SynthesisVR is adding another big gun to its arcade line-up; World of Tanks VR.
We first played this official spin-off of Wargaming’s popular battle simulator last year. However, Synthesis will be giving the game a global rollout via its arcades on September 13th.
World of Tanks plays a little differently than you might expect. Instead of simulating a realistic tank cockpit, players find themselves sitting on top of their war machines. They then move the vehicle a little like it were a remote-controlled car. While perhaps not as authentic as some might hope for, it does provide fun arcade-style combat perfect for, well, arcades. Battles consist of two to four players choosing between three tanks across three maps. We’ve got a brief look at the game in the below trailer.
At launch players will be put to the test with prizes up for grabs at local arcades.
Sadly there’s still no word as to if Wargaming will ever release a home-based version of World of Tanks VR. We’d certainly welcome the game on PC VR headsets. Wargaming’s mixed reality division, Neurogaming, is also doing experiments in AR and beyond.
It’s not the only big game Synthesis has added to its lineup recently. Last month we reported that Slightly Mad Studios’ Project Cars Pro was launch in its arcades too. The company offers a location-based entertainment operation package that also includes content from companies like Vertigo Games. A standard plan starts at $25 though the company also just announced the release of a free version.
Wargaming has been experimenting with virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) versions of its popular MMO World of Tanks for several years now, most notably launching World of Tanks VRas a location-based entertainment (LBE) experience in Russia last year. Next week the videogame will be rolled out to VR arcades worldwide using the Synthesis VR distribution platform.
World of Tanks VR was created specifically for the LBE market, featuring specific motion controller support so players can drive, aim, and shoot these war machines quickly and fluidly. Arcades will be able to offer 2-4 multiplayer battles with three tanks (LTTB, T-144, IS-3) offering their own strategic advantages and disadvantages available at launch. The LTTB is light and nimble yet poorly armoured while the IS-3 is a giant brute with plenty of power but very slow. That makes the T-144 the balanced medium tank.
With deathmatch and team deathmatch modes to chose from, three realistic maps (medium-sized summer – Citadel, small winter – Monastery, and large winter – Blizzard) featuring hilly terrain with all kinds of obstacles, shelters and destructible objects will be on offer. The matches are designed for high-velocity gameplay taking approximately 8 min per session with an optional tutorial and 2 battle rounds of 3 min each.
For VR arcades Synthesis VR mentions in a blog post that: “All LBVR operators will have access to license WoT VR without a subscription to Synthesis, making WoT VR available to every arcade non-exclusive of any management software.”
When VRFocusfirst tested World of Tanks VR we noted: “It’s very much a simplified experience; one designed less for the passion of tanks and more for the thrill of battle. That’s no bad thing however, as World of Tanks VR stands as an interesting LBE title that may introduce new audiences to the core online experience.”
Distributed directly through Synthesis VR’s content delivery network, World of Tanks VR will be made available to hundreds of arcades across the globe on Friday 13th September 2019. To celebrate the launch the companies will be hosting a World of Tanks VR Global Arcade Invasion Day featuring competitions and prize giveaways. For further updates on World of Tanks VR, keep reading VRFocus.
Since the launch of Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore, a number of developers have sought to experiment with augmented reality (AR) technology. Though AR apps already existed, the new toolkits give them a scope that was not previously possible, such as turning the immensely popular World of Tanks mobile videogame into an AR experience.
Nina of VRFocuscaught up with Luke Ledwich, Senior Software Engineer at Wargaming Sydney the developer behind the popular app to talk about how the team approached converting World of Tanks into AR.
Asked about what the team at Wargaming Sydney was working on, Ledwich said: “What we’ve done is take World of Tanks 1.0 on Ultra settings and streamed it to an iPad on a table. This means that people can spectate on a match and also that the game can operate from a PC without being bound to the GPU or other limitations of the iPad.”
Describing how the iPad AR features work, Ledwich explained: “The iPad essential acts like a camera. You can move it anywhere you want on the map, you can get close to the tanks and look at the bolts or the flowers next to it – whatever you want. It’s based on replays, so any World of Tanks replay can be presented in this fashion.”
“This is a little slice of the future,” Ledwich continued, “We’re a little bound by the hardware just now, but as new hardware comes along and is adopted, this is probably how we’ll be viewing AR content – or any content – visually in the future.”
When asked what devices would be compatible with the AR replays, Ledwich said: “The technology is not bound to the iPad, but for this experience we wanted a nice, large tablet format and iPad seemed like the right choice.”
Ledwich enthused: “The real beauty of the AR experience is that you can take any replay, and focus in on any area you want and you can look at it from any angle – that perfect shot you made can be seen in 360 degrees.”
The full interview can be viewed below. VRFocuswill continue to bring you news on new AR experiences.
A long time ago VRFocus questioned Wargaming about the possibility of a virtual reality (VR) edition of World of Tanks. Given the success of competing online war machine simulator War Thunder within the new medium it seemed only natural for Wargaming to be looking into doing the same. At the time a representative of the company explained that it wouldn’t work for tanks in the same way as planes, and that a great deal of experimentation would have to be undertaken before World of Tanks could make such a jump. That jump, it seems, is into location-based entertainment (LBE).
Wargaming, with the support of Neurogaming and VRTech, unveiled World of Tanks VR earlier this year. It’s most definitely an aside to World of Tanks – a spin-off experience designed for fans and newcomers alike – opposed to integrating VR into the existing online videogame. That brings both strengths and weaknesses into play, but also allows for Wargaming to pitch the experience perfectly for LBE execution.
Limited to four players, each dons their HTC Vive and prepares for war by choosing their preferred tank. In a significant update from when VRFocus first experienced World of Tanks VR, there are now a small selection of tanks available each one with statistics bars demonstrating firepower, reload speed, acceleration etc. Players are no longer limited to fast or slow, heavy or spread. Tactical ambition is now at play not just in the positioning of your tank, but also in the way you engage your enemies.
The World of Tanks VR controls are complicated at first, but soon it becomes natural. The tank will accelerate forward towards the direction the player faces, however given the large bulk of machinery may take some time to turn tight corners. Meanwhile, the player’s central viewpoint will always represent their firing arch in real-time. The player must combine navigation and maneuvering with lining-up that shot on the weak point in the enemy tank’s armour for maximum efficiency, and their best chance of escaping unhindered.
With a new map also on display at Gamescom 2018, Cologne, players were invited to work on new strategies revolving around a central chokepoint. The previous map VRFocus experienced was designed to grant a height advantage to those who lied in wait upon a hilltop, with an open plane providing little in the way of cover below. This new map, conversely, is too uneven to offer much in the way of an overview, but pushing into the busy central area looking for a kill can leave you open to attack from every direction; a bridge that provides access to spawn points at either end of the map makes you an obvious and easy target even for those shooting from the hip.
Matches in World of Tanks VR are only a few minutes long and consist of two rounds. It’s very much a simplified experience; one designed less for the passion of tanks and more for the thrill of battle. That’s no bad thing however, as World of Tanks VR stands as an interesting LBE title that may introduce new audiences to the core online experience in a sort of role-reversal for Mario Kart Arcade GP VR: World of Tanks is a franchise set to benefit from VR, opposed to being a benefit to its reputation.
You can also check out our hands-on with augmented reality (AR) counterpart World of Tanks AR Spectate from Gamescom, here.
Yes, tabletop gaming is very much still a thing. But just because it’s been around forever doesn’t mean it’s not keeping up with the latest tech. This is what video game giant Wargaming are hoping to prove when they start demoing their latest offering at Gamescom in Germany this week. WoT AR Spectate is a Mixed Reality take on their popular title “World of Tanks” (WoT) which boasts over 140 million players worldwide.
It’s really a proof of concept at this stage according to Wargaming Special Project Lead Matt Daly, who says there are no immediate plans for a formal launch. Yet it’s a very nice-looking proof of concept that opens up all sorts of intriguing possibilities for future use.
“Nobody we’re aware of us achieving 60fps PC GPU settings in super stable AR,” says Daly, who explains that although his team has been only been working on this project for the past six months, it wasn’t the first time they dabbled in Mixed Reality.
Their first MR project used Google Tango and Microsoft HoloLens to bring a rare digital tank from their game to a real-life exhibit at the Tank Museum at Bovington, UK. They then took the learnings from that process to try and make something that was – at least in principle – scalable and accessible to the general public.
In a nutshell, the way WoT AR Spectate currently works is that an iPad is connected to PC functions like a 3D mouse. The PC does all rendering and sends that data back to iPad as video. Using ARKit for iOS, iPad sends its constant position/orientation to the PC while an in-game camera in WoT matches that iPad’s position/orientation, and sends what it sees back to iPad as video.
Predictably, however, there were some serious technical challenges in getting that complex architecture working:
“We were attempting to do something pretty exotic, with tech not necessarily designed for this purpose. Since we’re offloading all GPU & viewer/player control processes to the PC, there was an inherent delay in that process which caused noticeable difference between reality and a sort of perceivably delayed set of AR objects & content, which was disorienting. Besides tons of local network and packet transfer optimization, we then also artificially delayed the iPads RGB camera to have the same (40-70ms) delay as the in-game feed appearing on the iPad screen. The end result is an experience is extremely stable, amazingly polished, and both sides of reality are dancing together instead of fighting each other,” says Daly.
The resulting full-blown 3D battle can unfold right onto your coffee table, but as fun as that sounds, the more exciting aspects of the technology are its applications beyond gaming. From eSports match observation to historical digital recreation (Wargaming just signed a deal with the History Channel to produce some of those) having an interactive second screen anywhere is a proposition that could potentially catch on as a consumer product.
“Content creators are going to go nuts with this stuff,” Daly predicts. “Visual believability is such a massively important part of allowing your brain to trust that something that is not actually there, is. So imagine the implications for theater, sports, socializing. The kinds of filmic (linear and interactive) tools that can or have been built for the “virtual studio” is incredible. This will be significantly different enough from Skype video today that it will make this a much more natural and quotidian part of every-day life… an augmenter, not an encumbrance.”
The current addressable market is massive, yet still lacks two crucial things according to Daly: audience familiarity (and therefore desire to engage) and then the 5G infrastructure that could allow us to no longer need to depend on limited hardware specs on mobile devices.
Indeed, mobile is likely to be a huge part of the Augmented/Mixed Reality success equation going forward, as Apple ARKit, Google ARCore and Facebook Camera Effects could deliver more than 900 million installed base by the end of this year, jumping to nearly 3.5 billion by 2022.
At the moment WoT AR Spectate only works with replays, but there is no technical reason why more interactive and live content couldn’t be developed for – and supported by – their platform. Wargaming are also interested in developing content that will work on AR headsets.
Ultimately they are betting on the fact that just like we got used to having a mobile as a second screen most of the time, perhaps we will soon demand a second (and third-fourth, etc.) volumetric layer of mediated content dynamically appearing around us. Mix that with real-time social co-presence, and you start getting some seriously powerful experiences that people might consider paying for.
What Daly and his team hope is that projects like his will show people what is already possible while hinting at even more amazing things to come, spurring the public to express more interest and ultimately encouraging content makers to bring about that future a bit faster.
We’ve been following Wargaming’s increasing love for all things immersive for some time here on VRFocus. Be it teaming up with a museum to tear down the wall (literally, in this instance) between the real and gaming worlds, or in more recent times as to how their new firm Neurogaming has been working to bring World of Tanks VR to life as as location-based virtual reality (VR) experience for one of two platforms that the company is working on.
Today though, the parent company and developer of the World of Tanks IP has revealed a new immersive app in celebration of the main videogame title hitting the all-important version 1.0 mark with a soon to come update. The app in question takes World of Tanks back into the world of augmented reality (AR) and into the heart of the action. Developed with support from Gravity Jack, and with the pair working “closely” with Google. Neurogaming have revealed at the Games Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, World of Tanks AR Experience. Utilising Google’s AR platform ARCore the app is being featured at the event as one of ARCore’s launch titles.
“The World of Tanks AR Experience allows users to see a tank battle raging around them, anywhere from gigantic life-size to tabletop scale.” Explains Neurogaming in a statement. “The AR vehicle also dismantles in mid-air to show off some of its core components, allowing users to learn more about these historical vehicles. The app features photo and video social sharing functions.”
Support for the app is confirmed for Google Pixel devices, Samsung Galaxy Note8/S8+/S8/S7/S7 Edge, Asus Zenfone AR, LG V30/V30+ and OnePlus 5. As well as on iOS with the iPhone SE, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6x Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 plus, iPhone 8, iPhone 8plus, iPhone, iPad pro, and iPad 5.
“We’re thrilled to collaborate with Google on delivering this unique AR experience to millions of users around the world,” explained Matt Daly of Wargaming’s Special Projects department. “With the recent release of World of Tanks 1.0, we’re taking tank combat up a gear, and the AR app will let our players extend their in-game experience to real life.”
The app is available now on the Google Play Store. VRFocus will continue to bring you all the immersive tech developments from GDC throughout the week.
2018 is shaping up to be a big year for VR arcades and attractions, and a new player in the space is looking to find success with an approach that focuses on fun gameplay and multiplayer.
Cyprus-based Neurogaming is a joint endeavor made up of Wargaming — the group behind World of Tanks — and a venture funding group called VRTech. They’ve got a development office in Moscow and two demo offices, the first in New York. Together, this group is developing a number of VR titles alongside cloud services and hardware packages designed so operators can easily set up and run their own VR arcades.
Neurogaming invited me to the New York demo office among a small group of journalists to see what they’ve been working on ahead of a larger push at GDC next month. It is still early for the group, but they are focusing more heavily than other solutions I’ve seen on one critical aspect of an alluring VR attraction: hooking people to come back with a quality competitive gaming experience.
Here’s a look inside.
Fighting With Russians
I was navigating a tank over the bumpy terrain of a small village in the middle of a snowy winter when I first started noticing the Russian chatter. The three Neurogaming representatives playing with me were yelling to one another outside VR, and they were doing it in their native language. I suppose I’m revealing something of my prejudices here, but their chatter activated something in me. If you strip away all the VR tech, this simple human behavior had an incredible effect on my sense of immersion. I was now driving that tank in the mindset of Rambo with some Russians to beat.
Neurogaming said World of Tanks VR is built from the ground up for the medium, completely separate from the other versions of the game for mobile, console and PC. I believe it. I was a little lost at first but in a single play session of 10 minutes I got a good grasp on the controls and was playing much better by the end. The tanks are actually pretty nimble and as the match progressed it became clear how well they’ve balanced the size of the map against the number of players, the length of each round, and the challenge of both aiming and moving. After they are finished further balancing the game, Wargaming plans to release a version of it for home systems sometime early next year.
Simply put, when we finished the match I was disappointed it was over. I got to see my score at the end and while I wasn’t the worst of the group, I also wasn’t the best. I wanted more.
Before I played with them, Neurogaming representatives explained that retention is exactly the problem they are focused on trying to solve. This was evident in the design of both World of Tanks VR and shooting game RevolVR. Each match packs multiple rounds into sessions lasting just 10 minutes. RevolVR got through 12 of these rapid fire rounds. The fast-paced battles mean you can’t waste any time trying to trounce the enemy. The pace also means players have lots of chances to feel some sense of success or improvement, even if it’s just a single winning round or one kill.
Other location-based VR startups like The VOID and Dreamscape Immersive offer an excellent sense of immersion enhanced by environmental effects like wind, scent, or haptic floors. These companies provide great fun battling stormtroopers or ghosts alongside friends, or simply enjoying the wonder of exploring an alien zoo. While both those startups appear to be seeing brisk ticket sales, neither offers a truly compelling reason to come back just yet. IMAX VR is closer in design to what Neurogaming’s first arcades will look like and they are hosting tournaments in games like Sprint Vector to try and create reasons for people to come back and spend more time.
Neurogaming is trying to take this further. They are developing games either in-house or in close collaboration with partners aimed at providing a reason for people to come back. The effort starts with well-designed games for friends to play together and continues with high scores, kill counts, tournaments and a customer tracking system that keeps a record of your previous visits so you can get a sense of progress as a player or team.
“With the arcade version of World of Tanks VR we’ll introduce in-app purchases and [a] progression system later on this year, which adds extra monetization channels for operators,” wrote Neurogaming Chief Marketing Officer Alex Morozov, in an email.
Neurogaming’s CinemaVR system — ideal for roll-outs in places like theaters or malls — includes a large metal structure that sits over four players with computers and other hardware stored overhead. Each of the headsets hangs from the top of the structure with some slick cable management. The system does a pretty good job of making it easy to spin in 360 degrees and aim your tank in any direction without getting tangled up. Four players are tracked in this space by just two well-placed base stations. Neurogaming sells the four-player hardware package for around $35,000, with plans to become hardware agnostic later this year.
This hardware setup is accompanied by a cloud-based management system meant to make it easy for operators to download Neurogaming’s titles and start selling tickets. The whole arcade is designed to be managed from a mobile device.
Neurogaming is already powering arcades in locations in Russia and Europe, with plans to expand in the Middle East and North America soon. Perhaps most interesting to VR industry readers, the company offered some actual numbers to break down the kind of business they’re seeing initially.
With 37 locations online as of this writing, Neurogaming says each location is seeing on average 2,500 visits per month with each player paying $5-$7.5 for about 10 minutes of gameplay. This is enough, say Neurogaming representatives, for individual locations to become self-sustaining and make a profit each month from a single four-person installation.
Those are some interesting numbers to consider, but perhaps the most interesting figure to me is the following one. Neurogaming says they’re seeing a 25 percent retention rate. In other words, one in four people are already coming back for more even as they fine-tune experiences to try and increase that number.
Stay tuned in the coming days as we follow up this report with one about Polygon, which is Neurogaming’s second generation system. It is still extremely early but takes things to an incredible level of full-body, almost military-grade, simulation.
You can see a sneak peek of that in the image above.
Wargaming—the company behind free-to-play titles World of Tanks (2010),World of Warplanes (2013), and World of Warships (2015)—has announced development of a new title, World of Tanks VR, under development for deployment into VR arcades.
While the original World of Tanks itself isn’t getting VR support (at least for now), the company has announced the formation of Neurogaming, a new VR studio that’s a joint venture between Wargaming and VRTech, a Russia-based VR developer.
As part of its work on CinemaVR, a “scalable, location-based entertainment VR solution focused on session-based multiplayer and co-op games,” which will be offered as white-label VR arcade for those who want to operate their own business, Neurogaming is developing World of Tanks VR, which will be offered through the CinemaVR locations.
World of Tanks VR is based on the World of Tanks IP, but as we understand, it will be an entirely separate game that’s specially designed for location-based VR arcades.
“With location-based VR, we make the experience more affordable and accessible,” says Slava Makarov, World of Tanks creator and strategic advisor of Neurogaming. “Moreover, unlike any other developer, our biggest aim is to change the experience from one-time involvement to a long-term engaging story with co-op and competitive elements.”
Nerogaming is also undertaking the development of VRTech’s Polygon VR platform, a VR attraction offering full-body immersion similar to The VOID, Zero Transform, and others.
For some videogame developers you get a whole raft of titles. Some are hits, some are misses and some are diamonds in a rather hefty skip full of rough. Then there are the developers who develop the occasional title all of which are critically acclaimed but they never seem to make much in the way of money. Artisan developers. Then there are those videogame developers who may as well be wearing a lab coat and long black rubber gloves, playing with electricity harvested from lightning bolts by a dirty great antenna sticking out of the top of their offices. These developers don’t just make videogames, like Doctor Frankenstein before them they bring life to a videogame monster, one that keeps going and going and cannot be stopped.
World of Tanks is one such monster. Since it rolled onto the scene over seven years ago in August 2010, the massively multiplayer online (MMO) – and free to play – videogame has made Wargaming a publishing juggernaut. A global hit played diligently the world over, over 200 million players now enjoy Wargaming’s titles which can be found across all the major gaming platforms and has spawned several spin-offs. Including naval stragegy title World of Warships.
Now, however, there’s going to be a new way to get yourself immersed into the epic tank battles of World War II – Wargaming are officially bringing World of Tanks to virtual reality (VR) – and location-based VR at that.
They are doing so. along with partners VRTech, through the founding of global location-based VR company Neurogaming. A Cyprus based firm, which already has a development studio in Russia and plans to open offices in Amsterdam and New York later this year. Neurogaming is currently at work on scalable, location-based VR solution CinemaVR which has already seen success throughout 2017. This is in addition to PolygonVR, a high-end, location-based entertainment solution which includes VR platform and is targeted to both competitive long-play multiplayer and eSports. Something VRFocus got to try out at last year’s Gamescom event. Neurogaming will be launching its own ‘Platform-as-a-Service’ to VR locations this year.
“With location-based VR, we make the experience more affordable and accessible. Moreover, unlike any other developer, our biggest aim is to change the experience from one-time involvement to a long-term engaging story with co-op and competitive elements.” Explains World of Tanks‘ creator Slava Makarov, who is also a Strategic Advisor for Neurogaming. “Working with the World of Tanks IP and creating an experience for its 180 million community is a massive and exciting opportunity for us.”
This will not be Wargaming’s first look into VR however, VRFocus has reported on numerous times the studio’s ‘Special Projects Unit’ has utilised immersive technology. Including a 360 degree experience onboard the HMS Belfast, celebrating the tank, taking a trip inside the HMS Cavalier and using Google Tango and Hololens to bring tanks from the videogame into reality. We will of course bring you further updates on how World of Tanks VR develops and more information about the developments at Neurogaming and Wargaming as we get them.
Earlier this month VRFocus reported on World of Tanks developer Wargaming.net announcing a partnership with Russian virtual reality (VR) specialist VRTech, to bring the latter’s location-based immersive experiences to Europe. Well that’s happening sooner rather than later with Wargaming.net’s stand at Gamescom 2017 to showcase Polygon VR and Cinema VR.
Polygon VR and Cinema VR are essentially two sides of the same coin. The first provides the experiences and tech required to play in VR, with VRTech creating its own in-house first-person shooter (FPS), a ‘School of Magic’ team exercise and a puzzle solving adventure, all of which are multiplayer based.
While Cinema VR is the location solution that VRTech franchises out to various locations across Russia. With enough play area for up to four people.
Alongside VRTech, Wargaming.net will also have plenty of tank related stuff going on, taking up 1400 m² of show floor with new iterations of World of Tanks on PC and consoles, World of Warships,and a public world premiere of Creative Assembly’s Total War: ARENA.
Talking about Gamecom 2017, Victor Kislyi, CEO of Wargaming said: “For Wargaming and each of our employees, who are gamers by heart, the shows and meetings at our two gamescom booths are the highlight of each year. We are so proud to finally unveil all our latest achievements, future games and put on a great show to our true fans plus thousands of new players. We’ll have chance to chat, get their feedback and deliver truly legendary and fun experience during five amazing days in Cologne. This is also our chance to meet most of our current and potential future partners in person to strengthen our business relationships and to be even more successful together in the future.”
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Wargaming.net, reporting back with the company’s latest VR projects.
Wargaming, with the support of Neurogaming and 
