Category: the climb

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The Climb 2 Confirmed, Coming ‘Only’ To Oculus Quest Platform

During the Facebook Connect digital conference today The Climb 2 was revealed, a direct follow-up to Crytek’s The Climb. The original game was first released as an Oculus Rift exclusive, but has since been ported to Oculus Quest. 

Details are scarce on The Climb 2 at this time, but it’s definitely not a sequel we expected to see today. In the announcement trailer embedded above you’ll notice much more exotic locations than in the first game, such as a volcano in the background or a city full of skyscrapers similar to Dubai in the key art. They’ve certainly gone with a more striking, stylized visual identity this time.

According to the press release: “The thrill of rock climbing comes alive with The Climb 2–explore a new city setting and exhilarating new maps with breathtaking views. Ascend grand peaks, navigate vast caves, climb skyscrapers, and discover hidden shortcuts as you find your path to the top. Compete with friends and conquer leaderboards in asynchronous multiplayer modes. From exploring mountain environments to scaling urban settings, feel the rush of climbing without ropes, and experience breathtaking vistas as you scale new heights.”

The Climb 2 is exclusive to the Oculus Quest and Quest 2 with the trailer saying “only on the Oculus Quest platform” at the end in small print. You might think that because it says “Captured on PC” in the trailer for the Quest game it might come to PC at some point. We reached out to Facebook to clarify whether the game might ever come to PC VR or PSVR and a representative replied that The Climb 2 is a “Quest platform exclusive.”

After the Quest port of The Climb was originally announced all the way back at the Quest announcement during Oculus Connect in 2018, the game itself didn’t actually release until December 2019. Now, less than a year later, we’re already hearing news of a sequel. Although, it’s likely work began on this sequel prior to the first game’s port launching.

In The Climb you use your hands to ascend up perilous mountains across a variety of picturesque locales. In the PC VR version the breathtaking visuals are the highlight of the experience and despite the downgrade, it’s still quite captivating on the Quest version as well. Hopefully the XR2 chip inside the Quest 2 will help it deliver even more impressive visuals for the sequel.

What do you think about the surprise sequel announcement? It’s coming this holiday season exclusively to Oculus Quest. Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below!

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Crytek’s Long-awaited ‘The Climb 2’ Coming to Oculus Quest on March 4th

Crytek announced last year that The Climb (2016) would be getting its long-awaited sequel sometime during the holiday season 2020. Although that launch window has come and gone, The Climb 2 is now finally set for a March 4th release date.

Update (February 23rd, 2021): After missing its holiday 2020 release window, The Climb 2 is now suddenly right around the corner. Crytek today announced a March 4th release date for the game which is expected to remain a Quest exclusive. A price has yet to be announced.

Oculus confirmed the sequel will include “15 new maps” [our emphasis], which suggests The Climb 2 may include some maps from the original title. We’ve reached out to Oculus for clarity.

The Climb 2 is also said to introduce “objects like ropes, containers, ladders, and climbing equipment that react to the player’s weight,” along with unlockables like gloves, watches, and wristbands. We’ve also spotted two screenshots of the game we hadn’t seen previously:

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Image courtesy Crytek
Image courtesy Crytek

The original article, which covered the game’s announcement, follows below.

Original Article (September 16th, 2020): Dubbed The Climb 2, the first-person rock climbing game is said to let you explore “a new city setting and exhilarating new maps with breathtaking views.”

More from the game’s description:

Ascend grand peaks, navigate vast caves, climb skyscrapers, and discover hidden shortcuts as you find your path to the top. Compete with friends and conquer leaderboards in asynchronous multiplayer modes. From exploring mountain environments to scaling urban settings, feel the rush of climbing without ropes, and experience breathtaking vistas as you scale new heights.

Here’s all of the screenshots that were shared with Road to VR so far:

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Image courtesy Crytek
Image courtesy Crytek
Image courtesy Crytek

Originally launched as an Oculus Rift exclusive in 2016, The Climb dazzled with detailed visuals and kept us grasping for the next ledge thanks to interesting gameplay mechanics.

We gave it a [3/5] in our initial 2016 review, although that was admittedly before it had Touch controls and true 360 room-scale tracking.  The game has since made its way to Oculus Quest.

Neither Facebook nor Crytek have mentioned whether The Climb 2 is also headed to Rift, so for now it’s probably best to consider it a Quest platform exclusive.

The post Crytek’s Long-awaited ‘The Climb 2’ Coming to Oculus Quest on March 4th appeared first on Road to VR.

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The Climb Available Now On Quest With Rift Cross-Buy

Crytek’s The Climb is now available on Oculus Quest with cross-buy enabled for Rift owners.

Check out some gameplay we captured of the game’s Bay level:

The game built on Crytek’s CRYENGINE on PC continues to be one of the most visually impressive projects you’ll find in a VR headset. Its launch on Quest has been highly anticipated and while it clearly can’t match PC, the project appears to have held onto a large chunk of its visual fidelity despite running on Quest’s lower powered chipset.

The game features three settings to climb — Alps, Bay, and Canyon — with multiple routes and day or night lighting as well as different modes to fit various play styles. There’s a Tourist mode available, for example, that simplifies the game mechanics so that players can enjoy the scenery rather than focusing so much on, you know, not falling. There’s also an asynchronous multiplayer mode that lets you compete against your friends by trying to make it up the mountain faster. The project is priced at $29.99 and takes up around 1.63 gigabytes on Quest, according to its store page.

the climb oculus quest alpsWe can’t wait to dig deeper into The Climb and get a good handle on how it compares to the earlier Rift version. The wireless freedom on Quest seems like it will be an incredible fit for the project as removing the tether from the game may make players more comfortable reaching for hard-to-get handholds.

Have you tried The Climb yet on Quest? What do you think? Please share in the comments.

The post The Climb Available Now On Quest With Rift Cross-Buy appeared first on UploadVR.

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The VR Game Launch Roundup: Reaching new Heights in VR

VRFocus rounds up all titles being released across virtual reality (VR) headsets over the course of next week. In a good week for Oculus Quest users, next week will see a total of 3 VR titles from 2016 reworked for the standalone headset. Make sure to check out our accompanying video to get a preview of each title’s individual gameplay.

Glyph

Glyph – Bolverk Games

In this third-person adventure, work to direct this mechanical and spherical scarab through a series of non-linear desert settings, picking up various relics as you go. The scarab can fly small distances and must bounce off of other objects in the environment to keep going. Compete with friends online or work to beat your personal best speed.

Stardust Odyssey – Agharta Studio

In this fantasy spaceship shooter, race across 14 levels in both solo and co-op modes. Scavenge through merchant ships searching for hidden treasures and work to upgrade your ship to protect yourself from bosses, parasites and traps that surround you.

  • Supported platforms: PlayStation VR
  • Launch date: 3rd December

The Climb

The Climb – Crytek

Previously released 2016, German developer Crytek is now giving their immersive climbing experience the Quest treatment. Experience and perfect free solo climbing across four different locations. Explore caves and work the best routes and shortcuts while trying to earn over 100 achievements. Race and compete with others in multiplayer and online modes, featuring varying difficulty modes such as “Tourist Mode” for beginners in VR.

  • Supported platforms: Oculus Quest
  • Launch date: 3rd December

Waltz of the Wizard: Extended Edition – Aldin Dynamics

Revisit the magic in this new Oculus Quest version of the 2016 title, Waltz Of The Wizard. Learn what it’s like to have magical powers as you combine ingredients into a boiling cauldron to create new and extravagant creations. Dodge guards and traps that surround you, play a series of minigames and look for artefacts and Easter eggs along the way.

  • Supported platforms: Oculus Quest
  • Launch date: 5th December

Arizona Sunshine - Oculus Quest

Arizona Sunshine – Vertigo Games

In another reworking of a title from 2016, in this Oculus Quest re-release of Arizona Sunshine, you once again must fight through hordes of zombies in a desperate attempt to make contact with the last remaining signs of human life. Set in this post-apocalyptic Grand Canyon setting, you set off on a dangerous mission after hearing the faint sound of human life on your radio. Utilise over 25 weapons and make a journey across huge deserts, mines and canyons, also featuring multiplayer modes for up to 4 players.

  • Supported platforms: Oculus Quest
  • Launch date: 5th December

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‘The Climb’ Now Available on Oculus Quest, Launch Trailer Here

Don’t look down, because Crytek’s aptly-named climbing game The Climb (2017) is headed out of Rift exclusivity soon with its impending launch on Oculus Quest.

Update (December 4th, 2019):  The Climb is now available Oculus Quest, which includes cross-buy support, meaning if you already bought it on Rift, you now have it for free on Quest.

Check out the trailer below, which is a better version than the one previously reported by UploadVR:

https://youtu.be/CEWJJzH229k

Original Article (November 18th, 2019): Crytek tweeted last week that Quest owners should expect the game “soon,” although hasn’t mentioned a more precise launch window at this time.

As one of the most visually refined VR games to date, it wasn’t certain how the Quest version would live up to the original when it was first announced for the standalone VR headset back at Oculus Connect 5 in 2018; it looks like we have our answer now though.

A trailer, obtained by UploadVR, shows a noticeable hit in visual quality over the Rift version, as it shows both a visibly lower polygon count and lower-resolution textures—putting it somewhere in the neighborhood of the Quest version of Robo Recall (2017).

In the video’s description UploadVR maintains the trailer was encoded with a low bitrate, which causes some unsightly blockiness in the video capture (see update).

Graphics notwithstanding, The Climb for Quest looks to retain all of the game mechanics (and climbing locations) of the original. In our review on Rift, we gave it a middling score of [3/5], which was mainly due to overall comfort and the glaring issue that, at launch, The Climb was only playable with the Xbox One controller. Obviously the game has since been updated to support Touch, but the lack of Touch support definitely knocked it down a peg when it went live on the Oculus Store in 2017.

SEE ALSO
The Top 20 Best Rated and Most Rated Quest Games & Apps

Crytek has also issued updates since its inclusion of Touch support, including an expansion called ‘The North’ that features an icy playground inspired by the Arctic Circle. In case you haven’t played the Rift version before, here’s a quick peek for comparison’s sake:

The post ‘The Climb’ Now Available on Oculus Quest, Launch Trailer Here appeared first on Road to VR.

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The Climb Comes To Oculus Quest December 3, Trailer Shows Graphics

The Climb is officially launching on Oculus Quest on December 3, according to a Facebook spokesperson.

This VR climbing game was developed by Crytek back in 2016 for the original PC-based Oculus Rift. It was originally developed for the Xbox controller, the Rift’s input before Touch controllers were released. However of course upon the release of Touch the game received a day one patch with full support.

climb vr
The Climb on Oculus Rift. NOTE that graphics will not look like this on Quest!

We gave The Climb 8/10 in our review, calling it “a world in which the mechanics are so satisfying, the visuals are so beautiful, and the sense of accomplishment is so real that you just want to continue doing what the game enables you to do so perfectly: keep climbing.“

The game was one of the first announced for the Oculus Quest standalone headset, by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself all the way back at Oculus Connect 5 in October 2018. Radio silence followed this announcement however, even though back in June Crytek told us they’d give release date info “soon”.

The Climb was praised for its graphics when it released on Rift, and it still holds up today on Rift S. We’ve been extremely curious how well the visuals would look on the Quest port. Luckily, earlier today we got the first glimpse of this in the “coming soon” trailer:

It’s hard to tell from a low bitrate trailer, but the graphics look to hold up fairly well, considering the Quest’s GPU is around 10 times slower than the Rift minimum spec. The textures are obviously much lower detail, but the environment still looks stunning from a distance.

Like with past active games that have come to Quest, the wireless nature of the headset will likely for many make it a preferable overall to playing on Rift, even with the less detailed environment. We’ll make sure to give you our full impressions as soon as the game releases.

There’s no word yet on whether The Climb will support cross-buy with Rift, but we’ll let you know as soon as that information is available.

The post The Climb Comes To Oculus Quest December 3, Trailer Shows Graphics appeared first on UploadVR.

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Crytek’s The Climb Teased As ‘Coming Soon’ To Oculus Quest

Crytek’s gorgeous rock-climbing game The Climb is still “coming soon” to the Oculus Quest standalone headset.

We’ve been waiting for updates on the title’s Quest port basically since the announcement of Facebook’s $400 all-in-one headset last year.  A new message posted to the game’s social channels provided just that, re-confirming the title as “coming soon” to the system.

For those unfamiliar, Crytek’s The Climb released in 2016 for the PC-based Oculus Rift before the headset came paired with the Touch hand controllers. It received support for hand controls and updates since then to make it one of the most immersive — and most visually impressive — experiences available for PC-based systems. Other titles like Moss and Robo Recall already launched on Quest with fairly obvious visual downgrades. Other titles, like Superhot and Red Matter, maintain an incredible level of visual quality despite running on Quest’s much lower power system.

Even with visual downgrades many games play great, or even better, on Quest with the addition of wireless freedom.

We’re extremely curious to see how The Climb looks and feels on Facebook’s headset. Of course, Facebook is also planning to launch its Oculus Link wired connection this month that may enable the PC version of the game to run on Quest. Going wireless for The Climb may be a pretty compelling experience no matter the visual situation, but we’ll bring you hands-on impressions as soon as we have them.

What do you think? Are you looking forward to playing The Climb on Quest?

The post Crytek’s The Climb Teased As ‘Coming Soon’ To Oculus Quest appeared first on UploadVR.

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Crytek: The Climb On Oculus Quest Release Date Info Coming ‘Soon’

Crytek: The Climb On Oculus Quest Release Date Info Coming ‘Soon’

The Oculus Quest is almost a month old and we still don’t have any news on The Climb, the rock-climbing simulator-style game from Crytek. Back at Oculus Connect 5 (OC5) it was one of the very first confirmed titles for Facebook’s standalone VR headset, but has since vanished from conversations. It was expected as a day one launch title, then was absent from the list of launch apps, and hasn’t been talked about at all since the event.

To get information about its current status we reached out to Crytek directly. The response from a company representative was, as expected, quite vague:

“We’ll soon be able to give out more information about the release date for The Climb on The Quest.”

At least it doesn’t appear to have been canceled?

We also reached out to Facebook for comment, but they just told us to reach out to Crytek. Since the launch window timeframe likely includes the first few months, maybe it’s not far off. The word “soon” means different things to different people, but I’d wager that it will hopefully be out before Q4 this year. Since it was confirmed about eight months ago you’d think it should be nearing release quality at this point.

Crytek was initially very keen on VR as a studio releasing both The Climb and Robinson: The Journey, but have since slowed down their focus on the medium. The studio is arguably most well-known for its graphically impressive and demanding non-VR FPS game series, Crysis, and is now currently working on the online survival shooter, Hunt: The Showdown.

Hopefully we’ll find out more about The Climb on Quest, as Crytek says, soon. It’s one of the most visually impressive Rift games, so the visual downgrade will likely be quite dramatic.

Are you still eager to play The Climb on Quest? Let us know what you think down in the comments below!

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The post Crytek: The Climb On Oculus Quest Release Date Info Coming ‘Soon’ appeared first on UploadVR.

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New Trailer for Oculus Quest Reveals More Launch Titles

The Oculus Quest standalone headset is expected to launch soon – even though Oculus is still saying Spring 2019 for now – and in preparation for this the company has now teased fans with a new sizzle reel showcasing some new launch titles.

Oculus Quest - Front

Having previously confirmed that Robo Recall, Moss, Beat Saber, The Climb, and Dead & Buried II would be available on launch day, recently announced Journey of the Gods and Shadow Point have now also been confirmed. Adding to the are Superhot VR, Vacation Simulator, Creed: Rise to Glory, Space Pirate Trainer and Dance Central.

Titles like Creed: Rise to Glory and Space Pirate Trainer have already been out a while, so a lot of VR gamers have likely tried some of the older releases. Owlchemy Lab’s latest Vacation Simulator is brand new with the studio only just revealing the launch dates for the PlayStation VR and PC VR versions. Coatsink’s Shadow Point, on the other hand, is being built specifically for the Oculus Quest, offering a mystery puzzle adventure into the stars.

And for those with a really keen eye keep a look out for a flurry of videogame images right at the end, through the Oculus Quest lenses. VRFocus managed to spot what looks like The Tower, Job Simulator, Fruit Ninja, Rush VR, Ultrawings, Drop Dead, Bait!, Virtual Virtual Reality, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, Eleven Table Tennis, and Angry Birds VR. All making for quite the VR launch lineup.

Vacation Simulator

Oculus did previously say that Quest would feature 50+ titles for its launch, so there’s certainly a few more still to be announced. The headset will be retailing from $399 when it does arrive, with many expecting that announcement to be made during the Facebook Developers Conference (F8) in April.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of Oculus Quest and its latest VR titles, reporting back with all the latest announcements.