Supermassive Games has delayed two of its upcoming PSVR titles originally expected for Q4 releases, Bravo Team and The Inpatient. Both games are now set to launch in Q1 of 2018.
Bravo Team, a cover-based shooter, was originally slated to launch December 5th; and The Inpatient, a prequel to the Until Dawn franchise, on November 21st.
According to a PlayStation Europe tweet, The Inpatient will now launch next year on January 24th, and Bravo Team on March 7th. The company says the delay is to “give the development teams extra time to make the games as enjoyable for players as possible.”
The release dates for #PlayStationVR titles The Inpatient and Bravo Team have moved.
The Inpatient will now launch on 24th Jan and Bravo Team will launch on 7th March.
The delay is to give the development teams extra time to make the games as enjoyable for players as possible.
Taking on the role of a patient with amnesia, you find yourself on familiar ground, the Blackwood Sanatorium from Until Dawn. In an effort to recall lost memories and discover who you are, you’re given choices on how to interact with characters that will ultimately shape how the story unfolds as you witness the horrific events of the sanatorium’s final days. Check out our hands-on here.
Bravo Team
Bravo Team is a cover-based FPS built with constant forward movement in mind. Featuring both single player and two-player online co-op, you battle in a fictional modern-day city in Eastern Europe, that promises to test both your shooting and tactical skills. The game supports both PS Move and dualshock 4 controller. Because it’s a cover-based game, locomotion is essentially on-rails, meaning you’ll have to figure out how to get good angles on enemy targets and dial in on your shooting ability to move forward.
November is a good month to be a PlayStation VR owner. In celebration of the device’s one year anniversary last month, Sony has decided to include not one, but two games with PSVR support for this month’s free PlayStation Plus game lineup.
This month’s official game lineup features Bound as the headline title, which is a breathtakingly beautiful platformer/adventure game about a dancer exploring a surreal and mesmerizing world. The game first released outside of VR and got a free VR patch when Sony’s headset released, so now the base game is free too for this month.
Interestingly, Until Dawn: Rush of Blood isn’t technically included in this month’s free PlayStation Plus game lineup. Instead, it’s just a specially designated bonus game. From November 7th (next Tuesday) all the way until January 2nd, all PlayStation Plus subscribers will be able to download Until Dawn: Rush of Blood for free. Fans of horror games definitely don’t want to miss out on this twisted roller coaster ride.
All in all these are two very solid exclusive PSVR titles that are well-worth checking out. And for the sake of clarity, here are the other non-VR games PlayStation Plus subscribers can look forward to:
R-Type Dimensions, PS3
Rag Doll Kung Fu: Fists of Plastic, PS3
Dungeon Punks, PS Vita (Cross Buy with PS4)
Broken Sword 5: The Serpent’s Curse (Episodes 1 & 2), PS Vita
Let us know what you think of this month’s offerings down in the comments below!
Mit Until Dawn: Rush of Blood und Tumble VR hat das Studio Supermassive Games zwei Titel für die PSVR auf dem Markt. In einem Interview hat sich nun der Entwickler Simon Harris geäußert und sich klar zur Entwicklung von VR-Spielen bekannt. Noch in diesem Jahr erscheinen zwei neue Titel für PlayStation VR: The Inpatient und Bravo Team.
Supermassive Games: Klares Bekenntnis zu VR
Die Stimmung im Virtual-Reality-Markt ist gemischt: Erst kürzlich platzte die Bombe, dass CCP Games – der Entwickler der Eve-Reihe – die Entwicklung von Virtual-Reality-Spielen stoppt. In einem Interview mit der Webseite Develop-Online hat sich der Entwickler Simon Harris von Supermassive Games zuvor zur Perspektive von VR geäußert.
„VR ist unglaublich wichtig für Supermassive“, erklärt Harris. VR liefere aus ihrer Perspektive das, was man sich erhofft habe, und sei eine unglaubliche neue Möglichkeit, Spiele zu erfahren. Am Ende zieht der Produzent das Fazit: „Ich denke, wir stehen bei VR noch ganz am Anfang. Wir experimentieren und lernen jeden Tag hinzu. Und man schreite dabei voran, bessere Spiele abzuliefern. Wir sind weiter sehr stark an der Plattform als Ganzes interessiert.“
Release-Daten von The Inpatient und Bravo Team
Nach Until Dawn: Rush of Blood und Tumble VR kommen dieses Jahr zwei weitere Spiele für die PSVR auf den Markt: The Inpatient soll am 22. November erscheinen. Im August konnten wir den vielversprechenden Horrortitel auf der Gamescom 2017 antesten. Die Demo endete mit einem kräftigen Jump Scare, der trotz Messeumgebung seine Wirkung nicht verfehlte. Trotz kleinerer Kritikpunkte können sich PSVR-Besitzer auf den Titel freuen.
Das zweite angekündigte Spiel – Bravo Team – soll ab dem 6. Dezember für PlayStation VR erhältlich sein. Auch diesen Titel haben wir auf der Gamescomausprobieren können. Der kooperative Shooter bietet ein realistisches Setting, Action satt und unterstützt den Aim Controller. Harris stellt in dem erwähnten Interview zwar die innovative Steuerung heraus, auf der Messe konnte sie uns aber noch nicht so ganz überzeugen. Bei Bravo Team wechselt bei der Fortbewegung die Perspektive von der üblichen Ego-Ansicht auf die Third-Person-Perspektive, ein freies Umherschleichen ist also nicht möglich.
Mit The Inpatient möchte Supermassive Games in diesem Jahr einen neuen Schocker für PlayStation VR (PSVR) bringen. In dem Horrorspiel wisst ihr nicht, ob ihr verrückt seid, oder ob euch die anderen Menschen nur einreden, dass ihr den Verstand verloren habt. Erschwerend kommt hinzu, dass ihr nur wenige Erinnerungen habt. Deshalb könnt ihr nicht einschätzen, welchen Personen ihr trauen könnt und von welchen ihr euch lieber fernhalten solltet. Das Spielt ist zwar kein direkter Until-Dawn-Titel, doch er übernimmt das Setting und spielt 60 Jahre vor den Ereignissen in Until Dawn.
The Inpatient: Im Rollstuhl und mit Move Controllern
In den ersten Minuten des Spiels seid ihr an einen Rollstuhl gefesselt und werdet von den Pflegern von Raum zu Raum gefahren. Diese Situation fühlte sich mit den Motion Controllern authentisch an. Man sieht beim Bewegen der Arme, dass sich der Charackter befreien will. Nach kurzer Zeit werdet ihr aber von dem Rollstuhl befreit und könnt euch frei im Raum mit den Move Controllern bewegen. Zwar funktionierte die Steuerung per Zielen und Knopf drücken ganz gut, aber wirklich überzeugend fühlt sich dieses Konzept nicht an.
Doch in der gezeigten Demo war das Laufen auch kein Kernelement des Spiels. Vielmehr ging es darum, Dialoge mit den Mitarbeitern der Psychatrie zu führen und zwischen zwei Antwortmöglichkeiten auszuwählen. Zwar funktioniert dies in VR gut, doch teilweise empfanden wir die Antwortmöglichkeiten auch als langweilig und unbedeutend. Uns war relativ schnell egal, welche mögliche Antwort wir auswählten. Großartig hingegen ist die Inszenierung der Dialoge, die Details und die Gestik und Mimik der Akteure. Somit wird aus dem VR-Spiel fast ein interaktive VR-Film, was in der Vergangenheit schon häufiger funktioniert hat.
Auch wenn das Spiel nicht primär auf Jump Scares setzt, so packten die Entwickler natürlich einen deftigen Schocker ans Ende der Vorführung, welcher uns trotz Gamescom-Umgebung vom Stuhl springen ließ. Wie stark die Dichte an Schockmomenten letztlich innerhalb der dreistündigen Kampagne sein wird, ist noch offen. Die gezeigte Demo nutzt die Möglichkeiten des PSVR-Systems zwar aus, doch sie deckt auch gleichzeitig die aktuellen Limitierung schmerzlich auf: Es ist definitiv Zeit für neue Move Controller, damit solche Spiele deutlich mehr glänzen können.
UK studio Supermassive Games has been a huge supporter of the PlayStation VR head-mounted display (HMD) since before its consumer release. A technical demonstration, Jurassic Encounter, showcased some wonderful interactivity with AI dinosaurs, while launch titles Tumble VR and Until Dawn: Rush of Blood have both become mainstays in the early adopter catalogues. Now, The Inpatient looks set to lead the HMD’s second holiday period’s line-up.
Much like Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, The Inpatient will expand upon the universe of the hugely popular PlayStation 4 exclusive Until Dawn. Shortly after the announcement of the videogame at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), it was revealed that The Inpatient would act as a prequel to Until Dawn, set within the walls of the latter’s Sanatorium.
VRFocus has been hands-on with the videogame at E3, stating in a preview of The Inpatient: “The Inpatient looks set to offer an experience completely different to its predecessor Until Dawn – they’re both set in the same universe – a far more tactile tale, where exploring the story is much more key. It might be because of the hospital theme but playing the demo instantly feels very reminiscent of Wilson’s Heart for Oculus Rift and that’s no bad thing.”
Though no official release date for The Inpatient has yet been announced, the title is expected to be available late in 2017. Pre-orders for the boxed edition of The Inpatient are already available at a number of retailers including Play Asia – both EU and NA editions – and Amazon. VRFocus will keep you updated with all the latest details on The Inpatient and other VR titles from Supermassive Games.
Interactive PlayStation 4 slasher Until Dawn is free for PlayStation Plus subscribers in July, as are five other games. Telltale's Game of Thrones will also be available for free to members.
I love scary games. Resident Evil 7 is probably my favorite VR game to date and is very likely my overall favorite game this year that isn’t part of the Zelda franchise. That being said, demoing supposedly scary games in a convention setting is usually a bad idea. The lights are bright, the sounds are loud, and the constant shuffling of bodies makes it hard to really focus on the experience at hand. But in the case of when I played The Inpatient from Supermassive Games and Sony, none of that was the case.
At E3 2017 one of Sony’s press demo areas was located behind its main booth on a back wall of the expo hall and behind a check-in desk that filtered out non-press individuals. The demo area was secluded, private, and extremely quiet. Add in the fact that I was wearing a PlayStation VR (PSVR) headset to block out visual distractions and an over-ear headset to immerse my senses in the sounds of the game and it was pretty close to what it’d be like playing at home by myself.
I was a huge fan of Until Dawn when it first came out and thought Until Dawn: Rush of Blood was a clever on-rails shooter based in the same universe. Much to my delight at E3 we learned that The Inpatient is actually a prequel that takes place decades before the original game with different characters in familiar places. You’ll likely recognize some of the locations in the trailer above if you played the PS4’s choose-your-own-adventure title that began the franchise.
For my demo I started by waking up strapped into a chair. An ominous doctor paced in front of me before leaning in extremely close to my face and talking to me. Off to the sides dialog options appeared that I could choose from to progress the conversation. The game’s demo representative told me that in the final build of the game some basic voice recognition would be there as well so instead of selection a dialog option you could just speak the words associated with it. For example, to have my character say something like, “Tell me the truth right now!” in response to an NPC, the game may have a word like “Scared” behind it, which I could say with my own mouth and trigger the full response. For this demo I just had to pick using head tracked pointing and the X button.
While sitting in this chair my character was forced to recall the same memory several times in an attempt to fully remember what happened. Each time the memory got shorter and the doctor got more upset, causing him to eventually give up and send me back to my room. It was a thrilling encounter even though it involved zero movement. It reminded me of the interrogation scene from PlayStation VR Worlds’ The London Heist, although the proportions felt a little off. The doctor’s face in The Inpatient seemed more like a giant staring down at me than a correctly sized human head. That stuff is really tough to nail down with VR perspectives because when watching off-screen as others played it looked fine.
The rest of my demo had me walking around a room in what appeared to be a mental hospital. Before long things got weird and I was back in a hallway slowly taking one step at a time down the hall when BOOM, jump scare. A horrific orderly appeared right in front of me to turn and scream with one of the most grotesque faces I’ve seen. Jump scares are cheap ways of getting your audience scared, but when they work well and send chills down my spine, I consider it worth the trouble.
After I reached the end of the slowly building hallway that was ripe with ominous voices and sounds…my demo ended. It wasn’t long, but it did a great job of establishing the tone and mood of the game. The representative told me those dialog choices will factor into some true branching narrative points and make the game different for everyone that plays it, similar to how Until Dawn worked. Supermassive seems to be a big fan of the “Butterfly Effect” in their development processes.
The Inpatient is a PSVR-exclusive currently slated for release next year in 2018. Supermassive is also working on Bravo Team, another PSVR-exclusive, as well as a dual-screen interactive team experience called Hidden Agenda for non-VR play. What do you think of the game so far? Let us know what you think in the comments down below!
To say the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2017 has had a great showing of PlayStation VR games would an understatement. We saw loads of fantastic virtual reality (VR) titles, including two more from Until Dawn developers Supermassive Games, who brought this fascinating trailer for The Inpatient.
The Inpatient is a PlayStation VR exclusive, set 60 years before the events of Until Dawn inside The Sanatorium before it falls into disrepair. The player will have to interact with patients and staff inside the Sanatorium to discover their motivations and character story arcs, slowly uncovering the mysteries of your amnesiac protagonist, and the Sanatorium’s owner.
The Inpatient’s director, Nick Bowen, has shared his excitement for the title; “With The Inpatient, we used psychological horror themes to infiltrate the player’s subconscious and draw them further into the story. Our team spent a lot of time working to create a sense of isolation and fear, making extensive use of immersive 3D binaural audio to complement the amazing visuals and further transport them into their unfamiliar new home.”
The psychological horror VR experience was written with Until Dawn’s scriptwriters, Larry Fessenden and Graham Reznick to keep the videogame’s story and lore accurate.
Take a look at The Inpatient’s trailer below for everything you need to know about the PlayStation VR exclusive.
For all the latest VR news, make sure to keep reading VRFocus.
Sony’s E3 2017 press conference was bursting at the seams with announcements for PlayStation VR, including two more virtual reality (VR) games from Supermassive Games – bringing their total PlayStation VR catalogue to a respectable four titles. Not much is known about their two new games, Bravo Team and The Inpatient, but there are more hints in The Inpatient’s trailer than you might’ve noticed…
Supermassive Games are of course well-known now for the surprise horror hit Until Dawn, and the VR spin-off Until Dawn: Rush of Blood – with such a recognisable brand name, it only makes sense to continue the franchise – or at least expand the lore, which Supermassive Games seem to be doing with their new PlayStation VR game, The Inpatient.
Zooming in on The Inpatient’s cryptic trailer when the screen shows a painting of a building – presumably the building the game is set in – and the sign outside reads “Sanatorium.”
Until Dawn fans might remember the Sanatorium as a particularly intense section near the end of the game. Of course, Supermassive Games might’ve just liked the word “Sanatorium” and it could be a coincidence. Possible – until you read the building’s full name: The Blackwood Pines Sanatorium. The penny will now have officially dropped for fans of Until Dawn – Blackwood Pines is where the game takes place.
We still don’t know much about The Inpatient, but we can fairly safely assume it acts as a prequel to Until Dawn, before the Sanatorium fell into disarray. According to the Until Dawn timeline, this likely places The Inpatient as taking place some time in the 1950s.
Hopefully the game will give us more clues as to what happened behind the scenes in Until Dawn – how things became quite so violent in the first place – and perhaps pave the way for future entries in this quickly growing franchise.
E3 2017 has been full of brand new game announcements and trailers – for everything PlayStation VR, The Inpatient and all the biggest news from E3 2017, stay on VRFocus.
If you were quick, you might have got your hands on a PlayStation VR (PSVR) launch bundle last year. If you missed out, though, you needn’t worry; it’s coming back this month.
Sony today announced that its VR headset will soon be repackaged with extras including the PlayStation Camera, required to actually use the headset, two PlayStation Move motion controllers, and a copy of London Studios’ minigame compilation, PlayStation VR Worlds [Review: 5/10]. The bundle arrives next week for $499, the same price it was available for before launch. Standard PlayStation VR units, which don’t include any of these extras, cost $399.
But hold up, there’s more. Later this month that company will also push out another bundle that swaps VR Worlds for Supermassive Games’ horror rollercoaster ride, Until Dawn: Rush of Blood [Review: 7/10]. This package will be exclusive to GameStop and EB Games.
Based on our reviews, we’d definitely recommend waiting on the Until Dawn bundle if you can. PlayStation VR Worlds features a collection of amusing, but ultimately forgettable VR experiences, while Until Dawn’s brand of on-rails shooting delivers scares and thrills through the night. Both bundles also come with the standard demo disc that’s included with every PSVR unit, so you’ll be able to try out a number of other launch games.
More than anything, those hunting for PSVR units right now will be relieved to see more stock coming in. We’ve seen a lot of reports of sold out stock over the past few months, so hopefully these new bundles signal that Sony is ready to meet demand.
Does this bundle sway you to pick up a PSVR? If so then make sure to check out our list of the nine best games currently available on the platform. You’ll find plenty there to keep you playing until 2017’s big VR releases finally start to arrive.
