Developer CM Games announced that its VR debut survival horror FPS game Into The Radius is leaving Early Access on June 20. The game initially launched on Steam and other platforms in 2019 in Early Access with less content, but now the game will enjoy a full release with all the content added during the development cycle over the last several months.
Set in an open-world Soviet wasteland, Into The Radius is a survival shooter with a sprinkle of horror as well. When we interviewed Brandon Marsh from CM Games earlier in the year, he described the game as “much more of a survival / stealth game, not a straight forward guns blazing FPS.” You need to use your navigation skills and prepare the right equipment for each mission, using modifiable weapons that will also need to be maintained to avoid jams.
The Early Access build started with just the open map and a handful of missions, leading some players to note that it had a slow pace and felt a bit unfinished. However, Marsh also noted to us back in February that a lot of content was being added during Early Access, such as more maps, voice acting, the full storyline and special missions, as outlined in the Early Access milestones. Once the game reached Milestone 6, it was ready for a full launch, which is now set for June 20. There’s even a new gameplay trailer to celebrate the launch, which you can view embedded above.
It’s clear that Into The Radius has come a long way since the beginning of Early Access. It launches for PC VR on June 20 on the Steam and Oculus stores, plus it will also be available through Viveport Infinity.
Into The Radius is an open-world hardcore post-apocalyptic story-driven VR shooter with heavy influences from a wide gamut of entertainment media properties. It released on Steam Early Access last November and is dropping on the Oculus Home Store in Early Access today.
Game developers that work in VR often cite very different influences than the ones that work on non-VR games. If you ask a developer what got them into traditional game development you’ll likely get a list of old-school retro games, maybe some movies and TV shows, or books that they wanted to emulate. But in the case of VR, since the medium is so new, a lot of developers cite modern, contemporary games as key influences. In the case of Into the Radius, it’s a bit of both.
Taken from the game’s store page description:
Into the Radius is a single-player survival shooter developed exclusively for premium Virtual Reality headsets. The game is a dark mix of eldritch horror, open-world exploration, realistic weapon handling and intriguing storyline that will make you feel like you’re in the middle of the post-apocalyptic Pechorsk Radius zone.
Life and death intertwine inside the Radius, lurking somewhere in the middle of everything is the answer to a question you can’t quite remember. Through the flickering memories of your tarnished life as a former resident of Pechorsk and now UNSPC specialist, your only means of survival is to stalk the strange and threatening zone and complete the missions assigned to you.
We spoke to Brandon Marsh from CM Games about the game’s release, early reception, and future plans. These questions and answers were conducted over email in late November, but due to a busy release season, holidays, and packed schedules we’re just now publishing it to coincide with the Oculus Home release.
UploadVR: Tell me more about some of the main inspirations for Into the Radius, both VR and non-VR inspirations.
Brandon Marsh: The source material the game is based on is ‘Roadside Picnic’ by the Stugatsky Brothers. The S.T.A.L.K.E.R series and their mods share the same source material, it has a diehard community and we see Into the Radius as following in that tradition.
Other Non-VR inspirations include Myst (solo exploration with a narrative) and Darksouls (Hardcore gameplay, subtle / cryptic story, Death is included as a mechanic).
VR inspiration would be Onward, which was one of the first games that showed that free locomotion shooters have commercial appeal.
UVR: Many of the main complaints about the game early on seemed to be about the slow pace and “unfinished” feeling — are these things you plan on addressing.
BM: Early Access was a major milestone for us, the primary focus was to implement the systems with placeholder assets, make the game more immersive and focus on playability and functionality over style and cosmetics. We’ve been able to quickly test everything and got a lot of feedback from the community on what is working and what needs improvements.
Right now the game has its core mechanics fully playable. There is a big open terrain map to explore, a hub to pick missions, along with buying and selling of a basic arsenal of firearms and helpful items.
Regarding the game’s pacing, Into the Radius is much more of a survival / stealth game, not a straight forward guns blazing FPS. We strive to provide tension via player decisions, skill and exploration of the unknown rather than an overwhelming sensory stimulation.
UVR: What are some of the major ways you plan to update/improve the game while in Early Access?
BM: We’re still finalizing the development roadmap from now until launch. When it’s ready we’ll be sharing it out with the community. Next week we are releasing to Oculus Store Early Access as well as setting up a HTC Viveport ‘Coming Soon’ page.
Since the release, the team has been doing a lot of bug fixing and patching getting the game in a stable, playable state for everyone. We are working on the balance especially for starter players to make the difficulty more manageable, same with improving the tutorial (which is iterated every release.)
We’ve made a quite complex systemic game with an indie sized team, there are a lot of placeholder assets to be replaced, textured and finalized over the next few months. Things like additional content (maps, weapons, anomalies and artifacts), replacing the cassette tape subtitle and text-to-speech placeholders with voice actors, the storyline and special missions will start to be inserted into the game.
UVR: How has the reception been so far in terms of sales? You probably can’t give specifics, but if you could describe the reception versus expectations that would be great.
BM: We knew getting into this that the VR games market is very niche and our game is even more niche (catering to single player hardcore). Very few premium VR games even manage to surpass 5000+ copies sold, so our expectations were pretty tempered.
That being said, initial sales have been slow, we’re launching on more platforms and continuing to do a strong marketing push to build up momentum for the full release.
UVR: What other games have you worked on before?
BM: As a group we’ve all been in the industry with an average 6-12+ years experience. Starting from PC-console game outsource to development of top mobile games.
Some of those titles include: Nitro Nation, Mushroom Wars, The X-Files: Deep State, UFO: Resistance (Android), ZooCraft, Digger HD and Hot Wheels Infinite Loop.
Into The Radius is available on both Oculus Home for Rift and Steam for all major PC VR platforms for $29.99. The Steam page states an expected Early Access duration of 6-10 months, meaning a planned full release sometime later this year. The price will increase when it comes time for full launch.
A virtual reality (VR) short film about the experiences of immigrants suffering from exploitation, human trafficking and forced labour has succeeded in meeting it’s Kickstarter funding goal, with $10,353 (USD) pledged of the $10,000 goal.
Created by director Danny Ryan, The Road follows eight migrants who are told they will get paid work, but soon come to realise they are being exploited and may never get the life they hoped for. Ryan chose to film in 360-degrees to put the viewers in the centre of the experience and allow them to view the story in different ways.
Principal photography for the project completed on 28th May, 2017, and an update from the director indicated that shooting went well. The organisers of the project indicated that the majority of the money raised would be going towards post-production and distribution, since that is the most expensive and time-consuming part of the process, particularly when working with 360-degree footage which requires painstaking work to stitch together the footage into the spherical 360-degree format.
Backers will receive funding rewards ranging from a digital copy of the finished movie, through to an Executive producer credit, a set of movie stills, a copy of the director’s notebook and an exclusive Skype conference with the crew.
Post-production is likely to continue until August, with Kickstarter backers receiving their copies around then, with a final commercial release due in September, 2017. Ryan and the team hope that the film will be a high-quality experience, good enough to be shown at film festivals world wide.
A short virtual reality (VR) 360-degree film by director Danny Ryan is seeking funding through crowdfunding platform Kickstarter to create a film titled The Road about the lives of human trafficking victims.
The Road is currently in pre-production, with funds raised by the Kickstarter going towards 360-degree camera equipment, post-production costs, distribution, actors and other production costs. Ryan and the other filmmakers involved with the project are seeking $10,000 (USD), there are 17 days left and $,732 have been pledged as of time of writing.
Funding tiers range from $10 for a digital copy of the finished film, through to $50 which gets those pledging a copy of the film, digital production stills and their name in the credits, through to $1,000 to get an ‘Executive Producer’ credit in the finished film along with a Skype conversation with the creators, a copy of the directors notebook and a behind the scenes documentary.
The director admits that the project will be his first foray into the world of VR filmmaking as he comes from a background of traditional filmmaking. As such, he is seeking the expertise of various people who ave worked in the field of 360-degree filming before and hopes that he can combine their talents to create a high-quality film experience that will be good enough to show at film festivals worldwide.
Ryan and his team hope that if the funding goal is met they will be able to finish principal photography by early June, aiming for a release date in September 2017.
