It was confirmed back in April that Sony’s upcoming next-gen console would include support for the current-gen PSVR. In a new exclusive interview with Wired, the company further revealed that not only is PlayStation 5 slated to arrive holiday season 2020, but that an improved gamepad with better haptic feedback and “adaptive triggers” will come along with it.
Lead system architect Mark Cerny revealed a prototype controller to Wired, something described as an “unlabeled matte-black doohickey that looks an awful lot like the PS4’s DualShock 4.”
Notable new features include a USB Type-C connector for charging/data transmission, a larger-capacity battery, improved on-board speakers, and heavier overall weight, which was described as less weighty than an Xbox One controller with batteries.
But one of the really interesting things to come to the new gamepad is its “adaptive triggers” which offer varying levels of resistance. This essentially lets developers fine-tune the triggers (L2/R2) to increase tension when needed, like when you’re shooting different styles of guns or driving in variable terrain.
Wired also reports that the next gamepad (still unnamed) boasts haptic feedback engines “far more capable than the rumble motor console gamers are used to, with highly programmable voice-coil actuators located in the left and right grips of the controller.”
To demonstrate, Sony’s Japan Studio put together a few short demos—the same team behind The Playroom VR (2016) and Astro Bot Rescue Mission (2018).
Here’s what Wired’s Peter Rubin experienced:
“In the most impressive, I ran a character through a platform level featuring a number of different surfaces, all of which gave distinct—and surprisingly immersive—tactile experiences. Sand felt slow and sloggy; mud felt slow and soggy. On ice, a high-frequency response made the thumbsticks really feel like my character was gliding. Jumping into a pool, I got a sense of the resistance of the water; on a wooden bridge, a bouncy sensation,”
Playing a version of Gran Turismo Sport, which was ported to a PS5 dev kit, the controller appeared to offer a greater nuance of haptic feedback, differentiating between different road types with a lighter and harder feel.
Although the lack of news on the next iteration on PSVR is somewhat disheartening, better haptic feedback and wider developer support for the new PS5 gamepad nay very well pave the way for a better PSVR 2 motion controller too, which could incorporate many of the features listed above. That’s of course only healthy conjecture, although as it is now, anything is better than that 2010-era PS Move controllers at this point.
The article makes no mention of whether that 2020 release date will come alongside a prospective PSVR 2, however the company previously confirmed in May that a simultaneous launch was pretty unlikely.
Microsoft has filed a patent for a virtual reality floor mat, but the mat may offer more than just a way to keep VR gamers from bumping into their own furniture.
Auch in diesem Jahr dürfen wir uns wieder über eine Nominierung beim nextReality Contest freuen. Unsere VR-Anwendung Jackhammer Jam, welche in Kooperation mit Strabag entstand, hat es in die Endauswahl im Bereich “Interactive Buisness” geschafft.
Jackhammer Jam nominiert beim nextReality Contest
Bei der Jackhammer Jam müssen die Spielenden mit einem Presslufthammer auf den Mond und dort nach verborgenen Schätzen suchen. Dabei werden die Suchenden von einer zweiten Person unterstützt, welche mittels Tablet eine Drohne steuert, die das vergrabene Gold sichtbar macht. Kommunikation ist bei der Jackhammer Jam also unabdingbar und nur durch gutes Teamwork ist ein Platz in der Highscore-Tabelle erreichbar. Neben dem trackbaren Presslufthammer und dem Tablet bekommen die Nutzenden auch diverse Feedback-Systeme angelegt, um die Illusion abzurunden. Ob wir auch in diesem Jahr den begehrten Preis erhalten, wird sich am 06.11.2019 in der Astor Filmlounge in Hamburg entscheiden.
Doch das VRHQ hat gleich doppelt Grund zur Freude: Auch unsere Freunde von SpiceVR sind nominiert und treten in der Kategorie “Interactive Entertainment” mit ihrem Projekt The Gate an. Wir drücken die Daumen!
First Contact Entertainment has seen plenty of success with its first-person shooter (FPS) Firewall Zero Hour for PlayStation VR. Back in June, during the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2019, the team released the first details on their next project Solaris: Offworld Combat. Last week the first teaser trailer arrived for the upcoming experience.
Sticking to what the studio knows best, Solaris: Offworld Combat is another multiplayer shooter which will feature 4 vs 4 battles – no modes against bots – designed to be fast-paced in futuristic arena-style locations. As a purely online FPS matches will take place on dedicated servers rather than hosted by players which should provide a stable experience (Firewall Zero Hour has a recurring issue due to lack of dedicated servers).
Looking similar to virtual reality (VR) esports titles like Echo Arena by Ready at Dawn – just without the zero-g – the only gameplay mode revealed so far for Solaris: Offworld Combat is Control Point. Similar in function to King of the Hill modes, players have to control a location to earn points before it then moves, keeping players moving around the map.
As you can see in the released trailer there’s not a lot to go on as its cinematic rather than informative. But there are details to be gleaned from the footage. Like the weapons for example. Solaris: Offworld Combat doesn’t seem to feature any predetermined load-outs for players to experiment with. Instead, they’re supplied with pistols, to begin with, and will then have to collect other weapons during the match. These appear at specific spots in a level, and there’s no need to waste time standing in the open picking one up, it’s automatic when running over the location.
Solaris: Offworld Combat is being built for Oculus Rift and Oculus Quest with cross-play functionality, as well as PlayStation VR. The launch is currently scheduled for 2020 for all three devices.
Even with those few details Solaris: Offworld Combat is already looking promising as a sleek, no-holds-barred FPS. Firewall Zero Hourwas one of VRFocus’ favourite shooters in 2018 receiving a five-star review. VRFocus will continue its coverage of Solaris: Offworld Combat, reporting back with further updates.
Jaunt, the cinematic VR company that pivoted to AR last year, today announced it has sold its software, technology, and “certain other assets” to American telecom Verizon.
Neither company has disclosed the acquisition price, or if that will include any of Jaunt’s remaining staff, although Jaunt says it will be assisting Verizon for a brief period of time with the transition of “select portions of the software and technology.”
“We are thrilled with Verizon’s acquisition of Jaunt’s technology,” said Jaunt XR CEO Mitzi Reaugh in a press statement. “The Jaunt team has built leading-edge software and we are excited for its next chapter with Verizon.”
Founded in 2013, Jaunt became known not only for producing its high-quality 360 video for consumers, but also a 360 camera dubbed Jaunt One (formerly NEO) aimed at idustry professionals looking to get into immersive video capture.
In October 2018, Jaunt made the critical to decision to pivot to AR and lay off a significant portion of its staff in the process. Since then, the company has most recently been involved in the design and training of neural networks for real-time human pose estimation and body part segmentation, something that’s aimed at creating volumetric videos and 3D models of humans for playback on AR/VR devices.
Throughout its lifespan, the company secured over $100 million from the likes of Disney, Sky, and Axel Springer, with its latest funding round in 2015 garnering the company $65 million.
We’ve gone hands-on with Respawn’s Oculus-exclusive VR shooter, Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, and are excited to report it feels like an authentic and welcome return for the long-forgotten franchise.
At a pre-OC6 preview event last week I was able to go hands-on with the game across a handful of different levels and sat through a lengthy presentation that broke down the origins of the franchise, its evolution over the years, and what VR adds to the experience. Without playing the finished game it’s hard to say for certain, but this certainly checks all the boxes of being a AAA-quality made-for-VR shooter the likes of which we haven’t quite seen yet.
When I wrote my predictions last week for what I thought the Respawn VR shooter would be, I didn’t expect to come out feeling like a prophet. I figured it would be a WWII setting (or modern Middle East) and that it would feature a prominent single player campaign that leverages what the studio did well in Titanfall 2. It certainly seems like that’s the case.
I just didn’t predict it’d be a new Medal of Honor game; I don’t think anyone did.
This is significant for a few reasons. First of all, the last Medal of Honor game released seven years ago which is roughly an eternity in the game industry. It did not sell well and was poorly received across the board, hence EA deciding to instead focus on the Battlefield franchise. Getting revived in VR, by Respawn, makes a lot of sense.
And for those unaware, Medal of Honor is the original WWII shooter. Without Medal of Honor we wouldn’t have Battlefield or Call of Duty and likely wouldn’t have shooters as cinematic as we see them today. Prior to its initial release on the original PlayStation, the landscape was very different.
Vince Zampella, one of the founders of Respawn Entertainment and a former founder of Infinity Ward (creators of Call of Duty) actually worked on Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, which is often regarded as one of the very best, if not the very best, World War II shooters of all-time. This means that Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is a return to the franchise’s roots by re-focusing on World War II, but also a push towards the future by embracing VR as the only way to play from the very beginning.
What struck me most immediately when I strapped on an Oculus Rift S for my hands-on demo, is that it looks shockingly good in VR. In the footage and screenshots, the colors seem a bit too vibrant and almost exaggerated (it’s how I felt watching footage for the first time and even looking at it on my monitor now) but inside the headset it certainly feels much more impressive. The clarity and sharpness is there and the production values are just fantastic. You can tell that the team went to extraordinary lengths to capture authentic audio, fully render authentic 3D models of planes, tanks, ships, and more, and actually film 360-footage on-location across Europe to aid with accurately reconstructing iconic wartime locations. It’s pretty remarkable.
According to Respawn, Medal of Honor VR will include over 50 levels across three acts totaling at over 10 hours of single player campaign gameplay. That doesn’t include the multiplayer modes, which do exist, but aren’t being discussed at this time.
I asked for more clarity surrounding what “over 50 levels” means, and basically each act has a handful of dedicated missions and each mission is split into multiple segments. So there are over 50 of those dedicated segments. During my demo, each of the missions I did (they took about 15-20 minutes each) were described as individual segments. Furthermore, each segment reportedly will be in a new area without liberally re-using assets. If that all holds true on release then wow, that’s a lot of content.
My demo was split into four segments. First up was a shooting range to teach me the controls and weapon handling, which only lasted about five minutes and was all pretty basic stuff. The first actual level I went into had me infiltrating a Gestapo HQ to locate a list of names of influential French Resistance leaders that the Nazis had acquired. After finding the list, it was my mission to burn it to preserve their identity and continue the fight.
This was a very action-heavy level with Nazis around almost every corner. Lots of corridors for poking my gun around and shooting, I creeped through a kitchen hiding behind counters and taking shots from cover, and eventually mowed down a room with an assault rifle before finding the shotgun, which was just pure kinetic bliss to use. Nothing in this segment really surprised me, but it just reinforced the fact that this is a real AAA shooter made by an experienced development studio that has been here and done this before with proven success.
The second full level was my favorite of the bunch. I began perched on the side of a cliff with a sniper rifle taking a look at a group of Nazis down below. All I had to do was hold the scope up to my eye and my vision automatically becomes magnified down towards my enemies. I don’t mean to brag, but I definitely got all three headshots in a row. And since it was Kar 98k rifle, I had to reload after every shot for authenticity and it certainly made the exchange more intense. The rest of the level was about sneaking up the side of a mountain, climbing up an electrical tower, and snipping some wires.
Finally I explored the ruins of what appeared to be a destroyed lower level of a library, but the upper level apartment was still in tact. After finding a key for a cupboard and discovering a code to unlock a hidden Resistance Fighter planning closet, I had to play a record by a window to alert the rest of the town it was time to strike back against the Nazis in a coordinate assault. This level put on display that gameplay will have some variety and isn’t just all about shooting all the time.
In the full game for Medal of Honor VR you play as an Allied agent of the Office of Strategic Services, who is tasked with infiltrating and outsmarting Nazis as you travel across Europe.
Right now, based on my roughly 45-minute demo, I’d say my biggest reservation for the single player campaign is the narrative, which was mostly stripped out of the demo levels intentionally. I didn’t hear much voice acting at all and the short little mission segments seemed fairly self-contained without much connective tissue tying things together. I’m hoping that, on release, it will play out like an involved and cohesive story – like an extended version of something you’d get from Saving Private Ryan, or like being ported into the boots of a soldier from Band of Brothers. The Medal of Honor series was at its best when it focused on the “boots on the ground” stories and followed soldiers across entire story arcs, fighting alongside one another. I’m hoping Respawn taps back into that emotionally-grounded framing once again for the franchise.
Beyond that, I hope the AI is improved. During the presentation the developers made a point to emphasize how smart the AI was, but half the time during my demo Nazis would get stuck on the edge of tables, run into walls, or just stand out in the open waiting for me to return fire instead of finding cover. This was countered by the other half, where the AI seemed to work closer to what was intended. Still not impressive at all, but capable for a modern AAA shooter in those moments.
If you’ve played PC VR shooters before, such as Onward or Pavlov, then you’re probably exceedingly familiar with how clunky things can feel — at least at first. Both of those games require you to accurately navigate your gun to release magazines, insert new magazines, load the chamber, and manipulate the gun, all while in the heat of battle. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve lost my knife in Onward because I wasn’t looking while trying to place it back in the slot on my character’s body and missed ever so slightly, resulting in it falling on the ground. The same thing happens with grenades sometimes.
To remedy this sort of stuff, Respawn decided every item from grenades to guns will automatically go back to its holster when you let go. Reloading guns is somewhere in the middle of ultra-realism and button-press reloading. For example, you still need to eject magazines, insert a new one, and rack the chamber, but most guns are easier to navigate and use quickly. I really enjoyed actually pumping the shotgun after each blast and loading new shells into the gun. It felt really, really good. The sound design and haptics really helped sell the act of firing and pumping. I never wanted to use anything else once I found the shotgun.
That being said, I do think some of the immersion and interactivity is lost by streamlining some aspects of the gameplay. A big draw for VR shooters is usually just how responsive and intricate the interactions are, but Respawn seem focused on removing obstacles to enjoyment for Medal of Honor, which certainly has its own benefits as well.
One extremely bright spot from the reveal event I attended is just how dedicated the developers seem to be regarding maintaining authenticity. They’ve interviewed veterans, visited locations, recorded footage, and even included a lot of those media assets in the game itself, ready for players to view as educational material and place the game in the proper historical context.
I was even shown some footage of a veteran in his 90s using an Oculus Go to view images and videos taken on the spot where he fought over 70 years ago. That’s some powerful stuff that only VR can allow.
Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, Coming To Oculus Rift in 2020
Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is slated for release exclusively on the Oculus Rift platform sometime next year in 2020, likely after Lone Echo 2. The game will feature a lengthy 10+ hour campaign and multiplayer modes, but we only got to try out the single player during our demo. Details on multiplayer are presumably slated to be shared at a later time.
When it comes to researching information on the virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) industries there’s a vast wealth of reports, white papers and more online. Finding all of it, on the other hand, is another matter. Making for a time-consuming endeavour. So The Academy of International Extended Reality (AIXR) has done the hard work, compiling a resource portal featuring over 150 reports to peruse.
The free aggregated portal has mostly been created via content found online, with AIXR supported in the process by its VR and AR Steering Panels. Some of the resources have been exclusively shared by creators for use on the portal.
Beneficial to those working on white papers, research or reports relating to the XR industry, they’ll be able to find material on a range of topics and industries such as healthcare, manufacturing, Big Data, investment, monetisation and more.
As mentioned, you could find most of it online by looking yourself but the AIXR portal takes away a lot of that headache. It offers users the ability to search for content via a number f different variables such as date, industry, author, topic, and title, which should save some time.
“Information is made to be shared, by spotlighting and aggregating insightful content we can remove barriers for anyone looking to educate themselves while building a strong and bright future for the industry. That is at the heart of what AIXR does,” said Daniel Colaianni, Chief Executive of AIXR in a statement.
As a dedicated not-for-profit organisation working to promote the XR industry, AIXR is working on a number of initiatives alongside the resources portal. These include AIXR Insights, an education arm with articles and case studies industry professionals. And there’s the VR Awards, an annual ceremony highlighting the best the immersive industry has to offer. The awards take place during November in London, UK, with the finalists for the twelve categories revealed a couple of months ago.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of AIXR, reporting back with the organisations’ latest initiatives.
Frankly speaking, I’d have been impressed if Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son resembled a best-forgotten, straight-to-DVD sequel. This is not, I’m sure you’d agree, the most obvious of options for a VR follow-up. And yet, somehow, it fits like a glove.
This is a remarkably natural concoction of immersive storytelling and interactivity. It probably wouldn’t be in the hands of anyone other than Tequila Works, a studio with suspiciously specific experience in the field of time-bending narratives. It’s as if the team itself had been making the same game over and over until it arrived at this, a perfect outlet for its fixation on time-distorted stories.
And it really runs with the opportunity, intricately navigating a multi-stranded narrative in which Phil Connors Jr., a familiar brand of mean-spirited vlogger, reckons with the legacy of his enlightened father. Connors Jr. is sharp-tongued and responsibility-adverse, which comes to a head when he returns to his home town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Forced to relive the same day over and over, he wrestles with being raised by a know-it-all of a Dad and the disdain it fostered inside of him.
It’s one of the weighty themes that shows Tequila Works, which could have simply adopted the film’s gimmick alone, is keen to carry the burden of a true sequel. It’s as much a modernization as it is a follow-up, reimagining the rules of Groundhog Day in a world with smartphones and vegans.
Between scenes you’ll see tweets from Connors Jr. that flesh out the day in refreshingly abridged form and, if you access your tablet, you can scroll through old photos to get a sense of his self-involved past. Combined with a faithfully-recreated rendition of Punxsutawney and an art style that allows for expressive, if occasionally clownish, character performances, there’s more than enough reason to give this brave attempt its fair chance.
If there’s a foot wrong it’s in the expletive-ridden script. The game is often funny but occasionally mistakes the 26-year gap between installments as an excuse to swap Bill Murray’s signature deadpan style for foul-mouthed rants.
This just doesn’t feel at home in a world and story that otherwise does the original justice. There’s genuine affection for the source material here, from Connors Jr.’s biting sarcasm infecting every well-meaning cast member to the sandbox freedom of a world with few repercussions. And, yes, that does include some hilarious attempts at virtually ending it all.
More importantly, though, the plot does an eloquent job of justifying nearly every development and interaction you’ll uncover in Like Father Like Son.
Comfort
Groundhog Day uses node-based teleportation, letting you warp to specific points in the given scene. It’s entirely comfortable, though I recommend playing seated as you won’t be moving much. There’s no smooth locomotion, but locations are quite small in size so it doesn’t feel necessary. Definitely don’t let its omission make you pass on this one, though.
Watching Groundhog Day VR piece itself together puzzle by puzzle is a treat all in itself. The day is comprised of five sequences you’ll repeatedly visit. Every day there’s an opportunity to learn something new about a character or do something that might help them. Your brother, for example, is feeling the weight of recent events on his shoulders and is in desperate need of a coffee. Your broken machine threatens to send him off the deep end, but you can eventually learn how to fix it and save the day. Doing so might reveal a new snippet of information that can help you on your path to self-improvement.
True, it’s small in scale but this keeps things cohesive. Every time a hint was dropped, I knew exactly when and where it applied, and progressively accumulating the knowledge to resolve an initially impossible situation was immensely rewarding. Plus, at about five hours in length, Tequila Works gets impressively economic mileage out of this handful of scenes. The masterfully-constructed breakfast scene has probably around seven or eight necessary variations before the credits roll.
This probably sounds alarmingly (and understandably) repetitive. And it can be in some cases, though Tequila Works does an admirable job of creating shortcuts where possible. Once you’ve learned how to make breakfast, you can simply order it to your house instead, for example, and many actions cause a ripple effect that ensures you won’t have to repeat the same tasks over and over.
PC VR vs PSVR
The PSVR version of Groundhog Day holds up really well in comparison to its PC counterpart. There’s a slight reduction in lighting quality, but the game’s considered art style means everything else looks practically identical. Plus the pacing and design is perfectly suited for PSVR’s 180 tracking. Tequila Works has done right by the platform here.
And yet, somehow, with all these plates already spinning, the developer manages to throw a mostly enjoyable set of minigames and puzzles into the mix, too. Again, they’re often superbly validified, like refining your spray painting skills in order to win the respect of a young graffiti artist that’s hours away from getting himself in trouble. Most of them also feature unique and brilliantly intuitive interactions, like carving a stone statue with a hammer and chisel or mixing drinks at a bar. Crucially, they’re all based around skills you’ll actually improve on with a small bit of practice. I didn’t pass all of them the first time, but usually on the second go I got the hang of it.
There’s almost enough varied and convincing interactivity to rival a game like Vacation Simulator here. Not every minigame is a winner; a dance-off with the lovably naive Ned Ryerson feels just a little too forced if mechanically enjoyable. But once you’ve passed them (each lasts a few minutes) they can be forgotten, should you so choose.
Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son Review: Final Verdict
What a pleasant surprise, then. Against all odds, Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son nestles itself neatly amongst the growing number of VR titles that marry compelling, involving narrative with thoughtful interactivity. It’s a game with a welcome amount of heart, refusing to settle for the usual standards of tie-in media. Dare I say it, it’s even a worthy follow-up to a movie you’d have thought best left untouched. Bravo.
This review was conducted using an Oculus Rift S on Oculus Home. For more information on how we review experiences and games, check out our Review Guidelines.
Code reportedly found by MacRumors in an internal build of iOS 13 suggests Apple is working on iPhone-connected AR glasses and a spatial launcher interface to use them.
iOS is the operating system of iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touch. The software which handles its familiar home screen interface is called SpringBoard. Springboard allows the user to position, categorize, uninstall, and launch iOS apps.
According to the report, an internal file in iOS 13 lists a “StarBoard” for launching AR apps. Further in the code the report notes references to “StarBoard mode”. Some of the strings in this code use the prefix AR, such as “ARStarBoardViewController” and “ARStarBoardSceneManager”.
The report also claims that these internal builds include an app called STARTester which switches the iPhone into AR mode. It claims that this testing app includes two modes, “worn” and “held”.
These modes seem to suggest that STARTester is meant for use with a smartphone holder, similar to many mobile VR products. This could allow Apple’s employees, and trusted developers, to develop and test AR apps before the dedicated hardware is available in large quantities.
Garta
Interestingly, the report claims that the same file which lists StarBoard also lists an AR “device” called ‘Garta’.
It’s not, however, clear exactly what this “device” is. It could be the smartphone holder used for testing, or more tantalizing, it might be the codename for the company’s heavily anticipated AR glasses. As with all leaks based on code fragments there is potentially a wide range of explanations for all this, and we might never see any of it in a finished product.
Videogame publishing giant Ubisoft is currently hiring for an “unannounced AAA VR project.”
The company currently has nine high-level listings related to the project in Dusseldorf, Germany (first spotted by VRFocus). One for a Senior Game Designer role states that successful applicants “will work on cutting-edge VR technology, on one of Ubisoft’s great IP’s, developed across multiple studios.”
Update: An Ubisoft spokesperson issued us with the following statement: “We are working on the next VR Escape Room for 2020, as well as a new AAA VR project for which we are currently hiring.”
Interestingly, Ubisoft is also hiring a Lead Character Artist for a VR project in Newcastle, UK. It’s not clear if this is for the same project or something else.
Splinter Cell Returns?
The listings appear amid reports that Ubisoft is developing two new VR games based on its IP. The first is reportedly Splinter Cell VR, marking a return of a long-loved stealth series. An Assassin’s Creed VR game is also apparently in the works. If the reports are true, these games will be exclusive to Oculus headsets. Recently, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said to expect Splinter Cell on “different devices”.
Dusseldorf is where one of the company’s Blue Byte offices is based. Blue Byte is a network of three studios based in Germany. The team is behind the Anno series of City Simulation games. It also often assists with the development of other major Ubisoft titles. Newcastle, meanwhile, houses the Ubisoft Reflections team. Again, the team largely contributes to the creation of other major projects.
This will be far from Ubisoft’s first VR game. Back in 2016 the company launched titles like Eagle Flight and Werewolves Within. Later down the line it released Star Trek: Bridge Crew and most recently worked on a zero-gravity multiplayer shooter named Space Junkies. If these recent rumors turn out to be true, we could see at least one Ubisoft VR game announced at Oculus Connect 6 later this month.
The 
