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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Promising roguelike VR shooter, Sweet Surrender, arrives on Oculus Quest and PC VR headsets next week.
The game touches down on September 30. Developer Salmi Games just confirmed the news. Sweet Surrender will be getting a full launch on the Oculus Quest store as well as arriving on the Rift and Steam stores for PC. There’s a new trailer for the game below.
Sweet Surrender Release Date Revealed
Announced earlier this year, Sweet Surrender caught our attention with its cartoonish visual style and agile combat. The game throws players into a mysterious tower filled with deadly robots. You’ll tackle fresh runs of the environment every time you die, gathering different loot like new weapons and upgrades.
Combat, meanwhile, is fast-paced with smooth locomotion and active features like ziplines and a grapple hook. Though the game isn’t releasing in Early Access (Facebook doesn’t allow pre-release titles on the Oculus Quest store), Salmi does stress that it will be delivering multiple free updates to Sweet Surrender over time.
We tried out the demo for Sweet Surrender back at the beginning of the summer. The limited build didn’t tell us if the game could really get its hooks in us, but we did note it seemed to have all the makings of a good roguelike shooter.
“I’m not yet convinced Sweet Surrender could dethrone the retro mastery of Compound,” we said, “but the game’s got its own promising upgrade path and arresting visual style that suggests the two could, at the very least, enjoy a peaceful coexistence.”
Larcenauts (2021), the VR hero shooter from Impulse Gear, is getting its big ‘Zaruis Heist’ update starting today, which brings a good slice of new content to the game on Quest and PC VR headsets.
Update (September 30th, 2021): Impulse Gear released ‘The Zarius Heist’ today, which includes a new payload-style objective mode called Heist, a new ranger-class character named Imperia, and a seemingly Stargate-inspired level called Thunderhead.
You can check out all of the new stuff in the trailer below, but here’s a quick rundown of Imperia’s gear and abilities:
– Vipera Strike (Imperia’s main weapon): An elegant and unique bow & arrow of the Dynastalker warrior class, and serious slinger of searing shaft sleeves
–Parasphere Field: A portable healing device powered by the blood of your enemies. Damage dealt to enemies fills the device, healing allies in the surrounding area when full.
–Animax Grenade: Deals damage in an area and spawns soul wisps at each enemy damaged that explode after a short time.
–Dyna Burst: Advanced Dynastalker tech enables Imperia to enter an invulnerable state. Rapid healing occurs during this period of invulnerability.
The game includes full cross-play support across Oculus devices and SteamVR headsets, and is priced at $30. Notably, the Oculus Store version supports cross-buy, so you can buy it once and play it on either the Rift or Quest platform.
Original Article (September 17th, 2021): The studio hasn’t said much for now, however the update is called ‘The Zarius Heist’, and will bring to the game a new hero, map, payload objective mode, and private lobbies.
Launched back in June, the 6v6 multiplayer shooter already includes eight playable ‘specialists’, three gameplay modes, and four levels.
The Zarius Heist is coming to all supported platforms on September 30th, which includes cross-play support for Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift (cross-buy supported), and SteamVR headsets.
Impulse Gear says additional details are coming soon which will further detail The Zarius Heist. We’re keeping our eye on the studio’s Discord [invite link] for more info in the coming weeks.
If you’ve never played, check out our full review where we gave it a respectable [7/10]. In it, we noted that Larcenauts has the breadth of mechanics that you’d hope to see in a hero shooter, although we felt it was missing an immersive hook due to minimal VR-specific interactions. We’re of course hoping to see more of those in the new character and payload mode, the latter of which sounds like it could include some very hands-on interactions.
Space Pirate Trainer (2017) on Oculus Quest received a substantial update last week, which brings to the wave-based shooter two new multiplayer modes, one of which basically turns your Quest into a mobile laser tag machine for some 1v1 multiplayer action. Just like the base game, the new additions are well-polished, although the large-format Arena mode comes with a fair bit of friction that may limit these sorts of experiences from taking off before VR headsets are more widespread.
Note: Space Pirate Trainer DX is a free update for people who own Space Pirate Trainer on Quest prior its September 9th launch. The game on Quest is now priced at $25. The classic Space Pirate Trainer remains available on Steam, Oculus Rift, PlayStation and Microsoft stores for $15.
Before the update’s release on September 9th, Space Pirate Trainer on Quest was a single-player wave shooter that boasted extremely high polish. It’s one of those basic experiences everyone should have at least once in VR since it’s so easy to pick up for newcomers and so difficult to put down.
The game, now named Space Pirate Trainer DX on Quest, includes two new modes: Versus, a multiplayer version of the classic solo mode, and Arena, which offers up a few large-format maps for a 1v1 shootout that you might typically find at a VR arcade.
Arena: Star of the Show
I’ll go into all of the necessary safety precautions and caveats below—please don’t miss that—but first a bit on gameplay.
Arena literally uses the entire allowable Guardian space on Quest, a full 10 × 10m (33 × 33ft) space, and there’s no side-skirting that. Over the course of a few days I visited an outdoor basketball court with a local Quest-owning friend so I could bite into both single and multiplayer modes within Arena, which offers up five maps where you can either go head-to-head with another player, or go against waves of increasingly difficult bots.
Simply put: Arena is fun, tiring, and really worth your time if you can organize a match. If.
Unlike the standard single-player mode in SPT, in Arena you’re given a single pistol with infinite ammo and a hand-held shield that can only be activated for a short amount of time. The pistol can either shoot in semi-auto, or with a single charge shot that bounces around everywhere. Keen users of the charge shot can bend bullets around corners and secure a hit, although I never did.
Each player has three lives and no health bar, so getting hit once will force you to respawn in one of four specific zones within a set amount of time, otherwise it will slowly count down and take yet more lives from your bank of three. Arena keeps track of what zones you can respawn at so you’re not spamming a single spot.
Just like the classic wave-based mode, Arena’s bot-mode serves up increasingly difficult waves of baddies which eventually overwhelm you. Bot-mode is fun, and makes for a bitesize way to enjoy Arena before you can setup a proper match, although I’m not sure I would go through the trouble of securing a suitable space just to play Arena’s single-player in the future since it doesn’t offer nearly the same gameplay depth of the classic single-player mode.
As you’d imagine, the 1v1 mode is where Arena truly shines, as it essentially presents a miniature version of laser tag, playable both online in separate spaces over the internet, or locally by using either existent WiFi or a WiFi hotspot on your phone.
To play in the same physical space you’ll need to calibrate accordingly, which takes some finessing the first few times. The best way to do that is to stand approximately in the middle of the playarea and place a piece of tape. Configure that as you center point by facing that direction and hold the ‘Oculus’ button to recalibrate the game’s orientation. From there, you should be safe to play in the same court.
YouTuber ‘VR Oasis’ does a much better job than me at showing off just how it all works on camera in this head-to-head local match.
Space Pirate Arena is dropping today on Oculus Quest / Quest 2 as part of the free Space Pirate Trainer DX update from @i_illusions!
It feels good to be back on my feet after surgery and making videos again. I have an overview and setup guide video coming later today pic.twitter.com/aYg6xwfGwM
Notably, Arena doesn’t feature a match-making function, so you’ll need to find games manually, either by securing some 1v1 time with a friend or by trawling Discord servers for random people. Even if it did have match-making, you’d probably never find a game. More on that later.
If you’re looking to spend some time between matches, one really neat function is the level builder tool, which lets you place blocks of variable sizes in the full playspace and change around the positioning of the spawn points.
In all, the measure of immersion thanks to 1:1 physical movement really makes Arena feel like a premium experience you might well pay for at a mall or VR arcade.
Gameplay left me with very few actual gripes. Maps are fairly samey, and really only act as slightly different spaces to run and hide around. I was really hoping for a little more complexity to both maps and the general “straight shootout” nature of the game, although the pure novelty of it being able to replicate the feeling of a more premium experience was pretty cool on its own. It’s truly got just enough going on right now to make me want to share it with friends.
In the end, I understand why the team didn’t include artificial locomotion like teleporting and smooth stick motion, but I still can’t help but think the game would benefit from offering a hybrid model, where users in arena-scale spaces can play against people in more cramped areas. That would certainly make finding a quick pickup game easier.
High Barrier of Entry
Developers I-Illusions call their Arena mode “a glimpse at the future of VR,” and I think that’s the right way to couch it. It certainly isn’t the ‘now of VR’—and not just because it requires a massive 33 × 33ft (10 × 10m) playspace, or about the size of half a basketball or tennis court. You’re thinking, “I know just the place down the road that will work great,” but there are some caveats to contend with here which we can almost entirely chalk up to the Quest’s hardware.
The developers suggest playing indoors, although that presents its own hurdles when you aren’t a member of a gym or have free access to a large enough indoor area at a moment’s notice. I live in a pretty typical city apartment and I don’t have access to those sort of spaces without paying for it, so I searched out a space nearby my house that seemed to work okay. Yes, I looked like a total dork in the public park, but stepping into the game’s new otherworldly shooting arenas soon insulated me from any possible outside judgement.
Image captured by Road to VR
It’s important to note that outdoor play is dicey on Quest, as the headset’s positional tracking doesn’t fare well in either direct sun or low lighting conditions. If you want to play outside, you’ll typically need to play at dawn, dusk, or when it’s shady enough to establish a rock-solid Guardian. Simply put, going out in full sun is basically a no-go, and playing at night with adjacent street lights can be equally unfeasible if they aren’t bright enough. You’ll also need to make sure people aren’t going to run into your invisible play area, something bystanders might do since there’s no clear indication that you’re about to make a blind dash for cover behind an invisible wall three meters away.
The amount of clear intention required to play Arena sets a high barrier to overcome for such a small addressable population of players, although that may not always be true. As VR headsets become yet more diffuse, one day it may be entirely normal for people to bring their own headsets to the gym to play an even grander arena-scale games. The difficulty of not being able to play outside in full sunlight might also be a non-issue as companies prioritize the hardware for outdoor play compatibility, making every park a place where you might run around and battle against friends or strangers.
Alvo will only release on Oculus Quest 2 and the original Quest headset will not be supported, the developers confirmed to UploadVR.
Earlier in the week, we reported that Alvo was coming to Oculus Quest headsets after launching on PSVR earlier this year. The team was looking for people interested in participating in the upcoming closed beta, with sign-ups available now. However, the application process was accepting Quest 2 users only, and would not include players on the original Quest headset.
We reached out to the developers of Alvo to clarify whether it was just the beta that was locked to Quest 2, or whether the full release was as well. The developers confirmed to UploadVR that Quest 1 headsets will not be supported for Alvo on Quest, and that it will only release on Quest 2 headsets. As you might expect, the developers also confirmed that this is because of performance requirements and the increased capabilities of Quest 2.
Alvo joins the likes of Resident Evil 4 VR and After The Fall, which have both also announced some form of Quest 2 exclusivity. In the case of After The Fall, support for the original Quest is planned but won’t be available at launch in 2021. Instead, the original Quest will have to wait until 2022. “By splitting off the release of this version, we are able to spend more time on the necessary optimization for it while taking away further pressure on our development schedule for the other platforms,” said Richard Stitselaar, Creative Director at Vertigo Games.
On the other hand, Resident Evil 4 VR will be a full Quest 2 exclusive and won’t launch at all on the original Quest headset or any other VR platform. While Alvo’s Quest platform release will be on Quest 2 only, it will be launching on PC VR at a later date as well.
The developers behind competitive VR shooter Alvo announced that the game has been approved for release on the Oculus Store for Quest, with sign-ups for closed beta tests available now.
The game is a multiplayer-only competitive VR first-person shooter, which released earlier this year for PSVR. In our review, we called it a ‘surprisingly rewarding barebones shooter.’
The developers made the Quest announcement on Reddit, noting that Alvo is now approved for an official store release on Quest and they are looking for beta testers.
Those who are keen to see how Alvo translates from PSVR to Quest might not have to wait long, as the developer says they’re using the upcoming Quest beta to help them “refine gameplay and find bugs.”
A sign up form is now available on the Avlo Discord server in the dev updates channel. The tests will be coordinated from the same server, with app invites sent out through App Lab. The beta is only available for those with a Quest 2 headset, not the original Quest. There’s no word on whether the full release might be a Quest 2 exclusive, joining the upcoming Resident Evil 4 VR release, but we’ve reached out to the developers for comment and will update if we receive a response.
According to the sign-up form, all testers will need to sign a full non-disclosure agreement to participate, ensuring that nothing is shared outside of select channels in the Discord server. It is also still a closed beta, which means signing up does not guarantee access — those who are selected will receive a message from the Discord server moderators.
In a comment on the Reddit post, the developers also confirmed that they plan to implement cross-play between Quest 2 and PSVR. Alvo is also set to release for PC VR on Steam, but there are no updates on a potential date just yet.
POPULATION: ONE (2020) is getting some fresh content starting this week that aims to bring a medieval twist to the battle royale shooter.
Called ‘Kingdom Age’, the two month-long event is slated to kick off August 5th, and will include four “big events” which will feature new areas to explore and rewards to win.
There’s still only a few bits of info out about the upcoming medieval DLC, however it seems the game’s sprawling industrial zone has been replaced by a castle which looks tantalizingly ripe with shooting and hiding possibilities.
Image courtesy BigBoxVR
There seems to be a few new costumes to collect too, including both good and evil knights and possibly a witch à la The Red Witch from Game of Thrones. Maybe a blind hunter? There’s no telling yet.
Image courtesy BigBoxVR
We’ve also seen a few swords in promotional material. Population: One actually removed its only sword, the katana, back at the beginning of the second season in May. We’re certainly hoping for some improved sword play with the new content drop this week.
A quick teaser showing an avatar named ‘Victoria’ gives us a peek at some of that ‘good’ armor. You can check it out below, or here if your browser has blocked the Facebook video for some reason.
The studio isn’t couching the free content update as a season per se—if it were, that would make it the game’s third season following its western-themed DLC drop in May, called ‘The Frontier’.
Impulse Gear announced that Larcenauts (2021), its 6v6 hero shooter for PC VR and Oculus Quest, is getting a few key updates today which focus on increasing immersion in the game.
The cross-play hero shooter first launched June 17th with a few things hardcore fans of the fps genre weren’t really expecting. The game’s gun-shooting experience felt like it had been heavily simplified: when larger guns are stabilized with two hands, only your dominant hand contributes to actually moving the gun. Reloading was also simplified with a console-style ‘press button to reload’ scheme, making for a pre-animated reload sequence.
Called the game’s ‘Immersion Overload’ update, the game will be receiving a few new features starting today which Impulse Gear calls “heavily requested by the Larcenauts community.” Now coming to the game is two-handed pivot-aiming, manual reload options, and immersive sprinting, the studio says.
Here’s Impulse Gear’s breakdown of the update coming today:
Manual Reloads: An immersive new reload system option that lets the player perform actions to manually reload their weapon for maximum realism. This, with Style and Automatic reload options allow players to tailor the reload mechanic to their liking.
Two-handed Pivot Aiming: Players can now select an all-new aiming mode that uses the position of both hands to aim weapons, keeping them in control and in the action.
Immersive Sprint: A new sprint mode option where players retain control of their hands while sprinting. Players can simply aim their weapon downward to start sprinting.
Cross-play Lobbies: Cross-play lobbies are now live. SteamVR and Oculus players can now join each other’s lobby by entering a player’s unique lobby code.
Spatialized VOIP in lobby: Players in the social lobby will now hear their friends VOIP spatialized.
Native support for bHaptics TactSuit vests: This third-party wearable interprets in-game actions into haptic feedback that the player can feel when wearing the bHaptics TactSuit vest.
The studio also says if you login before the end of July, you can also nab a new skin for Calima, the Infiltrator.
We gave Larcenauts a solid [7/10] in our review as it was technically well made game with strong art direction, great performance, and a sense of progression with eight characters to unlock. Its launch state however made the game feel more like a run-and-gun free-for-all than a team-based hero shooter, but it seems the studio is actively working on a number of the issues we saw early on.
