GTA-Style VR Game ‘GangV Civil Battle Royale’ Coming This Year To PC VR

Raptor Lab, the creators of War Dust and Stand Out: VR Battle Royale are back again with another in-progress big-battle PC VR game titled GangV Civil Battle Royale, but this time it takes place in a modern city setting similar to Grand Theft Auto. GangV will also support non-VR players.

GangV, other than being a VR battle royale game (50 total players, plus NPCs on a large 64 square kilometers map) with tons of vehicles and weapons to choose from across a sprawling open city, is actually pretty unique. The clever concept here is that you’re not battling other players on an open, empty map. Instead, the city is bustling and full of NPCs just like in Grand Theft Auto.

Your objective is to be the last player standing, but the game itself plays out like a big gang war across a metropolis. The footage provided on the Steam page mentions that some viable tactics include trying to blend into traffic while driving to “hide” yourself and reaching out the window to shoot at people chasing you while a friend drives the car.

There is a law enforcement system built into the game as well. So if you rob a gas station looking for cash to try and get better gear, the cops might get called on you. But if you rob a police station or military base, prepare for SWAT or the actual military itself to try and hunt you down.

GangV sounds and looks really ambitious and impressive, so I’m eager to see how it pans out. Their two most popular previous games, Stand Out and War Dust, really did a good job of nailing the sense of scale for big-battle games despite feeling a bit janky, but maybe adding non-VR support to GangV means they can hit a wider audience and get more revenue to keep working on the game for longer and making it even better.

Check out the Steam page for more details. GangV Civil Battle Royale doesn’t have a release date, but it’s currently in alpha testing for PC VR with support for Rift, Vive, Index, and Windows MR. Early Access should start soon on Steam, where it will stay for “2-3 years” according to the developers. Within two months after Early Access launch, they’re planning to add deep modding support as well.

You can check the game’s Discord channel for more details.

ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos Coming To PSVR And PC VR Very Soon

ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos is a VR visual novel that found some success on Oculus Quest when it first released late last year. Even though that’s not the type of game you’d typically expect to see in VR, it’s now expanding with releases slated for PSVR and PC VR this year.

ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos

Today ALTDEUS developer MyDearest announced the game would release on PC VR next month on February 19th and then PSVR two months later on April 15th for $29.99 on both platforms.

Last month we reviewed ALTDEUS, which is a spiritual follow-up to a preview VR visual novel game, Toky Chrono, from the same developers. For all intents and purposes, ALTDEUS improves on its predecessor in every notable way.

In his review, Henry Stockdale wrote:

MyDearest have done a great job on ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos, proving that visual novels can work in virtual reality and it’s clear they took onboard feedback from Tokyo Chronos. Having added new language options and some much-needed immersion to the core gameplay, I found myself completely immersed in ALTDEUS’ story overall. Despite interactivity remaining minimal compared to other VR games, this one comes highly recommended for visual novel fans.

ALTDEUS boasts a 15-20 hour story with branching narrative points and even includes both English and Japanese voice acting options. The game also includes mech battles for moments of actual interactive gameplay and even lets you attend 360-degree virtual J-Pop concerts.

Do you think you’ll check this one out on PC VR or PSVR this year once it makes its way over from the Quest? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below!

Hinge: How This Lovecraft-Inspired VR Horror Game Wants You To Feel A Constant Sense of Fear

It’s a time of plenty and a time of fear. And something else, a horror yet to manifest, lurks under the surface. This is Hinge from Arcadia VR, a psychological horror game that starts with a party. 

During the intro, a noted philanthropist celebrates the completion of his new skyscraper and you’re invited. But the art deco facade masks something far more sinister and otherworldly about the building’s owner. Once night falls, the question becomes whether you can make it out alive with your sanity intact. 

With Hinge, Arcadia VR blends history and the occult with a daring goal in sight: redefining what makes a game terrifying.

“There hasn’t been an AAA VR horror game since 2017 [and] there are so many unexplored possibilities for horror games in virtual reality,” Arcadia’s Oleg Smirnov said. “We tried to develop gameplay mechanics that are only viable in VR.”

Smirnov is likely referring to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, the PSVR-exclusive horror game from Capcom. It’s available on PC and Xbox One as well, but the VR support is only on PSVR. Achieving that same level of success for Arcadia means doubling down on Hinge’s atmosphere to approach the concept of terror in a different, more immersive way. Smirnov feels they’re well-suited to the task. 

hinge vr hotel lobby hinge vr creepy windows hinge vr environment hinge vr skyscraper

“Hinge is our first PC VR game, but as a game dev studio, we’ve been existing for longer,” Smirnov said. “Three years ago, our team was working on the opening of the largest VR LBE venue [a kind of VR theme park experience] in Europe called Another World.”

Arcadia has three LBE venues in Russia, and another two were set to open in London and Paris respectively, when the COVID-19 pandemic derailed their plans. It wasn’t all bad, though.

“We’ve been planning to develop games for Steam VR for a long time,” Smirnov said. “But the pandemic just accelerated us working on that.”

The first step in creating their ideal VR horror atmosphere was getting Hinge’s setting right. Smirnov said the team started from the basic desire to scare players, but it had to be something they could “spice up” with Lovecraftian horror elements. What they ended up with was an eclectic cocktail of 1920s America and creeping dread.

“We decided that the player should be placed in the Great Depression, because that era is fraught with something depressing and desperate,” Smirnov said. “It didn’t seem difficult for us to fit these things together. The player can find similarities between 2020 and the 20s of the last century [and] these three components work great together because [much of] the work of H.P. Lovecraft falls precisely in the Roaring Twenties.”

Hinge Gameplay Trailer

Smirnov and the team didn’t settle for a surface-level trip into history, though.

The early 20th century was the height of rational thinking and belief in science, but there was a strain of darkness and superstition flowing alongside reason and logic. Smirnov said that’s what the team tapped into for Hinge, and Lovecraft is just the tip of the occult iceberg.

“Our game designer wrote over 100 documents and around 20 books specially for Hinge’s in-game environment. The information for these books was taken from real occultist’s books by Aleister Crowley and Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre.”

Though probably better known now as the subject of Ozzy Osbourne’s song “Mr. Crowley,” Aleister Crowley attracted a fair deal of notoriety throughout the first half of the 20th century. He claimed he contacted multiple spirits from other worlds and was even expelled from Italy in 1923 after a follower died during what was called a “sacrilegious ritual.”

Beyond influencing cults and writing arcane tomes, what Crowley and d’Alveydre did is show people there was much about the world they had yet to understand — and not all of it was benign. That sense of uncertainty and the fear it inspires permeates every corner of Hinge.

“We want players to feel like absolutely anything could be around the next corner, to feel like anything in the environment he should be afraid of,” Smirnov said. “We think we succeeded in making the atmosphere where the player feels like even the skyscraper is trying to kill them.”

While Hinge features multiple different monster types, some of which Smirnov said have never been seen before in horror games, don’t expect a bunch of ghouls jumping in your face as the main scare tactic. Smirnov was keen to avoid spoilers, but he did say the team is keen to avoid what they called the overused jump scare mechanic.

Hinge VR

“We did a lot of research overall on the scariest things usually found in the horror genre, and we made our own combination of scares that works perfectly. First [on our list] is scares related to surrounding sound effects,” Smirnov said. 

Since Hinge is a psychological horror game at its core, expect plenty of mind skullduggery as well. Smirnov said the second scare type they focused on revolves around “scares that play with your attention — when you look at some familiar subject, but at some moment it turns out to be a ghost.”

Beyond things going bump in the dark and dreadful night, the entire story messes with players’ perceptions of reality.

“The rules of the game are obscured for players,” Smirnov said. “You will not be able to fully understand what is happening in the game. You’ll have to put all pieces of the story together from scraps that you’ll find in the game and make conclusions by yourself.”


hinge vr

You’ll be able to draw those conclusions and experience Hinge for yourself once it launches on November 27 for SteamVR headsets and on the Oculus Rift PC store. Let us know what you think of Hinge so far down in the comments below!

Hinge: How This Lovecraft-Inspired VR Horror Game Wants You To Feel A Constant Sense of Fear

It’s a time of plenty and a time of fear. And something else, a horror yet to manifest, lurks under the surface. This is Hinge from Arcadia VR, a psychological horror game that starts with a party. 

During the intro, a noted philanthropist celebrates the completion of his new skyscraper and you’re invited. But the art deco facade masks something far more sinister and otherworldly about the building’s owner. Once night falls, the question becomes whether you can make it out alive with your sanity intact. 

With Hinge, Arcadia VR blends history and the occult with a daring goal in sight: redefining what makes a game terrifying.

“There hasn’t been an AAA VR horror game since 2017 [and] there are so many unexplored possibilities for horror games in virtual reality,” Arcadia’s Oleg Smirnov said. “We tried to develop gameplay mechanics that are only viable in VR.”

Smirnov is likely referring to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, the PSVR-exclusive horror game from Capcom. It’s available on PC and Xbox One as well, but the VR support is only on PSVR. Achieving that same level of success for Arcadia means doubling down on Hinge’s atmosphere to approach the concept of terror in a different, more immersive way. Smirnov feels they’re well-suited to the task. 

hinge vr hotel lobby hinge vr creepy windows hinge vr environment hinge vr skyscraper

“Hinge is our first PC VR game, but as a game dev studio, we’ve been existing for longer,” Smirnov said. “Three years ago, our team was working on the opening of the largest VR LBE venue [a kind of VR theme park experience] in Europe called Another World.”

Arcadia has three LBE venues in Russia, and another two were set to open in London and Paris respectively, when the COVID-19 pandemic derailed their plans. It wasn’t all bad, though.

“We’ve been planning to develop games for Steam VR for a long time,” Smirnov said. “But the pandemic just accelerated us working on that.”

The first step in creating their ideal VR horror atmosphere was getting Hinge’s setting right. Smirnov said the team started from the basic desire to scare players, but it had to be something they could “spice up” with Lovecraftian horror elements. What they ended up with was an eclectic cocktail of 1920s America and creeping dread.

“We decided that the player should be placed in the Great Depression, because that era is fraught with something depressing and desperate,” Smirnov said. “It didn’t seem difficult for us to fit these things together. The player can find similarities between 2020 and the 20s of the last century [and] these three components work great together because [much of] the work of H.P. Lovecraft falls precisely in the Roaring Twenties.”

Hinge Gameplay Trailer

Smirnov and the team didn’t settle for a surface-level trip into history, though.

The early 20th century was the height of rational thinking and belief in science, but there was a strain of darkness and superstition flowing alongside reason and logic. Smirnov said that’s what the team tapped into for Hinge, and Lovecraft is just the tip of the occult iceberg.

“Our game designer wrote over 100 documents and around 20 books specially for Hinge’s in-game environment. The information for these books was taken from real occultist’s books by Aleister Crowley and Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre.”

Though probably better known now as the subject of Ozzy Osbourne’s song “Mr. Crowley,” Aleister Crowley attracted a fair deal of notoriety throughout the first half of the 20th century. He claimed he contacted multiple spirits from other worlds and was even expelled from Italy in 1923 after a follower died during what was called a “sacrilegious ritual.”

Beyond influencing cults and writing arcane tomes, what Crowley and d’Alveydre did is show people there was much about the world they had yet to understand — and not all of it was benign. That sense of uncertainty and the fear it inspires permeates every corner of Hinge.

“We want players to feel like absolutely anything could be around the next corner, to feel like anything in the environment he should be afraid of,” Smirnov said. “We think we succeeded in making the atmosphere where the player feels like even the skyscraper is trying to kill them.”

While Hinge features multiple different monster types, some of which Smirnov said have never been seen before in horror games, don’t expect a bunch of ghouls jumping in your face as the main scare tactic. Smirnov was keen to avoid spoilers, but he did say the team is keen to avoid what they called the overused jump scare mechanic.

Hinge VR

“We did a lot of research overall on the scariest things usually found in the horror genre, and we made our own combination of scares that works perfectly. First [on our list] is scares related to surrounding sound effects,” Smirnov said. 

Since Hinge is a psychological horror game at its core, expect plenty of mind skullduggery as well. Smirnov said the second scare type they focused on revolves around “scares that play with your attention — when you look at some familiar subject, but at some moment it turns out to be a ghost.”

Beyond things going bump in the dark and dreadful night, the entire story messes with players’ perceptions of reality.

“The rules of the game are obscured for players,” Smirnov said. “You will not be able to fully understand what is happening in the game. You’ll have to put all pieces of the story together from scraps that you’ll find in the game and make conclusions by yourself.”


hinge vr

You’ll be able to draw those conclusions and experience Hinge for yourself once it launches on November 27 for SteamVR headsets and on the Oculus Rift PC store. Let us know what you think of Hinge so far down in the comments below!

Low-Fi: Dev Q&A On Massive Cyberpunk VR World, Quest Spin-Off, And More

It’s been over a year since IRIS VR Inc. first introduced us to LOW-FI via Kickstarter and we’ve been excited ever since. Having previously released a separate cyberpunk project for VR, Technolust, IRIS now aims to bring us an open-world sandbox game to VR, giving players full creative freedom.

Playing a police officer assigned to city-block 303, this new cyberpunk game promises open-ended choices, allowing you to “Patrol the streets and the skies, solving mysteries, fighting crime, or giving in to corruption and your own desires”. Promising a non-linear structure, this world is free to explore as you wish, choosing which crimes you wish to investigate and multiple ways to resolve them.

LOW-FI Cyberpunk VR Adventure

It smashed that initial Kickstarter target to reach over $81k in funding and hit several stretch goals, such as an additional “wastelands” area with a larger action focus and your own cyber-wolf companion. These goals also included the promise of a “Next-Gen PSVR” port, notably becoming the PlayStation 5’s first confirmed VR Game. 

We got a fresh look at it as part of our UploadVR Summer VR Showcase 2020, but recent news that the PS5 won’t support existing PSVR headsets (outside backwards compatibility) has led to much debate about VR’s future on Sony’s next-gen console. 

With Jim Ryan ruling out new VR announcements in the near term, we reached out to Blair Renaud at IRIS to discuss the implications this has on LOW-FI’s announced PS5 edition, also taking the opportunity to discuss just what we can expect from its gameplay.

Henry Stockdale, UploadVR: Firstly, thank you for joining me here Blair. For any readers unfamiliar with LOW-FI and it’s development, could you please introduce yourselves?

Blair Renaud: Hey, I’m Blair Renaud. CEO and director of IRIS VR INC. Grumpy old game dev. Probably best known for LOW-Fi and Technolust (Oculus Rift Launch title). I’ve been in the game industry for about 25 years now.

 

UploadVR: You’ve described LOW-FI as a huge open-world game, bringing us a sandbox style adventure with action elements.  What inspired yourselves to create such an ambitious project?

Renaud: VR is one of the greatest artistic tools humanity has devised. We have the ability to transport the user into a new world of our creation. I’m a huge fan of 1980’s cinematic classics like Blade Runner, Robocop and Total Recall. So it’s natural for me to want to build similar worlds. If I had a holodeck, this is the type of program I would want to enjoy.

 

UploadVR: Considering the setting, LOW-FI has often compared to a VR version of Cyberpunk 2077, something you’ve also done via Twitter. In terms of gameplay though, would you say there’s much common ground between the two?

Renaud: No not really. I mean, I havent played CP2077, so I can’t really say how similar it is. Did I compare it? Maybe just to say I have flying cars and they don’t? haha. I really don’t think it will be very similar at all outside of the general genre of cyberpunk. LOW-FI will have optional gunplay, whereas it seems to be the focus of CP2077. We have no fail states. What I’m trying to create is more of an open world for a player to do whatever they feel like doing, whereas CP2077 seems to be a bit more scripted and (dare I say) linear. Though we will have multiple story-lines for the player to follow, I like to think that we’re doing something a bit different with LOW-FI.

 

UploadVR: Within the game, we’re playing a police officer that’s been assigned to a crime-ridden section of city-block 303. What sort of characters can we expect to meet along this journey?

Renaud: Most of the human inhabitants of the world are permanently jacked into The Platform, a sort of Facebook metaverse. The only people left are the other “low-fi”, who for one reason or another can’t or won’t subject themselves to it. Some have medical reasons, others ideological. We’ve got all types though. Corporate execs, Ugly Bob the pawnshop owner and his robot companion Penny, a mechanic who deals in illicit firmware, a cybernetics dealer named Juan who’s trying to steal advanced tech from the AI who reached an intelligence singularity and many more. On top of that there are a ton of robots of various types left behind by the singularity.

UploadVR: You’ve described it as a non-linear experience with a branching narrative, so I’d like to ask about story progression. Is that dependent on what crimes you investigate, or is there set criteria to meet before players can advance?

Renaud: That’s something I want to leave completely up to the player. For example; right off the bat, you’re told about the officer you’re replacing, who is dead in the morgue. If you want to investigate that, you’re free to do so. Clues and twists await. Or, if you want to just go to the casino and pay the slots in hopes of buying a cool arcade machine for your apartment with your winnings, you can do that too. I really want to leave it all open ended. As I said. No “save the world” stuff.

 

UploadVR: A morality system is also featured, giving players creative freedom in how they solve crimes, from simple arrests to accepting bribes. Does that factor into the branching paths, or are there other consequences to your actions?

Renaud: There isn’t really a morality system per se. There are however a lot of morally grey options for the player to explore. They have consequences in the same way they would in the real world. If for example, you accept a bribe, that’s on you. You’re really the only law in town, so you’ll probably get away with it. What consequence letting someone get away with a crime might have really depends on the crime though. I want those feelings to be on the player. I’m not here to tell you what I think you should do in any given situation. There’s no score system, outside of maybe money. A lot like life.

 

UploadVR: Does gunplay factor into that too? It’s been mentioned as an optional feature previously, so it sounds like you can solve crimes without resorting to weapons.

Renaud: Gunplay is completely optional and will be limited to use against AI. I feel like if someone want’s to play shooty-man VR, they have plenty of outlets for that. That’s said, there will be full quest-lines involving hunting down rogue androids if they player chooses to pursue them. They pay well, but I can’t guarantee some of the androids wont try to tug at your heart strings.

 

UploadVR: LOW-FI garnered attention as PS5’s first VR game but right now, a new PSVR headset is unconfirmed and existing headsets can only be used via backwards compatibility, Hitman 3 and No Man’s Sky being prominent examples. Jim Ryan seems to have ruled out a successor being released before 2022, so where does that leave LOW-FI’s PS5 edition?

Renaud: I can’t speak to anything about a possible PSVR 2 outside of saying that if/when it becomes available, we fully intend to port LOW-FI to it. In the meantime, we are a registered Sony developer, and are also working on a non-VR version of the game.

 

UploadVR: You’ve ruled out a PS4 version previously, but previous comments suggest that was more about the PS Move controllers than the console itself. Was this truly an insurmountable hurdle?

Renaud: Though the PS Move controllers are a terrible fit for the game, that’s not the only reason. PS4 is very last-gen at this point. LOW-FI is a next-gen VR title.

UploadVR: During the Kickstarter campaign, “Next-Gen PSVR” was mentioned and PS5 support was a Kickstarter stretch goal. Has Sony given you any indication to their future plans? 

Renaud: Yes, but I can’t speak to them. Nor am I sure that they haven’t changed. Recent announcements indicate that they may have.

 

UploadVR: Your last Kickstarter campaign update confirmed a pitch had been sent to Oculus, regarding a LOW-FI spin-off called Agency for Quest. Has there been any further developments on this?

Renaud: Yes! It’s been approved! It still needs funding to justify taking people away from LOW-FI though. Fingers crossed for us!

 

UploadVR: Lastly, is there anything you’d like to share with LOW-FI’s fans?

Renaud: I want to thank all the current backers for their support of course! They have made my dreams come true! I’m a holodeck programmer! And if anyone want’s to help support next-gen VR and get in on the action they can purchase LOW-FI at https://anticleric.itch.io/low-fi and get immediate access to the development build which we update all the time. Then, when the game is released, they’ll be able to choose what platform they get a key for (Steam, Oculus, ect.).


Fore more on Low-Fi, be sure to check out our coverage hub and let us know what you think down in the comments below!

Microsoft Improves Visual Fidelity For Reverb G2 And Other WMR Headsets

Microsoft detailed a new software update available for some Windows MR headsets, including the Reverb G2, that will increase the visual fidelity by improving corrections made for artifacts such as chromatic aberration and light leakage.

The blog post was written by Alex Vlachos, a former member of Valve’s VR team who joined Microsoft as a ‘Partner Architect in Mixed Reality’ earlier this year. Vlachos says that many of these new corrections and improvements came about during the development of the HP Reverb G2.

The team “spent considerable time improving our approach to reducing chromatic aberration”, resulting in a new algorithm that makes better corrections to the image, and results in a cleaner view when viewed through headset lenses.

“A white pixel on the panels will refract through the lenses and separate into red, green, and blue pixels visible to the viewer. Chromatic aberration correction aims to adjust for this by pre-distorting the rendered image so that the image viewed by the user after lens refraction appears as a single white pixel as intended,” the blog post explains.

Vlachos says this helps eliminate a lot of chromatic aberration, as per the image below.

Chromatic Aberration Windows MR
Left: an example of chromatic aberration. Right: Corrected chromatic aberration on Reverb G2.

Microsoft also made improvements to correct for light leakage. The new corrections implemented will reduce color fringing and color tinting that comes from light leakage, as pictured below.

Left: No light leakage correction (simulated). Right: Light leakage correction.

While these improvements came about during development for the Reverb G2, they will also be applied to the Samsung Odyssey+ and the original HP Reverb. For the former, Microsoft has improved chromatic aberration at the periphery of the lenses. For the latter, the team was able to “improve chromatic aberration artifacts, reduce radial distortion, apply light leak correction, and improve rendering performance by about 8% in most applications.” All of these improvements will also be applied to the Reverb G2.

The update is available now in the latest Windows Mixed Reality VR runtime, which can be downloaded using Windows Update.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out our Reverb G2 unboxing video and keep an eye out for our full review of the headset coming later this week.

Undeterred By Retirement, Rift S Is Again The Fastest Growing Headset On Steam

Facebook recently announced the retirement of Rift S, but that hasn’t stopped it being the fastest growing headset on Steam… again.

The Steam Hardware Survey for September shows it now used by 24.93% of SteamVR users.

In August Rift S retook the throne of most used SteamVR headset. During Facebook Connect in mid September, the company announced that Quest 2 replaces Rift S too.

Like the previous Quest, the new headset can optionally connect to a gaming PC via a USB cable. After launch, Quest 2 will get support for 90Hz refresh rate in PC VR mode. Facebook says Rift S will be fully withdrawn by Spring.

Sporting a 1440p LCD panel, five inside-out tracking cameras and including Oculus Touch controllers, Rift S is a solid headset that only operates in PC mode. As the SteamVR data reflects, there’s still no serious competition at its $399 price.

Valve’s more premium Index HMD is continuing its steady growth. It’s now the headset of choice for roughly 1 in 6 SteamVR users, despite asking $999 for the full kit. Valve continues to prove the demand for higher-end PC VR hardware is greater than some previously assumed.

Meanwhile, Windows MR headsets have dropped to a new low of just 6.75%. Samsung hasn’t followed up its Odyssey+, and its stock looks to have mostly depleted. HP’s highly anticipated Reverb G2 launches in November, so if it sells well Windows MR could see a revival into 2021.

Undeterred By Retirement, Rift S Is Again The Fastest Growing Headset On Steam

Facebook recently announced the retirement of Rift S, but that hasn’t stopped it being the fastest growing headset on Steam… again.

The Steam Hardware Survey for September shows it now used by 24.93% of SteamVR users.

In August Rift S retook the throne of most used SteamVR headset. During Facebook Connect in mid September, the company announced that Quest 2 replaces Rift S too.

Like the previous Quest, the new headset can optionally connect to a gaming PC via a USB cable. After launch, Quest 2 will get support for 90Hz refresh rate in PC VR mode. Facebook says Rift S will be fully withdrawn by Spring.

Sporting a 1440p LCD panel, five inside-out tracking cameras and including Oculus Touch controllers, Rift S is a solid headset that only operates in PC mode. As the SteamVR data reflects, there’s still no serious competition at its $399 price.

Valve’s more premium Index HMD is continuing its steady growth. It’s now the headset of choice for roughly 1 in 6 SteamVR users, despite asking $999 for the full kit. Valve continues to prove the demand for higher-end PC VR hardware is greater than some previously assumed.

Meanwhile, Windows MR headsets have dropped to a new low of just 6.75%. Samsung hasn’t followed up its Odyssey+, and its stock looks to have mostly depleted. HP’s highly anticipated Reverb G2 launches in November, so if it sells well Windows MR could see a revival into 2021.

Battle Royale VR Shooter Population: One Lands This October For Quest And PC VR

Population: One finally has a release date set for October 22nd, less than a week after the launch of the Oculus Quest 2 on October 13th. Big Box VR is bringing their battle royale shooter to all PC VR headsets and Quest at launch with full crossplay support for $29.99.

Population: One – VR Battle Royale

Jamie, Ian, and I all got the chance to dive into Population: One last week together as a team and you can read my impressions from that hour-long play session right here or watch a bunch of gameplay in the video up above.

The comparisons to games like Fortnite are unavoidable and obvious. Not only is this a battle royale game in which players are tasked with being the last team standing as a toxic gas slowly encroaches on the map making it smaller and smaller over time, but it also features build-anywhere mechanics to spring up cover and quick structures on the fly.

What really sets Population: One apart though is that you can climb literally any surface. All you do is reach up and hold the grip button and you’re off climbing. You can also glide from any surface with an always-equipped glider so you never need to worry about fall damage. It complements the climbing system nicely.

Population: One will launch with a single map, several guns including assault rifles, SMGs, pistols, shotguns, and snipers, as well as grenades, and each match can hold up to 18 players across six 3-persopn squads. Your teammates can revive you if you go down, but if your team is wiped then you enter a spectator mode that lets you fly around the map in the sky to watch as things unfold.

population one screenshot image Population One Release Window population one screenshot image

“We’ve worked hard to bring POPULATION: ONE to as many platforms as possible by pushing the absolute limits of modern mobile VR chipsets,” said Gabe Brown, BigBox VR’s CTO and co-founder in a prepared statement. “We’re excited to see how players use the Vertical Combat System to compete and win starting on October 22nd!”

Population: One is slated to hit the Oculus Quest platform and all major PC VR headsets on October 22nd for $29.99. For more on Population: One, check out our hands-on impressions right here and keep an eye out on UploadVR for more coverage and a full review later this month.

Let us know what you think down in the comments below!

Population: One Impressions – Flying High With VR Battle Royale

Population: One is releasing later this month and we’ve already gone hands-on with this high-flying VR battle royale game. We played three full matches with developers last month on Oculus Quest 2 and have our complete impressions, plus a gameplay video, for you to check out. Population: One is hitting Quest and PC VR with crossplay on October 22nd.

 

 

Population: One – VR Battle Royale

I’ve played a lot of battle royale games. From the big hitters like Fortnite, PUBG, and Call of Duty Warzone, to the more obscure such as Ring of Elysium and Darwin Project, down to new releases shaking up the genre like Spellbreak. Generally speaking, I really, really enjoy battle royale games.

Until now there really hasn’t been a definitive VR battle royale game that was actually polished. I’ve played quite a lot of Stand Out and it’s a mostly passable imitation of PUBG, but it’s so janky and unpolished it’s hard to recommend. Rec Room’s Rec Royale is a fun diversion, Virtual Battlegrounds does a decent job expanding on the Stand Out formula, and we’ve seen a couple others but nothing really jumps out as a de factor battle royale VR game. But from what I’ve played, Population: One has the polish and gameplay to finally stick the landing.

Remarkably, Population: One hasn’t changed a whole lot in the past two years. I first got the chance to play the game all the way back at CES 2019 on an HTC Vive Pro, but last month when I tried it on an Oculus Quest it played even better than I remembered.

The team tells me that they were actually prepping for launch on PC VR when I saw it last, but then when the Quest was announced that changed everything. They’ve spent the last two years working almost entirely on optimization for the Quest port and getting it to be as good and pain-free as possible. That goes a long way for VR.

Population One Release Window

For the demo Jamie, Ian, and I all joined into the game using our Oculus Quest 2 headsets. I’ve been told it will be fully crossplay between the Quest platform and all PC VR headsets. Since the game is six teams of three (18 total players) the three of us got to be on a team together. We played three matches and got third, second, and second — so first place still eludes us. Granted, maybe we will fare better once we’re not facing off against teams of developers.

Unlike most battle royale games, you’re not joining the same plane or flying bus to jump out as it flies over the map. Instead, you start on the edge of the map at a giant launch bay and can either jump off manually and glide down using your wingsuit, or pick a launch pod and eject into the sky until it lands or even jump out midflight.

Surprisingly, the wingsuit feels fantastic. All you have to do to use it is stretch your arms out to either side like wings while in the air and hold them there to glide towards the ground.

Once you land it becomes the typical mad dash for loot. I love how quick and easy it is to loot and how fluid controls feel. The looting process is actually very streamlined here since you don’t need to worry about weapon attachments at all. Instead, weapons are tiered and ranked based on quality similar to  Fortnite.

Since the map is quite large (it’s a full square kilometer) you probably won’t see any other people immediately unless you specifically try and chase someone down. That’s a lot of space for 18 people split into six tiny groups. Thankfully, you don’t have to wait long though.

Eventually the zone will telegraph where it’s going next with a white safe zone barrier on the map and visibly in the world. Just like other battle royale games, getting stuck in the danger zone outside the safe zone will slowly kill you over time.

The building system works well, even if it is very basic. While playing you’ll come across a vague “resource” item that you can collect and you can then expend these resources to create walls as shown below.

They’re all built on a grid so they’re easy to connect but all you can make are walls and floors/ceilings — so just box-type structures. There are no stairs or anything like that, but since you can climb any surface they’re not really needed. Clinging onto the edge of a wall and peeking over the top to shoot is a good strategy.

One thing that I think could have used some more attention is the UI. Generally speaking it’s all very flat and plain. Numbers are in a large, obnoxious font and things like your health bar and ping icons are extremely large and bright. It helps make sure you don’t miss information, but it really takes you out of things when elements of the interface feel like they’re ripped from a mobile game and aren’t integrated into the world at all.

Onward is a very different type of shooter, but it does an excellent job of requiring realistic, immersive actions to deduce information. Population: One could have put health and armor info on a wrist watch or required you to pull the map out from your backpack. Instead, it’s lots of floating UI elements that are very clearly not designed with VR in mind. It makes me wonder if there are eventually plans to bring this to non-VR platforms.

population one screenshot image

The other note along the same lines is that long-range scoped weapons like snipers force your view into a full-screen mode that is just a giant black box with the scope as a circle in the middle. You don’t actually aim down the scope with a zoomed window like in a lot of other VR shooters.

Other than that though everything feels and plays great. The developers told me about plans for a progression system, battle pass system for unlocking new cosmetics, and ongoing support with map changes, seasonal events, and more. On paper, it sounds like the kind of VR game that’s worth returning to again and again. Hopefully it can live up to that potential.

Population: One (official website) releases on October 22nd for the Oculus Quest platform and PC VR headsets for $29.99. There will be full crossplay but there is no crossbuy between the Quest and Rift versions.

Let us know what you think of the game down in the comments below!