‘Population: One’ to Begin Invite-only Playtesting on Oculus Quest

BigBox VR announced that its upcoming VR battle royale shooter Population: One is heading back into invite-only playtesting soon, this time focusing on Oculus Quest.

“We’re going to start with Quest playtests in the month of June and then we’ll add in PC crossplay shortly after,” an email invite reads. “We’ve never done Quest playtests before, so we want to focus on one platform before we add multiple headsets into the mix.”

Playtesting appears to be pretty limited; the invite specifies that closed matches may take place on Tuesdays and/or Thursdays, likely to make better use of a smaller group of testers.

Population: One may be a bit behind the wave of trendy battle royale games—even when it was initially unveiled at Gamescom 2018—but we were impressed with the scrappy little multiplayer shooter in our first hands-on for its distinctly VR-native approach to things.

You can climb, fly, build structures, and (of course) shoot and scrounge for weapons & ammo—all under the threat of a constantly closing circle of death.

It was already a comfortable and ostensibly well-polished game from the starting gate, and although we’re hoping for more past our initial impressions from nearly two years ago, being able to have just that with SteamVR-Quest cross-play will be a treat any way you slice it.

That said, there’s no launch date in sight yet, however the game’s website says it’s coming in 2020.

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‘Star Wars: Squadrons’ to Support PSVR & PC VR at Launch This Fall, Trailer Here

Star Wars: Squadrons is an upcoming first-person dog fighter that’s set to release on PC and consoles this fall. As luck would have it, both PSVR and PC VR owners will also be able to play the game when it arrives.

The game was first discovered on Friday due to a leak by Xbox.com, and was later formally confirmed by EA a few hours later with the promise of a trailer reveal, scheduled for today. At the time, there was no indication that we’d be getting a full-fledged VR Star Wars game.

According to the game’s website, you can:

Compete in intense 5v5 dogfights, unite with your squadron to tip the scales in monumental fleet battles, and take off in a thrilling Star Wars™ single-player story. Immerse yourself in the pilot’s seat completely with the option to play the entirety of Star Wars™: Squadrons in virtual reality (VR) on PlayStation®4 and PC with cross-play support.

Created by EA’s Motive Studios, the Star Wars dog fighting game is said to take place after the events of Return of the Jedi (1983), letting you take part in both a campaign and multiplayer modes.

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Star Wars: Squadrons is set to launch on October 2nd for $39.99 across PS4, Xbox One, and PC via Origin, Steam, and the Epic Games Store. Pre-orders are now available.

Although there’s no word on precisely which PC VR headsets it will support, it’s likely we’ll see the standard mix of SteamVR headsets.


This news is breaking. Check back for more soon.

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Open World Cyberpunk Adventure ‘LOW-FI’ is Coming to PSVR 2 This Year

IRIS VR, the studio behind TECHNOLUST (2016), announced that its long-awaited open world cyberpunk adventure LOW-FI is slated to launch sometime this year on PlayStation 5, PSVR 2, and PC VR headsets via Steam and the Meta PC platform.

Update (March 10th, 2023): It’s been nearly two years since IRIS VR announced a PS5 version was coming, which initially was set to arrive sometime in 2021. Now studio head Blair Renaud says in a tweet that LOW-FI is officially coming to PS5 and PSVR 2 this year. You can wishlist it on the PlayStation Store here.

The still in-development game has been available for purchase on PC and PC VR headsets for some time via the game’s itch.io, however Renaud also says we should expect to see it on Steam and the Meta PC platform in 2023 as well. You can wishlist it on Steam here.

If you haven’t followed along with the project, here’s a description courtesy of IRIS VR:

As the player, you are “low-fi”, the street name given to those who cannot merge with the platform, a ubiquitous virtual reality simulation where most of the population now live their lives. You are a police officer and have been transferred to a particularly crime ridden section of city-block 303. The only inhabitants of note in your jurisdiction are other low-fi, and the human intelligence (or lower) artificial life forms who have remained among the citizens after the AI singularity.

The original article announcing LOW-FI’s PS5 availability follows below. We’ve also included the latest trailer below this update:

Original Article (June 12th, 2020): A successful Kickstarter campaign late last year helped get LOW-FI off the ground, having garnered IRIS VR over $80,000 USD. At the time, it was pitched as a VR-native game intentionally built from the ground-up for PC VR headsets and “next-gen PSVR.”

The game’s developer, Blair Renaud, says that anyone can pre-order the PC version now, which gives you early access on SteamVR headsets. At the time of this writing the pre-release PC VR version costs $35 USD.

And it’s certainly an ambitious undertaking, boasting a massive, non-linear open world, “hundreds” of crimes and stories to solve and explore, branching narratives, and dialogue from what the studio says will be “photo-realistic NPCs.”

While the game’s creator seems fairly certain of LOW-FI’s 2021 launch window (see update), Sony hasn’t actually released word on when a next-gen follow-up to the PSVR is set to arrive.

We do however know that the current PSVR will be compatible with PS5 when the console launches holiday 2020, so upcoming VR releases for PS5 don’t necessarily indicate any implied time frame for a prospective PSVR 2.

‘No Man’s Sky’ is Getting Cross-play Support on PSVR & SteamVR Headsets

After adding VR support and a host of new features, one of the biggest redemption stories in gaming history still isn’t over. No Man’s Sky is finally getting cross-play support for PC, PS4 and Xbox One, which of course includes PSVR and SteamVR headsets.

Developer Hello Games today announced on their official blog that the space faring sim No Man’s Sky is getting cross-platform multiplayer support starting Thursday, June 11th.

“A tremendous amount of work has gone into this update and the underlying technology and systems,” Hello Games founder Sean Murray says. “We’ve moved to an entirely new networking architecture, with more flexibility for the future, allowing players to play together regardless of platform. I’m very proud of the team that has worked so hard to make this happen.”

Murray additionally says new content updates, “large and small for the future” are in the pipeline.

Tomorrow’s update comes hot on the heels of the game’s April update, which brought bipedal mechs to the game.

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‘World of Darkness’ Horror Game ‘Afterlife’ Coming to All Major VR Platforms

Fast Travel Games, the studio behind Apex Construct (2018) and Budget Cuts 2 (2019), today announced its next VR project, a horror game based in the ‘World of Darkness’ universe called Wraith: The Oblivion – Afterlife.

Fans of the World of Darkness universe and its many tabletop role-playing games are no doubt familiar with Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse. 

Wraith: The Oblivion – Afterlife is said to follow in the footsteps of its 1994-era tabletop RPG namesake by placing you in the modern Barclay Mansion and putting you in the ghostly shoes of a Wraith who unravels the mysteries “that await beyond the Shroud.”

Erik Odeldahl, Creative Director at Fast Travel Games, says that horror games such as Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Alien: Isolation have influenced the studio to create a similar “narrative-driven, exploration-focused” horror title in the World of Darkness universe.

The game, which doesn’t have a release date yet, is slated to arrive on “all major VR platforms,” Fast Travel says.

A gameplay reveal and details are said to arrive during the Gamescom Now, which starts August 27th. Hopefully we’ll be getting a release date then too.

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‘Zero Caliber VR’ Studio Announces 4-Player Co-op Shooter ‘Gambit!’, Coming 2021

XREAL Games, the studio behind co-op VR shooter Zero Caliber VR (2018), and 2ndGig announced a new co-op shooter headed to PC VR headsets in 2021. Called Gambit!, the upcoming game tosses four players into what the creators call “a road movie style adventure full of tracks and guns and rock and roll.”

The creators say Gambit! follows four mercenaries who botch an important job and infuriate an influential client.

The creators say Gambit’s campaign will be broken into three chapters, each of which includes three “large” maps. The shooter is also said to include a diverse range of weapons and unlockable content, and can be played in both single or four-player co-op via campaign mode. A multiplayer deathmatch is also planned.

There’s precious little to tell from the teaser (linked below), however XREAL and 2ndGig promise a gameplay reveal video sometime this fall, which should arrive with some more details too.

If it’s anything like XREAL’s Zero Caliber VR or more recent shooter A-Tech Cybernetic (2020), it’s likely the game will first head into Early Access before its full release.

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‘Project CARS 3’ Release Date Confirmed, PC VR Support Included at Launch

Project CARS 3, the upcoming sequel to the racing simulator franchise, is set to include VR support when it launches on PC this August.

Update (June 24th, 2020): Slightly Mad Studios has confirmed that Project CARS 3 will be releasing on all supported platforms on August 28th, 2020. The original article follows below:

Original Article (June 4th, 2020): The game, which was recently unveiled by Slightly Mad Studios, is set to include a bevy of new features in addition to 12K resolution and what it calls “best in class VR support” on PC.

The studio says it will include over 200 race and road cars, over 140 global tracks, customizable liveries, and car upgrades with ‘realistic’ performance parts. Tracks are said to include a 24-hour night and day cycle with all weather represented in addition to “enhanced” AI racers. A new career mode promises to be “deeply engaging.”

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The Project Cars franchise has included VR support since the first in the series was released in 2015, which at the time was experimental but notably a step in the right direction for racing sim fans. Project Cars 2 (2017) improved upon it predecessor with, among other things, a better physics engine, putting in more firmly in the simulator side of things. It also included full SteamVR headset support for the modern era of consumer VR.

There’s no word yet on whether the studio is working on PSVR support as well for the PS4 version, or whether a possible PS5 version will offer it thanks to the upcoming console’s beefier specs, which is said to pack an 8-core AMD Zen CPU, AMD Navi GPU, custom SSD, 4K Blu-ray player.

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VR Physics Puzzler ‘Gadgeteer’ to Get Biggest Update Since Launch Soon

Gadgeteer, the physics-based VR puzzler inspired by the whimsical machines of Rube Goldberg, is slated to get the biggest update since its launch into Earl Access last year.

The update is said to include a number of new devices such as a new color toolhead with 60+ colors to choose from, and two new gadgets, the Start and End Cube, which lets you remotely start and stop your contraptions.

The update will be available starting June 11th on all supported platforms including Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, Valve Index, HTC Vive, and Windows VR headsets. Another update, slated for release in August, is said to let users upload and share puzzles in an online sharing feature.

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Road to VR contributor Gabriel Moss got a chance to play Gadgeteer in our Early Access review, saying it’s both “a fantastic Rube Goldberg-style reaction machine builder and, at its most gripping moments, a true example of VR Presence—where the act of building and testing a machine becomes so engaging that you forget you’re playing with code instead of physical toy dominos.”

Developing studio Metanaut also released a new trailer highlighting a machine that wasn’t possible to build before, making use of tracks, rails, and catapults to create one of the hottest non-sport sports to come to 2020: marble racing.

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‘Beat Saber’ is Getting 20 New Free Beat Maps Next Week

If you’ve been looking for more content to play on Beat Saber (2018), you won’t have to wait too long, as Beat Games today announced that the block-slashing rhythm game is getting a big content drop next week including 20 new beat maps.

On May 25th, Beat Saber is getting 20 new beat maps—10 with 360 degree support and 10 with one-saber support.

Beat Saber supports SteamVR headsets, Rift, Quest, and PSVR. Since the PSVR version only supports forward-facing and 90-degree levels due to tracking constraints, it’s unlikely PSVR is getting the 360 maps.

Even prior to the studio’s acquisition by Facebook late last year, Beat Games was able to secure some pretty impressive licencing deals with bands such as Imagine Dragons and Panic! at the Disco for its ongoing paid DLC, and provide a number of free tracks as well along the way.

After the acquisition, Beat Saber nabbed tracks from Green Day and Timbaland; the strategy of filling out its library with new beat maps is a comparatively cheap option to its recent high-level deals, as all of the levels below use previously licensed music. Check out the full list below:

New 360 Beat Maps

Expert +

  • Rattlesnake, Monstercat
  • Reason For Living, Morgan Page
  • PopStars, K/DA
  • Rum N Bass, Boom Kitty

Expert

  • Escape, Jaroslav Beck
  • Fire, Ready, Aim, Green Day
  • Digital, Imagine Dragons

Hard

  • Has a Meaning, Timbaland
  • The Greatest Show, Panic! At The Disco
  • Luv U Need U, Monstercat x Rocket League

New Single-Saber Maps

Expert +, Expert, Hard

  • Unlimited Power, Jaroslav Beck, Frank Bentley
  • Escape (NO Expert), Jaroslav Beck
  • This Time, Monstercat
  • Believer, Imagine Dragons
  • High Hopes, Panic! At The Disco
  • PLAY, Monstercat x Rocket League
  • American Idiot, Green Day
  • While We’re Young, Timbaland
  • Origins, Jaroslav Beck/Jan Ilavsky
  • Reason For Living, Morgan Page

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‘Superhot VR’ Has Now Sold More Than 2 Million Copies

Superhot VR (2016) has now gone double platinum, putting the stylish red-guy-smashing action game at over two million copies sold across all VR platforms.

Released in 2016 on Rift as an Oculus Touch launch title, Superhot VR eventually made its way to nearly every VR platform, including SteamVR headsets, PSVR, and most recently Oculus Quest.

And it’s only gotten more popular over the years since launch, with its Quest release in 2019 seeing a 300 percent sales increase on the first day over its initial launch on Rift.

During holiday season 2019, the game grossed over $2 million in revenue in only one week across all platforms. And that was well after the VR game surpassed the original flatscreen game in overall revenue in April 2019.

“Across all sales platforms, we’ve managed to achieve something that not many developers manage to do in any medium, and that’s pretty meaningful to us so we thought we’d send a press release about it,” said Callum Underwood, Director of Special Projects at SUPERHOT Team. “VR has enabled us to do all the cool stuff we do here, and is paying for the livelihoods of over 45 people to put it bluntly.”

“2020 is shaping up to be our best year yet, sales of SUPERHOT VR are up at least 195% compared to this time last year, and we couldn’t be more proud,” said Alastair Hebson, Director of Other Special Projects at SUPERHOT Team.

The studio says various sales for Superhot VR game will start May 21st, and that users on all platforms should keep any eye out for savings.

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