Next month’s Raindance Film Festival will bring some of the best VR experiences from events like Tribeca and Sundance to London for the first time.
The festival this week announced 33 different VR experiences that will be on display in the UK capital from September 26th to October 7th. Many of these include intriguing films and experimental apps that are making their UK premiere, like the next installment in the Arden’s Wake series and Crow: The Legend, which stars Oprah Winfrey and John Legend.
Raindance will also play host to some all-new experiences like 7 Miracles, the feature-length VR movie being published by Vive Studios that follows Jesus throughout the book of John. The Archivist, meanwhile, is a Twin Peaks-inspired piece that has players explore a surreal mystery. We’re also excited to check out The Apple, a multi-person experience that takes viewers through various stages of life.
Elsewhere there’s a selection of 360 degree video playlists that showcase the latest the medium has to offer and even a gaming section with interactive content on offer. The latter includes a look at Ubisoft’s Transference and an incredibly nope-looking VR horror game named Kobold.
Each of the experiences featured in the festival is also up for the Raindance Immersive Stories Awards, covering categories like Best Immersive Story and Best Interactive Narrative Experience. The nominees will be sharing their own stories at a Summit on October 4th, while the Awards Ceremony will kick off on October 6th.
Tickets to various screenings across the week are available from Raindance’s official website.
Can you believe it’s nearly September already? It seems like it was only yesterday that we were looking ahead to 2018 and imagining all the great VR gaming we were going to be doing. Now most of it’s behind us.
Fortunately, though, 2018 has saved the best for last. We’ve rounded up 13 games!
Firewall Zero Hour Platforms: PSVR Release Date: Out now
A hugely anticipated competitive shooter from First Contact Entertainment, Firewall pits two teams of four against each other in attack and defend game modes. It’s been compared to Counter-Strike and Rainbow Six, and we’ve fallen in love with it each and every time we’ve played it. Pick up a PlayStation Aim controller for the best way to play.
Bow to Blood Platforms: PSVR Release Date: Out now
We weren’t going to put Bow to Blood on this list until we actually played it. Turns out Tribetoy’s PSVR debut is a winning mix of strategic micromanagement and arena-based combat. You pilot flying ships in a televised tournament and must forge unlikely relationships in order to prevail. This may be a sleeper hit for PSVR.
Torn Platforms: Rift, Vive, PSVR Release Date: Out now
An intriguing new puzzle game and the first internally-developed project from Aspyr. Torn sees you explore an enormous mansion as you gather the memories of as renowned inventor. Puzzles ask you to complete circuits by locating symbols fitted to random objects and putting them in the correct place. It’s a mad scientist of a VR game and definitely worth your time.
Zone of the Enders 2: The 2nd Runner – MARS Platforms: Rift, Vive, PSVR Release Date: September 4th
First announced at Tokyo Game Show last year, this is a full remaster of Konami’s cult classic, Zone of the Enders 2, with full support for VR putting you inside the cockpit of Jehuty for the first time. The entire original game can be played inside your headset, and what we’ve played of it is promising, if a little confusing.
Transference Platforms:Rift, Vive, PSVR Release Date: September 18th
The next VR game from Ubisoft is developed in partnership with Elijah Wood’s Spectrevision. It’s a psychological thriller that mixes CG and live action elements to create a mysterious and disturbing exploration of the mind. There’s a free demo out right now on PSVR, and what we’ve played of the main game is hugely promising.
Creed: Rise to Glory Platforms: Rift, Vive, PSVR Release Date: September 25th
Raw Data and Sprint Vector developer Survios is back with what’s sure to be another knockout. Creed is based on the recent films spinning out of the Rocky franchise and has you using two motion controllers to box your way to the top. Survios’ new Phantom Melee Technology is promising a more immersive, convincing boxing system than we’ve seen so far in VR.
Astro Bot: Rescue Mission Platforms: PSVR Release Date: October 2nd
One of the surprise success stories from PSVR’s launch back in 2016 was a small platforming minigame in the free Playroom VR collection. Now, Sony Japan is building that experience out into a full game akin to Lucky’s Tale. Expect inventive use of VR as you make your way through several levels saving your adorable robo buddies. This is sure to be a great addition to your PSVR library.
Evasion Platforms:Rift, Vive, PSVR Release Date: October 9th
Archiact, the developer of Waddle Home (yes, Waddle Home) is trying its hand at making the next big VR shooter. Evasion features co-op bullet hell gameplay in which you fight your way through an alien planet-trashing just about everything in sight. PS Aim support on PSVR is sure to make the experience more immersive.
Defector Platforms: Rift Release Date: 2018
Don’t forget about this hugely promising spy game from Wilson’s Heart developer Twisted Pixel, which last we heard was still coming this year. It’s as cinematic as VR gets, mixing stylish gadget-based gameplay with exciting shootouts and massive setpieces that will have you skydiving and more. Expect big things from this.
Another one that might have slipped under your radar – Prey is getting VR support! Well, sort of. It’s actually an escape room-style DLC expansion in which you have to solve puzzles. There’s also going to be a multiplayer component in which players become shape-shifting mimics and disguise themselves in a room before a human player seeks them out. Verdict’s still out on this one.
Echo Combat Platforms: Rift Release Date: 2018
An expansion to the excellent Echo Arena was promised at Oculus Connect last year and it looks like it’ll be launching soon. Echo Combat brings gunplay into the series’ excellent zero gravity arenas. There’s already been several promising betas for the game, so expect this to be one of the big Rift games of the next few months.
A Fisherman’s Tale Platforms:Rift, Vive, PSVR Release Date: 2018
Firebird: La Peri developer Innervision is getting much closer to a game with its latest VR project, which has some incredibly inventive puzzles on offer. You play as a fisherman that has a scale model of his lighthouse inside his room. Look into it, and you’ll see a small version of yourself, while a bigger version can be found outside your window. Things get trippy fast.
Space Junkies Platforms:Rift, Vive Release Date: 2018
Ubisoft has a competitor to Echo Combat also coming this year. Space Junkies is another zero gravity shooter in which you grab power-ups and dual-wield weapons as you fling yourself around space, blasting other players. It’s a decidedly more arcadey take on the genre, and we can’t wait to see if it manages to build a community of its own.
Raindance Film Festival is one of the biggest and most recognisable international film festivals, and it is also one that has embraced immersive experiences, which includes virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR). Raindance has now confirmed the line-up for its immersive strand, the Raindance Immersive Stories and Interactive Worlds.
The event will be held between Thursday 4th and Sunday 7th October. The selection will feature 33 VR experiences, many of which will feature well-known directors and performers such as Elijah Wood, who is appearing in surreal VR experience Transference and Dame Judi Dench, who will be in My Oak Tree VR.
17 VR experiences will get their world premiere, including a feature-length cinematic VR experience called 7 Miracles, which has been produced by Vive Studios. The experience has been nominated for the Grand Jury Prize: Best Immersive Story at the festival.
The selected 33 VR experiences have been nominated for Raindance Immersive Stories Awards, across a full 10 categories:
Best Interactive Narrative Experience
Best Animation Experience
Best Cinematic Experience
Best Documentary Experience
Best Social Impact Experience
Best Music Experience
Best Multi-Person Experience
Discovery Award: Best Debut Experience
British Award: Best UK Experience
Grand Jury Prize: Best Immersive Story
In order to keep up with the change in the film industry, and the developing technology of the immersive sector, the festival introduced a new award, Best Multi-Person Experience, which attempts to show what the future of immersive storytelling may be like.
The ten winners will be selected by an international panel of jury members, taken from all across the film industry.
The Raindance Film Festival will begin on Wednesday 26th September, and run until Sunday 7th October. Further information, including the full list of Raindance Immersive Stories is available on the Raindance Film Festival website.
Future coverage on film festivals with a VR or immersive element will be here on VRFocus.
During my latest hands-on demo with Transference from Ubisoft and Spectrevision last week, I got chills sent straight down my spine at two very specific moments. The first time, it was a classic jump scare. I was rummaging through drawers looking for clues when I turned around to see a dark, silhouetted figure of a small child at the end of the hall. It gasped and ran off. Small children in horror experiences always get me.
The second time though wasn’t intended as a jump scare at all and gave me chills just from the slow building anxiety and unsettling scenario I watched unravel. While standing at a table in the hallway, but in a different “dimension” of sorts, I heard the answering machine. It was a classic, “happy family” welcome message with mom, dad, and son chiming “Leave a message!” in unison with a dog barking at the end. Then the voicemail starts. It’s from a worried friend that hadn’t heard from the family that lived in that apartment in a long time, so she said she was calling the cops. After walking through the halls earlier, seeing the creepy writings on the wall, hearing the faint sounds of singing, crying, and yelling all mixed together, for some reason that worried voice really hit me.
You can watch some clips of my demo down below played on a Rift with Touch while seated; it’s the first time the game’s been capturable:
During my gameplay above you’ll notice things like FOV dimming and snap turning that were there for the demo to help combat motion sickness, but those features can be turned off in the full version of the game.
It felt real in a way that few VR games have felt real and as I think back to that moment, listening to the voicemail on the answering machine, I remember it as something I experienced — not as a game I played. Transference seems to be specifically designed to engineer that type of feeling.
In psychology, the concept of transference is described as a phenomenon in which you unconsciously redirect a person’s feelings for one person towards another person. In this game, you “play as yourself in the minds of a family, created using their collective brain data” according to the one-sheet provided after my demo. So, it’s almost like a simulation of a simulation.
As you can probably guess, in a lot of ways, Transference is an incredibly meta experience. The developers sourced VR for a lot of their inspiration on the project and it shows. When you play Transference you’ll switch between perspectives of Raymond Hayes, a brilliant scientist, Katherine Hayes, his wife, and Benjamin Hayes, their troubled son.
The general flow of gameplay in Transference revolves around switching back and forth between two versions of the same environment. One version feels more “real” almost like a memory, with things like family photos and relics of the past spread about, while the other version has a bit of an orange filter on itself and is full of glitches. It’s those glitches that serve as the core of the gameplay.
While exploring an area you may find something in one version of the world that can then be used in the other version to solve a glitch or repair a memory by switching back and forth. It’s a very linear game, but that linearity serves it well. The concept was to meld the film and gaming experience together and from what I’ve seen it feels like a success. Everything from the visuals and sound design to the pacing of its story and the way you interact with objects is extremely polished and well-done.
After playing so many VR horror titles, like Resident Evil 7, A Chair in a Room, Paranormal Activity, and more, I’ve learned the most important thing is to nail that sense of presence, to make the user feel like they exist inside the experience and Transference nails it.
My gut tells me a big reason why it works so well is because of the use of real human actors. Raymond Hayes talks directly to you, the player, at the beginning via a flat 2D monitor and, near the end, you see floating screens all around you playing family videos and showing Raymond talking once again. When you find photos in the world, they’re of the actual human actors. This aspect combined with the “digital simulation of consciousness” angle really does wonders for selling that suspending your disbelief.
Transference is set to release very soon on September 18th. The VR version of the game will be available on PSVR and PC VR headsets (such as the Rift, Vive, and Windows VR) as well as on PC, PS4, and Xbox One as a non-VR game. It will be $24.99 on all platforms and is estimated to last around 2-3 hours, or, “about the length of a movie” according to developers.
And as a surprise treat, today, August 20th, there is a free demo available on PS4 with both PSVR and non-VR support that tells a standalone story. It’s the same demo we played back at E3 2017 and you can try it right now.
Let us know what you think of Transference so far down in the comments below!
Der VR-Psycho-Thriller Transference von Ubisoft und Elijah Woods Produktionsstudio SpectreVision bringt den spannenden Spagat zwischen Videospiel und Spielfilm in die Virtual Reality sowie auf die Monitore. Nun wurde im Rahmen der Gamescom 2018 ein offizielles Veröffentlichungsdatum sowie ein kleiner Vorgeschmack in Form der Demo Transference: The Walter Test Case im PlayStation Store für PS4 und PlayStation VR (PSVR) veröffentlicht.
Transference – VR-Psycho-Thriller kostenlose Demo für PlayStation VR (PSVR) veröffentlicht
Auf der E3 2017 wurde das VR-Projekt Transference erstmals vorgeführt. MMit seiner Mischung aus CGI-Elementen, realen Personen und Ingame-Grafik zog der Titel durchaus Aufmerksamkeit auf sich. Ein Jahr später gab Ubisoft auf der eigenen Pressekonferenz auf der E3 2018 weitere Details sowie Einblicke in das kommende Spiel.
Die düstere Story handelt von einem Familienvater, der von selbstzerstörerischen Zwangsvorstellungen geplagt wird. Seine angeschlagene Psyche äußert sich in seinem destruktiven Verhalten gegenüber seiner Familie. Um den Auslösern auf den Grund zu gehen, wagen sich die Spieler/innen in einem experimentellen Versuch in die digitale Nachbildung des Geistes der Familienangehörigen. Symbolisch wird der Geist durch ein finsteres Haus mit zahlreichen Korridoren dargestellt, das mit verstörenden Erlebnissen sowie diversen Rätseln wartet. Durch die unterschiedlichen Einblicke der verschiedenen Familienmitglieder wird die Geschichte aus diversen Erzählperspektiven erläutert.
Gute Nachrichten gibt es nun für die Besitzer/innen einer PS4 bzw. PlayStation-VR-Brille. Für die Konsole wartet bereits jetzt eine kostenlose Demo im PlayStation Store. Die Demoversion Transference: The Walter Test Case führt euch in ein Prequel zum Originalspiel. Darin könnt ihr in den Verstand einer Testperson eintauchen, die unter einer posttraumatischen Belastungsstörung leidet. Dort gilt es, ebenso wie im Hauptspiel, die verschiedenen Teile des Geistes mit diversen Rätseln zusammenzufügen.
Transference soll am 18. September offiziell für PlayStation VR (PSVR), Oculus Rift und HTC Vive erscheinen. Die Demo Transference: The Walter Test Case ist ab sofort kostenlos für PS4 und PlayStation VR (PSVR) im PlayStation Store erhältlich. Ob und wann die Demo auch für Monitor und PC-Brillen erscheint, ist derzeit noch nicht bekannt.
You won’t have long to play all of Ubisoft Montreal and SpectreVision’s new VR title, Transference, but you can get a taste of it from today.
The game, which will launch on September 18th, just got a free demo on PS4’s PlayStation Store with support for the PSVR headsets.
Unlike most demos, this download is actually a prequel to the main game, taking place several years before it. In it, you explore the memories of someone that suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), digitally recreating as part of an unorthodox new research case. You’ll need to solve clues and explore your surroundings in order to unlock the mysteries that lie within.
Transference was announced at E3 2017 and caught our attention thanks to its developers, which include The Lord of the Rings’ Elijah Wood. It uses an intriguing mix of fully CG elements as well as live-action video. We’ve been hands-on with it a few times and always come away impressed.
Sadly the demo is exclusive to PS4, so Rift and Vive owners will have to wait until full release. The game can also be played without a VR headset, though, so if you don’t own the headset but still have a PS4 you can still try it out.
There’s nothing quite horror to showcase how involving and immersive virtual reality (VR) can really be, enveloping players in a world that purely wants to scare them. So naturally when VRFocus had the chance to play test Ubisoft and SpectreVision’s collaborative effort Transference, our video producer Nina was at the front of the queue to try the experience out and relay those thoughts.
Transference is a mind-bending, psychological story that aims to blur the lines between live-action movies and videogame dynamics. During the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2018 the teams released the first decent trailer for Transference, detailing a story which involves a brilliant but troubled scientist and inventor called Raymond Hayes. He has been collecting from himself and his family which then congeals into a dark and twisted consciousness of its own. In doing so this new entity forms its own digital world which starts to alter the perceptions of Raymond, his wife Katherine and their son Benjamin.
Because of the family aspect the title features a multi-branching narrative, with actions that affect their lives whilst viewing content from the unique perspectives of each family member to help you piece together the mystery. So the choices you make ripple through time and space, with every reaction having to be considered.
Nina goes on to explain in the video how this works and the actual gameplay aspects involved between the live-action scenes. One thing is clear, Transference might be classed as a puzzle solving psychological thriller but from Nina’s point of view the title certainly sounds like a classic surreal horror experience, with a dark entity trying to chase you throughout the videogame.
Check out the full hands-on video below which also showcases some extra gameplay footage from the E3 event. Transference is due for release on Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR and HTC Vive with a Fall 2018 launch window. When VRFocus learns of an exact launch date we’ll let you know.
Ubisoft veröffentlichte auf seiner Pressekonferenz auf der E3 2018 neue Details zum VR-Psycho-Thriller Transference, der in Zusammenarbeit mit Elijah Woods Produktionsstudio SpectreVision entsteht. Demnach soll die spannende Mischung aus Videospiel und Spielfilm noch im Herbst 2018 für Oculus Rift, HTC Viveund PlayStation VR (PSVR) veröffentlicht werden. Zudem bietet ein neuer Trailer Einblicke in das vielversprechende VR-Projekt.
Transference – VR-Psycho-Thriller erscheint im Herbst 2018
Entwicklerstudio SpectreVision präsentierte auf der Bühne der Ubisoft-Pressekonferenzneue Details zum ambitionierten VR-Projekt Transference, das den gewagten Spagat zwischen narrativen Film und interaktivem Videospiel nimmt und beide Medien innerhalb der Virtual Realtiy vereinen möchte.
Der neue Trailer zeigt einen Wechsel zwischen realen Personen und Ingame-Grafik sowie Gameplay-Elementen. Darin ist eine schattenhafte Gestalt zu sehen, die durch die Korridore eines düsteren Hauses wandert. Elijah Wood versprach während der Präsentation, dass der VR-Titel eine tiefgängige und dunkle Geschichte erzählt, welche mit einer Vielzahl psychologischer Thriller-Elemente die Spielerschaft fesseln soll.
Der düstere VR-Titel dreht sich um einen von selbstzerstörerischen Zwangsvorstellungen geplagten Vater und dessen Auswirkungen auf seine Familie. Innerhalb des Spiels übernehmt ihr die Perspektiven unterschiedlicher Familienmitglieder und taucht dank eines gewagten Experiments eines Wissenschaftlers in deren Gedanken ein, um die verborgenen Geheimnisse des Zerfalls der Psyche aufzudecken.
Der menschliche Geist wird in digitaler Form symbolisch durch ein finsteres Haus mit engen Korridoren dargestellt, die es zu durchwandern gilt. Während eurer Reise durch die kollektive Gedankensimulation der Familie begegnen euch verstörende Erlebnisse sowie verschiedene Rätsel, deren Lösung euch der Wahrheit immer wieder ein Stückchen näher bringt.
We’ve just got our best look at Ubisoft’s Transference yet.
Developer Spectrevision took to the stage of the publisher’s E3 2018 conference today to showcase its psychological thriller, which is coming to both VR and traditional platforms. Introduced by the company’s Elijah Wood, a trailer for the game showed a mix between real-time and CG content.
Explorable VR environments seemed to dramatically shift in front of the player’s eyes as a tense story unfolded. It looks like this will be one you’ll want to check out.
Finally, we saw an official release window for the game – Fall 2018. Nothing more concrete than that right now, sadly.
Elijah Wood’s studio SpectreVision and Ubisoft Montreal announced Transference at last year’s E3, a VR thriller-adventure that takes into something of a virtual reality inside a virtual reality. It’s only a few more days until the game is officially released, with the highly-polished Transference hitting all supported platforms next week.
Update (September 14th, 2018): Ubisoft Montreal and SpectreVision are bringing ‘Transference’ to both VR and non-VR devices including on PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive as well as on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows PC. The official release date is set for September 18th.
A playable demo is already available on PS4 and PSVR. Pre-orders are also open on the Oculus Store, Steam, PlayStation Store, priced at a 10% discount on the final $25 price tag. Here’s a few minutes of gameplay, revealed at this year’s Gamescom:
https://youtu.be/g_iUYPH3kqg
Original Article (June 11th, 2018): Transference is a psychological thriller from SpectreVision and Ubisoft that aims to bridge the gap between movies and games by blending live action sequences with rendered environments into a perspective-shifting narrative.
Taking you into the tale of a man’s obsession, you explore his digitally recreated memories, something the studio calls a “maze-like puzzle concealing a corrupted truth,” which projects you into the digital consciousness of multiple troubled case subjects, giving you the ability to influence their fate.
The experience is said to arrive sometime in Fall 2018 (see update) on PSVR, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, PC, XBox One, and PS4. It also includes support for respective motion controllers.
Here’s a description taken from the experience’s launch trailer.
Plunge into the experiment of a troubled scientist, a corrupted digital simulation of his family formed using their collective brain data. Shift between the three perspectives of a family and unravel the mystery hiding in this mind-bending psychological thriller.
