great as the already excellent Touch controllers.
Oculus Quest Insight Tracking
During the OC5 day one keynote, Facebook leadership talked about what’s been dubbed the “Oculus Insight” tracking system. Basically the four cameras on the front of the headset read and analyze your playspace to see your environment and then also keep track of the two Quest Touch controllers. This means that the Oculus Quest Touch controllers are tracked with six degrees of freedom (positional tracking) wherever you move in 3D space. The same goes for the headset. So unlike Go, you can walk around, lean in any direction, and move through a room just like you would with Rift or Vive, but without any cords or external cameras.
The benefit to the headset having this type of inside out tracking is pretty clear, right? It gives you nearly total freedom. You aren’t bound to your playspace that has cameras plugged into a PC. I can stick Quest in a bag and bring it anywhere with both controllers and it’ll just work — at least that’s the idea. But this sort of tracking system does have some limitations as well.
For starters, the four cameras on the headset are front-facing only. This means that they can only see your controllers as long as they are directly in front of you within the cameras’ field of vision. Luckily since they are spread out into the corners of the headset the range was really good. Most of the time, even if I moved my hands to the side or down by my waist, Quest didn’t have issues keeping up with where the Touch controllers were at. But it wasn’t flawless.
I tried to put the tracking to the test a bit when I played Superhot VR by doing things like turning my head and then reaching for something that’s behind me or off to the side. Sometimes I could pick it up and bring it up in front of me, other times it didn’t work perfectly. And if I put my hands behind me or out of view, then slowly bring them back into view, there was a slight jitter while the cameras adjusted and relocated the Touch controllers again. The jitter lasted longer than a second and anyone that has ever used a Windows VR headset will know what I’m talking about.
In another situation I was playing 3v3 Dead and Buried in an “arena scale” setup that had actual boxes and pillars in the real world mapped to the same location in VR. With this demo I was able to freely move around the entire 4,000 square foot space, ducking behind boxes, and moving around a ton. No framerate drops and no headset tracking issues at all. But in one case when I reached around a piece of cover to shoot, the headset lost tracking on my controller. That’s because I was reaching around a real physical box so it occluded the view — in a normal roomscale setup, that wouldn’t happen.
Finally, during a discussion focused on porting Rift games to Quest, developers and engineers discussed two specific cases to watch out for in Quest games. First, is anything that requires reaching behind your head can be tricky — such as changing weapons in Space Pirate Trainer or pulling out an arrow from a quiver. Plus, in a game with a two-handed gun or a bow and arrow, your hands can actually occlude themselves because they’re held out in front of you, in parallel, blocking camera view of your furthest hand.
Those are very specific cases that I didn’t personally deal with today, but are worth considering. Overall I’d say Quest has obviously better tracking than Go, slightly better tracking than PSVR, but not quite as good tracking as Rift or Vive. In terms of 360, positional, roomscale tracking at home goes, the Vive’s external base stations can’t be beat — but the Quest is wireless and standalone at a much more affordable price.
Oculus Quest vs. Rift vs. Go
This is what everyone wants to know, right? Is the Quest basically a more powerful Go, or is it like a less powerful Rift? As of now it’s hard to say with certainty. However, because of the way the tracking works with 6DOF controllers and a 6DOG headset the closest point of comparison would be like a two front-facing sensor arrangement for Rift, but without a wire and with 360 movement. Let me explain.
When you use a Rift with two sensors facing at you, you’re able to stand up and use two Touch controllers. That means full positional tracking and hand presence. But since those two sensors are both in front of you, that means you can’ reach behind your head or occlude the controllers or else tracking suffers. Quest seems to be in a similar boat.
If you are doing lots of stuff with your hands that requires them to not be in front of you, then tracking is gonna have problems. That’s just the nature of how a camera works. But that being said, it re-aligns very quickly and does a good job of maintaining tracking even outside of view. Honestly, it worked better than I expected and if booth attendees hadn’t scolded me I’d have ran around very quickly.
At $400 (that’s literally the same price as a Rift) you’re getting a headset that looks even sharper than the Go’s excellent lens clarity, features 6DOF controllers and headset movement, no wires, no PC, and a launch library that’s gearing up to include quality Rift titles ported down and new experiences like Tennis Scramble and Face Your Fears 2.
That…is impressive. Time will tell if this has the effect on the VR market that Facebook clearly hopes it will, but the potential is certainly there. When recommending Go to people I found that it often came with too many reservations and caveats if they’d already tasted VR with Rift. Now I can tell someone that they can get fully-featured VR for half the cost of a new phone, the same cost as a game console.
With good marketing and a strong launch library, Oculus Quest feels like it really could be the first VR headset for absolutely everyone.
Today at Oculus Connect 5 Facebook announced that the Santa Cruz prototype is now officially known as Oculus Quest and that it will be launching in Spring 2019 with over 50 different titles for $399. While the full list of releases won’t be confirmed until next year, we already have a bit of insight into what to expect.
Here at OC5 in San Jose Facebook is hosting an “arena-scale” demo of Dead and Buried that will allow users to run around freely in a large space within a shared multiplayer environment. At the show they’re also demoing Tennis Scramble, a VR tennis title that looks a lot like Wii Tennis, as well as Face Your Fears.
In addition to those that we will have the chance to try here today, Oculus Quest will also launch with several ports of other Rift titles such as Superhot, Robo Recall, The Climb, and Moss. But that still leaves over 40 other titles that we don’t know about yet.
The sizzle reel that they showed during the OC5 keynote didn’t show much actual gameplay footage, more like concept ideas, but it certainly showed what looked like a sword fighting game of some kind (maybe even Raw Data?) and we’re hoping to see Beat Saber make an appearance. At one point the actor has giant fists on her hands that look a lot like The Hulk, so hopefully that means some version of Marvel Powers United VR on Quest too.
What other titles do you hope to see on Oculus Quest? We put together a wish list if you want to see our picks, but we’d love to know your thoughts too down in the comments below!
It’s Oculus Connect week, and that means we’re soon to be showered in updates from Facebook’s VR team. Heading into this year, we’re most intrigued to learn the latest on the company’s newest standalone VR headset, codenamed Santa Cruz.
As you probably know, Oculus introduced its Go standalone headset earlier this year at an affordable $199. It’s a great entry point for VR, but Santa Cruz promises to take another step forward. Before we get an update tomorrow, let’s go over what we know about Santa Cruz so far.
Tracking Is Less Like Go, More Like Rift
Santa Cruz is the first Oculus headset to use inside-out tracking technology. That means that the sensors needed to discover your position in a room and then replicate your movements in the virtual world are fitted to the headset itself, and not placed around the room like with Rift.
The headset will offer a much more robust tracking system then Go, then, allowing users a full six degrees of freedom (6DOF) of movement. They can lean, crouch and even walk with those movements mirrored inside VR. At the same time, we haven’t gone hands-on with the final product so we can’t confidently claim the tracking is as robust and reliable as what’s on Rift, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.
Its Controllers Are Like Oculus Touch 2.0
Other standalone headsets like Lenovo’s Mirage Solo already have 6DOF tracking, though, so what makes Santa Cruz so unique? Simply put, it’s the controllers. The kit supports two devices that completely bring your hands into VR with the same freedom that the headset enjoys. Other devices still only offer pointer-based 3DOF controls or are only just beginning to explore 6DOF control.
The Santa Cruz controllers are essentially a new iteration of Oculus’ Touch controllers for the Rift. They’ve both got two face buttons, trigger and grip buttons and, as introduced at GDC this year, analog sticks too. The only real difference is that the tracking ring used to find the controllers in VR now loops up over the device instead of under it so Santa Cruz’s sensors can see it easier. Whether or not the level of control will match Rift and Touch remains to be seen, but it’s promising.
Expect Ports Of Oculus Rift Games
Sources have confirmed to UploadVR that Oculus is looking to get ports of Rift games onto Santa Cruz when it launches. Tellingly, one of the sessions at Connect this year will detail porting games from the PC VR headset to the standalone device. Whereas Oculus Go shares a content library with Gear VR, then, it’s very possible that Santa Cruz will have a library much more comparable to Rift, albeit with some compromises. No doubt Oculus will be prepping exclusive apps for the device, too.
…But It’s Not A Wireless Rift
While Santa Cruz’s tracking functionality might be closer to Rift, it’s only realistic to expect that its internal tech specs will be closer towards Gear and Go. We don’t know Santa Cruz’s tech specs, but mobile devices just can’t measure up to what’s possible with the latest Nvidia and AMD graphics cards (which is truer than ever with the recent launch of the former’s RTX line).
Whatever ports do come Santa Cruz from Rift will likely make some serious concessions, then, much like when PC VR games are ported to PSVR or mobile devices. We wouldn’t expect a mobile version of, say, Lone Echo to look anywhere near as sharp as it does on PC and the number of enemies in zombie games like Arizona Sunshine would likely need to be reduced. Still, apps like Job Simulator could feasibly survive the transition without losing much of the magic.
Still, We Like What We’ve Seen So Far
We’ve only been able to go hands-on with Santa Cruz twice, once in 2016 when it was in the very early prototype stages and then again in 2017 with the first version of the next controllers. Both times have only been brief glimpses but they’ve been enough to keep us interested in the device. Hopefully we’ll see the next big leap at Connect 5 this week.
It’s Expected Early Next Year
Sources have pointed us towards a Q1 2019 timeframe for the launch of Santa Cruz, though we’ll likely get an official release window at Connect. Don’t forget Oculus Go was initially planned for early 2017 and then slipped to much closer to the middle of the year, so it’s possible the same will happen here. As for price and other release info, we’re in the dark right now but we’re certainly hoping we’re not going to get a repeat of the $599 Rift price point anytime soon.
Today in mildly interesting and painfully specific patents from big VR companies: Oculus seems to have patented the fabric that will wrap around its upcoming Santa Cruz headset.
The patent, filed exactly a year ago today and published yesterday, was first spotted by Reddit user valdovas. It describes an “ornamental design for a fabric wrap for head-mounted display”, with several images showing how it wraps around the top of the device. I’m an especially big fan of Figures 2 through 5, which just shown the thin sides of the material. It’s nothing if not thorough, though the text to describe the design is mercifully brief compared to most Oculus patents.
Simply fascinating
It definitely seems to be Santa Cruz; the headset design sports indentations in the front four corners where the sensors for inside-out tracking would go. Plus, Oculus’ only other recent headset, Oculus Go, doesn’t have any fabric wrapped around it. That’s our investigative work done for the week.
This image of the latest prototype for Santa Cruz gives you a detailed look at said fabric. Looks comfy, no?
All jokes aside, we’re hoping to see a big reveal of Santa Cruz at next week’s Oculus Connect 5 event in San Jose, California. We’ve previously confirmed that the company is targetting a Q1 2019 launch for the device. The all-in-one headset, which offers everything you need to jump straight into VR, promises to provide immersive VR experiences with six degrees of freedom (6DOF) positional tracking without the need for external sensors and doesn’t need to be tethered to a PC.
We’ve confirmed with multiple sources that a standard reversible USB-C connector is used for charging Santa Cruz — the code name for a higher-end standalone VR headset on the way from Facebook.
USB-C is also the connector backed by Oculus, Valve, NVIDIA, AMD and Microsoft to transfer data, power and the VR headset’s display information over a single wire. The recently announced alternate mode to USB-C — VirtualLink — will ship on the new NVIDIA graphics cards in September.
We’d expect Facebook’s forthcoming standalone VR headset to be a hit if it costs less than $600 and works perfectly with ported games like Beat Saber and Superhot. While that is complete speculation on our part, we have heard Facebook is aiming to release the headset early in 2019. We expect official information at Oculus Connect 5 on September 26 and 27.
In the meantime, I’ve started wondering what headset designers at Facebook’s Oculus could gain or lose by becoming one of the first manufacturers to support VirtualLink in an upcoming VR headset. Here’s an overview of the possibilities.
One more thing…
A USB-C connection with VirtualLink, in theory at least, would be capable of marrying a standalone headset with the power of a nearby PC. You could play a pared down “mobile” version of your favorite game with potentially fewer enemies or less detailed environments, or you could plug it in to start charging and use that same wired connection to bring the full fidelity of the PC version of the game to your eyes.
For this to work, designers would need to find a way to have the headset’s display directly driven in dual modes — one mode for the internal chipset of the standalone and another letting the PC drive the display over a long VirtualLink cable. The headset would pass tracking data down to the PC just like any other wired VR headset.
Rift Lite or Go Pro?
No more Oculus Sensors please
Facebook is focused on creating a great standalone experience with Santa Cruz and that means making sacrifices. If the release date, heat, weight or any other factor of the end user experience would be impeded by the inclusion of VirtualLink, then the optional connection likely wouldn’t make the cut. As we’ve seen with Oculus Go, even battery life is reduced to its absolute minimum to save weight on the headset itself. So for 2019 it seems plausible that Facebook’s leaders would focus exclusively on pushing out the best standalone headset they can build.
Then again, why wouldn’t a new Rift use VirtualLink for a more streamlined experience? The Rift hardware hasn’t been updated significantly in more than two years and the same core tracking technology that will enable Santa Cruz could also be used on an upgraded Rift to simplify the setup process and potentially even lower the minimum PC requirement. Such an upgraded Rift would need only a VirtualLink connection to a nearby PC. There would be no need for extra USB ports on your PC and annoying wires running around your home for Oculus Sensors. Oculus already demonstrated impressive visuals with improved lenses on Oculus Go — it could be time soon to bring upgraded visuals to Rift alongside a VirtualLink upgrade.
Securing Enough Content
Facebook can likely convince or pay a fair number of developers to port their experiences to run on Santa Cruz. But what about developers who aren’t paid by Facebook or interested in doing extra work to bring their experiences over to the company’s fourth consumer headset? A certain subset of creators won’t want to touch Santa Cruz because they have a problem with Facebook’s business model or they just prefer the power and openness of PC. And how likely is it that future VR games from Valve and Bethesda — two of the most influential game companies on the planet — will support Facebook’s Oculus Store? There is a lot of innovation coming from developers who love using PC and Steam’s early access program for building up a community of fans. Those communities won’t leave Steam overnight either.
Put another way, a standalone VR headset from Facebook without VirtualLink is likely another VR headset without Steam (and the PC version of the Oculus Store). There may be apps and hacks that try to stream VR indirectly from the PC, but those workarounds are unlikely to match first-party support by Valve and Oculus. PlayStation VR proves that a company can sell millions of headsets without Steam and still get many of the best games in its store. So maybe Santa Cruz can sell just fine without being a dual-mode device.
No matter what Facebook’s VR leaders choose to do with Santa Cruz and next generation Rift headsets, there are benefits to this approach that could resurface in products later on From Facebook or others.
Yesterday we broke the news that Oculus is tentatively targetting a Q1 2019 release for its Santa Cruz standalone VR headset. The news doesn’t come as too much of a surprise given Oculus’ Rift and Go devices both got early releases in their respective launch years. What did raise eyebrows, though, is the news that the VR specialist is keen to port many of the games that have launched on Rift over the past two years to its new device.
With its sensor-free inside-out tracking, Santa Cruz technically should be almost as capable as the Rift on the tracking front, though there were a few small hiccups when we last tried it at Oculus Connect 4. Spec-wise, though, the headset almost certainly won’t measure up to the high-end PCs that power the Rift, which makes speculating about what games could make their way over an entertaining task.
Below, then, we’ve listed nine Rift apps that we think absolutely must come to Santa Cruz. It would be easy to just repeat our existing list of the best Rift games you can play today, but we’ve taken technical ambition into heavy consideration for this list. We’d love to see Echo Arena on a mobile device, for example, but it feels like too big of an ask (we’d be happy to be wrong of course).
Beat Saber
We recently saw someone on Reddit say that if Santa Cruz has Beat Saber as a launch title then it’s basically going to print money. There probably isn’t a better way to put it; Beat Games’ Star Wars-style rhythm action game is arguably the closest we’ve yet gotten to VR’s killer app, attracting plenty of attention for its lightsaber-fuelled gameplay. It’s so popular that people are even ripping it off with very little effort to conceal it.
The chance to play Beat Saber tether-free is just too tempting to pass up, and would really encourage us to lose ourselves in the music more than ever. Add to that the fact that incoming features like multiplayer and a track editor will be much closer to completion by the time Santa Cruz launch rolls around and this could be the biggest game on the platform.
Blasters of the Universe
If I had to pick a wave shooter to be ported to Santa Cruz (and, let’s be honest, there’s probably plenty of them coming) it would have to be Secret Location’s stylish Saturday morning tribute. Why? Because Blasters of the Universe is as much about dodging as it is attacking. It’s a bullet hell game, which means you need to avoid a steady stream of projectiles being shot right at your face. Can you think of any better test for the headset’s inside-out tracking?
As a showcase of VR’s ability to put you right in the action, Blasters of the Universe is one of the best examples currently out there. With a deep weapon customization system and an endless game mode, there’s more than enough here to keep you entertained and it’s simple enough for anyone to pick up and play.
Apex Construct
We probably wouldn’t have put Apex Construct on this list if it weren’t for the fact that Fast Travel Games showcased a mobile VR version of the game running on Gear VR back at GDC 2018. While the results were promising, Gear’s lack of positional tracking and its 3DOF controller aren’t ideally suited to Apex’s world-spanning adventure. Santa Cruz, though, is the perfect remedy for that.
Apex Construct offers one of that most-requested of things, a full single-player campaign in a VR game that isn’t a wave shooter. It might not be ground-breaking from a design perspective, but its mix of intriguing story and engaging combat lays a great foundation for what to expect in the future, and it’s definitely worth playing in its own right.
Superhot VR
If Beat Saber isn’t VR’s killer app then Superhot VR is next in line. This hugely popular spin-off is a winning mix of time-halting mechanics and VR’s robust tracking options, creating a shooter in which every tiny twist of the head or movement of the hand matters. You have to kill all enemies in a level before they kill you, making for an incredibly tense and expertly-designed experience in which you set the pace.
Superhot might be a little more on the ambitious side of this list, but it’s definitely one of the most essential choices. Nearly two years on from its original release and it still hasn’t been topped in terms of raw excitement and accessibility. There’s still nothing else quite like Superhot VR, and that’s exactly why Santa Cruz needs it so badly.
The Climb
Another more ambitious addition; The Climb remains one of the most visually impressive VR experiences on the Rift. That said, it’s also one of the most popular games on the platform and one of the best to quickly demonstrate VR’s transformative power to put you in an entirely different place leading out an entirely different life.
With that in mind, then, we’d implore Crytek to get to work scaling down the sparkling graphics in order to get an otherwise-simplistic game running on Santa Cruz. Clambering up the sides of mountains and cliffs remains one of the most thrilling and intuitive experiences that you can have in VR. Part of what’s so amazing about The Climb is the simple fact that it works, even when your feet are still rooted to the ground. Santa Cruz is the perfect way to showcase that.
Star Trek: Bridge Crew
When we’d go hands-on with Star Trek: Bridge Crew pre-launch Ubisoft would have a four-player setup in one room. Even though we were all meeting in VR, having your friends in the same room really helped enhance the experience, allowing us to communicate with great ease and all sharing in the laughter as we blew up aliens. Sadly, as good as the final release is, bringing four PCs and four VR headsets into the same room with all the necessary sensors just isn’t feasible for many.
On Santa Cruz, though, it most certainly is. We can totally see ourselves heading over to a friend’s house for VR game nights in which we pilot the Enterprise and beam people up. True, we still probably won’t have many friends that buy Santa Cruz, but cross-play support with non-VR platforms and PSVR might make this more of a reality, too. This is one place Santa Cruz boldly needs to go.
Google Earth VR
So far the incredible Google Earth VR has eluded mobile VR platforms, including Google’s own Daydream devices. Santa Cruz really needs to buck that trend, though, because there really isn’t a better way to quickly demonstrate the power of VR that strapping the entire world to their head and letting them explore to their heart’s content.
Google Earth VR allows you to go anywhere, so it’s only right that it comes to a headset that allows you to do the same. Plus, we’d love to see an updated take on the app that perhaps adds some next locations and maybe even integrates without mobile Google VR apps like Street View in some way.
Rec Room
Rec Room is another app that hasn’t made its way to mobile headsets just yet, but with Santa Cruz’s inside-out tracking now is the perfect time to port the best social VR platform out there over. Against Gravity’s ever-expanding platform has made a name for itself as one of the most positive and entertaining places to meet up with people in VR, and it’s time to let anyone get a taste of that.
Rec Room allows you to do anything from play sports to paintball with friends around the world. A VR enthusiast telling their gamer friends that they could be playing dodgeball or taking part in co-op quests if they buy this single piece of VR equipment could be a huge selling point for Santa Cruz. This has to happen.
Onward
We’ll dream just a little for our final entry. Onward is one of the most complete, comprehensive multiplayer VR experiences on Rift, though its relatively simplistic visuals have us hoping we could get at least some form of port onto Santa Cruz. Even if it meant a sacrifice to player count or map size, it’s something that should be considered.
Onward has made a name for itself thanks to its realistic competitive combat that answered a call few other developers were addressing at the time of release. Competition might be stiffer by 2019 but the remarkable work Downpour Interactive has done sustaining the experience thus far has us confident it could thrive on Santa Cruz.
Oculus is targeting Q1 2019 to launch its upcoming higher-end standalone VR headset, currently known by the code-name Santa Cruz. Multiple independent sources have said that Oculus has shared a Q1 timeline for wide release.
The headset is designed to function on its own without the need for a PC, similar to Oculus Go, but with cameras added for inside-out tracking of 6DOF head movement and two Oculus Touch-style controllers. The last time we went hands-on with Santa Cruz was at the Oculus Connect 4 conference last year. The release window lines up with the two year anniversary of the original Rift’s launch at the end of Q1 2016, March 28th.
When we asked Oculus for a comment on the release window, a spokesperson replied: “We can’t comment on future plans or announcements, but I can tell you that OC5 will be really exciting.”
That’s about all we expected them to say at this point. Oculus Connect 5 (OC5) is right around the corner on September 26th and 27th. and we expect official information then. One of the major topics up for discussion is porting Rift content to the Santa Cruz headset — which is something we’ve heard from multiple sources is a big focus for Oculus’ launch lineup on the new headset.
The porting process sounds like it is easier said than done because Santa Cruz running on its own wouldn’t be as graphically powerful as a Rift plugged into a high-end gaming PC. We haven’t seen specifications yet, but it’s safe to assume its capabilities as a standalone to be like a middle-ground between Go and Rift. That will likely help keep the cost down. We haven’t heard anything about a price range yet, but we hope the whole system together comes in under the $600 price of the original Rift headset alone.
We’ve also been told Santa Cruz works in a wide-range of environments, including outdoors, similar to Lenovo’s Mirage Solo headset. We recorded an outdoor video while wearing the Mirage Solo and it sounds like Santa Cruz will have the ability to enable a similarly “boundless” tracking system through its inside-out cameras as well.
We expect Oculus to publicly confirm the targeted release window as well as officially name the headset and talk about launch partners at next month’s Oculus Connect 5 conference in San Jose, CA.
