Windows Mixed Reality - Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

May 9, 2022

First Gameplay Trailer Arrives for VR Horror Propagation: Paradise Hotel

WanadevStudio, the French team behind the excellent rhythm-action title Ragnarock announced back in December 2021 that its next virtual reality (VR) project would expand the Propagation VR franchise. Called Propagation: Paradise Hotel, the studio has unveiled the first gameplay trailer showcasing the horrors that await.

While Propagation VR was a basic wave shooter set within an abandoned subway station, Propagation: Paradise Hotel is going to be a proper survival-horror adventure. In a zombie-filled experience, you step into the shoes of Emily Diaz who barricaded herself in the hotel’s kitchen after everyone started to get sick. After a couple of weeks, though, it’s time to leave and save your sister, finding out she’s alive after intercepting a radio message.

And so begins wandering the dimly lit corridors of the Paradise Hotel, uncovering horrors behind every door by the looks of things. WanadevStudios’ trailer showcases pre-alpha gameplay so some of the designs are likely to change but it gives a great sense of the overall atmosphere. The hallways are littered with dead bodies and blood strewn walls, flies buzz around the corpses and the quiet amplifies your footsteps.

You’ll be able to illuminate dark corners with a chest-mounted flashlight that can be detached for great versatility. This is an action-adventure so you’ll have access to weaponry, needing to search rooms for valuable resources such as ammo and batteries so the light remains lit.

There are plenty of standard VR elements you’d expect in Propagation: Paradise Hotel, from manual gun reloading to physically opening doors and peeking around corners. You’ll also need to be on guard for jump scares as the ferocious, skinless zombie at the end reminds gmw3 of the infamous red-head zombies from Resident Evil.

Propagation: Paradise Hotel is currently slated to arrive towards the end of 2022, supporting Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index and Windows Mixed Reality headsets. Check out the gameplay below and for further updates, keep reading gmw3.

March 3, 2022

You can now Speedrun Your way Through Squingle

Squingle is one of those virtual reality (VR) videogames that has to be played to be really understood. Basically, it’s a psychedelic puzzle title where you have to guide revolving orbs through twisting liquid crystal mazes. If that wasn’t hard enough, Squingle Studios has just added a speedrun gameplay mode, truly testing your puzzle-solving skills.

Normally, Squingle is a fairly casual VR experience where you can relax and find your way through the 100 trippy levels. If you’ve already completed them and really love a challenge – or maybe love speedrunning videogames – then the addition of a speedrun timer might be just what you’re looking for.

Talking to gmw3 in an email regarding the idea behind the new speedrun mode Benjamin Outram of Squingle Studios explained: “I’ve always been fascinated by speedrunning since I saw a Technology Assisted Speedrun (TAS) of Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES. There is a small but active speedrunning community in VR – notably doing speedruns of Superhot VR, Moss, and Boneworks. Our VR game, Squingle, lends itself to trying to play quickly, almost like a platformer, and as an indie game studio talking with the speedrunning community seemed like not only a natural fit to the game, but a great way to support our players.

“A speedrunner going by ‘BlitzVR’, who is famous for a viral IGN video ‘Moss (VR) Developers React to 43 Minute Speedrun’, got in touch with an interest to set a score on Squingle,” Outram continues. “Having asked the community what features might help them, the biggest request is for an ‘in-game-clock’. This sets the standard by not relying on external timing equipment to time your run, making it less friction to record a speed run. So based on Blitz’ interest, I went about to implement a speedrun timer.”

However, this isn’t your ordinary gameplay mode you’ll suddenly see pop up in the main menu, it’s partially hidden – although still easy to access. All you need to do is turn ‘story mode’ to ‘OFF’ in the options.

“This stops the main character appearing every ten levels (which would just waste time!). After every ‘epoch’ (group of 20 levels) – as long as you started at level 1 – the timer appears to show you your total time for that epoch. Assuming you have completed all the levels without going back to the level-select screen, or retried any levels, then your time for the whole game also gets presented at the credits at the end, as well as your scores (how many lizards and petals you collected).”

And that’s it, happy speedrunning through Squingle. If you’ve not tried it out yet you can find Squingle on Steam where there’s a free demo available and on Meta Quest’s App Lab. Oh, and by the way, Squingle is a Game Development World Championship (GDWC) finalist alongside the likes of A Township Tale and Maskmaker.

For all the latest updates on VR, keep reading gmw3.

February 21, 2022

Green Hell VR Demo Arrives as Part of Steam Next Fest

Today sees the start of the Steam Next Fest event, where hundreds of demos are made available over the coming week. One studio taking part is Incuvo, giving PC VR gamers the very first chance to play its upcoming survival adventure Green Hell VR.

Remaking Creepy Jar’s Green Hell from the ground up for virtual reality (VR) headsets, Green Hell VR was initially teased back in 2020. Today, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index, and Windows Mixed Reality headset owners can get their first glimpse into the dangerous Amazonian rainforest, where they’ll have to hunt, forage and craft to survive this inhospitable environment.

Incuvo hasn’t said how much of the final game the demo will showcase but hopefully, it’ll contain a good chunk of the 60+ gameplay mechanics the team has been working on. Just like the dev’s VR port of Blair Witch: VR Edition its making sure all the mechanics are perfectly tuned to VR gameplay.

So you’ll be able to physically fire bows and swing axes to defend yourself from wild animal attacks. Become hurt or infected and you’ll have to treat the wounds, wrapping leaves around your arm. And there’s making fires to ward off the cold night, cooking food, making a shelter, and all the other things you’ll have to do to make sure the jungle doesn’t kill you.

As this is a demo and not the final product Incuvo has issued the following statement: “This early demo build has issues with optimization and requires a high-end PC. Some graphics cards will see better performance than others.”

Currently, the development team is working towards a Q2 2022 launch for both SteamVR and Meta Quest platforms. As gmw3 reported last year, Incuvo also plans on supporting PlayStation VR at some point in the future. For continued updates keep reading gmw3.

February 7, 2022

Ultrawings 2 Hits PC VR in March, Competitive Dogfighting in the Works

Ultrawings 2 soared onto Meta Quest 2 last week with plenty of positive feedback from gamers. A day later developer Bit Planet Games detailed what it has planned post-launch, with features including multiplayer, more aircraft and, of course, the PC VR version.

For Ultrawings 2’s first major patch the team will feature enemy dogfighting whilst in the freeflight for particular aircraft. “We want some emergent — almost — survival type of gameplay where you engage the enemy and see how long you can survive and how many kills you rack up,” a blog post explains.

Moving on from that, competitive dogfighting is on the cards with a closed beta to be held in the next month. No further details on that just yet but it’ll certainly evolve the franchise even further as it’s been entirely single-player so far.

As for additional content, a racing plane and air races will appear later in the year as DLC. Bit Planet Games will be listening to player feedback to help shape and expand Ultrawings 2 in the future.

Finally, there’s the PC version for Steam and the Oculus Rift store. Initially marked for February on Steam, the studio has now earmarked March for the PC launch which will support Rift, Valve Index, HTC Vive, and Windows Mixed Reality. Also confirmed is cross-buy on Oculus Store.

As these new features are rolled out, gmw3 will keep you updated.

February 2, 2022

Steam Sales and Events Revealed for Next 6 months

Steam’s sales events are quite legendary – and consistent – with hundreds of titles always available. Heck, there’s even one going on at the moment with the Steam Lunar New Year Sale ending tomorrow. But this week has also seen Valve reveal its plans for the next six months, detailing what sales and events will be heading your way.

First on the agenda is a big one, Steam’s Next Fest. If you remember last year’s, it’s a pure festival of gaming demos, with a bewildering array of virtual reality (VR) and non-VR videogames to sample. It’ll run from 21st – 28th February, hopefully giving you enough time to play all those demos. And if you somehow miss that one, there will be a summer Next Fest in June, with exact dates to be confirmed.

When it comes to sales the next big event is the annual Steam Summer Sale which is scheduled to take place between 23rd June – 7th July 2022. Valve notes that: “Any game released at least 28 days before June 21 is welcome to participate.”

Continuing with the sales theme, are Themed Sales, dedicated to highlighting particular categories of videogames. This should give some titles greater visibility that may get lost during the larger discount events. Five themed events have been announced so far with more planned later in the year to highlight even more genres.

Metaverse — Image credit: Chaosamran Studio, Shutterstock

Themed Sales

Remote Play Together: 28th February to 7th March
JRPG: 14th – 21st March
SimFest – Hobby Edition: 28th March – 4th April
Die-a-lot: 2nd – 9th May (includes Roguelites, Metroidvanias or Souls-like games)
Racing: 23rd – 30th May
Survival: 18th – 25th July

In addition to these sales events, Steam will also be changing several of its discount rules for developers, rolling out from 28th March. Devs will be given greater flexibility to discount their games, so the time between discounts will change from six to four weeks (28 days). Other rules include not being able to alter price while a promotion is live and that it’s: “not possible to discount a product by more than 90% or less than 10%.”

For continued updates on the latest VR deals and discounts, keep reading gmw3.

February 1, 2022

Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister Heads to PC VR in March

Pixel Toys released Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister as a Meta Quest platform exclusive back in 2020, where you could unleash your wrath against the forces of Chaos. As gmw3 reported back in January, the title was stencilled in for its Steam release on the 12th before being delayed. Today, the studio has confirmed that the PC VR edition of Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister will now arrive in March.

The developer hasn’t said if the PC version will include any improvements such as upgraded graphics but from the new trailer (seen below) they certainly so seem of a higher quality than the Quest 2 videogame. However, Pixel Toys has confirmed that the Steam version will include all the content updates the Quest title has received including Last Bastion, the co-op multiplayer mode.

Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister is a non-stop action-adventure where you play the role of Sister Ophelia, a veteran Sister of Battle who is searching for her long lost twin sister whilst fighting to save all of humanity. As Ophelia you have access to a brutal assortment of weapons, being able to switch between close quarters and long-range combat.

Staying completely faithful to the Warhammer universe and its lore, you can choose from Bolters, Plasma Pistols, Flamers, Las Rifles, Power Swords and Chainswords to cut down heretics and Chaos Space Marines. Additionally, you also have access to special abilities to aid each encounter, creating protective force fields or slowing time.

Gmw3 reviewed Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister saying: “Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister has some great set piece moments, and the general gameplay is enjoyable throughout. Its action all the way, so there’s not much depth to the experience and no secrets to uncover. Just grab a gun and start blasting, which is no bad thing.”

The Steam version of Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister will launch on 8th March 2022 for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index and Windows Mixed Reality headsets; priced at £14.99 GBP/ $19.99 USD. For further updates keep reading gmw3.

January 13, 2022

MMO Zenith: The Last City on Track to Launch in Two Weeks

Virtual reality (VR) platforms have some big titles you can spend hours and hours in, experiences like A Township Tale and OrbusVR two of the most well known. The next to join this group will be Zenith: The Last City, a VR MMORPG by Ramen VR scheduled to launch towards the end of January.

Zenith: The Last City is the brainchild of Lauren Frazier and Andy Tsen, the co-founders of Ramen VR. Work on the project began back in 2019, garnering massive interest from VR players thanks to the scale of the project and its gorgeous aesthetic. Since the initial Kickstarter campaign, the studio has grown to ramp up production, helped by a $10 million Series A investment round.

The title promises to be an action-packed experience set in the sprawling world of Zenith. In this fantasy realm, you’ll be able to go on quests with countless other players, fighting monsters with physical and magical attacks. As a community-driven videogame, Zenith: The Last City will encourage players to forge alliances and join guilds before taking on raids and epic world events.

With such a big expanse to explore there will of course be a variety of unique locations to discover. From the titular city of Zenith to the Fractured Plains, home to rural towns or the Emerald Desert filled with ruins, in total Ramen VR has created five biomes.

This wouldn’t be a VR videogame without some physicality to the proceedings and Zenith: The Last City shouldn’t disappoint on that front. Whether you’re blocking and parrying opponents attacks with a couple of swords or getting a better look at the environment by climbing up a rock face, you’ve got the freedom to do so. The developers have ensured that every surface can be scaled and once you’re up to the top you can then glide to your next destination.

Currently, Ramen VR has stencilled in 27th January as the launch date for Zenith: The Last City across Meta Quest, PlayStation VR and PC VR platforms for $29.99 USD but with a caveat that it could change depending on final approval from the relative VR stores. Check out the new trailer below and for further updates keep reading VRFocus.

January 13, 2022

MMO Zenith: The Last City on Track to Launch in Two Weeks

December 20, 2021

Bigscreen Streaming Update Improves Remote Desktop, Audio & More

Bigscreen may have expanded its focus from a remote desktop app for virtual reality (VR) headsets to a social platform where you can watch movies and TV shows but it hasn’t forgotten where it came from. Over the weekend Bigscreen launched its “Streaming Update”, improving a lot of the core functionality of the app, from the performance and audio to UI tweaks and hosting larger rooms of guests.

The first big improvement is the addition of dedicated streaming servers which the Bigscreen team say ups the video streaming quality as well as offering “perfectly synced audio”. Another bonus from using dedicated servers is the ability to reduce the bandwidth requirements for room hosts who would experience choppy video, with blocky, low-quality video artefacts as well as delayed and laggy audio on occasion. Not only has Bigscreen solved those issues the platform has managed to up the room count for both PC VR and Quest users to 15 (previously 12 and 4 users respectively).

On the Remote Desktop side of things there have been some major enhancements, most notably for Meta Quest users. While Meta Quest had basic Bigscreen functionality users would get a laggy and low quality 30fps video stream. The update ensures the Remote Desktop app streams at 60fps over a local network and that when playing videogames the latency can be sub-20ms.

This should all mean that the social aspects of Bigscreen are greatly improved, making sharing your PC screen with a group of mates to watch a film a far more fluid and enjoyable experience.

That’s not all though, voice chat now supports Spatial Audio so group events now feel more immersive as you’ll be able to tell where someone is within a virtual room. Rendering performance has been upped, especially for original Oculus Quest users which can also handle 15 people in one virtual space.

As for what’s next in the coming months, Bigscreen is still working on its Friend System, a built-in YouTube app, and Input streaming for Remote Desktop, including support for Bluetooth gamepads and keyboards. For continued updates from Bigscreen into 2022, keep reading VRFocus.

December 16, 2021

Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Tempestfall Patch Adds Hardcore Mode & Gameplay Improvements

Carbon Studio’s Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Tempestfall looked set to offer a big glorious virtual reality (VR) adventure ahead of its launch last month but didn’t quite live up to expectations. The developer has been quick to respond to player feedback with a series of patches to hone the gameplay. Today’s patch is a big one, not only adding more quality-of-life improvement but also a new Hardcore Mode.

If you’ve already completed the campaign in Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Tempestfall and want something tougher the new Hardcore Mode should, hopefully, offer the kind of challenge any Stormcast Eternal would relish. If heading back into the campaign doesn’t exactly fill you with excitement, maybe the addition of all the bug fixes and improvements may pique your interest?

Carbon Studio has been hard at work patching Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Tempestfall with a smaller 1.16 patch earlier this month adding a few refinements. v1.2 will offer a much wider raft of enhancements to the gameplay, addressing critical performance bugs, improving motion-based tracking, combat polishing, audio refinement, as well as other elements.

Players should find that physical spell casting is easier to execute, chests are easier to open, and the inventory system has been improved. Carbon Studio hasn’t just been working on gameplay elements either: “The team has also added a selection of lighting and visual detail fixes as well as improvements to multiple environments throughout the game. In addition, a wide variety of bug fixes and combat improvements have been added,” a press release explains.

Combining both physical melee combat and devastating magical abilities, Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Tempestfall put you in the role of Lord-Arcanum Castor Stormscryer commanded by the god-like Sigma to vanquish a plague of Nighthaunt forces that have arisen. However, whilst the VR experience had some great elements the overall delivery wasn’t quite there with VRFocus saying in its review: “Warhammer Age of Sigma: Tempestfall offered the prospect for the sort of adventure Games Workshop’s brutal universe is renowned for, and the history and narrative is certainly there. Yet there’s no connection to or development of the main character, the action is mostly forgettable and there are just too many little glitches and inconsistencies to create a world Warhammer fans can really immerse themselves in.”

With this run of patches Warhammer Age of Sigma: Tempestfall might become the no-holds-barred Warhammer experience everyone hoped it would be. For further updates keep reading VRFocus.