Category: steel wool studios

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Five Night’s at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted Brings Summer Jump Scares to Oculus Quest in July

Five Nights at Freddy's VR: Help Wanted

For Halloween 2019 Oculus and Steel Wool Studios announced that the jump scare filled Five Nights at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted would be coming to Oculus Quest. It’s now been revealed the horror title will be a summer release, arriving in the middle of July.

Five Nights at Freddys VR

Previously released for PC virtual reality (VR) headsets as well as PlayStation VR, Five Nights at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted brings all those classic mini-game scares under one banner. With the Oculus Quest edition, you’ll be able to take all those mechanical horrors with you to frighten your friends.

It looks like the Oculus Quest version will have the same content as the other platforms, combining Five Nights at Freddy’s, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, Five Nights at Freddy’s 3, Five Nights at Freddy’s 4, and Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location.

If you’ve not braved the videogame before the story revolves around a theme park which has giant animatronics to entertain the guests. However, at night the once cuddly mechanical creations come to life and take a menacing turn for the worst, so it’s up to you to keep them at bay.

Five Nights at Freddys VR

This means having to keep an eye on security cameras for any movement, crawling into claustrophobic ventilation systems to fix them or trying to mend broken animatronics. All the while making sure you’re not going to be their next victim. All these scenarios and more take place in short mini-game stints.

VRFocus gave the PC VR version of Five Nights at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted a four-star review, saying: “Five Nights at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted has great visual impact, and would definitely make for some funny YouTube videos with people trying it for the first time.” Adding that the title: “is definitely one for series fans or those that enjoy a good scare.”

Five Nights at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted is coming to Oculus Quest on 16th July. For further updates on the videogame, keep reading VRFocus.

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Five Nights at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted is Coming to Oculus Quest

Steel Wool Studios released Five Nights at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted earlier this year for PC VR headsets and PlayStation VR. VRFocus liked the videogame that much it featured in each headset category for our ‘Best VR Horror Game‘ list. All apart from one, Oculus Quest. Steel Wool Studios has plans to change that, revealing today that work is underway on a port.

Five Nights at Freddys VR

The studio made the announcement via Oculus Blog, merely stating the title would be coming to the popular standalone headset. Currently, there’s no release date. “We can’t announce the launch date as there is lots of work to do,” said co-founder Andrew Dayton, “but we can’t wait to share the game with the Oculus Quest community!”

There are no further details about the port at present, but hopefully, the studio will be able to fit the entire Five Nights at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted experience onto Oculus Quest so owners don’t miss out on all those scares. Theoretically, when Oculus Link arrives in November users could play the Oculus Rift version.

Steel Wool Studios’ version combines a lot of the classic mini-games from the older PC versions with several new ones just for VR. You’ll still need to deal with all those killer animatronics including; Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, Foxy, Springtrap, The Mangle, Funtime Foxy, and Circus Baby.

Five Nights at Freddys VR

VRFocus gave Five Nights at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted a four-star review, saying: Five Nights at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted has great visual impact, and would definitely make for some funny YouTube videos with people trying it for the first time.” Adding that the title: “is definitely one for series fans or those that enjoy a good scare.”

Also teased is the possibility of further VR titles based on the Five Nights at Freddy’s universe. “I think there are so many possibilities to explore in Scott’s universe, and we love the opportunity to keep being part of it,” comments Dayton.

Arriving in November is Five Nights at Freddy’s AR: Special Delivery a smartphone version built by Illumix. It’ll be Early Access, to begin with, followed by a full launch in December. VRFocus will continue its coverage of the horror franchise, reporting back with the latest updates.

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‘Five Nights at Freddy’s VR’ Paid DLC ‘Curse of Dreadbear’ Now Available on PC VR & PSVR

Five Nights at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted (2019), the VR version of the popular horror game, is getting its first DLC pack for VR today, ‘Curse of Dreadbear’.

The Curse of Dreadbear DLC is already live on the PlayStation Store for PSVR and Steam for Vive, Rift, Index, and Windows VR headsets, costing $10/€11/£9

The new DLC is said to include a new Halloween-themed hub with new mini-games and prizes. Developers Steel Wool Studios says weekly content will be added through the month of October.

Image courtesy Steel Wool Studios

Mini-games include Trick or Treat, Mangle Repair, Corn Maze, the Plushkin-Patch, “Cap’n Foxy’s Pirate Adventure” dark ride, and more.

Confirmed characters include: Nightmare Bonnie, Nightmare Chica, Nightmare Freddy, Jack-o-Chica, Jack-o-Bonnie, Dreadbear (of course), and “a few surprises,” Steel Wool says.

As a paid DLC add-on, Curse of Dreadbear requires the base game Five Nights at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted to work.

Check out some freshly revealed gameplay below, courtesy of Steel Wool Studios:

The post ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s VR’ Paid DLC ‘Curse of Dreadbear’ Now Available on PC VR & PSVR appeared first on Road to VR.

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Review: Five Nights at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted

What makes a good horror experience? Is it all out gore or maybe playing with the mind, teasing what could be in the shadows, letting your imagination do the work? When you want something a little less cerebrally challenging then there’s always the good old fashioned jump scare, which Steel Wool Studios employs to great effect in Five Nights at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted.

Five Nights at Freddys VR

The Five Nights at Freddy’s series is a fairly iconic horror franchise on PC, with the first originally released back in 2014. The premise was simple but addictive gameplay with plenty of tense atmosphere and some rather bone-chilling creatures. All that returns in one mega virtual reality (VR) bundle, there’s just one big difference, the intensity is turned up even further.

VR has the ability to make even mild horror seem even worse than normal thanks to its ability to immerse you in a chilling environment. Five Nights at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted employs this to great effect in all the mini-games, no matter how long they last. There’s a decent selection of mini-games available, lasting anywhere from a couple of minutes up to maybe ten. But in the darkness, these can seemingly last for ages.

As mentioned Five Nights at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted is rife with jump scares, caused by deadly animatronics that look like massive cuddly bunnies and teddy bears. However, they are neither cute nor cuddly, sometimes staring out of the darkness with their cold lifeless eyes ready to pounce.

Five Nights at Freddys VRGameplay is a basic selection of pushing buttons or pulling a lever at certain times. The nuance in the gameplay is keeping an eye out for everything else. The original Five Nights at Freddy’s for example tasks you with surviving until 6 am as a security guard, being able to flick through security monitors to check the building. Either side of you is two doors and a pair of light switches. These use power of which there is only a limited amount. So a perfect balance must be found between these factors to stay alive and make it through the night, ramping up the tension unlike few VR horror videogames currently available.

Another awesome example (and one of VRFocus’ favourites) was the ventilation system. Presented with three vents, front/left/right, you need to fix the AC…in the dark. Luckily, you have a head torch for a little illumination. This also helps you spot what’s crawling around the ventilation ducts – some super creepy robot – which just echoes classic movies like Alien.

There’s no movement whatsoever which just adds to the intensity, as you can’t strafe or run away as a natural reaction. Which means apart from all the scares this should make Five Nights at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted super comfortable for most players. It does note on Steam that the experience can be played Standing or Seated, although there didn’t seem to be an option in the menu to adjust the height down for those that need/prefer the Seated option.

Five Nights at Freddy's VRFive Nights at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted has great visual impact, and would definitely make for some funny YouTube videos with people trying it for the first time. The only thing with a constant barrage of jump scares (even in VR), is that the initial shock can wane after a while. Very dependent on temperament, but it can be easy to become desensitised to these robots popping out of the darkness as you almost expect it. The tense atmosphere is still there, it’s just the finale can get a little mute if you play too much. Five Nights at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted is definitely one for series fans or those that enjoy a good scare.

80%

Awesome

  • Verdict
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Hands-On: Five Night’s At Freddy’s VR Is Just As Creepy As You’d Expect

Hands-On: Five Night’s At Freddy’s VR Is Just As Creepy As You’d Expect

Earlier this week we learned about the existence of an official Five Night’s at Freddy’s VR game dubbed Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted. Roughly half of the content will be remixed and adapted versions of levels from across the entire non-VR series and the rest is all new content. In total there are about 40 levels overall. It’s slated for release on PSVR as well as PC VR headsets like Rift and Vive this April.

At a pre-PAX East preview event this week hosted by Sony we got the chance to try out Five Night’s at Freddy’s VR on PSVR and — despite the odds — lived to tell the tale.

Prior to my demo this week I had never played a Five Night’s at Freddy’s game at all. I’m aware of them, obviously, but I never actually sat down and played one for myself. Now that’s been remedied. The level I tried was apparently the second night from the first game if I recall correctly.

The basic flow in a Five Night’s at Freddy’s game is that you sit behind the desk watching over security footage after hours at a creepy Chuck E. Cheese’s ripoff location. Naturally, once it gets dark and most people go home, the animatronic creatures designed to delight children become a bit more…sinister.

You’ve only got a certain amount of power to get you through the night and you need to alternate between closing doors, turning on lights, and cycling cameras to keep a watchful eye on your surroundings. That’s all identical to the base game, but doing it in VR adds some extra layers of interactivity and intensity.

From an immersion perspective it’s fantastic. There is zero artificial movement since the whole game is you just reaching out and touching areas of the virtual world. Turning your head back and forth to look at doorways or frantically clicking through the cameras really made my palms sweaty. Seeing a giant, bunny ear silhouette in the doorway just before hitting the close button got my heart racing and, as anyone at the event this week can attest, I loudly yelped and jumped more than once.

In terms of gameplay, it adds a lot to play in VR. For example, on a PC or other screen you can only interact with what you can see. But in VR, I can have my hand over the button for one door while watching another door to quickly switch what’s opened and closed. It also makes reacting a bit slower since you have to physically move and react instead of just clicking or tapping something on a screen. That definitely changes things.

Horror remains to be one of the most effective game genres in VR and Five Night’s at Freddy’s VR is gonna be a great demonstration of that. There were more levels to play in the demo but I didn’t get a chance to try them. Some of the VR-exclusive content shakes up the formula with escape room-style scenarios and more.

Five Night’s at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted will release next month on April for PC VR headsets and PSVR. Let us know what you think down in the comments below!

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‘Five Nights at Freddy’s VR’ to Land on All Major VR Headsets in April, Trailer Here

In an avalanche of PSVR news today, Sony announced that Five Nights at Freddy’s is coming to PSVR. acclaimed survival horror video game. It’s not exclusive though, as the VR adaptation is officially coming to PSVR, Oculus and HTC Vive in April 2019.

The game, dubbed Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted is a collection of VR experiences based on the original Five Nights at Freddy’s games, “but it includes several new experiences as well,” Steel Wool Studios’ co-founder Jason Topolski says in a PlayStation blog post.

It isn’t a simple port of the original game either, Topolski says:

“For the first time, characters and situations from the entire Five Nights at Freddy’s series can be experienced in VR. Some games that seem familiar may surprise you in new terrifying ways.”

The studio says that players will be able to use either DualShock 4 or PS Move motion controllers to interact with the door and light controls in the offices, pick up objects in the repair games, press buttons on the video switcher, solve puzzles, and activate your flashlight. We assume other VR platforms will also focus on motion controller support.

The game will also include new features the the series, including collectibles such as plushies, bobbleheads, action figures and more.

The game was built in partnership by Lionsgate, Scottgames, Steel Wool Games, and Striker Entertainment. The game is said to launch on all supported platforms sometime in April.

The post ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s VR’ to Land on All Major VR Headsets in April, Trailer Here appeared first on Road to VR.

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Preview: The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth – The Emperor Would not be Happy

Steel Wool Studios has already made its mark on the virtual reality (VR) scene releasing two decent videogames so far, Quar: Battle for Gate 18 and Bounce. As the former is a turn-based experience it was exciting to hear that the studio would be creating a Warhammer 40K title with VR support. With impressive looking screenshots and gameplay video expectations for The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth were high, unfortunately at this early stage it wasn’t meant to be.

The standard PC version of The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth puts you in an overseeing, god like viewpoint, much the same way a lot of real-time strategy (RTS) videogames work. The same could’ve been done for VR, as titles like Brass Tactics and Moss easily do. Instead Steel Wool Studios wants to put VR players in the action, right down on the battlefield. And this is a great idea, allowing you to be part of the firefights makes the entire experience much more visceral and exciting.

Or it would if everything worked according to plan. As with any Steam Early Access title the videogame is still in development so it can be hard being too judgmental when there are still months of work still to go. However, if it’s been deemed to be ready for Early Access then it is in some way still playable to a degree, The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth – in VR at least – was far from it.

On the minimum spec PC that VRFocus uses loading times were a long drawn out affair – easily time to make tea or coffee – which can be quite frustrating when you’re standing up. Trying the title either sat or standing the latter was certainly the better option once things had loaded. Controls were formed by your basic teleportation method on the left trigger, while the right touchpad had the main controls for your team, commands like shoot, move, hold, advance, reform and more.

You play a tech-priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus who teams up with a small band of Ultramarines as they battle against their traitorous brethren, the Word Bearers. In certain scenes and at particular moments all looks well, especially at the start when you step outside and see two Titans stomping through the city. As you move through the ruined metropolis you can move your team to various tactical spots, behind cover or into a crater for example. And certainly feels like you’re in this futuristic city, happily teamed up with a bunch of Space Marines.

But then you’ll notice that some of the menus or HUD displays appear at weird angles and the sound tends to glitch out at points, just coming for one headphone. The kicker for VRFocus was after the first two missions which teach you the basic gameplay rules, how to command your team and so on. This mission is where you get to try out what you’ve learned, well that would have been the case if the frame rate didn’t suddenly drop to unusable levels and then the image flipped upside down, yeah no word of a lie upside down, it was definitely time to stop (or be sick).

Even with that being said VRFocus is still looking forward to seeing how The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth develops over the course of 2018. Being RTS fans there were certain elements that looked promising, having the potential to create a unique VR RTS experience. At the moment though The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth is difficult to recommend without better optimisation, if you have a super powerful PC then by all means give it a shot, if you don’t then stay clear for now.

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Cross-Platform Multiplayer The Horus Heresy: Betrayal At Calth Arrives Tomorrow  

Having announced The Horus Heresy: Betrayal At Calth last month for PC as well as virtual reality (VR) players, Steel Wool Studios will be bringing the title to Steam Early Access tomorrow, supporting both HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.

The Horus Heresy Betrayal at Calth screenshot6

The first official Warhammer 40k videogame for VR, The Horus Heresy: Betrayal At Calth puts you in command of Ultramarine Legionnaires, based on Games Workshop’s fan-favorite Betrayal at Calth tabletop game, set during the Horus Heresy era. 

For those interested in the full story – and a lot of Warhammer 40k fans are – the experience is: “Set in the 31st Millennium on the planet of Calth, you play as Magos Ohmnal Sarc, a tech priest of the Mechanicus caught in conflict as Brother Legions of Space Marines take arms against one another.  When Sarc discovers corrupted data in the data stream, he must tactically command his unit of noble Ultramarines against a faction of traitorous Word Bearers.  Out-wit and thwart their devious plot to corrupt the Imperium and disrupt the future of mankind.”

With a single-player campaign and multiplayer PvP skirmish mode, for Early Access the campaign features the first act while the multiplayer has four maps and two play modes (Deathmatch and Objective Based).

The Horus Heresy Betrayal at Calth screenshot7

“Steam Early Access lets us roll out an evolving narrative and tons of gameplay depth and strategies over the coming months,” said Joshua Qualtieri, Co-Founder and Head of Development.  “And, it gives us the chance to embrace the feedback from core-Warhammer gamers.  We’ve already made significant upgrades from the support of our Live Alpha program, including speeding up the gameplay, new unit commands that includes shooting while moving abilities, and visual and UX enhancements to the PC mode.”

Early Access is expected to last between 6 to 8 months, fully launching when the final single player Act is completed.  Updates over the next few months will include new chapters with new maps, weapons, abilities and units.

The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth launches with a limited-time 17 percent discount, dropping the cost from the regular $29.99 USD price down to $24.99.  All players will have the option to play either in VR or on gaming PCs. VRFocus will continue its coverage of The Horus Heresy: Betrayal At Calth, reporting back with the latest updates.

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Warhammer 40K is Coming to VR With The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth

Indie virtual reality (VR) developer Steel Wool Studios has already made a name for itself with titles like Quar: Battle for Gate 18 and puzzle title Bounce but now it’s taking on a much bigger beast, getting the license for Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 universe to build The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth for PC and VR players.

The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth

The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth is a tactical turn-based strategy videogame where you control units of Ultramarine Legionnaires, guiding them through the underground arcologies of Calth. From basic Legionnaires, Veterans, and Sergeants, to elite units of Terminators, and the Contemptor Dreadnought, you’ll have their full arsenal at your disposal with which to slay the heretical Word Bearers. Whether that’s using the ranged accuracy of Bolters, Plasma Guns, Flamers, and Rocket Launchers, to the close combat might of Chainswords, Power Fists, and Lightning Claws.

Featuring a single-player campaign and multiplayer PvP skirmish mode, the former has 24 combat scenarios exploring the conflict between two factions of Space Marines. In the multiplayer skirmish mode you’ll be able to choose between the Ultramarine and Word Bearer factions. Steel Wool Studios also plans on adding more character classes as the title nears its final release..

“Our team has always wanted to play a Warhammer 40k Horus Heresy game where you actually felt like you were in the midst of the battle… where your mastery had true consequence,” said Joshua Qualtieri, Co-Founder and Head of Development in a statement. “We can’t wait for fans like us to play this game and let us know how they feel and what we can improve on.  That’s the great spirit of Early Access.”

The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth

The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth will feature support for Oculus Rift with Touch and HTC Vive support, as well as cross-platform gameplay in the multiplayer with standard PC users.

The Steam Early Access launch is planned for ‘early 2018’ state the studio, featuring the skirmish mode and Act 1 of the single-player. As the title is updated further, VRFocus will keep you informed of the latest announcements.

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Physics Puzzler Bounce Comes To Oculus Rift

Virtual reality (VR) tends to do well with puzzle titles, from the slow consideration of titles like Statik, to fast-paced action of hybrid puzzle-action like Star Child, videogame puzzles and VR seem to go together like cheese on bread. So for Oculus Rift users who missed out on playing fast-moving physics puzzled of Bounce, now is the time to rejoice.

Bounce, produced by Steel Wool Studios is a neon-coloured VR experience that requires players to get a small sphere-shaped robot from one end of a room to another, either avoiding or activating various items and obstacles along the way.

The developers behind Bounce include several former employees of Telltale Games, Pixar and Lucasfilm, leading to a title that has both intricate gameplay mechanics as well as smooth animation and a narrative to follow through the various levels. Bounce was previously available on the HTC Vive, where it got a favourable review from VRFocus, saying: “Bounce is the epitomy of trial and error, you’ll probably whizz through the early stages and get really infuriated with the latter ones. But that’s part of the joy of these style of videogames. If it was easy then where’s the challenge and the fun, and Bounce certainly delivers that, literally making you jump through hoops to succeed.”

You can now find Bounce on the Oculus Store, priced at £10.99 (GBP), though Oculus users will need the Touch controllers in order to play. Similar to the HTC Vive version, Bounce has 50 levels to ply through, a scoring system and leaderboards so you can compare your score with friends, and the ‘Style Mode’ which adds longevity with the option to go back and reply levels while attempting to do things in the most outlandish way possible.

VRFocus will bring you further news on new VR releases as it becomes available.