Today sees the start of the Steam Next Fest event, where hundreds of demos are made available over the coming week. One studio taking part is Incuvo, giving PC VR gamers the very first chance to play its upcoming survival adventure Green Hell VR.
Green Hell VR – PC version
Remaking Creepy Jar’s Green Hell from the ground up for virtual reality (VR) headsets, Green Hell VR was initially teased back in 2020. Today, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index, and Windows Mixed Reality headset owners can get their first glimpse into the dangerous Amazonian rainforest, where they’ll have to hunt, forage and craft to survive this inhospitable environment.
Incuvo hasn’t said how much of the final game the demo will showcase but hopefully, it’ll contain a good chunk of the 60+ gameplay mechanics the team has been working on. Just like the dev’s VR port of Blair Witch: VR Edition its making sure all the mechanics are perfectly tuned to VR gameplay.
So you’ll be able to physically fire bows and swing axes to defend yourself from wild animal attacks. Become hurt or infected and you’ll have to treat the wounds, wrapping leaves around your arm. And there’s making fires to ward off the cold night, cooking food, making a shelter, and all the other things you’ll have to do to make sure the jungle doesn’t kill you.
Green Hell VR – Meta Quest version
As this is a demo and not the final product Incuvo has issued the following statement: “This early demo build has issues with optimization and requires a high-end PC. Some graphics cards will see better performance than others.”
Currently, the development team is working towards a Q2 2022 launch for both SteamVR and Meta Quest platforms. As gmw3 reported last year, Incuvo also plans on supporting PlayStation VR at some point in the future. For continued updates keep reading gmw3.
It sometimes might not feel like that in the long stretches between significant releases in which headset owners are left to separate the wheat from the chaff. But, at a time in which PC VR users have few other outlets to turn to, when Facebook tightly curates who it lets onto its Oculus Store, crushing the hopes of many indie VR developers, and when getting a game onto Sony’s PSVR mean laboring through a lengthy certification and approvals process, SteamVR has never mattered more.
That’s what makes Steam Next Fest so vital and so frustrating at the same time.
The idea behind Valve’s week-long event, in which selected developers release demos of their games, is sound. It aims to fight back against the criticisms levelled at the platform in recent years as more and more shovelware further saturates the struggle for visibility. VR’s arrival on Steam over the past five years isn’t immune to this problem; a short scroll through either the recently released or upcoming lists of VR games reveals a concerning and unbalanced amount of low-quality trailers and vaporware.
Peppered among them is the good stuff; earnest indies, fascinating obscurities and the occasional big budget hopeful. That’s the stuff Next Fest wants to highlight.
And, at a glance, it does. There are great VR demos in this iteration, from the physics-driven action of Into The Darkness to the deliciously brutal Against. A quick look at I Expect You To Die 2 or Sweet Surrender proves there’s big things to come for the platform before the end of the year.
But Next Fest is also polluted with the same problems that plague Steam at large – products that don’t feel worthy of inclusion, mislabelled games sitting in the wrong categories, and even no show demos that were featured in a video highlights reel in the weeks leading up to the event.
I was personally very excited, for example, to see real-time strategy sequel, Carrier Command 2 sitting at the top of the VR page for this event’s demos. The first is a warmly nostalgic game for me and I had no idea that a sequel was happening, let alone getting VR support.
Except that it isn’t, as far as I can tell. The Steam page doesn’t list or even mention any VR support, I couldn’t get the demo to start in my headset and any mention of the game I’ve found across the internet has no acknowledgement of headset support whatsoever. So why is it listed in the VR section? The same’s true for this terrible-looking driving lesson simulator; there’s no mention of VR to be found. If they do support VR, why aren’t compatible headsets listed on their store pages?
Last week, we ran a story on what would be available during the festival based on a video Valve supplied to us. Other sites used this montage too. The video highlighted some of the best demos available this week but, weirdly, also makes mention of demos for zombie slasher, Undead Citadel and Joy Way’s latest VR prototype, Outlier. Again, neither page actually has the demo listed or mentioned on their pages at the time of writing (Monday, the penultimate day of the festival), and no one’s said anything as to why they aren’t here.
Fixing these issues wouldn’t take long. Non-VR games needs to either be removed to the category or Valve could kindly ask developers to at least clarify if there is any headset support planned. The above montage video could have been removed and replaced with more games that are actually now live in the selection. But instead it’s all just left the muddy the waters.
And so what we have is a microcosm for SteamVR itself; a handful of genuinely promising VR games fighting back against a storefront that pits them against inaccurate and low-quality listings that expects users themselves to do the research on what is and isn’t misleading them.
Next Fest was meant to feel like a bit of the revamp of this idea and hopefully clean up these past mistakes (every issue I’ve listed here I’ve also encountered in past Steam festivals). It’s also meant to highlight the best of SteamVR and, to some extent, it does, but it also brings the worst of the platform along with it. Steam Next Fest is another messy and confused effort that doesn’t instil confidence in a cleaner, sharper future for the platform anytime soon.
Valve is offering an preview of what’s to come for SteamVR with Steam Next Fest.
The revamped festival is now live and offers demos of a selection of VR titles alongside a swathe of flatscreen games too. Check out a very quick look at just some of the games in the selection below.
There’s a lot to pick through but, immediately jumping out at us is Into The Darkness, a promising dystopian action game that puts physical combat at the forefront. Sticking with action, Joy Way is also giving players a chance to test out bloody Beat Saber lookalike, Against, and long-in-development Undead Citadel should be playable too.
On the puzzling side, you can expect to get a first taste of I Expect You To Die 2 and Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual. There are plenty more VR demos in the pipeline for the big event, but we’ll wait until actual kick off to give you a more depth of what’s in-store.
Some games featured in this year’s Upload VR Showcase are featured as well.
What are you hoping to check out at the Steam Next Fest? Let us know in the comments below!
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on June 11th and updated on June 16th in connection with the launch of the festival.
Steam Next Fest is set to bring a week-long deluge of game demos, developer talks, and update news starting on June 16th. Steam will be hosting around 20 playable VR game demos over the course of the event, and there’s some real gems in there we’ve just been itching to play.
We’ve rounded up our 10 most anticipated demos coming to Steam Next Fest, including trailers, descriptions and links so you can make sure to try out the demo when all of them officially go live between June 16 – 22, 2021.
I Expect You to Die 2
Genre: Puzzle, Adventure
Studio description: Be the elite super spy we’ve been waiting for! The popular escape-the-room virtual reality franchise is back with new missions, more villains, and ingenious puzzles.
Studio description: Seeker: My Shadow is a VR adventure that utilizes the versatility and possibilities of VR, sending players of all ages to an immersive adventure! You control a Giant Spirit while assisting Kippo, a small and adorable Seeker, through various puzzle levels. Go solo or solve the levels in co-op mode!
Studio description: AGAINST is a combat rhythm VR game that will immerse you in a noir crime nightmare. Follow the beat to shoot and slice your way through Mafioso forces. Empowering modern music is your only way out from the bleak streets of 1930’s New York.
Studio description: Arcade Legend is an arcade simulator and management RPG. Clean up your run-down venue, add new games and customize the layout and look. Build your reputation to continue unlocking content and play officially licensed, modern arcade titles as you unravel the secrets the venue holds.
Studio description: What does it mean to become an agent of authority? Master the art of beheading, become an agent of authority, and enact a divine drama of justice, death, and redemption.
Studio description: Snap together inconvenient road pieces to build ridiculously convoluted highways, and guide the dysfunctional Flowers family on a psychedelic road trip across post-infrastructure America.
Studio description: Have you ever dreamt about being inside an old Arcade Machine? ARK-ADE is a fast-paced VR First Person Shooter. Plunge into the retro vibes and shoot your way out through an evocative low-poly 80’s Sci-Fi setting to protect ARK and defeat ADE.
Studio description: Cave Digger 2: Dig Harder is a VR adventure game for 1-4 players, taking place in an alternative, weird west dieselpunk world. The player excavates the mountains of their claim, and encounters many mysteries along the way. The North is cold and the Frontier guards its secrets well!
Studio description: The spiraling psychedelic puzzle – Grab revolving orbs and guide them through twisting liquid crystal mazes to create the Universe! A refreshing, relaxing and satisfying “one more go” experience, only in VR.
Studio description: Into The Darkness is a VR action-adventure game built on physics mechanics. Near future. Humanity is trying to achieve immortality by transferring consciousness to machines. Navigate through environments, solve the puzzle, engage enemy… to find out the dark secret behind the experiments.
Steam Next Fest goes from June 16th to June 22nd. You can sign up for an official reminder here, which can send you either an email or push notification from the Steam mobile app.
Steam’s winter game festival back in February was a great way to get a look at some of the exciting virtual reality (VR) titles developers are working on and next week you get to do it all again. Wednesday will see the launch of the Steam Next Fest with hundreds of free playable demos across all genres. Where VR is concerned there won’t quite be that many but some choice demos will still be available.
Whether you’re after some comedy capers, rhythm-action mayhem or something more serious, the Steam Next Fest has most VR genres covered. Cropping up first on VRFocus’ radar was Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual!, teaming up with the crime-fighting duo to battle aliens and take on challenging police training exercises. Or for those explores amongst you how about Cave Digger 2: Dig Harder set in a dieselpunk world where you become a penniless prospector hunting for riches.
Looking for something a bit more brutal and physical? Then why not try Undead Citadel where you have to fight hundreds of living corpses with all manner of medieval weaponry. Keeping with the fighting theme whilst adding a little rhythm, Againstdrops you in 1930s New York to hack, shoot and slice through a noir crime nightmare. In fact, this demo is already available.
VRFocus is also looking forward to testing out Into The Darkness, a single-player action-adventure that mixes up puzzles and combat in a world with highly accurate physics. Joy Way, the team behind Against have a second title appearing in the festival, Outlier, a roguelite adventure with procedurally generated levels and RPG elements.
The Steam Next Fest runs from 16th – 22nd June 2021. In addition to the free demos there will also be livestreams and chances to speak with some of the developers. For further updates, keep reading VRFocus.
Steam Next Fest, the newly renamed Steam Game Festival, is starting its week-long PC gaming celebration on June 16th, bringing along with it free demos from upcoming VR titles, developer livestreams, and Q&As.
As part of Steam Next Fest announcement earlier this month, Valve threw out a video showing off the playable VR demos coming to the week-long festival, naming five games and promising “so many more.”
Here’s the list of those five mentioned in the video. We also linked that below so you can get a peek at each game in action:
If this month’s Steam Next Fest is anything like the Game Festival back in February, we’re expecting to see many more VR game demos, as earlier this year the platform attracted around 20 titles. We haven’t seen the full list of participating games, but we’ll sure to keep you updated as they’re revealed.
If you want to get a jump start on at least one of the VR games on offer, Against already has a free demo, which features a single level of its gritty rhythm-based, neo-noir bad-guy-punching goodness.
Outside of PC VR games, Steam Next Fest is also hosting demos across a number of PC genres including adventure games, RPGs, puzzles, platformers, and strategy games.
The week will also play host to developer chats, live streams, and include new info on upcoming games. Valve calls the format “an opportunity to get early feedback from players and build an audience for a future launch on Steam.”
Steam Next Fest goes from June 16th to June 22nd. You can sign up for an official reminder here, which can send you either an email or push notification from the Steam mobile app.
A special thanks to our reader VReporter for pointing us to the news!
