It’s time for another VR Gamescast with Jamie and Harry!
This week we’re back to recap last week’s Upload VR Showcase. We featured more new game reveals than ever before, so we’re going through a list of the biggest reveals including games like Killer Frequency, Gambit, What The Bat and new gameplay from Among Us VR. What were your favorite reveals from the show? Let us know in the comments below!
There’s also a lot of reviews to get through. We’re circling back to The Last Clockwinder after its launch earlier this month. Is this a VR puzzle game you have to check out? We also catch up with the new PC VR port of Green Hell and compared it to last April’s Quest version. Finally, we talk about Mothergunship: Forge. Is this crazy new VR shooter ready to tackle the VR greats? We weigh in.
The VR Gamescast goes live every Thursday covering the week’s headlines and reviews. Join us either on YouTube or the podcast service of your choice.
Nobody likes repeating themselves but where videogames are concerned repetition can often function as a core mechanic. Having to rinse and repeat (grinding) skirts a fine line between replayability and lazy game mechanics, however, precisely looping yourself over and over becomes an art form in itself in The Last Clockwinder. Almost like creating Rube Goldberg machines with yourself, The Last Clockwinder is a casual puzzler that can almost tie you in knots.
Casual because The Last Clockwinder provides calm, steady gameplay that you don’t need to rush. In fact, trying to complete tasks as fast as possible can be detrimental to the whole thing, because efficiency really is key in Pontoco’s indie gem of a virtual reality (VR) game.
Set within an ancient tree on a sprawling water planet, it serves as a home for seedlings from across the galaxy. Why did humans decide that a tree was a good place for this purpose, you’ll have to play to find out but the water is seeping in and endangering the collection. So you have to fix the pump and other areas of this complex by growing and harvesting fruit to power the various machines housed within.
The developer has been clever with its use of space within the giant tree. Rather than expansive areas to explore or winding corridors to navigate The Last Clockwinder takes place entirely in one room, with a giant globe set to one side allowing you to switch between the various floors. It’s a novel approach making the game world easy to navigate for VR beginners whilst adding that extra level of immersion veteran players demand, being able to grab levers and physically move the globe with your hands.
Physical interaction is very much core to The Last Clockwinder’s gameplay because that fruit isn’t going to harvest itself. Picking and dropping it into a container is just the very start of piecing together ever more complex puzzles that do offer a brain-taxing challenge by the end. All you have to do is record yourself in action and then it’ll loop, creating a whole line of handy robot replicas to do the harvesting for you.
Whilst the Meta Quest 2 didn’t seem to struggle even with a room full of clones going about their looped business, The Last Clockwinder’s real challenge is to optimise that process. That inevitably meant throwing fruit across the room, trying to not only make a perfect throw for the next robot to catch but ensuring the process is so smooth that the harvesting is at peak efficiency. Or not, in which case you just need to be a little more patient trying to build those stores up.
You can, of course, continually record and delete these clones as many times as possible, altering them between 1, 2 and 4-second intervals depending on that overall harmonious machine you’re trying to build. There’s no hand-holding either. Some rooms do offer a hints system that’ll enact a small holographic demonstration to get you started but after that, you’re left to your own devices. The Last Clockwinder’s difficulty never lay too much in figuring out the process as so much in the actual deployment of the solution.
Fruit varieties nicely mix up the puzzle complexity, where the bomb fruits will explode after a couple of seconds in your hands whilst the water fruit can only be flung using catapult-style devices. There’s a certain level of satisfaction once there’s a room full of busy robots toiling away. That’s when you’ll notice the slight imperfections and want to redo just one clone, completely unravelling the whole system.
Complementing the puzzle gameplay is the charming sci-fi narrative where mankind might be exploring the stars yet there’s still room for nature. There’s a very eco-friendly message to the whole narrative partially played out in between levels whilst tape recorders can be found to further reveal the plot. Aside from the odd tape player and the puzzles themselves, The Last Clockwinder doesn’t contain a lot of other interactive features. So if you like little side additions in your VR games then this is a little lacking.
That’s not what bothers me with The Last Clockwinder though. It instead features two of my VR pet hates, disappearing hands and teleportation-only locomotion. Grab anything and the hands vanish which always seemed immersion-breaking to me. I understand it’s easier to build yet suddenly seeing whatever object I’ve just picked up floating in mid-air just doesn’t fit.
Likewise with teleportation. Of course, it should be in there as the mechanic makes the whole experience comfortable for all players, especial when paired with snap turning. The Last Clockwinder works great as a roomscale videogame and having that bit of extra freedom with smooth locomotion would’ve been a real boon when fine-tuning a clone placement. Not game-breaking but a real omission.
The Last Clockwinder is a delightful puzzler all about robots, picking fruit, and the frailties of our natural world. If you love creating Rube Goldberg contraptions but want a game with a bit of a twist on that idea then here’s a good alternative. Overall it’s well crafted, lovely to look at, and for those that desire perfection in their puzzle-solving, The Last Clockwinder should provide a good few hours of entertainment.
The Last Clockwinder lets you program a chain of cloned robots and create automated fruit production lines to solve increasingly complex puzzles. Here’s our The Last Clockwinder review.
I know what you’re thinking — a puzzle game based around factory automation doesn’t sound like the most enthralling way to spend a few hours in VR. But I can assure you that the opposite is true – The Last Clockwinder is a true delight and gem of a puzzle game that’s well worth your time.
The Last Clockwinder Review – The Facts
Platforms: Meta Quest 2 (formerly Oculus Quest 2), PC VR via Steam Release Date: Out Now Developer: Pontoco Price: TBD
The premise is pretty simple — returning to a mechanical, mystical tree after many years away, you’ll need to use programmable clone robots to revive and automate several fruit production lines to both power and prevent it from sinking into the ocean. There’s a pretty basic story peppered throughout the game, delivered through phone calls and voice recordings, but it rightly takes a background role in favour of the main event: automation and optimization puzzles.
Fruit Picking Puzzles
The entire game is essentially set in one large, cozy room within the tree. However, the centre of the room is frequently swapped out, presenting new areas and puzzles that are unlocked gradually throughout the campaign.
The main mechanic at the centre of The Last Clockwinder’s puzzles is your ability to record 1-4 second actions, using your controllers/in-game hands, which will then get repeated over and over, infinitely, by a robot clone. This allows you to build automated production lines where the robots interact with the environment and each other in complicated and dynamic ways to solve puzzles.
It starts out simple. For example, one mission has you picking a piece of fruit from a tree and placing it in a bin at the other side of the room. You might get one robot to pick the fruit, then use five other robots to pass it down the room and into the bin. A simple solution, but not necessarily the most effective – why have five robots slowly pass the fruit when you can use just one robot throw it across the room instead?
You’ll soon be recognising countless opportunities for efficiency at every corner, leading to many empowering ‘a-ha’ moments. The complexity of the production lines quick ramps up across rooms, adding new requirements, increased production goals and different types of fruit that behave differently. Sticks will allow your robots to attach multiple pieces of fruit together, for example, with some areas requiring specific combinations of fruit to be attached to each other before they get deposited. Other types of fruit possess their own challenges – some require tools to be cut from vines, while others don’t necessarily obey the laws of gravity. The variety in mechanics is smartly-implemented and very welcome.
Open-Ended Optimisation
While technically a puzzle game, The Last Clockwinder is much more about optimization than it is challenging trials. A few moments might leave you puzzled, but the answer is often obvious – the real challenge is in developing a method to get there. The beauty of the game’s open-ended nature is that you’re constantly coming up with solutions that feel completely unique, as if no one else would ever think of completing the puzzle in the same way. I was never once worried if there was a ‘right’ way to finish to any given level. The focus is on creatively playing around until you find something that works, and then rebuilding it in parts or from scratch to optimise it further, if need be.
Whiteboards in each room will advise you on the tiers of efficiency that are possible given the level’s restraints. The lowest tier, for example, might start at using 10 clones or less to produce at least 45 fruit per minute. The next tier might see that go up to 12 clones for 45 fruit per minute, then the final to 15 clones for 120 fruit per minute.
While fun targets, you won’t need to actually meet any of them to progress. New areas are unlocked through total fruit collected, not the rate of production, which means that even the most sub-optimal and slowest solution to any puzzle will eventually unlock the next area, it just might take a while.
This grants the player a lot of flexibility, allowing you to spend as much or as little time as you want perfecting each area. You can also return after you finish the campaign and re-jig your production lines to reach those higher levels of efficiency, adding some replayability.
Beautifully Balanced, Perfectly Polished
The Last Clockwinder’s economic sensibility is backed by strong, reliable interactions and the physics system. There’s extreme precision and predictability to every action, giving you the chance to master sequences and improve from every angle. Even when new mechanics are introduced, nothing ever feels out of your control — it as tight and balanced as possible.
This became a recurring theme from my time with The Last Clockwinder – balance and polish. Aesthetically, the game is wonderful to look at, especially on Quest 2, and you it has near-rock solid performance. That’s impressive given the dynamic and complex nature of some scenes. The campaign may only be four hours long (up to six, depending on your play style) but that feels perfectly apt here. There’s a thoughtful amount of variety across the campaign and the studio has a Nintendo-like knack for pacing the introduction of new mechanics, then gradually adding complication in layers.
This extends to sound. The audio delivery of the narrative never prevents you from performing tasks at the same time, which is perfect. In terms of soundtrack, the piano-focused tracks are absolutely beautiful and perfectly restrained, pairing wonderfully with the whimsical visual presentation. All of these elements come together to produce a Miyazaki-esque charm, providing the perfect tonic against the sometimes-chaotic nature of the puzzle gameplay.
The Last Clockwinder Review – Final Verdict
The Last Clockwinder is a truly balanced experience that feels incredibly accessible despite the potentially daunting nature of the tasks at hand. The technical and optimization-based approach to puzzles is a thoughtful concept that breathes new life into a familiar genre. Even better, it’s wrapped in a stunning, calming and immersive world, giving you just the right amount of story and a serene soundtrack to boot. The game’s gentle guidance, both in tone and gameplay, ensures the puzzles never feel overwhelming, but empowering.
It’s an absolute delight to unravel the mystery of The Last Clockwinder and beyond satisfying to feel such a strong level of creative and intellectual control over the solutions to each puzzle. With no wrong answer to any given problem, it’s a puzzle game that centres itself around letting you choose your own approach at all times. If you’re looking for a relaxing yet stimulating few hours in VR, The Last Clockwinder comes highly recommended.
UploadVR recently changed its review guidelines, and this is one of our new Recommended review labels. You can read more about our review guidelines here.
This review was conducted on Meta Quest 2. What did you make of our The Last Clockwinder review? Let us know in the comments below!
Welcome to another weekly edition of The VR Drop, where gmw3 looks ahead to see what exciting virtual reality (VR) videogames are coming to a headset near you in the coming days. We’ve got a full roster to end the month of May and welcome in June, from brain teasers to energetic rhythm titles.
The Last Taxi – ZenFri Inc.
Take part in a narrative set in a far-flung future where you’re the very last human taxi driver. The usual dystopian nightmare where surveillance, automation and human modification run rife, The Last Taxi is all about picking up fares and being chatty to earn tips and upgrade your ride. However, conversations with your passengers soon reveal the darker side of the city, putting you in the middle of whether to inform the authorities and the repercussions of doing so.
Time for a clone making brain tickler in The Last Clockwinder. Inside an ancient tree, there are valuable plants and seeds to save, only achieved by getting the place in working order. To do so you’ll need to plant seeds to grow and harvest the fruit needed to power the place, and many hands make light work. But as there’s only one of you, you’ll need to carefully clone yourself over and over again, performing tasks that all need to link up like one giant Rube Goldberg machine.
First Person Tennis – The Real Tennis Simulator – Mikori Games
Originally released back in 2019 for PC VR headsets, First Person Tennis – The Real Tennis Simulator then arrived for Meta Quest’s App Lab late last year. Next week, the tennis simulator will see an official Oculus Store release, making it easier for Quest owners to find the videogame. Offering both single-player and multiplayer modes, First Person Tennis has both Arcade and Simulation settings, clay, grass, indoor synthetic and more court surfaces as well as 13 tournaments (4 Slam and 9 Masters); everything a VR tennis fan needs.
It doesn’t feel like a proper VR Drop without at least one rhythm action title on the list, next week in the form of Drums Rock. This is another VR videogame making it to new headsets, coming to SteamVR having initially released as a Quest App Lab title. As the name suggests, Drums Rock sits you behind a classic drum setup, with a 4+ hour campaign to play through featuring Hard rock, heavy metal, Nu metal, and other genres. As this is an Early Access title, developer Garage51 plans on adding further content, already collaborating with Until You Fall from Schell Games.
Finally, there’s CAVE VR, an explorative puzzler set inside a cave system – hope you are not scared of tight spaces. Discover the hidden secrets of the cave, with ancient ruins littered with puzzles that block your way back to the surface.
The Last Clockwinder is casual puzzle game that tasks you with building moving contraptions out of your own clones. While constructing complex factories essentially populated by just yourself is good fun, the game also excels in delivering a world that feels alive, which isn’t an easy task when you’re basically (ok, not exactly) in one room the entire game with a bunch of automatons picking fruit and pumping levers. Thanks to its seemingly Studio Ghibli-inspired setting and series of audio logs which tie it all together with a heartfelt story, The Last Clockwinder makes for a charming little adventure that may just pull a heartstring or two.
The Last Clockwinder Details:
Available On: Quest, SteamVR Release Date: June 2nd, 2022 Price: $TBD Developer: Pontoco Publisher: Cyan Ventures Reviewed On: Quest 2
Gameplay
Humans have become a multiplanetary species, but even with our space ships and fun steampunk-style gadgetry, someone has to watch over the ancient clocktower built into the trunk of a colossal tree growing on a watery planet. The massive water pump inside is broken, and if you don’t fix it the universe could lose an irreplaceable landmark from centuries past as the tree becomes increasingly waterlogged and the rare plant life inside could perish. The tree-bound clocktower and the fate of its caretaker is a mystery worth unraveling, so I won’t say anymore for the sake of spoilers.
Entering the tower from its balcony, you find a pair of gloves that let you record your actions and loop them so you can complete more complex tasks. Creating an automaton is pretty effortless: a button press on your left controller lets you start recording your movements for a set amount of time—a duration of one, two, or four cycles—and another button lets you delete any bot you deem unworthy. I found it best to mimic each action first and work through the chain of events before committing to recording and setting the bots in motion. That said, you’ll still find yourself spawning and killing a lot of bots as you inevitably biff a critical throw or mess up timing on a catch.
Image courtesy Pontoco
There’s likely an effective limit to how many robots you can spawn, but that’s not really the focus. If you’re like me, you’ll obsess over recording perfect automaton behavior, like slicing a fruit from its base, handing the fruit and knife simultaneously to two different robots, and letting them do their chain of events. There’s a lot of satisfaction there when you can get those complex bits to come together just in the nick of time.
Ultimately the aim is to feed machines with the auto-generating fruit you find hanging off plants discovered throughout the game, and all of them have their own unique characteristics. A bomb fruit explodes if you hold it in your hand for too long, making it a game of hot potato. A squash-thing (whatever it’s called) needs to be cut from its base to be released and—you guessed it—there’s only one knife to go around. A Luftapple floats into the air like a balloon, so you have to knock it about and guide it into its receptacle, or it will fly off with a mind of its own. Here’s a good visual of how you might juice the game’s starter fruit:
I call The Last Clockwinder a ‘casual’ puzzler because the speed of production is up to you. The assembly line can be simple and slow, or increasingly Rube Goldberg-ian to max out the amount of fruit you can process. As puzzles become more complex, you’ll certainly be tempted to keep it simple though since setting up an entire chain of events can help you increase production, or make you pull your hair out trying to get just the right arch as you pitch a fruit halfway across the room. Interspersed throughout the fruit-gathering sections, which make up a bulk of the game, are a few one-off puzzles that present what I’d consider a medium difficulty level.
Optimizing your ad hoc factory for the fastest possible processing speed is an optional part of the game, since you can get by with just waiting for your tally of each of the fruits to go up at a slower speed provided you don’t mind bebopping around. You’ll need each of those fruits in abundance to unlock areas on the globe-shaped map, which lets up call up and plug in room-sized platforms held within the tree itself.
Don’t get me wrong: it’s not too casual of a puzzler. Near the end, which took me around four hours to reach, there are some genuinely complex puzzles to navigate. Really reaching for max efficiency on each room puzzle will no doubt add extra value to your gameplay session, provided you like to get into the nitty gritty of streamlining systems. Eg. have a robot cut a squash, toss a knife, and deposit the squash from half court. But again, you can always get by with the bare minimum.
And while you could play the game ‘easy’, it doesn’t treat you like you can’t follow basic instructions. One of my pet peeves is being led by the hand to solutions and ‘helpful’ voices over your shoulder, but thankfully the game doesn’t over tutorialize or butt in when it isn’t wanted. Voice overs are almost purely focused on delivering narrative, leaving you to ask for hints when needed via a single mechanism that gives you push in the right direction. You can take it or leave it, and I like that.
I also never felt like there was a down moment in The Last Clockwinder. Most rooms (not all) present a different puzzle, fruit, or fruit product to navigate, so the variability of tasks is pretty high. And those tasks build upon each other naturally until you get to the most complex machine near the end of the game which requires you to put all of your knowledge together in a satisfying way, making you feel like you’ve learned something and effectively used that skill to good effect.
Immersion
There’s no arguing that the world of The Last Clockwinder is small; it’s a multi-purpose room in a tree that you never leave. But it’s also such a cozy and familiar environment that I don’t think I would want to even if I could. It’s like the cool treehouse hangout I always wanted as a kid, but way more sci-fi and steampunkish than I ever could have imagined. I definitely left with the feeling of wanting more: a broader outdoor vista, better object interaction, and more narrative byways to get lost in, like books and messages that help fill out the story, if only to soak in all of the game’s expertly-crafted atmosphere.
That’s a wishlist, I know, but if I could really have one thing it would be better object interaction, or at least a better expectation of object interaction. I see tomes in front of me I want to read, chairs I want to sit in, and things I wish I could (pretend to) eat, yet the only interactive elements are the fruit and the machines themselves, leaving all of those painstakingly built set pieces a little more transient and less solid than they ought to be. That’s not such a damning thing when a good game is behind it all, although it’s just a shame I can’t inhabit more of The Last Clockwinder. That’s how beautiful and inviting the game feels.
Image courtesy Pontoco
Outside of impeccable visual detail, the game also includes high quality voice acting which is delivered via balcony-based comm system and tape recorders littered throughout the many rooms. Those narrative bits are numerous and triggered at key points in the game, but well worth your time as the mystery of who you are (or were) unfolds.
Another high point is sound design. The game’s piano-heavy soundtrack is warm and rich, underlining the cozy and homey feel of it all. To top it off, the game even challenges you to play the main tune, if only to wring some more fun out of the game’s looping mechanic. I could play the piano (keys are actually large enough to use) and the harp for a good while.
In the end, it certainly feels like the game’s developers, Pontoco, have taken strong inspiration from the likes of Studio Ghibli. That’s an ambitious target to shoot for, but I think they’ve built something that recalls so much of that quiet and honest home-spun charm whilst being distinct enough on its own that it doesn’t make the same mistake that many games do when aping such an iconic visual style.
Comfort
This may come as a shock in this day and age, but this is a teleport-only game which consequently also makes it one of the most comfortable of VR games out there.
You spend a good amount of time moving about back and forth to the same places, so it does save you a bit of time moving from point A to point B, although this does come at the cost of immersion. You can also snap-turn if you like playing seated, although this sort of game begs for room-scale interactions. There’s no artificial locomotion to speak out outside of those methods, since you’re essentially staying in a single room the entire time.
A release date is set for VR puzzle game, The Last Clockwinder.
The single-player ‘co-op game will release June 2 for Meta Quest 2 and PC VR via Steam.
The Last Clockwinder Release Date Revealed
There’s also a new release date trailer, embedded above, giving us a proper dive into the actual story and voice acting that will accompany the automation puzzle gameplay.
As we’ve seen in previous trailers, you’ll be solving puzzles by acting out actions to create a chain of automated robots performing tasks. Here’s a description from the developers:
The Last Clockwinder is a VR puzzle-automation game set in a cozy sci-fi world. Your mission is to repair the Clocktower, an ancient haven for the galaxy’s plants and seeds built into the trunk of a colossal tree. Use the Clockwinder’s gloves to turn every simple task into a looping clockwork automaton. These clones can do everything you can do, from planting to storing to passing items around.
Create an interconnected system out of your own clones. Grow plants, harvest resources, and work together to save the clocktower!
There are some delightfully inventive puzzle titles in VR, from casual hand tracked experiences to proper mind-bending videogames. Indie studio Pontoco and publisher Cyan Ventures are set to launch the next grey matter sparking puzzler, The Last Clockwinder, next month for PC VR headsets and Meta Quest.
Unveiled back in December, The Last Clockwinder is a VR puzzle-automation videogame with the aim being to repair an ancient clock tower built into a massive tree. The clock tower is a store for the galaxy’s plants and seeds, so you need to grow plants, harvest resources, and clone yourself in a bid to complete each challenge.
Automation is key in The Last Clockwinder, performing each task by hand before looping it with a clockwork clone, thus creating loop upon loop to create ever more elaborate sequences.
It’s not entirely about creating Rube Goldberg machines with your hands though. The Last Clockwinder will have a narrative where you’ll need to: “Piece together your complicated past as you work to save your childhood home.”
This isn’t the first VR title to use cloning as a gameplay mechanic, with Secret Location’s Transposeone of the more unusual examples of the mechanic. The Last Clcokwinder, in comparison, looks to be a far more gentile experience for VR puzzle fans.
The Last Clcokwinder is set to release on 2nd June 2022 for Meta Quest 2, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Valve Index (SteamVR). Check out the latest trailer for the videogame below and for further updates keep reading gmw3.
Developer Pontoco debuted a new trailer for its upcoming VR puzzle game The Last Clockwinder, alongside announcements of new funding and publishing partnerships.
The trailer, embedded above, isn’t too dissimilar to the one we saw back in December. It shows off the basic premise of the game – create an automated chain of robots to solve puzzles, fueled by gestures and actions that you perform in VR that the robots can then mimic perfectly to create a supply chain.
Pontoco also noted that the concept for The Last Clockwinder didn’t start out as one designed for VR. “We didn’t set out to make a VR game, initially. But we stumbled on this mechanic, and the more we played with it, the more we realised we had to make this game,” said the studio, in a prepared statement. “We wanted to make an automation game, but where you were the machines.”
The studio also announced two new partnerships this week, one of which is with Cyan Ventures. The core Cyan team is best known for its seminal adventure game, Myst, as well as upcoming VR title, Firmament. But the Ventures arm is a publishing team that’s also working on other VR titles like Area Man Lives. The other partnership is with Robot Teddy, a consulting and funding team that worked on Superhot VR and is also helping bring Among Us VR to headsets soon.
The Last Clockwinder is still set for release later this year in the summer for both Quest 2 and PC VR.
We’re looking forward to a ton of new games this year, as newcomers and trusted names in VR development alike are prepping to release bigger and better VR experiences.
Here we look at our most anticipated titles that are scheduled to release in 2022. We’ve ordered games according to their confirmed release dates, then the rash of titles sporting the ever-nebulous ‘coming in 2022’ release window, and then games that we have our eyes on (TBA). We update this article regularly, so make sure to check back for updated info.
Cities VR
Platform: Quest 2
Developer: Fast Travel Games
Release date: April 28th, 2022
Studiodescription: Be the mayor in Cities: VR, the ultimate VR city-building and management simulator. Design neighborhoods, construct buildings, direct the flow of traffic – all while you handle economics, emergency services, and more. Step inside this VR adaptation of the leading city-builder, Cities: Skylines.
Little Cities
Platform: Quest & Quest 2
Developer: Purple Yonder
Release date: May 12th, 2022
Studiodescription: Get ready to escape to the charming world of Little Cities, the cozy VR city creation game. Start with a simple road, carefully place your residential, commercial, or industrial zones and then watch the citizens move in! But keeping them happy is the only way to help your cities grow.
The Last Clockwinder
Platform: PC VR, Quest 2
Developer: Pontoco
Release date: Summer 2022
Studiodescription: A VR game about building contraptions out of your own clones in a cozy sci-fi world.
Ruinsmagus
Platform: PC VR, Quest 2
Developer: CharacterBank
Release date: Summer 2022
Studiodescription: Beneath the quaint streets and alleyways of Grand Amnis lies a vast labyrinth of ruins, long-forgotten by those above. In RUINSMAGUS, journey deep into this hidden subterranean realm in search of precious and powerful artifacts. Unravel the secrets of a lost age and grow from a novice wizard into a powerful, spell-wielding Magus in this narrative-driven action JRPG that includes 26 fully-voiced quests—featuring the vocal talents of Naomi Ohzora, Ai Maeda, Eiji Takemoto, and more.
MOTHERGUNSHIP: FORGE
Platform: PC VR, Quest 2
Developer: Terrible Posture Games
Release date: June 2022
Studiodescription: Craft. Shoot. Die. Repeat. Forge absurdly powerful guns and fight through the belly of a metal alien monstrosity in this VR FPS roguelite follow up to MOTHERGUNSHIP. Wanna build a rocket-firing-shotgun or a toxic spike-ball-launcher? Unleash your inner mad scientist, then take on the MOTHERGUNSHIP.
NFL PRO ERA
Platform: Quest 2, PSVR
Developer: StatusPro
Release date: Fall 2022
Studiodescription: NFL PRO ERA uses NFL game data to create the most authentic on-the-field NFL VR experience to-date. Lead your team to a Super Bowl, improve your QB skills by participating in drills, or play catch virtually with your friends in your favorite NFL stadium. Read the defense, run the offense and make the plays just like the pros do on Sundays—and see whether you have what it takes to compete at the highest level.
Espire 2
Platform: Quest 2
Developer: Digital Lode
Release date: November 2022
Studiodescription: Your mission—should you choose to accept it—is to ultimately locate and stop the launch of an untraceable, supersonic missile, a true doomsday device. Wield an array of high-tech gadgets as you go behind enemy lines and try to save the world for a second time.
Tea for God
Platform: PC VR, Quest 2
Developer: void room
Release date: Late 2022
Studiodescription: VR adventure that allows infinite movement within your own place. Customise your experience. Make it an intense shooter, a roguelite explorer, a relaxing trek.
The Exorcist Legion: SIN
Platform: Quest, PSVR
Developer: Fun Train
Release date: Late 2022
Studiodescription: As the sequel to The Exorcist: Legion VR, the game advances the chilling storyline and mythology with both single player and co-operative gameplay as well as some other mechanics and play styles never seen before in a horror co-op game.
Ziggy’s Cosmic Adventures
Platform: PC VR, Quest 2
Developer: Stardust Collective
Release date: Late 2022
Studiodescription: ZIGGY’S COSMIC ADVENTURES is a fully immersive cockpit VR game set in a stunning universe. Fight your way through the solar system amidst intense arcade combat, navigate through treacherous space environments, and feel the rush of scrambling to manage your ship’s systems.
Among Us
Platform: PC VR, Quest 2
Developer: Schell Games
Release date: holiday 2022
Studiodescription: Among Us VR will keep what made the original party game so awesome. Players attempt to get their spaceship in working order, priming the shields or diverting power to various subsystems. Easy enough—except one or more members of the Crew are secretly Impostors, tasked with sabotaging and killing off the crew. Among Us at its best involves everyone accusing everyone, with the Crew trying to ejectImpostors from the airlock and Impostors trying to get Crewmates to turn on each other. Nobody is above suspicion.
Propagation: Paradise Hotel
Platform: PC VR
Developer: WanadevStudio
Release date: End of 2022
Studiodescription: Live an intense VR survival horror adventure with gripping storytelling, in which you will explore dark environments, make terrifying encounters and get your adrenaline pumping. Will you find your way out of the Paradise Hotel alive?
“Coming in 2022”
BONELAB
Platform: PC VR, Quest 2
Developer: Stress Level Zero
Release date: 2022
Studiodescription: Sentenced to death, you embody an outcast escaping fate. Discovering a pathway to a hidden underground research facility. A series of challenging experiments and discoveries await. A road to the truth calls from the void.
Ghostbusters VR
Platform: Quest 2
Developer: nDreams, Sony Pictures
Release date: 2022
Studiodescription: Head to San Francisco and start your very own Ghostbusters HQ. With a trusty proton pack on your back and a P.K.E. meter in-hand, you have everything you need to track, blast, and trap ghosts—and begin to unravel a mysterious conspiracy that threatens the entire city. You can go it alone, or grab up to three friends for a true Ghostbusters crew experience.
Red Matter 2
Platform: Quest 2
Developer: Vertical Robot
Release date: 2022
Studiodescription: Red Matter 2 picks up right where the previous game left off. You might’ve escaped the titular red matter last time, but you certainly haven’t stopped it. Doing so will take you across the solar system, from a base on our own moon to a space station orbiting above Saturn’s rings, and beyond. Uncover dark secrets and do your best to halt the red matter’s spread and save humanity.
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners – Chapter 2: Retribution
Platform: Quest 2
Developer: Skydance Interactive
Release date: 2022
Studiodescription: Continue your journey through a changed New Orleans, one that’s even more dangerous than before. Expect fewer resources, more walkers, and a new and bloodthirsty threat that will hunt you across the city. Scrounge up whatever you can to survive—and be careful. Your choices matter now more than ever.
Studiodescription: COMPOUND (Pre-Alpha) is a randomized rogue-lite, free-roaming shooter for VR veterans. Duck and dodge around enemy fire in a tough-as-nails retro FPS with multiple locomotion options.
Super Kit: To The Top
Platform: PSVR, PC VR(?)
Developer: Electric Hat Games
Release date: 2022
Description: Electric Hat hasn’t said much about the game outside of the official trailer, but looking at the video it’s apparent Super Kit is focusing again on high-flying parkour with the addition of some combat elements and some very slick-looking environments that recall games like Jet Set Radio, Mirror’s Edge, and The Climb 2.
Paradox of Hope VR
Platform: PC VR
Developer: Monkey-With-a-Bomb
Release date: Coming to Early Access “soon”
Studiodescription: Paradox of Hope is an immersive single-player VR shooter with survival and horror elements. Explore mysterious metro mazes of post-apocalyptic Moscow, use stealth or combat approach to achieve your goal, upgrade your equipment and arsenal, and enjoy the atmospheric moments of stalker’s life.
Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom VR
Platform: PC VR, Quest 2
Developer: Maze Theory
Release date: 2022
Studiodescription: Step into the gritty streets of 1920s Birmingham and London and explore iconic locations from the show, including The Garrison pub, Charlie’s Yard and Shelby’s Betting Shop, as you take down rivals and move up in the world.
Vertigo 2
Platform: PC VR
Developer: Zulubo Productions
Release date: 2022
Studiodescription: Vertigo 2 is a single-player VR adventure. Explore the depths of the vast Quantum Reactor as you descend to finish your journey home.
Ultimechs
Platform: “major VR platforms”
Developer: Resolution Games
Release date: 2022
Studiodescription: Ultimechs is the multiplayer VR gaming experience from Resolution Games that will be coming to major VR platforms next year. As the thrill of professional athletics meets the precision of purpose-built machines, Ultimechs welcomes players into the sport of the future to compete for victory. If you don’t have the speed, precision and rocketry that it takes to defeat your opponents, you’re done for.
The Last Worker
Platform: PC VR, Quest
Developer: Oiffy, Wolf & Wood Interactive
Release date: 2022
Studiodescription: The Last Worker is a first person narrative adventure centered around our struggle in an increasingly automated world.
Nerf Ultimate Championship
Platform: Quest 2
Developer: Secret Location
Release date: 2022
Studiodescription: NERF Ultimate Championship is a competitive multiplayer game that brings NERF battles into an electrifying competition only possible in virtual reality. Gear up with a wide range of new and classic blasters as you leap around fantastic arenas in intense 4v4 team matches. Soak in the sound of roaring fans and master your skills as you begin your journey to become the Ultimate NERF Champion.
Samurai Slaughter House
Platform: PC VR, Quest 2, PSVR
Developer: Tab Games
Release date: 2022
Studiodescription: VR-only physics-based combat game. Use stealth and creativity or brute force to take on your foes in a vast physics based sandbox. Battle both humans and demons while exploring a large metroidvania-style open world. Collect items and power up your character. Explore towns and interact with NPCs.
Update (April 21st, 2022): We’ve cycled out a number of previously released games, and plugged in a few more promising titles set to come out this year. If you have any suggestions or tips, let us know in the comments below.
What VR game are you looking forward to? Let us know in the comments below!
Fixing up an old tower without tools sounds like hard work, but much less so when you have an army of robotic clones at your disposal. That’s the idea at least behind The Last Clockwinder, a VR automation-puzzle game from Pontoco which is slated to hit Quest 2 and SteamVR headsets next month.
The Last Clockwinder is officially slated to land on Meta Quest 2 and SteamVR headsets on June 2nd, 2022, Pontoco announced.
In addition to tossing out a new trailer, the studio has also confirmed that playtime is estimated to be somewhere between 4-6 hours of gameplay. We’re looking forward to learning more about the game soon as we dive in for review.
In the meantime you can also now wishlist the game on Quest 2 in addition to Steam. Check out the new trailer below, which reveals a little more of the narrative aspect to gameplay.
The Last Clockwinder developer Pontoco announced today that it has signed on with Cyan Ventures (the publishing arm of Cyan Worlds, ,the studio behind Myst, Obduction, and more) for publishing support, affirming plans for a Summer 2022 release date on Quest and SteamVR (though a specific date has yet to be announced).
The studio has also partnered with “boutique video games consulting agency” Robot Teddy (which has backed projects like SUPERHOT VR and Among US) who has contributed an unspecified amount of funding and will assist the studio with business development.
Speaking to the inception of the project, studio Pontoco said that it hadn’t specifically set out to make a VR game, but it found the tech was a natural fit for the mechanics they began to explore.
“We didn’t set out to make a VR game, initially. But we stumbled on this mechanic, and the more we played with it, the more we realised we had to make this game. We wanted to make an automation game, but where you were the machines. Unlike traditional automation games which have cumbersome programming steps, we worked hard to make the action of cloning effortless. You do normal tasks with your hands, and the clones are kept in perfect synchrony. Everything just works, every time.”
The original article, which overviews the game, continues below.
Original Article (December 3rd, 2021): Studio Ghibli vibes radiate throughout the game’s announcement trailer, showing off a familiar harmony between nature and machine that fans of Hayao Miyazaki’s storytelling style have come to love.
While on your mission to repair the ancient tower, which the team reveals is built into the trunk of a colossal tree, you find a pair of gloves that essentially lets you record your movements and spawn an army of clockwork automatons.
It ends up feeling like a mini steampunk version of Factorio crossed with an immersive take on the cleaning montage from Howl’s Moving Castle (2004).
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Image courtesy Pontoco
Image courtesy Pontoco
Image courtesy Pontoco
Image courtesy Pontoco
Image courtesy Pontoco
Automatons help you grow plants, harvest resources, and “find a way to save the clocktower,” Pontoco says.
What is it being saved from? We’re still hoping to find out, as the game’s world-building looks already so mature that there must be some lore behind it all.
As it is, The Last Clockwinder seems rich with possibility, as you no doubt need to learn recipes and craft increasingly complicated things in your effort to get the old tower back in shape—something that definitely looks like a labor of love.
The Last Clockwinder is slated to arrive natively on Quest 2 (re: not the original Quest) and SteamVR headsets sometime in Summer 2022. You can wishlist the game on Steam here.
