Virtual reality (VR) battle royale Virtual Battlegrounds has seen a number of delays since its first Early Access launch was scheduled for March 2019. Recently its was scheduled to arrive on 8th April but after developer CyberDream held an open beta ahead of the launch the team realised this date was no longer possible due to remote working. Now it looks like Virtual Battlegrounds will (should) be arriving tomorrow via Steam Early Access.
With battle royale first-person shooters (FPS) one of the hottest genres at the moment thanks to Fortnite and most recently Call of Duty: Warzone, Virtual Battlegrounds hopes to capitalise on this trend by offering a military simulator style experience set on an explorable island.
Designed to provide players with a dynamic yet immersive environment to wage war in, in Virtual Battlegrounds you can slide into cover, zipline across the map, blind fire around corners, dual wield weapons, engage in melee combat and climb anything and everything.
“The design of the game evolved to answer questions regarding how to bring those who are new to VR up to speed if already fans of first-person shooters and Battle Royale, and then again to acclimate fans of VR who are new to VR FPS. The solution was an expansion of five training sandboxes which walk people through VR and tactical VR fps gaming, fit for everyone putting on a VR headset,” said CyberDream in a statement.
So there’s the main Battle Royale mode which then has solo, squad and custom private lobby options to choose from. Helping get players up to speed on the various mechanics are singleplayer and co-op training modes such as a basic basketball court, firing ranges, shoot-house training, PvE bot modes, PvPvE Battle training for squad modes and a multiplayer CQC arena.
Compatible with SteamVR headsets: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index and Windows Mixed Reality (plus Oculus Quest via the LInk cable), Virtual Battlegrounds is slated to arrive via Steam Early Access on 15th April, retailing for $20 USD. Early Access is estimated to take up to 12 months, with CyberDream adding more game modes, weapons and features in that time. For further updates, keep reading VRFocus.
We’ve seen new Beat Saber tracks, implications of inside-out tracking on PSVR 2 & the introduction of OpenXR for Quest – not to mention the many releases! It’s the VRecap.
The first story is Beat Games’ newest track addition: FitBeat! It’s free, it’s fitness-focused, and it fits in nicely with the other tracks in the game. It was developed by the studio’s CEO-turned-music producer, Jaroslav Beck, who has produced many of the iconic tracks for the rythm game.
There was plenty of hype this week surrounding Sony’s DualSense controllers for PlayStation 5, but for us it mainly raised questions for the future of PSVR. With the change in lightbar location, could it be that the PSVR 2 will have inside-out tracking? Our VR senses are tingling!
And lastly, a more robust story for developers and enthusiasts: Android game engine developers can now support Oculus Quest using OpenXR instead of Facebook’s Oculus Mobile API! Heaney gives a great explanation on it all, so make sure to read up for an in-depth report.
VRFocus presents a brand-new list of five virtual reality (VR) titles being released over the next week. This week’s list features at least one videogame for the owners of all major headsets, including a host of long-awaited re-releases. To help give you a preview of each title you can check out the accompanying YouTube video at the bottom of this article. Make sure to keep following VRFocus to get further news on each one including possible updates, expansion packs or possibly re-releases for other headsets.
Form – Charm Games
Canadian game studio Charm Games first released puzzle experience FORM in mid-2017. Set in a secluded research facility in Alaska, you take on the role of physicist Dr. Devin Eli, who, as a result of childhood trauma, possesses the unique power of geometric visualisation. In an attempt to discover more about a mysterious artefact, The Obelisk, you must explore this doctor’s memories to unlock the secrets it contains. Unlock a series of puzzles within your own mind, which are built to be solved using tracked motion controllers. VRFocus previously awarded the original HTC Vive version a 4/5, describing it as a “mesmerising experience from start to finish.”
Supported platforms: PlayStation VR
Launch date: 7th April
Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories – Granzella
Previously only available in Japan, this action-adventure survival game will be available to PlayStation VR users next week. On a seemingly ordinary summer day, your trip to this city turns into a disaster as a gigantic earthquake terrorises you and your surroundings. You must team up with fellow survivors and fight your way out as collapsing buildings and unstable ground surround you. Your decision-making abilities could be the difference between life and death in a city on the brink of collapsing completely.
Supported platforms: PlayStation VR
Launch date: 7th April
Virtual Battlegrounds – CyberDream
Built from the ground up for virtual reality and set in this war-hungry dystopian island, in Virtual Battlegrounds you must fight to become the last one standing. Featuring an array of physics-based weapons, you can run, swim and jump your way to victory both on your own or with friends in solo and quad modes and also featuring AI bots. VR users can play while standing or seated, with a host of other comfortable playing options available.
In this VR duelling game, utilise a series of physics-based weapons to take on your opponents in both single and multiplayer modes. Choose from several fighting styles including Knight and Ninja. Users can even play a single-player game while waiting for a match! Replay features allow you to watch a playback of your fight, which you can export share to the world.
This educational title aims to help people learn about the importance of personal hygiene. Wash your hands and make use of powerful disinfectants and sprays to fend off viruses, while avoiding touching your face. Indie developer Starcade Arcade, states that they aim to “make a fun and friendly way to share important messages without adding to the fear and panic in the world right now.”
It’s taken a year longer than expected, but promising VR battle royale game, Virtual Battlegrounds, is very nearly here.
The game finally arrives in Steam Early Access on April 8th. Developer CyberDream had originally planned to release the game in March of 2019 but continued to delay the game over the course of the past year to patch up certain issues. Beta testing has been underway since last year.
Virtual Battlegrounds essentially wants to offer VR its own alternative to Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds. Taking a realistic modern combat approach, the game pits scores of players in huge online battles to be the last man standing in a man with an ever-shrinking safe zone. So, yes, it’s basically a battle royale game… in VR! Check out the refreshed trailer for the game below.
CyberDreams is kitting the game out with solo, squad and custom lobby types, with six training modes to boot. Following the delay, the team assures that its “rebuilt large parts of the world” to get things running smoothly. If you want to see how the game is shaping up, the developer says an open beta is on the way later this week, so look out for that.
The game will launch in Early Access, where the team intends to stay for at least six to twelve months. Over the course of that time the studio will add more modes and weapons as it clamps down on bugs.
The game will support all PC-based VR headsets via SteamVR at launch and cost $20.
Just over a year ago, VRFocus reported on indie developer CyberDream and its battle royale title Virtual Battlegrounds, expected to arrive that spring. That didn’t happen, seeing a number of delays in the process. Having started the project back in 2017 – first shown to the public in July 2018 – the team has announced that it’s ready to launch Virtual Battlegrounds via Steam Early Access in a weeks time.
Aiming to bring PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds’ (PUBG) style of gameplay into virtual reality (VR), Virtual Battlegrounds wants to offer players as much flexibility as possible when traversing the battlefield. There will be options available for locomotion, aiming, freelook and interactions, enabling players to climb anything for the perfect vantage point, blind fire corners, dual wield weapons, opt for close-quarters melee combat, slide into cover and zipline across the map if they so wish.
Virtual Battlegrounds will feature six singleplayer and co-op training modes focused on strengthening players skillsets, while the main Battle Royale modes have solo, squad and custom private lobby options. The training modes include a basic basketball court, firing ranges, shoot-house training, PvE bot modes, PvPvE Battle training for squad modes and a multiplayer CQC arena.
The main event will support up to 24 players across a 4sq KM map filled with environmental features to utilise. All the weapons will be realistic and physics-based – which includes the ballistics – plus players will be able to use attachments to improve their loadouts. This realism stretches to locomotion as well, so players will need to get those arms moving.
One of the big reasons videogames like Fortnite have done so well is thanks to user-generated content, streaming on platforms like Twitch. So CyberDream has ensured that Virtual Battlegrounds players can do something similar, offering LIV support for anyone wanting to stream/record their gameplay.
Virtual Battlegrounds is scheduled to arrive on Steam Early Access on 8th April, supporting Oculus Rift, Valve Index, HTC Vive and Windows Mixed Reality. The studio has also confirmed Virtual Battlegrounds will work on Oculus Quest using an Oculus Link connection.
Check out the new launch trailer below and for further updates on Virtual Battlegrounds, keep reading VRFocus.
Das Spielprinzip Battle Royale erfreut sich weiterhin großer Beliebtheit und wird stetig weiterentwickelt. Nach PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), Fortnite und dem kürzlich erschienenen Erfolgshit Apex Legends für PC, verkündetet Entwicklerstudio CyberDream den Release seines VR-Vertreters Virtual Battlegrounds für Oculus Rift, HTC Vive und Windows-VR-Brillen. Der VR-Battle-Royale-Titel erscheint am 15. März im Early Access auf Steam.
Virtual Battlegrounds – Release am 15. März im Early Access für Oculus Rift, HTC Vive und Windows-VR-Brillen
Mit Virtual Battlegrounds erscheint in wenigen Wochen ein weiterer Genrevertreter des Battle-Royale-Modus für VR-Brillen. Nach knapp 16 Monaten Entwicklungszeit offenbart die VR-Adaption des beliebten Spielprinzips kein Alleinstellungsmerkmal mehr, denn bereits erschienene oder kommende Titel wie Contractors, War Dustoder Population: ONEbilden eine starke Konkurrenz auf dem Spielemarkt.
Ein Umstand, der auch den Entwicklern bewusst ist. Nach einer misslungenen ersten Alpha-Phase versprechen die verantwortlichen Devs nun eine ausgereifte Spielerfahrung mit zahlreichen Spielmechaniken.
Dazu zählt eine freie Fortbewegungsmethode basierend auf einer realistischen Physik-Engine. So kommt euer ganzer Körper für zahlreiche Aktionen zum Einsatz. Beim Klettern, Schwimmen und Springen müsst ihr eure Arme und Beine realistisch mitbewegen, um voranzukommen (zumindest für das Springen dürft ihr aber ebenso auf einen Knopfdruck zurückgreifen).
Ebenso setzen die Zusatzfeatures wie Fallschirmsprünge, Autofahren oder das Abseilen an einer Seilrutsche auf diese Bedingungen. Auch in Feuergefechten müsst ihr zum Deckung suchen und Kriechen euren Körper mitbewegen. Der Überlebenskampf erfordert also durchaus einiges an körperlicher Kondition.
Und was wäre ein Battle Royale ohne reichlich Feuerkraft? Zum Bekämpfen eurer Gegner stehen zahlreiche Waffen zur Auswahl. Von Scharfschützengewehren über Schnellfeuerwaffen bis zu schweren Geschützen ist für reichliche Abwechslung gesorgt. Waffen-Upgrades und Attachments, wie Zielfernrohre und Schalldämpfer gehören dabei ebenso zum Repertoire. Das Gunplay soll mithilfe von Militärexperten entwickelt worden sein und entsprechenden Realismus vermitteln.
Stilistisch erinnert der VR-Titel stark an eine VR-Umsetzung von PUBG. Weitere Features sind ein spatialer Voice-Chat zur Kommunikation mit euren Mitspielern auf der recht großen Map, eine Hub-Area mit Shooting-Range zum Überbrücken der Wartezeit und einiges mehr.
Je nach Vorliebe dürft ihr alleine oder in Vierer-Squads antreten. Insgesamt 24 Spieler treten derzeit auf einer Karte an, wobei Bots eingesetzt werden, um die Wartezeiten zu verkürzen. Je nach Verkaufszahlen und aktiver Community soll die Anzahl gegebenenfalls erhöht werden.
Virtual Battlegrounds erscheint am 15. März im Early Access für Oculus Rift, HTC Vive und Windows-VR-Brillen auf Steam.
Suffice it to say that Virtual Battlegrounds certainly has some competition. You can see the tone and level of gameplay they’re aiming for in the launch trailer here:
As of now the main thing that sets Virtual Battlegrounds apart is its focus on offering a wide range of gameplay mechanics from climbing, ziplining, swimming, jumping, crouching, sliding, and more. The map is also quite large with full-body IK and spatial voice chat.
One particular element that I’m pretty excited about is the attachments system so you can actually add things like scopes, silencers, and other modifications, which has always been a staple of PUBG compared to lots of other other non-VR battle royale shooters and has since found its way into recent titles like Apex Legends.
Battle Royale titles like Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds may be milking the cash currently from PC and console players but there are other developers looking to bring this gameplay design to virtual reality (VR). VRFocus has previously discussed BigBox VR’s Population: ONE, due for release this year. Arriving much sooner is CyberDreams tactical shooter Virtual Battlegrounds, scheduled to arrive via Steam Early Access next month.
With Virtual Battlegrounds, CyberDream aims to combine both the awesome parts of VR with the best bits of Battle Royale, with a massive island to explore with plenty of unique settings, lots of guns, and plenty of immersive gameplay.
“With Virtual Battlegrounds I really wanted to create something different, ” said Creative Director Sean Pinnock. “I’ve spent a long time watching the VR games market grow and honestly I’ve wanted more out of the games that have become front runners in the market. They’ve been mostly smaller confined experiences like wave shooters and rhythm games. While they do execute something simple well, they don’t provide the experience that for myself VR is all about. I want to lose myself entirely to a new world. That’s what Virtual Battlegrounds aims to do. Our goal from the start has been to create the ultimate experience in this genre. Compete in a large 2 square kilometre map with a host of physical locomotion options. Squad up, play against other players or bots. Drive around with vehicles or swim, jump, and zipline to your destination.”
One of the big features in Virtual Battlegounds that helps it make use of VR’s immersive features is the physical locomotion. Players will need to use their arms, legs and body to move and make use of the environment. “Personally, I don’t want to be sitting down idly while having an epic experience in VR,” Pinnock continues. “Instead, I want to be fully immersed in the world I’m in. I want to reach out and grab things, use my body to move and avoid things, crouch, jump and maybe even lay down. This has been a major driving factor for all of our design decisions throughout development. In Virtual Battlegrounds you will use your arms and body to climb, swim, zipline, sprint, skydive, prone and even jump. This creates for a much more physical and immersive experience.”
Alongside the important movement controls, Virtual Battlegounds will feature Sniper Rifles, SMG’s, Assault Rifles, Pistols, and Heavy Weapons, with an assortment of scopes, silencers, laser points, sight modifiers to choose from. Additional features will include a Hub Area with Twitch Stream, shooting range and jukebox, basketball, plus Squad and Solo modes.
Virtual Battlegounds is scheduled to launch for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Windows Mixed Reality headsets on 15th March, with the early access period expected to take between 6-12 months. For further updates, keep reading VRFocus.
Editor’s Note: This was originally published on August 2nd but has been republished on August 10th to coincide with the Open Alpha period. More details here.
Original: When a game vanishes off the face of the Earth for over six months after an initial reveal, it’s usually a bad sign. But in the case of Virtual Battlegrounds, an upcoming VR battle royale game from developer Cyberdream, they were just working hard on their game for eight months. A lot has happened in that time.
The last time we covered Virtual Battlegrounds, the idea of a VR battle royale game was still unique. Stand Out existed already, but it was in its infancy and there wasn’t even a peep about Rec Royale or Do or Die VR yet. Now, the VR landscape is very different and it’s going to be tough for the small indie developer to still make a splash with their ambitious take on the genre.
This article will be focused mostly on my own hands-on impressions. If you want to see footage of the game and hear what the developer has to say, you can watch our feature video above.
The Difference Makers
If Cyberdream wants Virtual Battlegrounds to be successful, it has some stiff competition. On the one hand there are all of the existing battle royale games outside of VR that have made significant names for themselves, primarily being PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) and Fortnite, as well as others like Realm Royale and H1Z1. These titles are where the genre got started and where it’s been popularized. Just simply making a VR version of that concept isn’t really enough. People expect more than copy-paste developers.
Then on the other hand we’ve already got a few VR battle royale games on the market. There’s Rec Royale, a game mode in the free-to-play social VR platform, Rec Room, that’s got a ton of players across PSVR, Rift, and Vive, and we’ve got Stand Out: VR Battle Royale, arguably the first VR battle royale game to make a splash. There are others, but those are the main two.
After playing an in-development build of Virtual Battlegrounds while visiting Cyberdreams’ Orlanda, FL studio, clearly the most significant two ways they plan to differentiate themselves are: 1) map size/scope, and 2) physicality of gameplay.
The map itself in Virtual Battlegrounds is a massive 4km x 4km playspace with several landmarks, cities, villages, and a variety of terrain features and elevation. For those paying attention, that’s actually the same size as PUBG’s third, smaller map. But in VR, it feels enormous.
Standing on the loading ramp at the back of the helicopter as it flies over the map the sheer sense of scale really sets in. In a game of Stand Out or Rec Royale you can easily get to pretty much any corner of the map when you jump out no problem, but depending on your spawn point, you may not see entire sections of Virtual Battlegrounds for a while. The map is just simply huge.
Right now they’ve got the game optimized for 24 players at a time, with some bots, but are aiming to up that number to about 32 players at a time for launch. Including bots to pad out the experience and keep the action rolling is a good idea, especially considering how tough it is to maintain a strong playerbase in VR titles.
Getting Physical
From what I’ve seen, the most surprising and impactful feature that Virtual Battlegrounds has is its climbing system. I haven’t seen anything like this in any other shooter or battle royale game — VR or otherwise.
If you’ve ever played Climbey, The Climb, or Robinson: The Journey then you’ll have a pretty good idea of how the climbing mechanics work in Virtual Battlegrounds, but everything is pushed to the absolute limit. Buildings, trees, mountains, walls, rocks, skyscrapers — it doesn’t matter.
Basically, you can climb just about anything and everything in the game.
Similar to how the building mechanics make Fortnite a fundamentally different game than PUBG, the climbing system in Virtual Battlegrounds is a literal game changer. Instead of walking around a mountain you can go over it. Instead of looking for a door to take cover in a building you can hang from the wall, dangle from the ceiling, or jump in through a window. You can scale anything and everything that you can touch and it’s an exhilarating sense of freedom.
During my demo I approached every situation differently than I would have in another battle royale game. When I come across a building, I’m not just checking my corners in the hallways inside, but scouring the ceiling and listening for footsteps on the roof as well. It makes the whole landscape viable and forces you to be aware of your entire 360-degree surroundings at all times, a bit like Echo Combat.
That sense of physicality is also represented in other areas of the game as well. Similar to Skyrim VR, you have to actually move your arms to swim in Virtual Battlegrounds. When you jump out of the helicopter at the start of the match, you can stretch your arms in front of you to dive down or spread them at your side to slow your speed.
If you swing your arms downward like you’re lunging then you can jump in place. Driving vehicles requires two hands and careful steering. All of the weapons have to be physically manipulated with your hands like you’re actually holding them.
You’ve even got a backpack to store your excess gear that doesn’t fit in your primary weapon holsters and gear belt. That’s a lot of attention to detail.
Focusing On VR Esports
ESL Esports Promo Image
There’s been no greater time to be an esports professional in the history of video games than right now. The first Overwatch League season just recently ended and saw the game broadcast, live, on ESPN and in bars around the world. Contestants are winning thousands of dollars playing games like Overwatch, Dota 2, League of Legends, PUBG, Fortnite, and more.
And now with the second season of the VR League well underway, contestants are doing the same thing with VR games — but they’re doing so in a much more physical way. As impressive as professional Starcraft 2 players are, they’re still just sitting at a desk behind a keyboard. When you compete in a VR game like Echo Arena, Onward, or The Unspoken, you’re actually up and moving in a real, visceral competition. I strongly believe VR and esports have a long, bright future together.
Virtual Battlegrounds wants to tap into that. Onward is having success in the esports scene for a VR shooter, but not many others are yet. The battle royale formula lends itself perfectly to an esports setting, so Cyberdream is hoping to position their upcoming title as a veritable contender.
One way that they’re hoping to do that is by hosting a large esports tournament to celebrate the impending launch of Virtual Battlegrounds later this year. The event will likely be in September in Orlando, FL, and it will include cash prizes. Keep tabs on the company website for more details on that as they become available.
The Battle For The Best VR Battle Royale
Right now Virtual Battlegrounds has a steep hill to climb. Comparisons to PUBG are unavoidable, especially given the name and logo font, as are direct references to the likes of Stand Out and Rec Royale. But if Cyberdream can double down on what sets them apart (larger map, slower-paced matches, and physicality) then they’ve got a shot at making something notable here.
On paper, Virtual Battlegrounds sounds amazing. However, the build I played is not representative of the end vision Cyberdream has for the game. There were some hiccups and framerate drops, lots of quirky (but often hilarious) bugs, it was hard to tell if an enemy player was taking damage, the map isn’t populated with enough vehicles or buildings yet, and some features, like weapon customization and attachments, aren’t in the game yet.
But what is there currently and working — the climbing, the core gun handling, skydiving, swimming, etc — all feels really good and responsive. If the performance issues can get figured out and the rest of the features are included, I have no doubt that there will be an audience ready and waiting to dive into the harsh, post-apocalyptic locale of Virtual Battlegrounds.
Virtual Battlegrounds does not currently have a definitive release date, but Cyberdream is planning for it to be on Steam Early Access before the end of the year following a September 2018 Esports launch event (details will be posted on the company website). You can sign up for the upcoming brief Open Alpha period (from Friday, August 10th at 3PM PT until Saturday, August 11th at 9PM PT) by visiting the official website here.
Cyberdream and its publisher, Spiral Summit Games, paid for travel and lodging for us to visit their studio and provide this coverage. You can read more about our policy on this in our Code of Ethics.
Editor’s Note: Since publication, some screenshots have been changed/updated.
Have you heard of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, otherwise referred to as PUBG? Of course you have. It’s that one game that millions of people are playing around the world that features a cool looking dude walking away from explosions on its cover. The premise is that 100 players are o na plane and skydive down onto an island that’s slowly shrinking and they’ve got to kill each other, Hunger Games style, until only one person (or one team) remains. Simple, but oh so addictive.
After taking the world by storm this year it’s slowly been expanding and improving to its 1.0 release that just happened this week, but it’s a non-VR only game. We played PUBG in VR a tiny bit via Bigscreen, but that was more of a virtual LAN party setup than actually playing it “in” VR. Now Virtual Battlegrounds, an upcoming VR game from Oneiric Entertainment (Emmerholt), aims to fill that void.
Game modes will for sure include total free-for-all as well as Duos, as explained in a Reddit post. Players will be able to find everything from pills, health packs, gear like helmets and body armor, as well as plenty of guns.
Combat will feel familiar to anyone that’s played Onward, which is often lauded as the gold standard of VR FPS games. The current plan is to have maps that allow for 16 players, which is far fewer than the 100-player matches of PUBG, but there just aren’t enough VR gamers out there yet.
We also sent one of the game’s primary developers from Oneiric, Sean Pinnock, some questions over email as a quick Q&A to discuss the game’s development and inspiration:
UploadVR: What’s the basic premise and concept behind Virtual Battlegrounds?
Sean Pinnock: Virtual Battlegrounds is an open world player vs player survival game with some similarities to other Battle Royales. The island that these combatants battle upon is a post-war torn island loaded with weaponry and defensible structures. After skydiving out of a helicopter several thousands of feet into the air, players will scavenge for weapons, gear, and ride around in an array of vehicles to battle to become the last man standing.
UploadVR: How much of an influence was PUBG on Virtual Battlegrounds?
Sean Pinnock: For me PUBG really changed the way I think about the First-Person Shooter genre. Honestly, I became kind of bored with FPS games in general but PUBG really captured something amazing here. I think the most fun I have had playing games in a long time was when I was playing PUBG with a few friends. You get these serious highs and lows when playing the game because of the build up and craziness of the game. It’s a big inspiration for Virtual Battlegrounds. I think pulling off something similar in VR would be a hell of a lot fun.
UploadVR: What were the biggest challenges with making a Battle Royale game in VR?
Sean Pinnock: Well VR has its own big set of challenges when compared to Non-VR games. And this is especially true for a large open world networked game. Players have high expectations of what the visuals should look like and honestly most VR devs are missing it. I would say that for us the biggest challenge has been nailing down AAA visuals while keeping performance levels high enough for competitive play.
UploadVR: Do you feel like people approach Battle Royale games differently in VR than they do outside of VR? Does the fact that it feels more immersive make people play more cautiously?
Sean Pinnock: Absolutely, I think one of the amazing things about VR in general is how much different we interact with our games and experiences then we do with other digital mediums. Traditionally in an FPS I think that most players run around the world recklessly and hope that their quick reaction times and bunny hopping is going to win them the trade. In VR I can really see a lot of situations where players work their way very cautiously inside of buildings. Maybe throwing objects to make noise and distract a player then duck through a window to catch another player off guard. Not to mention those highs and lows I mentioned earlier are just going to be even bigger in VR. I’m honestly pretty excited myself to get out there and play it once the game goes live.
UploadVR: What types of locomotion do you plan on having?
Sean Pinnock: We will feature a few options for locomotion for the player to use. Trackpad movement based on head direction, trackpad movement based on hand direction(similar to Onward), LOTS of vehicles to ride around on by yourself or with friends, skydiving and we’ve also been throwing around the idea of adding in climbing similar to Climbey in the game. It could make for some interesting play in the cities.
UploadVR: Which platforms will this support initially?
Sean Pinnock: Initially we will support Oculus and Vive. If any other new exciting hardware comes out between now and launch we may support that as well. Also the idea of porting to PSVR in the future is a definite possibility.
UploadVR: Will you release in Early Access first, or a full launch? And what’s the timeframe?
Sean Pinnock: While I like the idea of Early Access I think a lot of players are dissatisfied with it because of what some devs have done with Early Access. It’s really a shame because I think Early Access is a great way to make your game better with the players and that is something I want to do. I don’t know for certain whether we will do Early Access or a full release but either way we plan on improving the game after launch.
Our release date isn’t set in stone as of now, but I can say we are targeting summer 2018. We’re likely going to host an open alpha first sometime in the coming months. We will keep you posted on this of course!
UploadVR: Finally, have you seen Stand Out VR? How does Virtual Battlegrounds compare?
Sean Pinnock: I am impressed with where Stand Out VR is at. I was expecting some other developers to make something to compete with VirtualBattlegrounds but not this soon and not this far along. Not only that but they have a lot of similar features as to what we have, and it looks pretty fun to play. But I think visually we’re leagues ahead of them and our map and game world will be a lot more interesting then there’s. Especially with where Virtual Battlegrounds is at now. It’s improved drastically since I last shared the technical demo in October. But only time will tell which game ends up on top and I wish Raptor Labs the best of luck.
How does that sound to you? Are you a PUBG fan? Let us know what you think of Virtual Battlegrounds so far down in the comments below!
Form – Charm Games
Virtual Battlegrounds – CyberDream
Virus Popper – Starcade Arcade
