Dead by Daylight’s new spinoff game is coming well before Halloween
Single-player Dead by Daylight game The Casting of Frank Stone will launch on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S well ahead of Halloween this year.
Little Nightmares 3 receives a little delay into 2025
Puzzle side-scroller Little Nightmares 3 has been pushed out of 2024 so that developers can ensure quality is where it should be for launch.
3 underrated Xbox Game Pass titles to play this weekend (May 31-June 2)
If you're wondering what you should play on Xbox Game Pass this weekend, consider these three underappreciated games.
Dead by Daylight is getting 3 spinoff games, and you can get one for free right now
Dead by Daylight is getting three spinoff games, and you can play the newly released What the Fog for free right now if you have a Behavior account.
The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR Review – Rolling Arcade Horror On PSVR 2
The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR is an exclusive title for PlayStation VR2, available now for PlayStation 5. But does this rollercoaster shooter scare us to death or hit the bullseye? Read on for our full Switchback PSVR 2 review.
Typically, rollercoasters aren’t the best fit for VR experiences. They’re fast moving yet physically stationary experiences that can quickly create a recipe for motion sickness in VR, especially if it’s a first-time experience. Despite this, I came away quite impressed with The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR, a new rollercoaster-based horror shooter and PlayStation VR2 exclusive. It features a 4-5 hour campaign that’s an entertaining and arcade-y romp through some fantastic horror scenarios, with engaging combat and spooky scares.
Switchback is a VR-exclusive entry in The Dark Pictures anthology series, but as someone with zero prior experience with the franchise, I can assure you context isn’t needed. The basic premise is that you’ve been in a train crash and in between intermittent flashbacks, you’ll be transported onto a mystical rollercoaster to trudge through some scary scenarios. There’s a very basic story that plays out across each level, but it’s nothing to write home about and that’s fine. The concept is, by and large, acceptably ridiculous – you’re on a horror-themed rollercoaster with magical guns, so anything goes.
Getting Comfortable
The levels in Switchback take you through a couple of different settings – a decrepit boat, a creepy hotel, an underground ancient tomb and more – which you’ll explore across one or two levels for each. The entire experience is seated and on-rails, with the coaster varying in speed and intensity. Some sections are fast moving, but most are fairly slow. The cart will also often stop at sections of the map during combat or for other environmental interactions.
So while it’s not quite a fun-blown, intense rollercoaster simulator, Switchback is nonetheless a game with near-constant artificial movement. That said, as someone who can be fairly prone to nausea in VR, I felt fine for most of the experience and was able to play for hours at a time with no problem.
This has been a common experience for me when using PSVR 2 and I suspect it’s thanks to the 120Hz framerate offered by many experiences on the headset, including Switchback. There is a subtle (and very tolerable) ghosting effect during lateral movement, suggesting the game runs at 60 frames per second reprojected up to 120Hz. Everyone’s tolerance is different, but running at 120Hz (even if reprojected from 60fps) should hopefully help make this a comfortable experience for as many people as possible. However at present, there’s unfortunately no comfort options, such as vignetting, available at all.
Delightful Terrors
If you feel you’ll be able to play comfortably given the above, then it’s time to sit back, relax and get ready to shoot. On your journey, you’ll be confronted with a plethora of creepy zombies, monsters and undead beings. The variety in enemy design is really fantastic, themed perfectly to each area and often genuinely terrifying in nature. Some enemies will even use eye tracking to determine when you blink, only moving when you’ve got your eyes shut. It’s a well-implemented mechanic, clearly taking inspiration from the terrifying Weeping Angles in Doctor Who.
To combat enemies, you dual wield a pair of pistols with infinite ammo. To reload, all you have to do is shake your guns, which it confirms with a delightful and elastic-y reload animation and sound. It’s incredibly satisfying to use and the first indication that, although this is a scary horror game, it also has many fun arcade elements to it. There’s three difficulties to choose between and during each level, your current score will be displayed in front of you on the cart. Levels can be replayed to achieve a high score and there’s leaderboards to compare with friends online.
The environments themselves are well-designed and offer the player a few extra challenges to deal with while staving off enemies. Obstacles will require you to lean left, right or forward to avoid damage, while pentacle-marked items are scattered across every area and offer a bonus score if you can shoot them before they’re out of sight. Across the campaign, you’ll also come across red boxes that, when shot, transform your pistol into a different weapon type with a limited set of ammo. These range from the basics – shotguns and submachine guns – to more original weapons, such as stun guns or fuse guns that can be used to solve puzzles or enable environment aids.
While the horror elements of the game are quite unsettling and dark, the gameplay itself is a thrill and the guns are super enjoyable to use. Unlimited ammo means that you can go wild and the aiming system is generous. There’s often a rush of enemies in your face or rapidly approaching the cart, meaning that precision is less important than shooting as much as you possibly can. That said, headshots will take down enemies quicker, so there’s some value in taking your time when you’re able to.
The Good, The Bag and The Ugly
Switchback isn’t the longest game, coming in at around four or five hours for one run of the campaign, but there’s likely lots of replayability for those who want to chase high scores across different difficulty levels. That said, even at a fairly short four hour length, the horror elements do start to wear a little thin and feel more predictable as you get towards the end.
In our Resident Evil Village review for PSVR 2, we said that its focus on bursts of high-tension moments and terrifying monsters was VR horror done right. In the case of Switchback, it isn’t VR horror done bad by any means, but it is often a bit cheap. Expect lots of sudden jump scares, classic horror strings building to shocks, and moments where you’re terrified purely through being overwhelmed with enemies all around you. This is horror in its most basic and raw form – those whose heart can’t take sudden scares will definitely want to sit this one out. At the same time, there’s also a fair share of horror moments that don’t quite land, feeling a little underwhelming and not quite as spooky as the game thinks they are.
The gameplay itself remains mostly engaging throughout the campaign, if also a little repetitive in the latter stages. Likewise, the environments feature some items that can be interacted with or will respond to being shot, but only very specific and clearly marked ones. It would be nice to have more dynamic interactions with the levels that weren’t so clearly signposted. As it stands, the environments often feel like static movie sets, but that’s also part of the charm – the experience is often reminiscent of a Disneyland dark ride mixed with The House of the Dead arcade games.
In terms of visuals, Switchback puts out a presentation that is pretty good but not absolutely stunning. The stylized environments work well and everything feels cohesive, but it’s not the most visually impressive PSVR 2 game we’ve tried by any margin. While performance is generally solid, I did notice quite a bit of pop-in during fast-moving sequences and textures often visibly resolve from low to high resolution as you move along the track. There’s also loading screens in between the limited cutscenes and each level – they’re fairly quick, but it’s somewhat strange to see on a platform where they otherwise rarely exist.
The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR – Final Verdict
The main hurdle with Switchback VR remains the question of comfort. While it’s not as hectic and intense as a fully-blown rollercoaster simulator, it is nonetheless frequent artificial movement without any comfort options to reduce potential nausea. Whether that’s acceptable will vary from person to person.
However, the experience itself is good fun and a mostly engaging horror shooter from start to end. It blends together arcade gameplay elements with intense horror action, bringing some fantastic enemy designs and brilliant settings into the fray. While the visuals might not be the most stunning we’ve seen on the platform, it’s nonetheless competent and what lacks in fidelity it makes up for in style. Though probably not a system seller, The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR is a good PSVR 2 exclusive and an easy recommendation for fans of horror and arcade action.
UploadVR focuses on a label system for reviews, rather than a numeric score. Our reviews fall into one of four categories: Essential, Recommended, Avoid and reviews that we leave unlabeled. You can read more about our review guidelines here.
PSVR 2 Horror Shooter ‘Switchback’ Shows Off Unique Eye-tracking Uses in New Video
Don’t blink, because PSVR 2’s eye-tracking may get you more than you bargained for in the headset’s upcoming on-rails horror shooter The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR, which aims to toss some extra scares your way when you least suspect it.
PSVR 2 is releasing on February 22nd, and in its 100+ game content lineup is a unique horror game from the makers of Until Dawn: Rush of Blood which tosses you back into another rollercoaster thrill ride that arms you with plenty of guns to fend off what bumps in the night.
Besides bringing high-quality VR to PS5, Sony’s next-gen headset also packs in eye-tracking, which is many games are using for easier UI selection and foveated rendering—useful, but not terribly exciting stuff.
Some developers though, including Supermassive Games, are integrating the feature into their core gameplay loop, which in Switchback’s case allows enemies to move around specifically when your eyes are closed.
In a new gameplay video, Supermassive shows off the feature as it plays out beyond the big ‘DON’T BLINK’ doors, revealing a room full of grotesque mannequins which only move when you blink—and they’re entirely focused on attacking you if they can.
Alejandro Arque Gallardo, Game Director at Supermassive, says there’s also set to be another mannequin type that works with eye-tracking, but cryptically will work in “a completely different way.”
We’ve linked to the timestamp (above) where Arque Gallardo discusses Switchback’s eye-tracking mechanic. The full video also delves into haptics, adaptive triggers, spatial audio, and the multiple areas you can encounter in the game.
The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR is launching on March 16th, priced at $40. You can pre-order the game here. In the meantime, make sure to check out our growing list of all confirmed games coming to PSVR 2.
The Quarry might just live up to Until Dawn’s horror legacy
The Quarry is billed as a successor to 2015's excellent Until Dawn, and after playing an hour of the game, it might just live up to that lofty expectation.
The Quarry is a teen horror slasher-turned-video game
Supermassive Games' new cinematic horror games The Quarry has a cast of iconic celebrities involved.
The VR Job Hub: Sony London Studio, Beat Games & Supermassive Games
The virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) industries are wonderfully diverse when it comes to the job roles available, always looking to hire the best talent to work on exciting projects. Whether you’ve been an avid fan of the tech for a while or are already involved in some way, today’s VR Job Hub has plenty of new roles which can help you become more involved and shape VR/AR’s future.
| Location | Company | Role | Link |
| London, UK | Sony London Studio | Animator – Senior/Mid Level | Click Here to Apply |
| London, UK | Sony London Studio | Art Director | Click Here to Apply |
| London, UK | Sony London Studio | Game AI Programmer | Click Here to Apply |
| London, UK | Sony London Studio | Lead Gameplay Designer | Click Here to Apply |
| London, UK | Sony London Studio | Lead QA Tester | Click Here to Apply |
| London, UK | Sony London Studio | Network Server Programmer | Click Here to Apply |
| London, UK | Sony London Studio | Senior Level Designer | Click Here to Apply |
| London, UK | Sony London Studio | VFX Artist | Click Here to Apply |
| Prague, Czech Republic | Beat Games | Level Designer | Click Here to Apply |
| Prague, Czech Republic | Beat Games | UI Designer | Click Here to Apply |
| Prague, Czech Republic | Beat Games | Graphic Designer | Click Here to Apply |
| Prague, Czech Republic | Beat Games | Software Engineer, Backend | Click Here to Apply |
| Prague, Czech Republic | Beat Games | 3D Artist | Click Here to Apply |
| Guildford, UK | Supermassive Games | Senior Game Programmer | Click Here to Apply |
| Guildford, UK | Supermassive Games | Animation Programmer | Click Here to Apply |
| Guildford, UK | Supermassive Games | Tools Programmer | Click Here to Apply |
| Guildford, UK | Supermassive Games | Senior Character Artist | Click Here to Apply |
| Guildford, UK | Supermassive Games | Technical Artist | Click Here to Apply |
Don’t forget, if there wasn’t anything that took your fancy this week there’s always last week’s listings on The VR Job Hub to check as well.
If you are an employer looking for someone to fill an immersive technology related role – regardless of the industry – don’t forget you can send us the lowdown on the position and we’ll be sure to feature it in that following week’s feature. Details should be sent to Peter Graham (pgraham@vrfocus.com).
We’ll see you next week on VRFocus at the usual time of 3PM (UK) for another selection of jobs from around the world.
Shattered State: VR-Polit-Thriller von Supermassive Games für Daydream veröffentlicht
Entwicklerstudio Supermassive Games veröffentlicht heute in Kollaboration mit Google den neuen VR-Polit-Thriller Shattered State exklusiv auf der Daydream-VR-Plattform. Innerhalb des VR-Abenteuers müsst ihr als Oberhaupt des nationalen Nachrichtendienstes schwierige Entscheidungen fällen, welche die Zukunft des Landes nachhaltig verändern könnten. Dabei liegt der Fokus mehr auf Storytelling anstatt des eigentlichen Gameplays, um eine völlig neue Zielgruppe anzusprechen.
Shattered State – VR-Polit-Thriller von Supermassive Games für Google Daydream
In Shattered State übernehmt ihr die Rolle des Direktors des Bundesnachrichtendienstes der Vereinigten Staaten (National Intelligence Agency), um aus eurem Büro heraus schwierige Entscheidungen zu Staatsangelegenheiten zu fällen, welche das Land für immer verändern könnten. Dazu zählt der Kampf gegen Terrorismus, ein militärischer Putschversuch, Regierungs-Leaks und mehr. Dabei stehen euch eure Berater zur Seite, um euch über diverse Optionen und deren Auswirkungen zu informieren. Je nach ausgewähltem Weg wird ein anderes Resultat freigeschaltet, was die Geschichte nachhaltig verändert.
Insgesamt 40 Minuten Spielzeit erwarten euch innerhalb des VR-Titels. Allerdings können neue Spiel-Sessions mit anderen Entscheidungen zu einem neuen Ende führen. Der Fokus des politischen VR-Abenteuers liegt jedoch weniger auf dem Gameplay, sondern mehr auf interessantem Storytelling. Dadurch ist die VR-Erfahrung eher als interaktive VR-Serie, inspiriert von Serienklassikern wie Homeland zu verstehen, welche eine komplett neue Zielgruppe ansprechen soll.
Eine Folgerung, die durch die gewählte Veröffentlichungsplattform unterstrichen wird, denn die mobile VR-Brille Daydream ist kostengünstig zu erhalten und ermöglicht einen einfachen Einstieg ohne große technische Kenntnisse. Das Angebot richtet sich also eher an Netflix-Konsumenten als VR-Vollprofis, weißt aber dennoch großes Potenzial auf. Schließlich ist Entwicklerstudio Supermassive Games kein unbeschriebenes Blatt in der VR-Entwicklung. Bereits mit Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, The Inpatient und Bravo Team konnten sich die Entwickler im Markt etablieren.
So erläutert Simon Harris von Supermassive Games:
“Dies war eine Gelegenheit, einige der Erkenntnisse aus The Inpatient in Bezug auf VR-Storytelling zu nutzen. Eine Gelegenheit, in ein neues Genre, einen politischen Thriller einzusteigen. Und der Markt ist komplett anders. Wenn wir Titel für PlayStation VR entwickeln, rufen wir bestimmte Erwartungen bei den PSVR-Spielern hervor. Auf Plattformen wie der Daydream geht viel mehr darum, dass Leute zum ersten Mal VR ausprobieren, es geht darum, mit neuen Erfahrungen zu experimentieren. Die Erwartungen dieses Publikums liegt weniger auf dem Gaming-Aspekt, also war es diese perfekte Möglichkeit dafür.”
Shattered State ist ab sofort für 8,99 Euro im Google Playstore für Google Daydream und Mirage Solo erhältlich.
(Quellen: Upload VR | Video: Supermassive Games YouTube)
Der Beitrag Shattered State: VR-Polit-Thriller von Supermassive Games für Daydream veröffentlicht zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!