Compound Is Getting A Quest 2 Version, Too

Not only is excellent VR shooter, Compound, getting a full PC VR release soon – it’s coming to Quest 2, too.

Developer Bevan McKechnie confirmed as much to UploadVR following the reveal of last week’s news that the full version of the game was nearing release on Steam. Currently there’s no official timeline for when this version will be fully revealed and released, but stay tuned.

Compound Confirmed For Quest

The 1.0 release of Compound will round out the randomized, retro-influenced shooter with overhauled reloading, a new weapon and plenty of other additions.

The game is inspired by early shooter hits like Wolfenstein 3D. We’ve been keeping our eye on this one for some time thanks to the hugely enjoyable early builds that demonstrated smart VR combat and immersive design. “This is a VR shooter with a rejuvenating sense of direction and an understanding of how to keep players rooted in the action,” we said in a 2018 (!) preview. “Compound may be a nostalgia-fueled love letter, but it’s got a lot to learn from.”

We’ll make sure to have a full review when the game leaves early access later this year.

Will you be picking up Compound on Quest 2? Let us know in the comments below!

Quest Team Shooter ‘NERF Ultimate Championship’ to Enter Closed Beta Soon, Signups Here

NERF Ultimate Championship is an upcoming VR arena shooter that’s getting ready to launch into closed beta later this month. If you’re looking to go hands-on, there’s still time to sign up for your chance to wall-run and blast your way to victory.

NERF Ultimate Championship is officially heading into closed beta in “mid to late March,” Hasbro and VR studio Secret Location say. “We will be contacting candidates as soon as we’ve matched them with folks in similar time zones and available timeslots.”

For your chance to participate you simply need to fill out a short questionnaire, which will be open until March 15th at 1:00 PM ET (local time here).

The NERF-brand 4v4 team shooter is headed to Quest sometime this year, so you might just get an opportunity to play it before everyone else, and even help guide development.

It seems the studio is selecting some specific criteria for the first round of beta testers—we aren’t sure what that is, so we can’t say for sure. The developers say selected participants should be contacted within a week however, which also includes an invite to the closed beta’s private Discord Server and instructions on the next steps.

We’re looking forward to seeing more of NERF Ultimate Championship in the coming weeks, as developers Secret Location are also known for bullet-hell shooter Blasters of the Universe (2017), VR retelling of Philip K. Dick’s The Great C (2018), and time-bending puzzle game Transpose (2018).

The post Quest Team Shooter ‘NERF Ultimate Championship’ to Enter Closed Beta Soon, Signups Here appeared first on Road to VR.

Retro VR Shooter Compound Overhauls Tutorial, Full 1.0 Release Coming Soon

A new update for VR FPS Compound has dropped on Steam, overhauling the tutorial and adding a new player onboarding experience.

The game is inspired by classic shooters like Doom and Wolfenstein, modernizing that retro feel with randomized floors of enemies. It’s still in Early Access for PC VR, but it looks like a full release is near.

compound update

The latest patch, V0.5.29, is all about improving the experience for those who come to the game fresh, making it a great time for new players to jump on board. According to the patch notes on Steam, the update “significantly improves the game for first time players, including an overhauled HQ, shooting range, and tutorial.”

This includes new tutorial images and diagrams, clear indicators for gun grad positions, new interactable items in the HQ area and much more.

This update comes at the end of a run of several updates across the years that have added new features or polish. The leaderboard and speedrun update arrived in September, preceded by a balance update in August and the Sandbox update in June. You can view the full list of updates added across the year here.

compound update

Compound first released in Early Access in 2018 and at the time we called it “one of VR’s most concise shooters.” Three years on and the game is still a solid entry in the pantheon of VR shooters, falling at number 13 on our list of the best in the genre.

The game remains in Early Access on Steam, but a full 1.0 release is being worked on. The current update overhauling HQ and the tutorial was mainly added to get some content out before the final release, so as not to leave too much of a dry period with no new updates.

The tutorial overhaul update is available now for Compound in Early Access on PC VR. You can view the full patch notes here.

Retro VR Shooter Compound Overhauls Tutorial, Full 1.0 Release Coming Soon

A new update for VR FPS Compound has dropped on Steam, overhauling the tutorial and adding a new player onboarding experience.

The game is inspired by classic shooters like Doom and Wolfenstein, modernizing that retro feel with randomized floors of enemies. It’s still in Early Access for PC VR, but it looks like a full release is near.

compound update

The latest patch, V0.5.29, is all about improving the experience for those who come to the game fresh, making it a great time for new players to jump on board. According to the patch notes on Steam, the update “significantly improves the game for first time players, including an overhauled HQ, shooting range, and tutorial.”

This includes new tutorial images and diagrams, clear indicators for gun grad positions, new interactable items in the HQ area and much more.

This update comes at the end of a run of several updates across the years that have added new features or polish. The leaderboard and speedrun update arrived in September, preceded by a balance update in August and the Sandbox update in June. You can view the full list of updates added across the year here.

compound update

Compound first released in Early Access in 2018 and at the time we called it “one of VR’s most concise shooters.” Three years on and the game is still a solid entry in the pantheon of VR shooters, falling at number 13 on our list of the best in the genre.

The game remains in Early Access on Steam, but a full 1.0 release is being worked on. The current update overhauling HQ and the tutorial was mainly added to get some content out before the final release, so as not to leave too much of a dry period with no new updates.

The tutorial overhaul update is available now for Compound in Early Access on PC VR. You can view the full patch notes here.

Tactical FPS Vail VR Is Getting A Social Space With Hockey, Chess And More

Promising tactical multiplayer shooter, Vail VR, is adding some interesting new elements to its social lobbies.

The game’s closed alpha testing is today adding a ‘Vail Social’ element, introducing new things for players to do when they’re not shooting each other in the face. Check out the somewhat unusual reveal trailer below.

Vail VR Social Lobbies Trailer

As you can see, the new hub is comprised of minigames like chess and even team-based hockey matches. You’ll also be able to draw, visit a nightclub and developer AEXLAB says there’s the ability to watch video content together too.

Memes aside, it’s a pretty interesting exploration of how VR games can offer new ways to kill time with friends between matches.

We tried Vail ourselves earlier this year and were impressed with what AEXLAB is building. The game is a little like a VR version of Counter-Strike, with manic matches in tight spaces, but the focus on VR’s physicality helps change the experience up.

Currently Vail is only in development for PC VR, with no word yet on possible Oculus Quest or PSVR/PS5 VR versions. You can request access to the alpha over on Steam, but it’s likely to be a while yet before the game is ready for a full release.

Shotwood Is A New Target-Based FPS For Oculus Quest And Rift

Another chance to hit the weapon range is coming to Oculus Quest and Rift headsets in Shotwood.

Developed by Concrete Box, Shotwood is comparable to Gun Club VR or Lethal VR. It sees players tackle courses filled with human-shaped wooden targets, aiming for high scores. The game features more than 17 realistically realized weapons that need to be uniquely reloaded and can be customized with attachments, too. Check out the trailer below.

Shotwood Trailer

The game is set in a mysterious facility in which players take on different challenges. Wooden targets won’t just be static objects but will also fight back in certain scenarios, too. As you complete them, you’ll earn credits to spend on new weapons.

Elsewhere there are minigames that see you wield a sword and shield and even a take on black Jack on a virtual arcade machine. This will be an Early Access release at first and Concrete Box plans to add more to the game in the coming weeks and months.

Shotwood will be releasing on Rift on October 28 and the Quest version will arrive on App Lab on December 23rd. Let us know in the comments if you think you’ll be checking it out.

Roguelite VR Shooter Outlier Headed To Oculus Quest

JoyWay’s latest project, a roguelite VR shooter named Outlier, is on its way to the Oculus Quest.

The developer recently confirmed as much in an email to UploadVR. This will be a full release on the main Oculus Quest store, which you can expect to launch in 2022. Check out the trailer for the PC VR version below.

Outlier Oculus Quest Version Confirmed

Outlier offers first-person shooter action with a supernatural twist. Players fight through an alien planet filled with hostile creatures using a firearm in one hand and superpowers like the ability to throw fire with the other. A few weeks back JoyWay launched an official demo for Steam that also featured as part of this week’s Steam Next Fest. The PC version will be launching in Early Access later this year.

This isn’t the only project the developer is working on. The studio continues to build on its popular free-running VR game, Stride. It launched an Oculus Quest version earlier this year and is currently working on a multiplayer mode that’s in testing on PC, as well as a single-player campaign mode. It’s also got a gory Beat Saber/Pistol Whip clone called Against on the way.

Will you be picking up Outlier on Oculus Quest? Let us know in the comments below!

Sweet Surrender Review: A Rock-Solid Roguelite With Room To Grow

Sweet Surrender delivers core roguelite thrills with room to grow. Read on for our full Sweet Surrender review!

That thing happened with Sweet Surrender. I played it for a few hours and came to what I thought would be my final conclusion. I’d confidently decided it was a simple, clean VR shooter that ultimately didn’t offer enough to keep me coming back.

Sweet Surrender Review – The Facts

What is it?: A single-player FPS roguelite in which you tackle runs of a randomized dungeon and defeat enemy robots.
Platforms: Quest, PC VR
Release Date: September 30
Price: $24.99

Despite this, I kept playing it. And, without really even thinking about it, I kept playing it. Even after I thought I’d played more than enough to competently review the game… I kept playing it. The hooks, it was safe to say, had dug in.

It is definitely true that Sweet Surrender has room for expansion. Even though it’s skipping Early Access, it hasn’t benefited from the many months and even years of feedback-driven refinement that its richer, deeper VR roguelite siblings, Until You Fall and In Death, now feature. It’s a little on the skinny side, both in the length of its randomly generated dungeon and the progression systems within them, but its tough as diamond gameplay erects a tall brick wall I spent hours trying to scale over. And I enjoyed doing so very much.

In some ways, it’s a game more about style than substance. There is a story behind the robot-infested metropolis you’re fighting your way through, but it’s hidden in sparse log drops, and developer Salmi Games is rightly more concerned with the world itself, an uber-cool, arresting mix of sun-blistered vibrancy and clunky killing machines. Think Hotline Miami meets — well, not quite Terminator but maybe evil versions of the robot from Short Circuit? And there’s a wonderfully synthy soundtrack to match the visual narcotics trip, too.

This, it turns out, is exactly the right type of fuel needed to power through repeated takes on the game’s four main areas, which themselves are split into three randomized levels. Each level is an assorted mix of room templates from multi-layered towers to conveyor belts over lava pits in which you’ll seek out the exit and hopefully grab some better gear on the way. That includes weapons, which start off with simple pistols and slowly graduates to grenade launchers and sniper rifles. There are also wrist-mounted chips — of which you can carry up to four — that buff health and damage, sometimes at the expense of clip size etc.

As I said when I first previewed the game this summer, all of this forms the basis for a decent VR roguelite, but I’d definitely like to see more variety to the game’s loot. In later levels, I discovered firearms with time-slowing scopes and chips that gave me a chance to stun enemies, but it’s a mostly basic assortment of changes right now. Weapons don’t have a leveling system so an assault rifle you find in the first area will be just as powerful as one you find in the third, for example, and the modifiers need a greater variety of options to make different runs through the dungeon genuinely varied. There also isn’t really anything in the way of between-run progression, save for the chance to unlock some shortcuts, and the game would really benefit from this.

Sweet Surrender Oculus Quest

Played as a shooter, though, Sweet Surrender is a firmly arcadey affair, where it’s best to dodge bullets with the hot-footed smooth locomotion than it is duck behind cover and lean around corners. It’s clean and agile – reloading asks you to simply point your weapon down before flicking it back up, and you can find hookshots and ziplines that propel you from one side of the room to the other in no time. If you’re a fan of faster-paced VR shooters then this is definitely going to be in your wheelhouse. It’s not quite as refined as, say, Fracked, but it makes up for that with really impressive enemy variety, from basic soldiers to exploadable spider bots and shield-emitting drones that make each new room unpredictable.

Light as it may be, this all proved to be enough to keep me coming back to Sweet Surrender over the past week. The game is undeniably tough, with bullets shaving off a significant chunk off of your initially limited health bar, making the action more intense the further you get into a run. It’s those gripping, skin-of-your-teeth encounters where the game really shines, forcing me into corners as I peppered the air with machine gun fire, hoping to knock drones to the ground, or sprinting on the backfoot as behemoth machines with mining drills chased me. It’s thrilling enough that, when a 30-minute run is abruptly cut short, you can pick yourself up and get straight back to it.

Sweet Surrender Review – Comfort

Though there is a teleport option, Sweet Surrender feels like it was designed to be played with smooth locomotion and quite swift movement at that. It’s definitely on the more intense side of VR shooters – there’s even a modifier that increases your speed. If you have trouble with motion sickness, be advised this one’s likely to trigger it.

Still, it often doesn’t feel like a shooter intrinsically designed for VR, and you get the sense it’d work just as well on a flatscreen as it does in a headset, save for the moments you line up your sights for long-range kills across the other side of the room or toss sticky grenades onto walls. I also struggled with the two-handed weapons, which seemed to get out of position when playing on both PC and Quest, and there are the expected handful of bugs, be it missing enemies preventing me from progressing to the next room on some runs (you have to clear out all foes to progress to the next level), or enemy drones getting stuck between gaps in shipping containers.

Sweet Surrender Screenshot

There’s plenty more to nit-pick; insta-death lavapits and crushing machines are more frustrating than they are anything else, and the game’s currency is really hard to actually spot in levels, meaning you’ll often run right past it.

But, crucially, that’s all stuff that can be fixed, and I have hope Salmi Games will make good on its pledge to keep supporting Sweet Surrender going forward. There is, inarguably, something here. Flesh out those core systems and expand the length of the dungeon, and the developer might just uncover whatever that is.

Sweet Surrender Review: Final Impressions

Sweet Surrender has a lot of room to grow. That much was made clear when Salmi Games promised extensive free updates at launch, but it’s also obvious when you stack it up next to the depth of other VR roguelites, with a comparatively light loot system and smaller overall dungeon size. But, despite its relative simplicity, the game’s moreish difficulty, enjoyable arcade gameplay and hypnotic visual and audio flair make for a rock-solid roguelite I was more than happy to lose hours within. This might be just the start of Sweet Surrender’s journey, but it’s a really promising one.

Review_GOOD


Sweet Surrender Review Points


UploadVR Review Scale 2021

For more on how we arrived at this rating, read our review guidelines. What did you make of our Sweet Surrender review? Let us know in the comments below!

Stride Dev Launches Free Demo For Superpowered PC VR FPS, Outlier

Stride developer Joy Way has yet another demo for another VR game. This time it’s superpowered first-person shooter, Outlier.

A free demo for the game launched on Steam last week, and you can see the new trailer for the game below. Outlier is described as an adventure roguelite in which players pair an arsenal of weapons with powers like throwable fireballs. Cast as one of humanity’s last survivors, players arrive in a new solar system in search of a new home, only to find a deadly alien race looking to destroy everything.

Outlier Trailer

Your task, if you haven’t guessed, will be to stop them. Outlier will feature randomly generated levels that refresh on each run, with the chance to earn new modifiers and power-ups each attempt.

The demo for the game includes three different powers and four weapons to try as well as four enemy types and an end-of-level boss. An Early Access release is planned for later this year. No word on possible PSVR and Oculus Quest releases just yet, but we’ll keep you up-to-date on that front.

This is far from the only project Joy Way has in the works. Earlier this year the studio also debuted its hyper-violet VR rhythm game, Against, which doesn’t yet have a release date. Work also continues on Stride, the team’s popular VR free-running game, which recently launched on Oculus Quest.

Will you be picking up Outlier? Or are you hoping to see more added to Stride soon? Let us know in the comments below!

Shock Troops Is A Retro Oculus Quest Shooter Coming In 2022

Shock Troops, the new game from Garage Collective, is billed as a spiritual successor to the developer’s 2018 shooter, Theta Legion.

But, for all intents and purposes, this is really a direct sequel.

That is to say Shock Troops is another gorgeous throwback to a beloved era of shooters that really comes to life inside VR, with gameplay that will be incredibly familiar to anyone that tried Theta Legion and, to a lesser extent, this year’s Stones of Harlath. Inspired by the likes of Doom and Wolfenstein, Shock Troops has fast-paced, arcade-driven gameplay that has you sprinting through levels, shooting down enemy drones and soldiers.

“Shock Troops is thematically connected to Theta Legion – the Lore is the same, the logos are very similar – they both exist in the same universe, and deal with similar threats – but it’s also a brand new game, with new art, new gameplay, a lot more story, a lot of additions and improvements on the previous formula, and we wanted the name to reflect that to the players,” artist and designer Cyril Guichard explained to me over email. “It’s far beyond being just a sequel to us.”

Shock Troops Oculus Quest Gameplay

I’ve played some of the game’s opening levels, including a first map with cramped, tight corridors and, more promisingly, some layouts with wide-open spaces and even a survival-focused level set against the clock on a moving platform. These different environments suggest Garage Collective is aiming for perhaps a more diverse experience than its previous two VR games, both of which we felt were fun but repetitive experiences.

“We realized that the outdoors portions of Theta Legion, or the more “open” approach of the island of Harlath, were very popular with our players,” Guichard noted. “We will be designing the sequence of indoors VS outdoors spaces in Shock Troops to reflect this.”

And Garage Collective’s trademark visual style hasn’t lost its appeal, either. Shock Troops doubles the resolution of sprites from Theta Legion, allowing for more detailed enemies, and a new art pipeline is helping the team create the larger environments too.

There’s a lot on show, then, but the game’s actually still quite a ways out, and isn’t planned to release until late 2022. That’s actually somewhat reassuring to hear, as there are elements of the game I’d like to see improved, like the UI that currently occludes the player’s hand and, more importantly, the flow of combat.

The fast-paced action on show in the demo is a fitting love letter to classic titles, but it’d be great to see more VR-centric elements. Drones fire incoming attacks at lightning speed, for example, and the game would be more immersive if they fired slower, giving you a chance to physically dodge rather than just hammering you with damage. And, though, the off-hand motion sensor is a nice tribute to the movies the game is so clearly inspired by, it’d be great to see two-handed rifle support and weightier weapon handling to give the aiming a little more challenge.

But what’s already here is already shaping up nicely, offering more warm nostalgia with fantastic visuals. We’ll be following Shock Troops closely as we move into the new year. Guichard says the developer is discussing bringing the title to other platforms beyond Quest, but doesn’t have any news to share on that front just yet.