You know what PSVR doesn’t have enough of? Simulation games. Not the silly type that star goats, I mean actual simulators. It’s a surprisingly untapped market for such a dedicated audience. That said, it looks like the first PSVR train simulator is indeed on the way. Sort of.
Gematsu recently spotted an Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) listing for A-Train Express. It’s a train simulator that released in Japan in late 2017. And, yes, it has PSVR support. The ESRB listing suggests it’s on its way to the US.
In the game, you build your own railways and develop cities around them. There’s a driving mode that gives you a first-person view of the action, though the game’s mainly concerned with making everything run on time. Check out the trailer below.
Sadly, though, it doesn’t look like you’ll be able to actually drive trains in VR. PSVR support includes a ‘VR Railroad Model Mode’. This apparently just lets you view certain cityscapes as VR dioramas. That’s a bit of a disappointment. We wouldn’t hold out hope for any significant additions to the game since the Japanese release, either.
Still, it’s the closest thing PSVR fans have to a proper simulation right now. We don’t know when A-Train Express will be officially announced for PS4 but keep an eye out for it. Over on the PC VR side, promising train simulator Derail Valley will be arriving later this week. That looks like a more thorough entry into the genre that we’ll hopefully see on PSVR too at some point.
Welcome to the first round-up of new releases for the year (don’t judge me, there wasn’t anything released last week).
To be fair it’s not that big of a list this week, either. CES has been going on and some developers have got to tackle the January blues before we move onto bigger and better things. There are a handful of releases to look out for, though.
Still stuck in 2018? Our last list of releases can be found here. More of a futurist? Here’s our roundup of the biggest VR games coming this month.
Megalith, from Disruptive Games
Price: $29.99 (PSVR)
An Overwatch-like hero shooter in which you pick a ‘Titan’ and take to the battlefield. You have a team base to defend and an enemy base to destroy. Megalith is vibrant and inventive, though it remains to be seen if it will build up the kind of community needed to sustain itself.
Spuds Unearthed, from Gamedust
Price: $19.99 (Rift, Vive)
Well here’s something we can truly say we haven’t seen before. Spuds Unearthed has you creating and customizing an army of sentient potatoes which you’ll then pit against enemies in all-out war. It looks like that’s an exhaustive amount of customization options here, which could be the real joy of the game. This is an Early Access release for now.
Dede Korkut Chronicles, from Bond Digital
Price: $3.99 (Go)
This caught our eye. It’s a relatively polished-looking fantasy action game that pits you against werewolves and other nasties. If you’re a Go gamer than keep an eye out for it.
Looking for the Beat Saber DLC? You shouldn’t have much longer to wait.
The official Beat Saber Twitter account recently reassured fans that the DLC should be arriving ‘soon’. Not that we were getting worried; we had always assumed the first pack would arrive in early 2019. In fact, this is even a little earlier than we’d guessed. Even so, Beat Games explained that porting the DLC to PSVR had been a technical challenge.
We’re finishing the levels for the 1st music pack and will be porting the pack to the game soon. The 1st music pack is from the tech side the most challenging for us because we don’t have experience with adding songs to PS VR. Second and any further pack will be much quicker.
However, now that it has some experience, the studio says new Beat Saber DLC will arrive “much quicker” than before.
Back in November Beat Games revealed that it was working on three DLC packs for the game. Each is set to contain around 10 tracks and should cost around $9.99. They’ll all have their own themes, too. It’s not the only new content that’s coming to the game; last month saw the addition of some free new tracks tying into League of Legends, too.
If future packs are going to arrive faster, then will we have all the DLC by the middle of the year? It certainly seems that way. It’ll be great to have Beat Saber fleshed out with more songs, though we also wonder what plans Beat Games has for after these packs. Something tells us they’re far from done with Beat Saber
Despite the success its seen in its two years of life, Sony’s PSVR has a lot of problems. Being limited to only one single tracking camera is a big one, as-is the limited power of the PS4 and sub-par visual quality, but perhaps the biggest problem of them all is the reliance on outdated technology for the PS Move controllers — specifically their lack of analog sticks.
There are a lot of PSVR games that use the PS Move controllers and task players with pointing them and pressing buttons to move around in the game world, such as with Skyrim VR or Borderlands 2 VR. It works fine given the limitations, but it’s functional in spite of the hardware — it doesn’t actually feel intuitive or good. I’d rather use an analog stick than wave my arm around to move in a game and it seems like a lot of our readers agree. We’ve heard the next iteration could improve the controllers as well, thankfully.
In the meantime, some companies are trying to work on solutions. Obviously Sony created the PS Aim controller as an excellent solution for supported first-person shooter games like Firewall Zero Hour, Farpoint, and DOOM VFR. But not every PSVR game is a shooter so that’s where the 3dRudder comes in. The 3dRudder is a feet-based controller, designed to be used while seated, that lets you rotate your feet and move them front, back, and side-to-side to simulate movement inside the game.
Obviously the biggest thing to note here is that it’s never going to be an adequate replacement for standing up and feeling more immersed in VR. If you’ve ever played wireless VR in a Vive Pro with a Wireless Adapter or an Oculus Quest then you know what real roomscale VR is like. It’s mind-blowing, to say the least. So sitting on a couch and tilting your toes to slide around in a VR game isn’t quite the same, but the fact of the matter is that the PSVR is severely limited and could use some stop-gap solutions like this.
At my demo I tried both the PSVR port of The Wizards and Sairento. We’ve seen The Wizards on PSVR before and it played fine, but using the Move controllers for smooth movement was clunky and similar to Skyrim. Now with a 3dRudder I can focus on movement with my feet, just like I’d do in real life, and use my hands with the Move controllers. Since I don’t need to point my hand to move around this means I can do things like shoot a magical bow while strafing and back pedaling or moving around the game world while still throwing fireballs and holding up magic shields. In this way, it actually improves, enhances, and expands gameplay for PSVR.
When you’re playing a game with 3dRudder there are settings you can tweak in-game to adjust the dead zone and speed for leaning forward, back, side-to-side, and rotating. The default dead zone for rotating was way too high, but once I lowered it to increase the sensitivity everything seemed to work really fluidly…for what it is.
At the end of the day, I was still poking my feet around on a plastic circle to move in a video game. It’s gonna take some getting used to, but I can see use cases for it.
You can see in the images above they’ve adapted the design from the PC version of the 3dRudder to make it blue with a PlayStation logo prominently featured at the center. At launch it will support over 30 different PSVR games including the aforementioned The Wizards and Sairento, plus Red Matter, Ultrawings, Blind, Mind Labyrinth, Honor & Duty, Bow to Blood, and more. No official work on Skyrim VR yet, but it seems like a given eventually.
For more information on the 3dRudder you can check out the official website. The 3dRudder is expected to release for PSVR in April 2019 for $119.99. Let us know what you think down in the comments below!
3dRudder thinks its foot-based motion controller is a perfect fit for PSVR. Meet the 3dRudder PSVR edition.
The company today announced a new version of its device designed specifically for Sony’s headset. 3dRudder consists of a circular platform players put their feet on whilst seated. They then tilt their feet in the direction they want to move in VR. The idea is to simulate movement in a more convincing and comfortable way. Check out the PSVR version in the new trailer below.
3dRudder says that over 20 games will support the kit, though right now just 7 are listed on its website. They include some well-known titles like Ultrawings, Sairento and the excellent Red Matter. The main attraction, though, is the upcoming PSVR port of Carbon Studios’ The Wizards. That support will be shown off at CES in Las Vegas this week.
We reviewed the original 3dRudder for PC VR back in 2017. We said it was ‘surprisingly accurate’ and could be of use to those that suffer from simulation sickness. The PSVR version will live and die by the kind of support it gets, though. The current list is a decent start but if games like Resident Evil 7, Firewall and Skyrim VR got support then this could be a winner.
It’s not cheap, though. 3dRudder PSVR costs $119 and is expected to arrive in April. Would you be willing to throw down the extra cash if it meant making VR a bit more immersive?
We’re at CES next week, so we’ll let you know if we get a chance to try it out.
Remember the glory days of the beat ’em up? Taking to the streets and delivering justice with your fists? Indie developer Line Above wants to bring them to VR with its debut game, Bionic Rage.
This is a third-person brawler heavily inspired by the likes of Streets of Rage and Final Fight. Developer Krisztian Nagy tells UploadVR that the idea came from a desire to play those favorites in VR.
“Honestly I was skeptical if this type of locomotion will work in VR at first, but decided to spend a few days to give it a proper shot,” Nagy says. “I was genuinely surprised how natural and good it felt to play my favourite genre in VR, so after then I started planning out the full game and after an initial MVP, I collected a few other members to the team to help me with the development process.”
As you can see in the trailer above, Bionic Rage looks like a fairly traditional beat ’em up on a mechanical level. You walk from one side of the screen to the other punching monsters in the face. But that isn’t the whole story; Nagy says there will be first-person shooter (FPS) segments too. And, yes, you can expect multiple playable characters as seen in the trailer. Local co-op, with one player in the headset and another on the screen, is also on the cards though not confirmed yet.
“We have 6 main levels planned with 4 sublevels on each, so a total of 24 sublevels, at an average of 7-8 minutes each, so a basic playthrough on normal will take about 2.5-3 hours,” Nagy adds, noting that extra modes will expand the length.
This isn’t the first VR beat ’em up we’ve seen. Back in 2017 Paw Print Games took a respectable jab at the genre with Bloody Zombies. We’re hoping for something a bit more VR-specific with Bionic Rage, though.
For now, line above is looking at a Q3/Q4 2019 release for Bionic Rage on Vive and Rift. A PSVR port could come after launch, too. For now, you can sign up to a mailing list here.
Earlier this week we reported on the launch of a new trailer for inXile Entertainment’s The Mage’s Tale PSVR port. The clip showed the first console gameplay from the title but didn’t say when it would arrive. Strangely enough, a new version of the same trailer just popped up online, confirming the date.
The below trailer confirms a February 5th launch date for the game. Note that this version of the trailer is from PlayStation’s US YouTube channel. The last was from the EU channel, which may suggest this is a US-only date. Either way, that’s earlier than we expected and a very welcome surprise. No word on price, though on Steam the game goes for $29.99.
Originally launched on the Oculus Rift in 2017, The Mage’s Tale is a VR dungeon crawler. It stays true to the types of games inXile is known for, with a high fantasy setting and role-playing elements. We were big fans of the original version, calling it “one of the best examples of how to take a tried-and-true existing gaming genre and adapt it for the new VR medium.” We’ll be very interested to see how the PSVR version holds up.
This is inXile’s first VR release since Xbox maker Microsoft acquired the studio last year. At the time the studio confirmed it was still working on both The Mage’s Tale PSVR and a new VR game, possibly set in its Wasteland series. We’re hoping to see more from that this year, though we wouldn’t hold our breath for a PSVR port this time around.
Remember Soulpix’s Eden Tomorrow? No? Well, you’ll be able to play it soon all the same.
The developer’s official website confirms that a demo for the PSVR game is coming this month. There’s no final date or details of what the demo will entail, but we’re intrigued. Eden Tomorrow is a game that wowed me when I first saw it at Gamescom nearly four years ago now. Back in 2017, it was confirmed that the game would be coming to PSVR but we haven’t heard from it since. A trailer (seen below) did say it was coming in spring 2018 but obviously that didn’t happen. It looks like 2019 is finally the year we’ll get our hands on it, then.
Soulpix describes Eden Tomorrow as an adventure puzzle game in which players crash land on a strange alien planet. The world is inhabited by giant dinosaurs, some friendly, some less so. You’ll explore the landscape, solving brain teasers and marveling at your new friends. When we played it on an Oculus Rift DK2 we fell in love with the visuals and the experience of meeting some of these beasts up close. You could control three characters, including a human, drone and I think a dog (it may have been an alien dog, it was four years ago).
But we’ve got a lot of questions. How much of the game we played in 2015 is still intact? Why has it taken this long to come out? What controllers will we use – Move or DualShock 4? There’s a lot for us to learn, so we’ve reached out to Soulpix to find out more about the demo. We’ll let you know if we hear back.
inXile Entertainment is being true to its word. Back in November 2018 we reported that the developer was still working on a PSVR port of its excellent VR RPG, The Mage’s Tale, despite being bought by Xbox maker Microsoft earlier in the month. This week, the studio shared the first trailer for that port, seen below.
The video is comprised of a 45-second gameplay montage that popped up somewhat randomly. We could be wrong but it seems to be taken from the PSVR version of the game; the quality of textures seems to be just a touch blurrier than they were on PC. If it is the console version, though, it looks like a competent port. Most PC VR ports, including games like Arizona Sunshine and Superhot, take a hit in the visuals department in order to squeeze onto PS4.
The Mage’s Tale has you raiding dungeons, fighting mythical monsters and brewing your own potions. We loved it on Rift and Vive and can’t wait to see PSVR players get their hands on it.
Sadly the video doesn’t include a release date. Hopefully its arrival isn’t too far off; the first Rift version came out all the way back in 2017.
This isn’t the only thing inXile is working on in VR right now. We also know that the studio is developing a second, bigger VR project that’s set in an open world. Just like the PSVR version of The Mage’s Tale, we know that the game wasn’t canceled in the Microsoft deal. It also looks like it could be a Wasteland VR game. Here’s hoping we find out plenty more about it as the year rolls on.
It was clear, by the end of 2018, that something was shifting in the VR landscape. A litany of identically-themed editorials about how PSVR had actually had an impressive year (including our own) offered a rare ray of sunshine from mainstream outlets. Against all odds and its own track record with peripherals, Sony proved that VR is a viable gaming platform.
But how does it keep that momentum going next year?
Competition Is Heating Up
2019 will see PSVR at an interesting crossroads. While Sony may have maintained the lead in software thus far, hardware is a different story. PSVR’s camera-based tracking system has always been a distant third to SteamVR and Oculus tracking and that gap’s only going to grow in the new year. Valve is pushing on with the next iteration of its VR offerings and Oculus is honing in on inside-out solutions. PC and mobile headset resolutions are also still improving whereas PSVR’s display remains the same as it was in 2016.
Playing Superhot VR or Beat Saber tether-free with a full range of movement on Oculus Quest could mean that PSVR starts to show its age next year. But, with 2019 increasingly looking like it may be the PS4’s swansong, the chances of any refreshed VR hardware are increasingly diminished. We’d love to see an inside-out tracked headset that enabled 360-degree movement in existing PSVR games but we seriously doubt we’ll see such an update until the true follow-up for the next console.
Sony arguably doesn’t need to pay this too much attention in 2019, though. Technical superiority seemingly hasn’t earned the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive better sales than PSVR’s, which now total over three million. But the threat of more accessible and more capable headsets is one that Sony can’t ignore for long.
Game On
The smartest path may be to simply brute force it on the content side. Astro Bot, Firewall and Wipeout are just three examples of games that made clever use of PSVR to overcome its hardware limitations in 2018. And these games weren’t just ‘good for PSVR’; they were arguably better than anything you’d find on Rift or Vive too.
There’s some promising stuff on the way. We remain cautiously optimistic about Blood and Truth and a few others. That said, Astro Bot wasn’t announced until early 2018 and released later in the year, so we’re confident that Sony has bigger things on the way. We still haven’t seen what’s Sony’s new UK-based VR studio is working on, either.
Pricing Perfection
Another price cut could also be in order. Sony did a great job incentivizing PSVR’s current price point with bundles in 2018, but the further away it can get from Quest’s $399.99 price tag the better. Is it possible that PS4 and PSVR could reach a lower all-in price than Quest in 2019? We hope so.
2019 may be the last year that PSVR can justify technical shortcomings. But, if this is to be a victory lap, let’s hope Sony makes it a killer one. I’m betting it can.
