The third season of VRML’s competitive esports league for Echo Arena will begin on January 2021 with an expanded structure and format.
The season will start on January 4 and continue through to May 2, with finals matches scheduled to take place on May 8-9 and May 14-15.
As part of the new season expansion, a VRML Echo Arena Discord channel was opened this week, which will serve as a hub for players and for community leaders to oversee the league. Channels include areas to discuss the league rules, organize scrims, put together rosters and much more.
The new season will also introduce a promotion/relegation format, which is outlined as follows in the Discord:
“Master’s Division will play in a Round Robin format while subsequent divisions play in a Ladder system. The season will have multiple cycles, each ending with a Challenger Cup. The Challenger Cup will take the bottom 2 Master teams and the top 4 Diamond teams to determine which teams will play in Master’s for the next cycle and which teams will play in the Ladder.”
Matches from past VRML’s Echo Arena seasons were broadcast live on Twitch, as well as in Oculus Venues, allowing VR users to watch the games together in a virtual social setting. VRML also runs leagues for other competitive VR titles such as competitive fps Onward.
Echo Arena is the competitive multiplayer mode originally included in Lone Echo, a title that included a separate single-player story and launched for the original Rift in 2017. Last year, developers Ready at Dawn announced that Echo Arena would be coming to Oculus Quest, which launched a few months ago.
VR esports tournament organizers VRML (VR Master League) announced the prize pools for the next seasons of their Onward, Echo Arena and Pavlov leagues, with prizes valued up to $12,000 USD across the three titles. Plus, select matches will be broadcast live in Oculus Venues each weekend.
VRML has consistently organized tournament seasons for some of VR’s biggest competitive games, but this latest prize pool is the biggest cumulative pool yet. VRML says that the increase is thanks to more sponsors and partners, however it’s important to note that the pool is only valued at $12,000 — not all of that is cash prizes. However, VRML wants to ensure that opportunities for competitors to win cold hard cash remain available where possible, and so will be contributing to a cash pool themselves for Onward and Echo Arena.
The prize pool distribution is split as follows:
Onward: $5,520 USD (including $1500 USD in cash, contributed by VRML and Downpour Interactive)
Echo Arena: $3545 USD (including $1400 USD in cash contributed by VRML)
Pavlov: $3,060 USD (no cash prize included)
For Onward, this tournament season is the tenth organized by VRML. Pavlov, on the other hand, is in its seventh season with VRML, and Echo Arena its second, resuming after a hiatus.
Perhaps even more exciting is the announcement that select Onward and Echo Arena matches will be broadcast in Oculus Venues each weekend, allowing spectators to watch VR esports action in VR itself. The Echo Arena matches will continue to be broadcast in Venues each Saturday, having already begun on July 19. Onward matches will be viewable in Venues on Sunday, starting from a TBA date in August.
It’s an exciting development for the VR esports scene — will you be tuning in to catch any of the matches? Let us know in the comments. On the other hand, if you’re interested in competing instead, you can read more and sign up on the VRML website.
Julian Apellanes was never comfortable going out of his house and although he struggled with issues like anxiety and depression, he didn’t want those things to define him. In a trend noticed by others, Apellanes has discovered a new path to reality through social VR. And unsurprisingly, he has dreamed of immersive gaming since he was a child.
“I’ve been gaming all my life and I thought how cool it would be to be inside those worlds,” the 27-year-old explained to me in an interview. Once news about the original Oculus Kickstarter came along years ago, he kept up with the progress and dreamed of a day when he’d be able to immerse himself in the gaming environment rather than simply watching the action unfold on a 2D screen.
Finally, when the Oculus Rift was released in 2016, his dream became a reality, but he couldn’t have known how being immersed in virtual environments would actually give him the confidence to face more traditional social settings.
Julian Apellanes
Apellanes became interested in gaming as a very young child. Raised by his grandparents, he would watch his grandpa play games as a toddler and by the time he was seven or eight years old, he was a master himself.
“I got my online / gaming alias from my grandpa,” explained Apellanes. “He originally came up with the name ‘Palidore’ as the name of his character in the RPG classic Baldur’s Gate, in the late 90s.”
Although his early years in gaming were spent in the lap of his granddad, watching him play and occasionally being permitted to help with a click of the mouse, eventually he began creating his own saves of the game and the name Palidore stuck with him.
Throughout his childhood and teen years, Apellanes started to spend more and more time playing games. In the case of VR, however, you’re actually more present and engaged in the virtual environments, whether you’re floating above the Earth or flying through a virtual arena.
“VR kind of blended the borders between reality and virtual reality,” said Apellanes. “It gave me the first step through that door of interacting with people a lot more so although I was still indoors and interacting with people within my own house, it was very social.”
Early studies of the technology, such as one Facebook IQ commissioned with Neurons Inc in 2017, revealed that people respond positively to interactions in virtual reality. This is particularly true of introverts, who might be less self-conscious and have more confidence in a virtual environment.
Social platforms such as AltspaceVR, Bigscreen, VR Chat, and Rec Room are revolutionizing social interactions. Games with social lobbies where players can hang out, chat, and even talk about tough life issues such as dating, schoolwork, and problems at home are indicative of the fact that people are possibly more comfortable in their virtual bodies than their real ones.
“Just getting to be part of the worlds and experience a totally different reality than you’re used to,” said Apellanes, “but still in the comfort of your own home, that’s huge.”
In the summer of 2017, Apellanes began playing in the beta of Echo Arena, a built-for-VR game from Ready At Dawn that utilizes a unique form of movement as players fly, glide, and boost through a zero-gravity environment rather than walking or teleporting. The immersive feeling of the game is so convincing that players frequently report feeling a sensation of “floating” in physical reality after initially playing the game.
Soon after the game’s release, it was featured in the first season of the Oculus-sponsored, ESL-run VR League (called VR Challenger League at the time). Apellanes created a team with two friends – Kerestell “Lemming” Smith and Bryan “iShiny” McCarthy – and they proceeded to dominate the newly formed league.
Being part of a championship team boosted Apellanes’ self-esteem, but the glory of winning also came with a price. Apellanes would have to leave the comfort of his home to compete at LAN events. Initially the team competed at Oculus Connect 4 in San Jose, California and eventually they would travel to Katowice, Poland and Leicester, England.
The team roster changed a bit during seasons 2 and 3 as Simeonk21 replaced iShiny, who remained on as coach. They managed to claim the second world championship in season 2, but failed to qualify for season 3 finals.
Apellanes took it in stride. Since he couldn’t attend VR League Season 3 Grand Finals as a finalist, the young man who wouldn’t leave his room several years earlier purchased a plane ticket to Leicester, England and attended the finals as a community member.
“Everyone has a purpose in life and sometimes it takes time to find it,” stated Apellanes. “For me, getting to go into Echo and being pretty good at it, start making friends, and things like that … my personal success there made me realize I could be good at something. I discovered who I was and who I could be.”
Since he became involved with VR esports, in addition to being one of the world’s top players, Apellanes has also written articles about his experiences and he has become a caster for the Echo ArenaVR Master League (VRML). He was recently brought on as a board member for the VRML, a community-driven platform that features the most competitive VR games on the market.
“VR allowed me to kind of show myself what I was capable of,” he stated, adding that he has been “continuing the momentum since then.”
“VR has been a positive influence in many ways,” he said. “VR has helped me socially and mentally with things like anxiety and depression. It allows you to step out of your comfort zones while still being in your comfort zone. VR lets you get out without getting out.”
When people can experience environments at a self-regulated pace, it enables them to develop coping skills that they might find difficult to develop in traditional environments. Whether someone is extremely shy or they’ve experienced trauma, the ability to control the rate of exposure to an environment is vital to success.
The phenomenon of virtual reality being used as exposure therapy without actually forcing people into stress-inducing settings in physical reality hasn’t gone unnoticed by others. Even the Veterans Administration is using virtual reality to help service members deal with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) through programs such as Bravemind VR Exposure Therapy.
“VR is a tech we’ve never quite seen before,” said Apellanes. “It immerses your brain in ways it doesn’t expect. Because of that, it helped me and it helps a lot of other people step out of their comfort zones and experience new things.”
These days Apellanes stays incredibly busy casting games and promoting VR esports. He keeps his eyes open for opportunities as the industry continues to grow and he explores career avenues, looking for ways he might be able to use his talents in a world where virtual and physical realities intersect.
Do you have any stories about how VR has helped you with social anxiety, depression, or something else? Let us know down in the comments below!
Julian Apellanes was never comfortable going out of his house and although he struggled with issues like anxiety and depression, he didn’t want those things to define him. In a trend noticed by others, Apellanes has discovered a new path to reality through social VR. And unsurprisingly, he has dreamed of immersive gaming since he was a child.
“I’ve been gaming all my life and I thought how cool it would be to be inside those worlds,” the 27-year-old explained to me in an interview. Once news about the original Oculus Kickstarter came along years ago, he kept up with the progress and dreamed of a day when he’d be able to immerse himself in the gaming environment rather than simply watching the action unfold on a 2D screen.
Finally, when the Oculus Rift was released in 2016, his dream became a reality, but he couldn’t have known how being immersed in virtual environments would actually give him the confidence to face more traditional social settings.
Julian Apellanes
Apellanes became interested in gaming as a very young child. Raised by his grandparents, he would watch his grandpa play games as a toddler and by the time he was seven or eight years old, he was a master himself.
“I got my online / gaming alias from my grandpa,” explained Apellanes. “He originally came up with the name ‘Palidore’ as the name of his character in the RPG classic Baldur’s Gate, in the late 90s.”
Although his early years in gaming were spent in the lap of his granddad, watching him play and occasionally being permitted to help with a click of the mouse, eventually he began creating his own saves of the game and the name Palidore stuck with him.
Throughout his childhood and teen years, Apellanes started to spend more and more time playing games. In the case of VR, however, you’re actually more present and engaged in the virtual environments, whether you’re floating above the Earth or flying through a virtual arena.
“VR kind of blended the borders between reality and virtual reality,” said Apellanes. “It gave me the first step through that door of interacting with people a lot more so although I was still indoors and interacting with people within my own house, it was very social.”
Early studies of the technology, such as one Facebook IQ commissioned with Neurons Inc in 2017, revealed that people respond positively to interactions in virtual reality. This is particularly true of introverts, who might be less self-conscious and have more confidence in a virtual environment.
Social platforms such as AltspaceVR, Bigscreen, VR Chat, and Rec Room are revolutionizing social interactions. Games with social lobbies where players can hang out, chat, and even talk about tough life issues such as dating, schoolwork, and problems at home are indicative of the fact that people are possibly more comfortable in their virtual bodies than their real ones.
“Just getting to be part of the worlds and experience a totally different reality than you’re used to,” said Apellanes, “but still in the comfort of your own home, that’s huge.”
In the summer of 2017, Apellanes began playing in the beta of Echo Arena, a built-for-VR game from Ready At Dawn that utilizes a unique form of movement as players fly, glide, and boost through a zero-gravity environment rather than walking or teleporting. The immersive feeling of the game is so convincing that players frequently report feeling a sensation of “floating” in physical reality after initially playing the game.
Soon after the game’s release, it was featured in the first season of the Oculus-sponsored, ESL-run VR League (called VR Challenger League at the time). Apellanes created a team with two friends – Kerestell “Lemming” Smith and Bryan “iShiny” McCarthy – and they proceeded to dominate the newly formed league.
Being part of a championship team boosted Apellanes’ self-esteem, but the glory of winning also came with a price. Apellanes would have to leave the comfort of his home to compete at LAN events. Initially the team competed at Oculus Connect 4 in San Jose, California and eventually they would travel to Katowice, Poland and Leicester, England.
The team roster changed a bit during seasons 2 and 3 as Simeonk21 replaced iShiny, who remained on as coach. They managed to claim the second world championship in season 2, but failed to qualify for season 3 finals.
Apellanes took it in stride. Since he couldn’t attend VR League Season 3 Grand Finals as a finalist, the young man who wouldn’t leave his room several years earlier purchased a plane ticket to Leicester, England and attended the finals as a community member.
“Everyone has a purpose in life and sometimes it takes time to find it,” stated Apellanes. “For me, getting to go into Echo and being pretty good at it, start making friends, and things like that … my personal success there made me realize I could be good at something. I discovered who I was and who I could be.”
Since he became involved with VR esports, in addition to being one of the world’s top players, Apellanes has also written articles about his experiences and he has become a caster for the Echo ArenaVR Master League (VRML). He was recently brought on as a board member for the VRML, a community-driven platform that features the most competitive VR games on the market.
“VR allowed me to kind of show myself what I was capable of,” he stated, adding that he has been “continuing the momentum since then.”
“VR has been a positive influence in many ways,” he said. “VR has helped me socially and mentally with things like anxiety and depression. It allows you to step out of your comfort zones while still being in your comfort zone. VR lets you get out without getting out.”
When people can experience environments at a self-regulated pace, it enables them to develop coping skills that they might find difficult to develop in traditional environments. Whether someone is extremely shy or they’ve experienced trauma, the ability to control the rate of exposure to an environment is vital to success.
The phenomenon of virtual reality being used as exposure therapy without actually forcing people into stress-inducing settings in physical reality hasn’t gone unnoticed by others. Even the Veterans Administration is using virtual reality to help service members deal with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) through programs such as Bravemind VR Exposure Therapy.
“VR is a tech we’ve never quite seen before,” said Apellanes. “It immerses your brain in ways it doesn’t expect. Because of that, it helped me and it helps a lot of other people step out of their comfort zones and experience new things.”
These days Apellanes stays incredibly busy casting games and promoting VR esports. He keeps his eyes open for opportunities as the industry continues to grow and he explores career avenues, looking for ways he might be able to use his talents in a world where virtual and physical realities intersect.
Do you have any stories about how VR has helped you with social anxiety, depression, or something else? Let us know down in the comments below!
The Virtual Athletics League (VAL) is teaming up with Cloudhead Games to launch the first worldwide Pistol Whip tournament, spread across three weekends in March. The tournament is supported by Oculus and iBUYPOWER and will be open to anyone, with the one pool taking place entirely online from the comfort of user’s homes.
The tournament will be split across three parts, each taking place over one weekend. The first part is the Home Tournament, which is entirely online and takes place on March 13-14. The second part is the Arcade Tournament, on March 19-22, and will take place at participating VR arcades across the world. The Grand Finals will then take place at Salt Lake City at VAL HQ on March 29.
For the home and arcade portions of the tournament, players will be competing to gain the highest combined score after playing two Pistol Whip levels – Black Magic and Download the Future. The levels will be played on the hardest difficult, with the ‘no-fail’ modifier enabled. At the end of the arcade section of the tournament, the results of both the home and arcade tournaments will be compared and the top 3 players with the highest scores will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to compete in the Grand Finals in Salt Lake City, which will also be livestreamed on Twitch and Facebook Gaming.
The total prize pool is $10,000, with $2500 allocated to the home tournament, $2,500 allocated to the arcade tournament, and $,5000 allocated to the Grand Finals. Players who place 1st-8th in the home and arcade tournaments will receive a share of the allocated cash prize pool, ranging from $100 to $500 depending on their placement. For the Grand Finals, the prize pool will be split up with $2,500 going to 1st place, $1,500 to 2nd and $1,000 to 3rd. The top three players at the Grand Finals will also all receive an Oculus Rift S in addition to their cash prizes.
The tournament will be run by VAL with support from Oculus and and iBUYPOWER, alongside other companies like SpringboardVR, who are supporting the effort to involve 500 VR arcades across the world. There will also be an accompanying mixed reality social media contest that runs through March, with categories like “best dressed” and “best deadeye score.”
You’ll have to wait just a little longer to jump into zero gravity on Oculus Quest.
Ready at Dawn this week announced that its upcoming port of Echo Arena to the standalone VR headset has been delayed. It’s now coming some time in 2020, though there’s no specific timing beyond that. We weren’t entirely sure the game would be arriving this year so it doesn’t come as a huge surprise, but it’s a little disappointing all the same.
“To release the highest quality game possible, we’ve decided to delay Echo Arena’s launch on Quest until 2020,” the company said in a blog post. “We’re excited to bring Echo Arena, and all of its zero-g glory, to Quest soon!”
We announced Echo Arena for Quest during our E3 VR Showcase in June. Not only that, but we actually got to see it running back at OC6. David’s impressions were pretty much what he expected; the game is all present and accounted for, but it takes a slight visual hit on the mobile hardware.
“I would definitely play this version and would personally recommend it to Quest owners from what I’ve played,” he said. “Not having to worry about wires is reason enough to make Echo Arena on Quest one worth keeping on your radar because it feels great to spin around without issues. That being said, it just isn’t as good as on PC VR, but that should have been expected anyway.”
We’re still looking forward to this one, then.
Fear not; there’s still plenty of Quest goodness set to arrive in 2019. In fact, Pistol Whip launches on the headset today and we still have The Curious Tale Of The Stolen Pets, Doctor Who and more to look forward to. A bit more patience on the Echo front won’t hurt.
Virtuix and HP announced that Omni Arena experiences will host a $100,000 VR esports prize pool in 2020, doubling the prize pool from this year. Omni Arena is a VR esports attraction that straps users into a harness while in VR and allows them to run on the spot in a treadmill-like manner, affording them free multi-directional movement in the game world.
Omni Arena attractions are available to the public in 12 different countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, UK and the USA. You can view the full list of available locations on their site.
The prize pool is shared globally across all locations, and will likely be split across the year in various small contests that run for limited amounts of time. For example, the current schedule for 2019 shows a contest running from October 24-27 for the game Core Defense, which you play in a team of 2. To compete, you just have to play the eligible game during the contest period at any of the Omni Arena locations. Your team’s scores will be placed on the global leaderboard, and there are cash prizes for the top global leaderboard rankings during the contest period.
For this upcoming tournament next week, first prize is $1,000 and an HTC Vive system. This year, the total prize pool was $50,000 across the year. With that amount doubled in 2020, you can expect some even higher cash prizes or more frequent tournaments.
To see upcoming tournaments for the remainder of 2019, you can visit the Omniverse site. Will you be participating in one of the contests next year? Have you tried the Omni Arena system before? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Virtuix, the company behind the Omni VR treadmill, has partnered with HP to offer a prize pool of $100,000 for its upcoming 2020 Omni Arena series, the company’s annual VR esports competition.
First introduced by Virtuix back in 2016, Omni Arena is a VR esports attraction featuring four Omni VR treadmills. Offering weekly and monthly contests, four-player teams are pitted against each other to top the global leaderboard playing Omni Arena exclusive VR shooters such as Elite, Core Defense, Hardpoint, and VRZ Tournament.
Now the new prize pool amount is double that of the 2019 Omni Arena series, which included a cash prize pool of $50,000.
As a part of the partnership, winning teams will also receive an HP Reverb VR headset in addition to cash prizes in 2020.
Image courtesy Virtuix
In 2019, more than 1,000 players in over a dozen countries participated, founder and CEO of Virtuix Jan Goetgeluk says in a press statement.
One of the guiding ideas behind the company’s esports tournament is to provide users a reason to come back to location-based entertainment facilities, and thus drive higher repeat play.
“A $100,000 prize pool attracts gamers who play again and again. Our core players come back to compete every week,” Goetgeluk says.
Back at the USC Games Expo in May, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to try out a game called Ascend, which was developed by students at the University of Southern California. All of the games presented at the USC Games Expo were made by development teams made up anywhere from two students to over 50. Ascend was one of the larger teams with over 50 people on the team. When I finished my demo, there was only one thing I could think about: the esports potential.
A look at the entrance to the arena. Photo provided by Audrey Cheng.
When Tron: Legacy came out back in 2010, I wanted so badly to be able to play Disc Wars in “real life.” Whether it be an actual arena where I was hooked up to a bungee system, or a similar system to the Matrix… I wanted to play some sort of sport that seemed impossible, and futuristic. Similar in ways to Sparc and Echo Arena, Ascend gave me just that feeling.
Ascend is built around a unique VR locomotion system that the developers refer to as “Lean Motion.” Speaking with Creative Director Mark Yampolsky, he said when he first tried virtual reality, he loved the idea of being able to go to a different world, but not being able to move around naturally frustrated him.
“The first prototypes of Lean Motion came out of a desire to try building a locomotion system that was immersive, motion-sickness-free, and didn’t require any additional hardware,” Yampolsky told me. “I found pretty quickly that by leveraging acceleration that players experience in real life through movement, you could avoid a lot of the problems that cause motion sickness.”
In Ascend, you lean to fly, feeling like you’re wearing a jetpack, a bit like the control system for Golem, but in the air. Plus, it doesn’t take a lot of floor space, and is quite intuitive to control.
A bird’s eye view of the playing field. Photo provided by Audrey Cheng.
The demo I played alongside Akshon Esports’ Adam Neylan had two playable characters: Mufid, and Gloriana. Mufid is referred to as “the inventor,” and uses a plasma blaster as his main weapon. When holding his gun sideways, he can charge Bullet Hell, a move that launches a bullet-trapping barrier at enemies. Gloriana, “the highborne,” dual-wields holoswords. She can slash or stab enemies with her holoswords, and has a move called Phantom Dash. When charging up Phantom Dash, you’re invisible to other players, which can help you get out of dicey situations quickly. If you’re familiar with Overwatch, Phantom Dash has a similar concept to Moira’s Fade move.
Adam and I played the demo with two other people in a free-for-all setting. While I wasn’t very good at the game and was killed quite often, I still thoroughly enjoyed myself. The playing field and mechanics gave me a true sense of immersion, competition and intensity. It gave me that Tron feeling I had sought out for so long. Smooth locomotion often gives me motion sickness, but Lean Motion didn’t phase me. Adam had also mentioned having hyper-sensitive motion sickness prior to the demo, and he felt comfortable throughout the demo.
“We both would definitely love to see different applications where Lean Motion can be used because we believe that other developers could make super creative and fun games utilizing a system that causes 1-in-20 motion sickness,” Executive Producer Audrey Cheng said. “It’s much more intuitive than teleportation/thumbstick/zero gravity locomotion.”
What players see when charging up Bullet Hell. Photo provided by Audrey Cheng.
Ascend reminded me of a lot of things – Tron’s Disc Wars, Final Fantasy X’s Blitzball, and even Iron Man – while still being totally unique, giving both hardcore and casual VR users a new experience. An experience that can be casual drop-in fun, or something much more competitive. Yampolsky described the game as “a pretty unique mix of a free-for-all deathmatch, oddball and capture the flag.” It may seem complicated and difficult to grasp, but it’s not at all.
The team has even prepared for low player counts post-release. The game is always free-for-all to accommodate lower player counts. “We’re pretty aware of the reality: it’s hard to keep concurrent player populations high in VR. It’s important to us that our players can play with other people as much as possible. That’s why we’re making Ascend free-to-play, and worked so hard to design the game mode to be fun, even if there are only a handful of people online.”
Ascend is dropping later this summer on Steam. The team is currently working on two brand new warriors – in addition to Mufid and Gloriana. Their goal is to show the physical and immersive nature of VR, and getting as many people to play as possible, so they can share the experience together.
You can check out Ascend’s listing on Steam by clicking here.
Gameplay officially began this past weekend in Season 3 of the VR League, sponsored by Oculus and ESL. The four featured titles will give players and spectators an opportunity to witness the next level of esports and see who takes home some of the $250,000 total prize pool.
Over the next six weeks, teams will compete in weekly cups for the opportunity to win prize money as well as points that could allow them to qualify for the Online Closed Qualifiers in May. During closed qualifiers, top teams from each of the four games will compete for the opportunity to advance to the Grand Finals at the Haymarket Theatre in Leicester, UK on June 8-9.
Note: The total prize pool of $250,000 includes the weekly award amounts not listed. The total prize pool of just the Grand Finals competitions is $173,900.
Onward
VR League introduced Downpour Interactive’s Onward during Season 2 through a collaboration with VR Master League, a community-driven platform that offers a well-established ecosystem of players, teams, and casters. After a positive reception from players and fans alike, the popular VR first-person shooter is back with the largest Grand Finals prize pool of all four games.
The world’s top two Onward teams were featured in the Season 3 kickoff show match at IEM Katowice on March 3 and over the next 2 months, competing 5-v-5 teams can earn weekly cup prize money and a chance to be flown to the UK in June.
Onward Grand Finals prize pool: $63,000
Echo Combat
One of the new games this season is Echo Combat, an expansion to Ready At Dawn’s Echo universe. Echo Combat is a first-person shooter set in zero-gravity where teams of four must capture and maintain control of a point or escort a payload through the map before time runs out.
Echo Combat was also a featured game at the Season 3 kickoff show match with the two top Echo Arena teams battling for that first Echo Combat title.
Echo Combat Grand Finals prize pool: $46,800
Echo Arena
Echo Arena is a popular zero-gravity sport game from Ready At Dawn and has been a featured title since the inception of VR League in 2017. Teams of three must coordinate their skills in order to fly around a virtual arena where they boost off each other, pass the disc, stun opponents, and score goals against the other team.
The only non-FPS game featured in Season 3, Echo Arena is an appealing option for players who want the sensation of a traditional sport in virtual reality. Many describe the game as soccer or ultimate frisbee in space.
Echo Arena Grand Finals prize pool: $38,700
Space Junkies
Ubisoft’s Space Junkies will launch on March 26 so it’s a new addition to the VR League, but there are already several teams signed up for the March 31 and April 7 warm-up tournaments. This jetpack-fueled game includes a wide variety of weapons that players can use against their opponents in 2-v-2 hostile space battles set in low gravity. The non-VR League version includes 1-v-1 and a multitude of game modes.
Following the warm-up tournaments, teams will begin competition in the league system on April 14.
Space Junkies Grand Finals prize pool: $25,400
Schedule
Online Weekly Cups Stage 1:
March 24
March 31
April 7
Online Weekly Cups Stage 2:
April 14
April 21
April 28
Last Chance Qualifier:
May 5
Online Closed Qualifiers:
May 18-19
May 25-26
Season 3 Grand Finals at Haymarket Theatre in Leicester, UK:
