tripwire interactive – Page 4 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

November 8, 2017November 14, 2017

‘Killing Floor: Incursion’ Launches on Steam Today for HTC Vive After Minor Delay

Killing Floor: Incursion (2017), Tripwire Interactive’s latest entry into the zombie-splattering co-op shooter genre, was supposed to arrive on SteamVR-compatible headsets last week. It’s available on Steam starting today for $40.

Update (11/14/17): Even though it launches today, it appears the game isn’t live just yet and still available for pre-order at 15% off. It won’t last for long, so have at it before it reverts to its normal launch price.

Original article (11/08/17): Citing concerns surrounding new features like Holdout mode, an endless high score challenge, Tripwire says the game will be delayed by a week so the developers can give everything an extra check.

Killing Floor: Incursion was once thought to be an Oculus exclusive, thanks to last year’s initial announcement that carried no mention of future support for other VR platforms. Now on Steam, the game is set to support both HTC Vive and Oculus Rift (with Touch). For wayward platform buddies looking to get in on cross-play co-op between Oculus Home versions and Steam-purchased versions, there’s some bad news:

Jared Creasy, Community Manager for Tripwire Interactive told Tom’s Hardware “[i]t will be important to note that the Oculus version and Steam versions will NOT be able to matchmake with each other due to the different backends being used,” said Jared Creasy, Community Manager for Tripwire Interactive.

Here’s the devs explaination, posted on the studio’s blog.

Hello everyone,

Many of you have noticed that the Steam release date for Killing Floor: Incursion has changed from today to November 14th. We would like to confirm this change and provide additional information about what is happening.

As Incursion proceeded towards the finish line for this major milestone (with the new game mode – Holdout, community requested features, and a new platform release as well) it became apparent that we needed to take a bit more time to get things right. What this means is that the team is taking an extra week to look over all these items to make sure they are up to a standard that not only we are happy with, but we believe you the fans will be happy with as well.

We are very excited to bring the game to Steam and get the new content and features into the hands of new and existing fans as quickly as we can. We strongly believe this is the best move for the game (and its fans) and we thank you for your understanding and patience.

Killing Floor: Incursion is currently 15% off on Oculus Home, and will launch with a 15 % off price on Steam November 14th.

The post ‘Killing Floor: Incursion’ Launches on Steam Today for HTC Vive After Minor Delay appeared first on Road to VR.

November 7, 2017

Get on the Killing Floor as Incursion Hits Steam

Tripwire Interactive has today launched Killing Floor: Incursion on Steam, bringing the title to HTC Vive for the first time. Oculus Rift owners can now purchase the title via Steam in addition to Oculus Home, and a new content update is launching for existing owners.

Killing Floor: Incursion screenshot Previously only available for Oculus Rift, Killing Floor: Incursion is based on the multi-million unit selling action horror franchise Killing Floor. This new virtual reality (VR) exclusive edition of the series takes the action horror genre in a new direction with a fully-realised, made-for-VR, story-driven adventure. Players can go it alone or face the horror with a friend in co-operative mode.

Killing Floor: Incursion challenges you to explore diverse environments from creepy farmhouses to high-tech facilities as you fight to survive against the horrific Zed hordes with a variety of weapons, including pistols, shotguns, axes, and even the occasional leftover limb.

“With Killing Floor: Incursion, we’ve managed to create VR gameplay experiences we couldn’t have achieved with a traditional game,” said Leland Scali, Project Lead at Tripwire Interactive. “The Killing Floor universe has never felt this immersive and we’re excited for more players to experience it first-hand.”

Killing Floor: Incursion screenshot Current Oculus Rift owners of Killing Floor: Incursion will receive a free content update today, including a new difficulty mode, Katana weapon, leaderboards, achievements, and the new “Holdout” gameplay mode, in which players must defend a map point against increasingly deadly waves of Zeds and bosses.

Following the Oculus Rift debut of the videogame, VRFocus offered the following in a review of Killing Floor: Incursion: “Playing through Killing Floor: Incursion is great fun. The assortment of weapons is the usual mix, with pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, grenades and knives on offer, with an inventory layout similar to other VR FPS’. The pistols are kept in side holsters which are nice and quick to access, whilst the bigger ranged guns and the melee weapons are located on your back – one for each shoulder. It’s a system that when done right works really well, and it does so here.”

Killing Floor: Incursion is developed and published by Tripwire Interactive for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, and is available to download via Steam now priced at $39.99 USD. VRFocus will keep you updated with all the latest VR releases from Tripwire Interactive.

October 10, 2017

New Playable Content for Killing Floor: Incursion to Debut at Oculus Connect

Oculus Connect 4 (OC4) begins tomorrow featuring the latest news and announcements from the company that spearheaded the revival of virtual reality (VR) as a consumer product. For attendees there’s going to be plenty for immersive titles on display there, with Tripwire Interactive confirming today that it’ll be debuting new content for its horror shooter, Killing Floor: Incursion.

The studio will be demoing a new gameplay mode for Killing Floor: Incursion, the one announced in August called Holdout, which it detailed in a blog posting: “After players complete a level in the campaign, that level will be opened up to be played in Holdout. Inside this level will be a single location that players are tasked with defending as long as possible. As previously mentioned, there is a continuous onslaught of Zeds – this means no breaks for trading. Starting with a pistol and knife, players will need to scavenge for better weapons as time goes on. As players progress, the Zeds will start getting more aggressive and more challenging Zeds will enter the fray, including multiple bosses at once!”

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Tripwire Interactive will be discussing the title and its new updates in a talk, titled ‘Killing Floor to Shattered Ceilings: Leveraging Established IP to Break Into VR’. The team will also be delving into the challenges and key knowledge gained in bringing the Killing Floor franchise to VR.

Exclusive to Oculus Rift and Touch, the videogame impressed VRFocus with the review saying: “Killing Floor: Incursion’s single-player campaign is a glorious action romp that’s easy to play through in one sitting.”

VRFocus will be at OC4 this week to bring you all the latest announcements.

August 26, 2017

Killing Floor: Incursion Teases New Holdout Mode

Monster-slaying shooter Killing Floor: Incursion has garnered mostly positive feedback since it was launched for the Oculus Rift. Despite only being released earlier this month, the development team at Tripwire Interactive said they are almost ready to launch its first major new content pack.

In a post on Tripwire Interactive’s own forums, one of the development team, identified as Yoshiro, spoke on behalf of the team to say that not only had the team been hard at work squashing bugs and making improvements, they were also working on a new mode for the videogame. A horde mode for one or two players titled Holdout.

The post identified how the new mode would work: Once a level is completed in campaign mode, it would be opened up in Holdout mode. In Holdout mode players will find a single location that they will be charged with defending for as long as possible as it is subject to a sustained assault by enemies. As players progress the Zeds will gradually become more powerful and aggressive, and multiple boss-level creatures will start entering the fray.

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Killing floor: Incursion received a positive review when reviewed by VRFocus, which said: “Playing through Killing Floor: Incursion is great fun. The assortment of weapons is the usual mix, with pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, grenades and knives on offer, with an inventory layout similar to other VR FPS’. The pistols are kept in side holsters which are nice and quick to access, whilst the bigger ranged guns and the melee weapons are located on your back – one for each shoulder. It’s a system that when done right works really well, and it does so here.”

There is no word yet on when the new content pack will be released, though the post says that the development team are working on prototyping for it now.

VRFocus will bring you further news on Killing floor: Incursion as it becomes available.

August 16, 2017

Review: Killing Floor: Incursion

Ever since Tripwire Interactive announced its first-person shooter (FPS) Killing Floor: Incursion at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2016, the videogame has looked like one of the most brutal titles coming to Oculus Rift. And that’s not far from the fact, with this free-roaming monster hunter not pulling any punches when it comes to creating an intensely fast paced experience that’s more action than it is scary horror.

The story unfolds with you as an elite Horzine Security Forces soldier who is tasked with dealing with an outbreak called Zed, unleashing hordes of horrific creatures which have similarities to zombies. Naturally there’s more to the story as Horzine isn’t all it seems, but you’ll have to play to find out more.

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Killing Floor: Incursion starts out as a survival horror. Once you’re through the fairly extensive tutorial you’ll find yourself in a dark and creepy forest. While the general premise is that of a horror title the videogame is far more action orientated, with this first level probably the scariest of all four locations. While there are only four specific levels each is broken up into three sections and they don’t feel short by any means. In fact the whole experience should last a good few hours from start to finish.

Playing through Killing Floor: Incursion is great fun. The assortment of weapons is the usual mix, with pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, grenades and knives on offer, with an inventory layout similar to other VR FPS’. The pistols are kept in side holsters which are nice and quick to access, whilst the bigger ranged guns and the melee weapons are located on your back – one for each shoulder. It’s a system that when done right works really well, and it does so here.

This means you can mix up your play style on the fly quite effectively. Suddenly in a pinch and need to reload, you can either give enemies a quick gun butt or drop the weapon and grab something else. Any weapons that you do drop will then return to their original inventory position after a few seconds (excluding grenades). There’s a satisfying realism to all the weapons, with the pump action shotgun being particularly good as you need two hands to use it, blasting the heads – or limbs – off enemies.

Not everything is perfect though. All of the enemies aren’t exactly what you’d call clever. Ok, so yes they are your normal crazed experimental monsters so they don’t really need cover, however they all do the same thing, run at you screaming/groaning until either they or you are dead. The same can be said for the bosses, all of which relentlessly attack you, but completing each one is more satisfying than the last so it’s not all bad.

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The gun play is good, the action is well paced, and the bosses are challenging, one aspect not covered is movement. This can be a crucial make or break issue in any VR title, especially when you need to explore whilst evading ravenous creatures. The default is teleportation as it’s the most comfortable for most players. Tripwire Interactive’s system means that the first teleport has a sizable distance and will remain so if not used too quickly. However try to move several jumps in quick succession and you’ll notice that distance gets shorter and location pointer becomes slower. This is to simulate stamina, so the more you move the tireder you get, hence the reduction.

Fine in principle, in a virtual fight it’s particularly annoying, especially in boss battles. As mentioned all the enemies tend to run at you so there will be occasions where you’ll need to evade several times. If you’re not careful it can end up with you cornered with no chance of escape – you better have some melee weapons to hand if this happens. All is not lost, in the menu is an experimental FPS movement mode, so if you can handle it, you can strafe and walk around as normal. Note the ‘experimental’, there are certain sections in Killing Floor: Incursion which can’t be traversed in this mode so you have to teleport, so you might find yourself either switching from time to time or just sticking with the default.

So is Killing Floor: Incursion still worth getting? Damn right it is. The videogame does have its faults but they aren’t gameplay breaking. Killing Floor: Incursion’s single-player campaign is a glorious action romp that’s easy to play through in one sitting. One thing not mentioned so far is the fact that there’s a co-op option, and as every gamer should know, bringing a mate along to cover each others back only increases the fun factor.

80%

Awesome

Verdict

August 3, 2017

Co-op VR FPS ‘Killing Floor: Incursion’ Launches on August 16th, Save 10% on Pre-order

Oculus exclusive Killing Floor: Incursion is due to launch on August 16th. The game is now available for pre-order on the Oculus store for $36, 10% off the $40 launch price.

Killing Floor: Incursion is a co-op VR FPS from Tripwire Interactive that puts players inside of the Killing Floor universe that’s been established by the studio’s two prior non-VR titles under the same franchise (2009, 2016). Here’s how the studio describes the game:

In Killing Floor: Incursion, players must take on the role of an elite Horzine Security Forces soldier as they, along with allies, fight their way through a story driven campaign using an array of weapons including pistols, shotguns, axes, and more. Players will explore the environment while completing puzzles, scavenging for weapons and ammo, discovering what the Horzine Corporation is really up to, and learning who the player can trust. Battle in diverse environments, from creepy farmhouses to high tech facilities, and uncover who… or what is behind the Zed menace.

As a co-op shooter we hope Killing Floor: Incursion will satisfying our itch to cooperate for survival with friends in VR, whereas a number of recent big budget Oculus exclusives have left us with fun but lonely single-player experiences, like Lone Echo and Robo Recall.

We went hands-on Killing Floor: Incursion earlier this year at GDC 2017. Road to VR’s Scott Hayden surmises the action:

Back-to-back, Hollister and I shot down hundreds of zombies, some of them floor-crawling nightmares and others upright with slick, oily skin. And there are a multitude of ways to execute the hordes; exploding their heads with dual Colt 1911 pistols or a single pump shotgun, cutting it clean off with a large fireman’s ax, or even beating the monsters with their own bloodied, detached limbs. Or you can do like me and shoot wildly and pistol whip them when they get too close. That works too.

There’s puzzles too:

Puzzles we encountered were fairly standard, but did require constant attention to each room’s architecture. Meeting a giant blue force field blocking forward progress usually means there’s something still important to do in the previous areas. Eg. an empty platform in one room and a few crystal skulls in another.

In the game’s alpha state, Hayden also found it difficult to keep himself facing the front-facing sensor setup—as the game throws enemies at you from all directions—occasionally resulting in lost tracking of the Touch controllers at critical moments (like when a zombie is coming straight at you). We hope that Tripwire has made some improvements on that end; if not, this may be the one to convince you to move to a 360 setup for your Rift sensors instead of the recommended front-facing.

The post Co-op VR FPS ‘Killing Floor: Incursion’ Launches on August 16th, Save 10% on Pre-order appeared first on Road to VR.

August 3, 2017

Killing Floor: Incursion to Debut on Oculus Store This Month

Killing Floor: Incursion, Tripwire Interactive’s virtual reality (VR) title based on its horror franchise Killing Floor, will launch for Oculus Rift and Touch this month the studio has confirmed today.

The videogame puts you in the shoes of an elite Horzine Security Forces soldier who must fend of hordes of monsters with an array of ranged and melee weaponry. You’re not on your own however as Killing Floor: Incursion allows for co-op gameplay so you can take a mate with you.

You’re given complete freedom to explore the environment so you can scavenge for weapons and ammo whilst looking for the best locations to hold out against the incoming monsters. Environments range from abandoned farmhouses to high-tech facilities.

Killing Floor: Incursion was first announced as an Oculus Rift title during the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) last year, appearing again at Oculus Connect 3 (OC3) later that year.

Pre-orders for the videogame are now open via the Oculus Store at a 10% discount prior to launch on 16th August. The regular retail price will be $39.99 USD.

For further updates on Killing Floor: Incursion, keep reading VRFocus.

June 10, 2017

E3’s PC Gaming Show Set to Feature Oculus, Intel, Tripwire Interactive, Ready At Dawn

E3 has just kicked off and already announcements are coming from everywhere, and now we know what to expect from this Monday’s PC Gaming Show. Oculus don’t have their own booth at the event this year, and will be showing off anything new during the show.

We already know that Ready at Dawn are hard at work on Lone Echo, a game we’ve already spoken to the developers about. Set 100 years in the future, Lone Echo will see you playing as Jack, the first sentient AI. Hopefully we’ll find out more information about the Oculus Rift exclusive.

Tripwire Interactive are hard at work on games for the Oculus Rift too, with Killing Floor: Incursion still in development we can safely expect more information. The first person co-op shooter has players assume the role of a solider who shoots down a variety of supernatural monsters.

Intel has exciting news for virtual reality (VR) fans too – hopefully we’ll hear more about their WiGig Wireless VR Solution. Announced a few months ago, we hope to hear more concrete details on when we might be getting our hands on the technology ourselves.

There is of course room for brand new announcements from all of these companies, and many more, at the PC Gaming Show, taking place Monday 10am PST, 6pm BST.

VRFocus will be talking to Ready at Dawn and Intel on the show floor, and will have full impressions of everything they have to show at E3 2017. For everything from E3, stay on VRFocus.

February 28, 2017

GDC 2017: Killing Floor: Incursion Lets You Dis-Arm Zombies And Then Beat Them With It

If I ever am forced to live through and eventually die during the zombie apocalypse, then I will look fondly back on games like Killing Floor: Incursion by Tripwire Interactive as adequate methods of survival training. While not the most realistic experience in the world, I still certainly feel like all of the gore and violence of this setting has done its part to subconsciously prepare me to do what needs to be done in the face of flesh-eating monsters.

It’s worth clarifying also that while I will refer to them as zombies because that’s what they basically are, technically the world of Killing Floor does not have any literal “zombies”. They’re called Zeds, but oh well.

The last time we saw this game was at last year’s Oculus Connect 3 (OC3) event and at GDC 2017 this year, the team at Tripwire brought along a brand new demo for us to try. I jumped into the game on the Oculus Rift with Touch and met my partner, this time instead of a developer it was another journalist from a different media publication.

After learning the basics of controls, moving with the teleportation mechanic, grabbing items from our back and chest holsters, and grabbing my flashlight, it was time to get started. Instead of appearing at the house like I did in the previous demo (shown in the teaser trailer above) we were down inside of what appeared to be a mine.

Standing back-to-back, my partner and I fought off waves of zombies coming from two sides. Some of them walked slowly, others were half-jogging, while a select few appeared to be running almost full speed with a scowl etched across what remained of their faces. My least favorite ones scuttled across the ground with bodies distorted and twisted, into strangely crawling creatures.

At first I found myself happy to pick off head shots from a distance with my pistols, then I heard my partner blast a pack of them all at one from short range using his shotgun. I reached back to get mine and found it insanely satisfying. Not only does it simply feel more powerful in your hands, but you have to physically pump it after each shot as well. The sense of presence was wonderful.

Playing with guns was fine and dandy of course, but the real excitement started when I set aside such play things and got down to real business: my ax. With a well-placed swing and a bit of slicing power, I was able to cut through waves of zombies like decomposing butter.

Heads flew off in every direction, limbs littered the floor around me, and I generally felt like a champion standing atop a mountain of corpses on the battlefield. Later on the developers admitted that melee weapons may be slightly over-powered at the moment. I was even able to chop off arms specifically so I could then grab them and beat the zombies to death using their own limbs. The zombie with giant claw-arms was my favorite to dismember.

Scattered around were a few moments of light puzzle solving, such as using a special filter on my flashlight to find spores that need to be shot, or moving a skull from a pile on the ground to an ornate pedestal clearly designed to hold skull-shaped objects.

These moments didn’t serve much purpose other than simply breaking up the monotony of constant wave fighting. A bit more depth and complexity would have been appreciated in some areas, but those elements are mentioned to exist once you dig deeper into the experience.

Killing Floor: Incursion does not currently have a release date, but developers mentioned it would be prior to the second half of the year for Oculus Rift and Touch.

Tagged with: horror, killing floor, tripwire interactive, zombies