Stormland by Insomniac Games and Asgard’s Wrath by Sanzaru Games are probably the two biggest Oculus Rift exclusives players have been waiting for this year. Now the wait is almost over as both titles made an appearance during Oculus Connect 6 (OC6) with new trailers and actual launch dates.
The first to arrive will be action fantasy adventure Asgard’s Wrath with a 10th October release date – two weeks away. Set to feature over 40 hours of gameplay, the story is based on Norse mythology with players in the role of a fledgeling god who is set several challenges by Loki. To prove their worthiness have to help preordained Heroes of the Realms fulfil their destinies. This means players get to fight not only as a mere mortal but also as a god, using their powers to gain the edge in battle. There are different character classes to choose from, Mage, Rogue and Warrior for example, with a core part of the gameplay focused on melee combat, offering finely-tuning physics to provide as real an experience as possible.
With the launch fairly imminent Asgard’s Wrath can be pre-ordered today via the Oculus Store for $39.99 USD. Pre-order and you’ll receive an exclusive sword and shield inspired by the Valkyrie warriors that control the battle arenas.
For those who prefer a more sci-fi themed experience then there’s Stormland. Confirmed to be launching 14th November, this is another big action-adventure just this time you’re a peaceful android gardener. An event thrusts you into a new role of a heroic fighter, who must traverse the lush planet finding spare parts whilst rescuing friends. Stormland also offers a multiplayer co-op experience where another player can drop in and out of the campaign or where both players can team up in treasure hunt mode.
Stormland is also available for preorder now, retailing for $39.99 on Oculus Store. Anyone who pre-orders will receive an exclusive Oculus Home statue to display in their digital home.
Check out the new trailers for both videogames below, showcasing all-new gameplay footage. VRFocus will continue its coverage of both titles, reporting back with further announcements and updates.
Oculus Connect 6 has offered up a deluge of VR news, and on stage today Facebook announced launch dates for both Asgard’s Wrath and Stormland.
Asgard’s Wrath is slated to arrive on October 10th for the Rift platform.
The combat-adventure game is an Oculus exclusive, and is being built by the Oculus-backed Sanzaru Games. We went hands on at E3 earlier this summer, so check out our hands-on which is only a light dusting of the game’s purported 30+ hour gameplay length—something that promises to be a true ‘AAA’ VR game.
Stormland, the next (and likely final) Oculus exclusive title from Insomniac Games, will come a bit later, as it’s slated to arrive on November 14th.
The game will feature drop-in / drop-out co-op for two players, and a vast ever-changing environment that promises a constant flow of remixed and new content. Check out the latest info and trailer showing of the two-player co-op and combat tactics to get a better idea of what awaits.
This news is breaking. Check back for more info on all things AR/VR to come from OC6.
Community Download is a weekly discussion-focused articles series published (usually) every Monday in which we pose a single, core question to you all, our readers, in the spirit of fostering discussion and debate. For today, we want to know what you think is going to go down at Oculus Connect 6 later this week.
We’re finally at the start of Oculus Connect week. On Wednesday in San Jose the sixth Oculus Connect conference (OC6) will kick off and should include lots of big headlines for the VR industry. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg will be on stage, as well as Michael Abrash, John Carmack, and various other heads at the VR company.
More over, we’ll finally get to see what Respawn’s VR shooter is like, which has been shrouded in nearly complete darkness ever since it was announced two years ago. We don’t even know the name or setting yet! But if you want to see my predictions for what it could be, check those out here.
We’ve also got a big list of predictions for the rest of the conference right here, including our thoughts on the Oculus social VR strategy, the focus on AAA-quality content, and more.
But for this article we want to know what you think: What are your Oculus Connect 6 predictions? What do you think Respawn’s shooter will be? Do you think we’ll see a lot of AR news? Will we finally get release dates for Lone Echo 2, Stormland, and Asgard’s Wrath? Let us know down in the comments below!
Stormland is fast-approaching as one of the year’s hottest titles and we spoke to Insomniac Games about the VR adventure’s story, gameplay, and inspiration.
Back at E3 2019 a few months ago we conducted a series of interviews with various developers of upcoming VR games. Some of those interviews were posted quickly (such as for Sniper Elite VR and Beat Saber) and others…well, weren’t. In some cases we had other priorities to tend to first, or got busy with other things (we’re a small team!), or honestly just forgot and misplaced the files — but we’re aiming to rectify that with Oculus Connect 6 fast approaching next week!
We’ve had the chance to try out Stormland a few times in the past, including a brief tease of co-operative multiplayer, and whatever Insomniac and Oculus have in store for OC6 should be exciting. A firm release date is likely, as is another chance to try it out before release.
In the above interview we talked with Tim Salvitti, Senior Community Developer at Insomniac Games, about Stormland’s story, its inspiration, the expansive gameplay, and the ambitious scope. Its traversal mechanics encompass the gamut of possibilities we’ve seen in other games from flying, skimming across clouds, climbing, smooth movement, and more.
Are you planning on picking up Stormland when it releases later this year exclusively on Oculus Home for Rift? Let us know down in the comments below!
At PAX West this past weekend we got the chance to try out co-op VR multiplayer in Stormland and it’s one of the best VR experiences we’ve ever had. Read on to find out why.
A lot has been said about how Stormland is pushing the boundaries of VR game design. It’s got a rich open world, an immersive narrative, and all kinds of tools that make combat and gameplay feel intuitive. It’s cooperative play is pretty standard with two players diving into the action instead of one, but the freedom of how Stormland plays makes it a multiplayer experience unlike anything else I’ve played before.
I went through a short twenty minute co-op demo at PAX West this past weekend alongside a representative from Oculus. We fought robots, soared over the clouds, and launched ourselves into the sky from the sides of cliffs. Everything I went through during the demo clicked immediately making Stormland one of, if not the absolute best VR games I’ve played this year from what I’ve seen so far.
Gameplay Features and Co-Op Trailer:
That’s solely due to how much freedom the game grants you. Everything is in a sandbox so you can approach combat with stealth or with guns blazing, from any direction (including above), and with just about any strategy you can come up with.
Stormland didn’t necessarily feel like it was designed specifically for co-op, but it’s mechanics and world are so fun and fluid that the game feels great when played solo or with a partner. That’s by design, as Insomniac’s first priority was to create a world that the player could feel powerful in. Adding a second player was a bonus.
“We’re not changing the game experience based on if you play solo or cooperatively. It’s just whether or not you want to experience it with a friend or not,” says Insomniac’s senior community developer Tim Salvitti. “There’s not going to be a separate co-op campaign or anything. It’s the same game. We just want people to be able to play with a friend because we know how fun it is to play with each other.”
Co-op in Stormland only works with two people, even though Insomniac had plans for more earlier in development. While it’s disappointing we can’t take a full squad into a gunfight, coordinating with another player still satisfied my craving for tactical first person action.
The demo was as straightforward as any—find three keys spread across a map full of islands floating in the clouds in order to open a giant hatch in the ground. The keys were locked away in beacons surrounded by enemies spread out across the map. We had to find them, clear the area, and collect the key. While that may seem somewhat standard open world fare, the tools Insomniac gave us made everything fresh.
At one point we approached a giant robot slowly stomping through the jungle, unaware of our presence. We stopped for a second at the edge of a clearing so it wouldn’t see us and agreed that my partner would go around and engage him from the front while I unloaded a clip into his back to hopefully put him out of his misery quickly. I waited a few moments while my partner made his way around and the anticipation nearly killed me. As soon as I heard gunshots I jumped out and sprayed.
It worked like a charm and the hunk of metal dropped almost immediately after we engaged him. It was a tad easy (like other Stormland demos this one was fairly uncomplicated), but I was still excited about our approach. We could have hopped over to a nearby cliff, jumped off, and attacked him from above. We could have attempted a stealth kill. The options weren’t endless, but each felt like a new way to play.
That sort of engagement comes from how fluid, fast-paced, and open the entire experience is in Stormland. It’s not just the freedom to take on combat scenarios that’s impressive, it’s the integration of the full body avatar, the dynamic weapon system that lets you pick up any gun from a fallen enemy, and the spirited climbing mechanics that also let you launch your avatar high into the air for the ultimate surprise attack.
“I think a lot of it came from not just what we learned from The Unspoken, but also what we’ve learned from our non-VR games,” says Salvitti. “Sunset Overdrive, Ratchet and Clank. We wanted the same smooth controls, shooting, and traversal. We just wanted to pull the same feeling but make it first person, make it feel like you’re actually there.”
At one point in the demo, after we had already picked up two of the three keys, my partner stepped back and let me approach the third beacon on my own. Enemies were set up on a bluff I started to climb up before launching myself high up for a vertical assault. I drew both guns before landing in between two enemies and blew them away at the same time. I felt like a robotic mix of John Wick and Rambo, nothing could stop how much I was enjoying this.
It felt as good as Spider-man on the PS4, the movement and gunplay was empowering.
PAX West 2018 Gameplay Footage:
The difficulty was still my only issue. Like the earlier scenario with the giant robot, this gunfight was incredibly easy and it only made my concern over Stormland’s difficulty stronger. I don’t know how that’ll change in the final release later this year, but Salvitti ensured me that there would be a steeper difficulty.
“The demo is tuned a little easier,” says Salvitti, before citing the changing cycle of the game world. “There’ll be new quests that pop up, new missions, new things to do. That’s all gonna be based on the cycle too. So as everything changes, it’s going to feel like there’s some whole new thing to do every time you log in and because we have the different realms that you’re working through, it’s going to get harder and harder.”
Even with the lax difficulty in the demo I played, Stormland had me hooked from the moment I launched myself in the air, submachine guns in both hands, and brought the house down on two unsuspecting robot goons. Stormland brings that trademark Insomniac game feel to VR and creates a feeling unlike anything else.
Stormland is slated for release during the Holiday season later this year and will be an exclusive for the Oculus Rift platform. Let us know what you think down in the comments below!
Insomniac Games may have joined PlayStation Worldwide Studios but that isn’t stopping development of the highly anticipated Stormland for Oculus Rift. New details have now been released including a new trailer as well as co-op gameplay options. The videogame has also been confirmed to arrive by the end of the year.
At PAX West 2019 in Seattle later this month the studio will offer visitors a new demo to play, where they’ll be able to team up with a friend via a co-op treasure hunt mode. In this mode, players have to work together to locate three keys, each one hidden in the shifting cloudscape.
Stormland won’t simply offer one co-op mode either, you’ll be able to play the entire videogame campaign cooperatively thanks to drop-in, drop-out two-player gameplay. “We think the whole experience is more interesting when you have shared encounters and can talk about them with other players,” says Insomniac Games Lead Designer Mike Daly on Oculus Blog.
Then there are the raid-like ‘Challenge Realms’, formerly called Terminus. “It’s an intense battle that stresses your skills in traversal, navigation, combat, and progression in a big “raid” environment,” Daly notes. “Like the rest of the game, Terminus can be played single-player or co-op and has a different layout and enemy composition each cycle. Unlike the rest of the game, Terminus is scored and lets you compete for performance against the rest of the community.”
Alongside all the multiplayer news, Insomniac Games has released a new trailer showcasing even more action and the different tactics players can employ. For those that like to hunt, they can stay low and stealthy, performing close up melee kills or simply employing a trusty shotgun. Or for those who enjoy getting into the thick of it, Stormland has an assortment of high-impact weaponry as well as the movement versatility of the robot characters.
Stormland is gearing up to be one of the biggest VR titles of 2019 and certainly impressed VRFocuswhen demoing an early preview in 2018. The title is scheduled to launch by the end of the year when VRFocus confirms the release date we’ll let you know.
Lately it feels like there’s been a new trailer from Insomniac’s Stormland every other week.
Not that we’re complaining, of course. The Oculus Rift exclusive is one of our most anticipated titles on the horizon right now. And there is something genuinely new to talk about in the latest footage; specifically the co-op support.
Specifically, the footage covers the different gameplay options players can utilize. Stormland is essentially a first-person shooter (FPS), but you can use stealth or long-range weapons to avoid heavy confrontations. Or you can armor up and go in guns-blazing. But Stormland also supports two-player co-op, so you could mix and match these styles should you so choose.
Over on the Oculus Blog, Insomniac explained that co-op players will face more enemies to increase the challenge.
“Although players will need to share weapons and ammo, all other resources are automatically shared when playing co-op, so there’s no squabbling about who gets the stuff that contributes to progression,” Lead Designer Mike Daly said. “Everything else about the game is consistent between single-player and co-op. You get to keep your resource and story progress while playing co-op.”
The game continues to look incredibly polished. We’re just excited to stop talking about it and start playing it, though we still don’t know when we’ll be able to do that.
For now, we know the game is coming this holiday season. It’s looking very likely that this will be Insomniac’s last Oculus-exclusive. Last week we reported that Sony had purchased the developer. Outside of VR, Insomniac made Marvel’s Spider-Man and Ratchet and Clank for PS4, so it makes sense. Hopefully we’ll still see the team working on PSVR games, then.
For now, Stormland will be on display at PAX West this weekend. If you get a chance to play it, let us know what you think!
Stormland, the next (and likely final) Oculus exclusive title from Insomniac Games, will feature drop-in / drop-out co-op for two players, the studio has confirmed. The studio also announced the ‘Terminus’, an end-game like experience where players will face their greatest challenge. A new trailer for the game highlights the diverse variety of combat tactics available to players.
Upcoming Oculus exclusive Stormland is among the most anticipated VR titles set to launch this year. The game is presented as an sci-fi open-world and incorporates a myriad of locomotion schemes from smooth movement, gliding, flying, and climbing, and all of it is mixed in with rich object interactions, combat, and exploration. A new trailer for the game emphasizes the diverse combat tactics available to players, including environmental and ability-based stealth, high maneuverability with smaller weapons, and the head-on approach supported by heavy weaponry.
Over at the official Oculus Blog, Insomniac detailed Stormland’s co-op feature which is said to seamlessly support two players. The studio says the “entire game” can be played cooperatively, and co-op is drop-in / drop-out, meaning that players don’t need to wait around to get into the same game together, but can instead set off for an adventure and be joined by friends without interruption.
Image courtesy Insomniac Games
While we would have loved to see co-op with more than just two players, Insomniac has thankfully confirmed that co-op will support seamless progression, meaning that players will not only inhabit their own character (including their unique upgrades and abilities), but they’ll also be able to tackle missions and continue their progression unhindered while playing co-op.
The studio says enemies have the same health and deal the same damage in co-op, but players can expect to see a larger number of enemies to present a greater challenge.
Image courtesy Insomniac Games
Speaking of challenge, Insomniac also spoke of the ‘Terminus’, a ‘raid-like’ area where players will face their greatest challenge while competing on community leaderboards for the top score.
Like the game’s overworld, the Terminus can be played single-player or co-op, and will reset and reconfigure to present a new challenge each ‘cycle’; the studio hasn’t yet said how often new cycles will occur.
Sony Interactive Entertainment announced Monday that the company is acquiring Insomniac Games, a storied game studio and one of the most experienced in VR development anywhere in the world. The studio has developed three Oculus exclusive titles, with its fourth and largest yet, Stormland, still due to launch in 2019.
Founded in 1994, Insomniac Games was best known for the creation of the Spyro and Ratchet & Clank franchises which have collectively spanned more than a dozen titles, many exclusively on PlayStation consoles. In recent years the studio has been well known in the VR space, having developed three exclusive titles for Oculus Studios: Edge of Nowhere (2016), The Unspoken (2016), and Feral Rights (2016), not to mention the non-VR hit Marvel’s Spider-Man (2018) which was a PlayStation exclusive.
Image courtesy Insomniac Games
Sony’s primary reason for buying Insomniac is surely the quality and success (13M+ units) of Spider-Man (alongside the studio’s decades of experience developing for PlayStation consoles). Sony will bring the studio under its SIE Worldwide Studios group, which has churned out some of the company’s most lauded exclusive games (VR and otherwise).
While Sony will surely focus in the near-term on leveraging Insomniac’s talents for more AAA non-VR titles, the acquisition is a strategic boon for PlayStation’s VR ambitions, and a blow to Oculus. Sony has effectively sniped one of the world’s most experienced VR development studios after Oculus spent several years investing in the studio’s VR expertise.
In addition to the three Oculus exclusive titles the studio had already released, Insomniac is still developing its forth and largest title for Oculus Studios, Stormland, which is due out in 2019. The acquisition will surely not impact the release of the title, but it very likely will impact its future.
Image courtesy Insomniac Games
If Stormland turned out to be a hit for Oculus, and if Insomniac had remained independent, Oculus would likely ask the studio to start working on additional content and possibly a sequel. But now that the studio is owned by a direct competitor in the VR space, it’s unlikely that Insomniac would take on that work.
This of course all depends on who owns the Stormland IP. If Oculus holds the rights to the game, the company would have to search for a different studio to pick up where Insomniac left off (though the friction of switching teams on such a big project would be substantial); if it turns out that Insomniac retained the rights to the game, Oculus could be totally barred from continuing it unless they want to pay Sony to license the IP.
It’s likely that the Stormland deal between Oculus and Insomniac specifies a certain period of ‘post-launch content and support’ which the studio will be obligated to fill regardless of the acquisition.
However, generally a studio like Insomniac would want to do good work on post-launch content so that the publisher (Oculus Studios in this case) would be encouraged to pay for the development of even more content. But given that no additional deal is likely to be made following whatever was originally negotiated (considering the acquisition), Incomiac doesn’t have much incentive to put its heart and soul behind additional Stormland content.
In that sense, this was a pretty good move for Sony on the VR front. Not only are they benefiting from years of Insomniac’s VR talent—that Oculus paid for—but they’ve also put some major hurdles in place for Stormland’s future and deprived Oculus Studios from one of its core collaborators; VR game design is so new compared to non-VR game design that it’s not like Oculus can just go out shopping for another studio with the same level of VR expertise as Insomniac, and that means Oculus Studios has less access to great VR development talent moving forward.
Oculus Studios has consistently worked with a small number of independent game development studios over the years to deliver exclusive games to its platform. Oculus may now be taking a close look at the likes of Ready at Dawn, Twisted Pixel, Sanzaru Games, 4A Games, and others, to ensure they don’t get snatched up, especially considering that Microsoft’s Xbox Game Studios has also been on a studio-buying spree.
Image courtesy Insomniac Games
While it won’t be the studio’s top priority, the odds seem good that Sony will have part of Insomniac Games work on a PSVR exclusive title; at least half of Sony’s current Worldwide Studios teams have worked on PSVR games. If this comes to pass, it seems likely that the studio would begin working on a launch title for PSVR 2, which Sony has all but confirmed at this point.
Oculus announced that it’ll be showing Stormland’s co-op multiplayer feature at the PAX West event next week.
Upcoming Oculus exclusive Stormland is among the most anticipated VR titles set to launch this year. While Oculus and developer Insomniac Games had previously said that Stormland would include co-op multiplayer, very little about how it will work has been revealed.
Right now there’s very little detail on how the mode will work or even how many players will be supported.
Stormland is a promising title which seems to grow in potential each time that we’ve had the opportunity to demo it. The game is presented as an sci-fi open-world and incorporates a myriad of locomotion schemes from smooth movement, gliding, flying, and climbing, and all of it is mixed in with rich object interactions, combat, and exploration.
While we’ve got our fingers crossed for top-down co-op support which would allow two or more players to be in the same world and engage in all the game’s content together, it’s possible that the co-op will be less ambitious. For reasons of scope and complexity, it wouldn’t be entirely surprising if co-op is restricted to certain regions, specific content, or other limitations like having non-host players inhabit ‘guest’ characters rather than their own single-player character with their own progression. Our fingers shall remain crossed.
We hope to have all of that cleared up next week when we get the first glimpse of Stormland‘s co-op multiplayer at PAX West.
