It has been quite an incredible year for virtual reality (VR) fans. Headsets like Oculus Quest, Valve Index and Vive Cosmos have arrived while developers have continually surpassed the quality of content available. So now it’s time to look ahead and into 2020. With plenty of exciting content coming in the next 12 months VRFocus looks at some of the most exciting prospects.
The one videogame pretty much all VR gamers are looking forward to, Valve’s addition to the Half-Life franchise is going to be a dedicated VR experience. Supporting PC VR headsets – free for those who own Valve Index – Half-Life: Alyx will be set between the events of 1998’s Half-Life and Half-Life 2 (2004).
You take the role of Alyx Vance as she and her father secretly form a resistance against the mysterious alien race known as The Combine currently occupying planet Earth. Set for an official launch in March, Half-Life: Alyx looks stunning from the screenshots released so far and could become the VR game of the year.
Currently being developed by Skydance Interactive as an official tie-in to AMC’s TV Show, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is going to be a gory, zombie-filled, shooter. With its own unique storyline set within New Orleans, the videogame will task players with having to deal with constant threats of violence, disease, and famine, with threats coming from both the zombie and human population alike.
Being able to wield an assortment of ranged and close-combat weaponry, players will be able to inflict some brutal damage in their bid to survive, whilst also making life and death decisions which affect the narrative. There won’t be too long to wait either, as the launch date of 23rd January has already been confirmed.
Can’t get enough of the undead and using shotguns to decapitate them? Well, you’re in luck as VR specialist Survios (Battlewake, Creed: Rise to Glory, Electronauts) is also working with AMC on a Walking Dead videogame. The Walking Dead Onslaught was originally due for release in 2019 but the studio pushed it back to improve the experience.
Offering a single-player campaign which also has its own unique storyline, VRFocus previewed the title at the Electonic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2019, finding that: “The Walking Dead Onslaught looks like it’ll provide a fairly brutal zombie gameplay experience for fans of titles like Arizona Sunshine.” There’s no launch date at the moment but Survios has always produced high-quality VR titles so its one to keep an eye on.
Before Half-Life: Alyx was announced, developer Ready at Dawn had the most anticipated sci-fi experience arriving in 2020, Lone Echo II. An Oculus Rift exclusive, the original from 2017 set a new benchmark in both visual and gameplay design for VR experiences. However, the sequel has a lot more competition now and expectations are high.
Lone Echo II was supposed to be a 2019 release, the studio announced in the summer that a Q1 2020 launch window was now taking place. Thus putting it in direct competition with Valve’s epic. The sequel continues the story of Captain Olivia Rhodes and your robot character Jack who’s there to protect her. Having previewed Lone Echo II it looks like fans won’t be disappointed.
One of the surprise announcements from Oculus Connect 6 (OC6) in September 2019, Respawn Entertainment finally revealed its first VR title originally hinted at during OC4. Bringing one of its most popular franchises to VR, Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond takes players back to World War II, as an Allied agent of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).
Tasked with completing a tour of duty across Europe to disable the Nazi war machine, the title will feature both single-player and multiplayer modes offering historically accurate settings, weapons and other items. Mixing up both first-person shooter (FPS) action with puzzles, Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond proved to be an enjoyable experience when VRFocus previewed the title. There’s no release window during 2020 just yet.
Coming from the indie team behind Technolust, Low-Fi first emerged on Kickstarter looking to raise $60,000 CAD to fund this cyberpunk adventure. The crowd-funding campaign easily hit the target within four days, raise over $100,000 CAD in the process.
Designed to be a massive open-world sandbox inspired by films such as Blade Runner and Robocop, Low-Fi puts players in the shoes of a police officer recently transferred to a crime-ridden section of city-block 303. Here they can keep law and order, solving crimes and advancing narratives or delve into the seedy underbelly of the city, taking bribes, framing innocent people and hanging out in casinos. A fully finished version is expected to arrive towards the end of 2020.
The next big title from Vertigo Games (Arizona Sunshine, Skyworld), After the Fall is another FPS filled with monsters to shoot and guns to upgrade. Taking place in Los Angeles 20 years after an apocalypse began a new ice age, you need to survive this harsh winter environment scavaging what you can whilst killing as many Snowbreed as possible. These horrible creatures were once human but thanks to designer drugs mutated into foul beasts.
Set to offering both single-player and co-op multiplayer modes, After the Fall will be an action-packed experience where you can build weapons, armour and other gear from found items. Vertigo Games has yet to announce when in 2020 After the Fall will arrive, so in the meantime check out VRFocus‘ preview.
One of the first VR videogames announced during Sony Interactive Entertainment’s (SIE) State of Play broadcast in March, Iron Man VR is possibly PlayStation VR’s biggest exclusive coming in 2020. Putting players in Tony Stark’s iconic suit whilst playing the character himself, players will be able to fly, shoot and punch just like the Marvel superhero, in what could be the best Iron Man videogame to date.
Marvel’s Iron Man VR is scheduled for worldwide release on 28th February 2020 with pre-orders available.
Another PlayStation VR exclusive, Paper Beast looks set to offer one of the most intriguing and original experiences to come to the headset next year. Created by French studio Pixel Reef, Paper Beast is the work of legendary designer behind Another World and From Dust, Eric Chahi.
Designed to be a playful exploration videogame, Paper Beast is set in the world of big data, born within the vast memory of data servers. Here players will find strange creatures and an everchanging landscape, with a non-verbal narrative to follow. Players can not only interact with the creatures they find but also the terrain, solving puzzles in the process. Paper Beast is due out soon, with a Q1 2020 window now in place.
A multiplatform title which was revealed during OC6, The Room VR: A Dark Matter continues Fireproof Games’ award winning series The Room. Designed specifically for VR, this version is set in the British Museum, London, circa 1908. The storyline revolves around the disappearance of an esteemed Egyptologist prompting a police investigation.
Players will be able to explore cryptic locations, examine gadgets and discover an otherworldly element blurring the line between reality and illusion, fantastic for any puzzle fan. A launch will be taking place early 2020 for headsets including Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest, PlayStation VR, HTC Vive, Valve Index and Windows Mixed Reality.
Having begun with Pixel Ripped 1989, creator Ana Ribeiro and Brazilian studio ARVORE plan to make several sequels with Pixel Ripped 1995 being the next. Each one is a sort of homage to gaming of that era, mixing VR environments with some retro gameplay.
The first title was a delightful experience with Pixel Ripped 1995 promising more of the same, now stepping into the 16-bit gaming era. The narrative continues where players have to fight an evil goblin called the Cyblin Lord. This time players are David, a 9-year-old kid from New Jersey who must defeat the evil villain. Currently, Pixel Ripped 1995 doesn’t have a date or window for launch in 2020, so take a look at VRFocus’ preview from OC6 for a little more info.
As is quite often the case videogame launches get pushed back and nDreams’ Phatom: Covert Ops is no different. Another title expected in 2019, the British VR developer announced the decision to delay the release until the new year to polish the experience.
From what VRFocus has seen already Phantom: Covert Ops looks very promising, with the core mechanic being that you’re a stealth operative working solely from a kayak. One of the reasons for this idea was gamer comfort, in a seated position you need to paddle to move anywhere, whilst a range of weaponry including a silenced pistol, rifle and C4 are all close to hand for carrying out missions. Once again there’s no solid date for Phantom: Covert Ops’ launch in 2020 so you’ll have to make do with this preview for a little more detail.
At its busiest times, Tokyo’s iconic Shibuya crossing can see over 1,000 shoppers, business people and tourists scramble over the road. The lights go green and the tarmac morphs into a frenzy of hurried walkers and starry-eyed marvellers. From afar, it’s one of the city’s most captivating sights.
Inside Styly, though, it becomes the world’s biggest rave.
By scanning a nearby QR code on Styly’s free new mobile AR app, you can project an almost painful strobe lighting show on the scramble. Set against the backdrop of this bustling sea of people it projects a little extra fun on a location already so well-known to millions of people.
It’s just one in a dizzying array of experiences I’m shown made through the Styly platform across two days in Tokyo. Creator Psychic VR Lab is one of those companies that is incredibly bullish about the future of VR and AR. CEO Masahiro Yamaguchi at one point tells me he thinks everyone will be wearing a headset all day in the near future, and there’s little sign of bluffing. Psychic VR is prepared to try a lot of different things in an attempt to hold a stake in that hopeful horizon.
But what exactly is Psychic VR Lab? A month ago I hadn’t heard of them, and I’d bet you hadn’t either. Do a little digging and you’ll discover an outfit very reminiscent of a Silicon Valley startup; a seemingly generous amount of investment from a renowned Japanese investor keeps the lights on at an eccentric Shinjuku-based office, smothered in a leafy overgrown texture quite polarizing to anything else on the street. A video shown by the group conveyed an eclectic 2017 opening party including, among other things, intimate theatrical acts and demon-dressed DJs that, altogether, seemed not unlike a New Year’s Eve house party in Portland.
As if it didn’t already sound crazy enough, Yamaguchi also showed me a clothing line of futurist-styled coats and cloaks he envisioned people wearing to make their HoloLens and Magic Leaps look like fashion accessories. In fact, he wore one of them over the course of the entire two days and then handed me one at the end, too. Perhaps if we changed the way we look everyday, he suggested, we might not be so embarrassed about these clunky headsets intended for everyday use.
Suffice to say Psychic VR is on the wilder side of VR/AR believers. Everything they are doing starts with Styly, a web-based creation platform for VR and AR headsets (AR distribution is coming soon). Right now with a free account you can launch Styly Studio and very quickly create a primitive virtual scene to view either in a browser or a VR headset. A library of user and developer-created assets and the ability to add in YouTube videos and images makes it simple to make a VR experience, however janky, in a few moments. For example, I made this trippy Pokemon zoo in about 10 minutes. It is woeful but, you know, I made it (sometimes these things take a while to load, so bear with it).
With a more deft understanding of the platform, Styly’s developers created some simple interaction-based scenes like this rudimentary baseball game.
Like many other immersive tech companies with dreams for the future, though, Styly is also making its move into AR. Early implementations can already be seen across Shibuya, from the crossing all the way up to a brash new shopping center, opened mere weeks ago. Outside this towering building, you can explore a photogrammetric capture of an old Akira art exhibit that used to surround the site during construction. Inside, an intriguing hybrid VR/AR experience, shown through a Daydream Mirage Solo headset, offers a virtual gallery between the center’s escalators.
Later on, I’m dazzled by an office display in which Psychic pulls more AR/VR wizardry, including one incredible experience in which I explore a diorama-sized real-world location before it is scaled up to place me right inside of it. More traditional AR exhibits on a HoloLens include virtual information panels appearing next to products on a shelf. Granted these are developer-made instances of the types of experiences long-envisioned by others, but the promise of handing these tools off for anyone to create is a potent one.
The question is when, or more importantly if, all of this gains any traction. Styly’s SteamVR app has been available for over two years and hasn’t garnered much attention. The company touts that it had over 10,000 uploads to its platform, but with no curation on publishing many of these could be simply abandoned drafts. You’ll have to dig to find any diamonds in its rough online library (though the recommendations page is a good place to start).
But there are some creators making a case for the platform. The company’s New View Awards selected the best Styly-made experiences over the past year with the 25 finalists covering the spectrum from bewilderingly messy to genuinely impactful VR experiences. One excellent manga VR piece teased the potential future of VR comics, for example, while another used photogrammetry to immortalize memories of traveling. Of particular note was this year’s grand prize winner, Takkun Museum, in which a father brought the vibrant, endearingly scribbled creations of his son to life in a spectacular theatrical performance.
There is enough here for me to envision a path to validity for Styly. These are, of course, all different strands of VR and AR experiences that we’ve seen before. While a long way from something like Unity, their aim is to appeal to a new generation of creators with an accessible toolset. It’s an ambitious goal, and this isn’t the only horse in that race. At present it’s tough to call if the wide net Psychic VR is casting will spread Styly too thin to catch any one specific developer audience, or if its jack of all trades approach will find traction while it slowly catches up to mastering each one (Styly Studio is still very much an expanding platform).
The company’s long-term plans eventually include taking a share of sold experiences, among other strategies. We’ll keep an eye on it in the future to see if it gains any traction.
Disclosure: UploadVR was a media partner for the New View Awards and Psychic VR covered accommodation and food for the two-day visit.
The post Styly Is An Ambitious VR/AR Creation Platform You Can Try Now appeared first on UploadVR.
We’ve had a wild year in 2019 for the VR/AR industry.
From the releases of big games that blew us away to some of the most impressive hardware we’ve seen yet finally release, there have been lots and lots of highs to celebrate. This year we even hosted the first-ever VR-focused E3 Show with our E3 VR Showcase that amassed over 16,000 people watching it live and well over 100,000 views across all formats and re-streams to date.
So, without further ado, this is our full list of nominees for each of the respective categories. We’ll announce winners later this week during our latest episode of The VR Download podcast, which is filmed from inside of our VR studio, live, with viewer feedback and then reposted as an audio podcast later.
All entries are listed alphabetically in the corresponding category with the first entry used as reference for the category’s corresponding photo (unless it’s been used already in which case we’ll use the next entry as the photo). When we announce winners we will just go back in here and update the list like we did last year. You can already see our reasoning for every nominee for best overall in 2019 if you’d like.
– Oculus Rift S
– Oculus Quest
– Valve Index
– A Fisherman’s Tale
– Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown VR Missions
– Blood & Truth
– Ghost Giant
– No Man’s Sky
– Trover Saves the Universe
– Vacation Simulator
– A Fisherman’s Tale
– Beat Saber
– Ghost Giant
– Pistol Whip
– Star Wars: Vader Immortal Trilogy
– Superhot
– Vacation Simulator
– A Fisherman’s Tale
– Asgard’s Wrath
– Boneworks
– Ghost Giant
– No Man’s Sky
– Pistol Whip
– Wolves in the Walls
– The Void’s Avengers: Damage Control
– Sandbox’s Star Trek: Discovery Away Misson
– Capcom’s Biohazard: Valiant Raid
– Bigscreen
– Borderlands 2 VR
– Beat Saber
– Firewall Zero Hour
– Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades
– Onward
– Rec Room
– Acron: Attack of the Squirrels
– Dance Central
– Final Assault
– No Man’s Sky
– Stormland
– Asgard’s Wrath: Looking at the Vistas
– Boneworks: Testing the Physics
– No Man’s Sky VR: Taking Off in Your Ship
– Getting in the Zone: Pistol Whip
– Spider-Man: Far From Home VR – Web Swinging
– Stormland: Meeting Friends
– Superhot Quest: Dodging Bullets in 360 Wireless Roomscale
– Asgard’s Wrath
– Boneworks
– No Man’s Sky
– Stormland
– Until You Fall
– Westworld: Awakening
– Beat Saber
– Boneworks
– BoxVR
– Pistol Whip
– Until You Fall
– Beat Games
– Cloudhead Games
– Hello Games
– ILMxLAB
– RUST LTD.
– Stress Level Zero
– After the Fall
– Half-Life: Alyx
– Iron Man VR
– Lone Echo 2
– LOW-FI
– Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond
– The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners
– A Fisherman’s Tale
– Asgard’s Wrath
– Blood & Truth
– Boneworks
– Ghost Giant
– Gorn
– No Man’s Sky
– Pistol Whip
– Vacation Simulator
– Wolves in the Walls
The post The UploadVR Best VR Of 2019 Awards – Nominees appeared first on UploadVR.
We often get asked, both in professional and personal settings, where the best place is to start with VR.
Some people have a basic understanding of the technology but aren’t up to date with the current products available on the market. Sometimes, people often have an understanding of the major headsets available but still struggle with some of the VR concepts and terminology.
With this guide we want to cover all the basics. We’ll explain basic VR concepts, terminology and most of the major headsets on the market. If you don’t know where to start with VR, you will now.
VR, short for virtual reality, allows people to be fully immersed in a fabricated environment. This is usually (but not always) delivered through head-mounted hardware that tracks a person’s movements. These VR headsets consist of a screen (or two display panels, one for each eye) housed in a frame (or headset) strapped or fitted to your head. A pair of lenses are typically fixed between the panels and your eyes, blocking the outside world, to make it appear as if what you see through the headset is your entire world.
Critically, all headsets track your movement so the image you see adjusts accordingly. Some headsets, however, track more movement than others.
In most cases, VR experiences will also have a method for you to control or select things within the simulated environment. Sometimes you’ll have a controller in each hand to control aspects of the experience. In some cases, the controllers deliver virtual representations of your hands to manipulate the environment and objects within it in ways similar to the real world.
So you have the basic premise of VR down, but you still have some terms or concepts that need clearing up. We can help with those.
FOV is short for field of view. In the context of our eyes, our field of view is everything you can see at any given moment.
In the context of VR headsets, the field of view refers to everything you can see in the virtual world at any given moment while using the headset. The types of VR headsets available for consumers at the time of this writing have a field of view which is smaller than what you can see with your eyes, meaning that the VR environment doesn’t fill, or match, your eyes’ field of view when using the headset.
This is why you often have a black “border” when using VR, around the lenses you’re looking through. This is just the space around the lenses on the inside of the headset. If the field of view of the headset is wide enough, though, the border can make it seem like you’re looking through a pair of goggles into the virtual world — making it easy to forget that the limit exists. Field of View can be measured in different ways and device manufacturers may not accurately represent how much you can see relative to other headsets.
When talking about movement and tracking in VR, people often refer to “degrees of freedom”, or DoF. More degrees of freedom means that more of your physical movements will be tracked by the headset and mapped onto your simulated representation.
The two most common terms you’ll see when reading about degrees of freedom are 3DoF and 6DoF (3 and 6 degrees of freedom, respectively). Headsets that only provide 3DoF will only track your head’s movements (roll, pitch, yaw) but not its position in space (x, y, z coordinates). 6DoF is able to track both your head’s movements and its coordinates in a physical space.
The GIF below is a great visual explanation:
Most VR headsets these days provide full 6DoF positional tracking. A lot of older mobile and standalone headsets, many of which are discontinued or being phased out, use 3DoF, such as Google Cardboard, Google Daydream, Gear VR, and Oculus Go.
Every VR headset needs a way to track the movement of the person wearing the system.
The most common form of tracking currently is called “Inside Out” tracking. This system typically relies on cameras built into the headset to track movement from the inside of the headset, outwards. Advanced simultaneous location and mapping (“SLAM”) algorithms monitor features of the physical environment surrounding the person wearing the headset. The Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift S, HTC Vive Cosmos, and all Windows Mixed Reality headsets (like the Samsung Odyssey, Lenovo Explorer, Acer HMD, etc.) are all examples of headsets that use inside out tracking.
There’s also the concept of “Outside In” tracking. This can take different forms, but involves hardware external to the tracked space and not built into the headset itself. For the original HTC Vive and Valve Index, this hardware is sometimes called “lighthouses” which are little black boxes mounted in the corners of the room. Older systems, like the original Rift released in 2016, used modified cameras places in your room to achieve outside in tracking.
There are pros and cons to each tracking type. Inside out tracking can operate more easily without setup or mounting hardware. Outside in tracking, however, can sometimes be extensible to fill in gaps where head-mounted hardware might not be able to “see” occasional body movements. The term “occlusion” typically refers to blocking the view of something and, when it comes to tracking movements, popular systems need to have direct line of sight to “see” what they are tracking. Both inside out and outside in tracking systems can be occluded in various ways because our bodies have so many different ways of moving. Depending on the use case, however, and inside out or an outside in system may be preferable.
If you want to read more detail about tracking types and get into the nitty gritty and specifics, check out this article.
There are several different ways of interacting with simulated content.
Headsets like the Oculus Rift S, Oculus Quest, and HTC Vive Cosmos all come with two controllers, one for each hand which are also tracked in 6DoF with the inside out tracking system.
PlayStation VR features multiple input systems. In most cases, the best option is using a pair of PlayStation Move controllers. Some PSVR content requires the Move controllers but not all of it does. For games that don’t require Move controllers you can use the standard PS4 DualShock controller that comes with the console.
The Valve Index Controllers strap around the knuckles and palm and allow full release. There’s a large grip area on these controllers and they detect every finger movement and can detect some of the pressure provided by your grip, which makes them unlike other controllers currently available. These controllers are tracked via external lighthouses and can be bought alongside the Index headset. They can also be purchased separately and combined with other non-Index headsets that use the lighthouse tracking system, such as HTC Vive or Pimax.
Facebook’s Oculus Quest now includes native controller-free hand tracking which eliminates the need for the Touch controllers in certain situations. Some other headsets also track hand movements but Quest is a popular system and the update allows the built-in cameras to fully track your hands and finger movements with fairly high accuracy. It is unlikely that hand and finger tracking will replace the Touch controllers, however, for every game and experience, because haptic feedback, physical buttons, and quicker tracking of controllers can make a meaningful difference for many games and apps.
There are generally 3 different types tracked volumes with some software tailored for each play area size: roomscale, seated, and standing.
Roomscale VR is all about setting a boundary or play area and being able to freely and physically move around that area in the game. The idea of roomscale games is being able to physically move around your space to interact with the simulated environment and objects inside of it. So-called “guardian” or “chaperone” boundaries show up to reveal when the physical world approaches.
Seated and standing are quite similar in that the user is meant to stay roughly in the same place and use various different movement options to simulate movement instead of psychically moving through a space. Some software developers tailor their virtual worlds to work in multiple ways but a small subset of experiences may only work in roomscale, seated, or standing modes.
There are a couple of different types of simulated movement options for VR software. Simulating movement for people wearing VR headsets can sometimes make people feel nauseated.
Teleport is a common method of movement and it is often the most comfortable option for the widest range of people. Typically, teleport is invoked with the press of a button on a controller and then the player selects a spot to which they can immediately teleport. When used in combination with roomscale tracking, this movement option typically allows for traversal of large simulated volumes in a generally comfortable way. Some users, however, complain that teleport is less believable and “breaks immersion” because we can’t teleport in the real world. In response to this, some VR software developers work to explain why teleportation is a part of the narrative of their virtual world, such as a wizard using a spell in the image above.
Smooth locomotion is the movement type similar to traditional video games where you press on a stick and you “move” in the direction you pushed the stick. This can be jarring for some folks and can make some people feel nauseated in a matter of seconds or minutes.
To combat feelings of discomfort provided by simulated movement in a virtual world software developers are constantly working to provide combinations of existing systems or comfort settings that allow the player in VR to tailor the experience to their liking. One common comfort option that can help decrease discomfort is to restrict the FOV into the virtual world while moving, creating a sort of “tunnel vision” or gradually increasing and decreasing acceleration when moving.
People wearing a VR headset can sometimes feel discomfort. experience motion sickness or nausea. In most cases, becoming nauseated while wearing a headset can happen seated or standing experiences where movement in the game does not match your physical body movement.
Some people can build a resistance and higher tolerance level for more intense experiences — sometimes known as finding your “VR legs” — but some developers and long-time VR enthusiasts who spend hundreds of hours in VR headsets are still entirely susceptible to discomfort as a result of the mismatch between smooth locomotion and their body’s senses. You can read our article on 7 ways to overcome motion sickness for more information.
There are many factors that can influence your susceptibility to discomfort in a VR headset, such as the field of view of the visuals, the frame rate of the display and software, headset weight, and even how well you slept or what you ate and how much.
IPD is a fairly common term you’ll come across if you’re researching and reading about VR headsets. It is an abbreviation that stands for “interpupillary distance” – aka the distance between the center of your two pupils.
Depending on the optical design of a headset, varying IPDs between people can affect how well certain headsets feel when worn. If the lenses and displays aren’t well aligned in front of a person’s pupil the images might appear blurry. In the worse cases, this might increase the chance of getting a headache or feeling nauseated.
Some headsets will offer a physical adjustment for IPD. This moves the lenses and display panels to place them more directly in front of the pupils of a wide range of people. Other headsets don’t allow you to physically adjust this but may offer a software adjustment to compensate for this variability in people.
Depending on the distance between your pupils you might find a headset with physical adjustment could be a must. Headsets without physical adjustments are often tailored toward the average distances between eyeballs and thus many people may not need a headset with physical adjustment.
There are a couple of different types of consumer-oriented VR equipment available. These can be grouped as standalone VR, PC VR and console VR.
Standalone VR is any VR headset that works completely by itself without the need for any other pre-existing equipment or technology. The entire experience is run from the hardware worn on your head and it does not require being connected to any other external equipment.
The best example of this is Oculus Quest, which delivers pared-down versions of PC VR games in a portable, standalone device that requires no other equipment. With standalone VR like the Quest, everything you need to experience VR comes with the device itself — though some games require the Oculus Touch controllers to be held in your hands to interact.
PC VR is any headset that requires a constant connection to a nearby PC. The PC in question will also need high specifications that meet the requirements for VR. A few examples of PC VR headsets include the Oculus Rift S, Valve Index, HTC Vive, Pimax, and Windows Mixed Reality headsets like the HP Reverb and Samsung Odyssey+.
The advantage of PC VR is that the beefy PC specifications can provide great graphical fidelity, much higher than standalone VR. However, the constant connection to a PC often means that your headset needs to remain wired to the PC at all times. There are some wireless options available for PC VR but those typically require more hardware connected to your PC and a battery pack worn somewhere on your body. Corded PC VR requires the player to manage a cord hanging from your headset to the PC. That may provide less freedom as compared with a wireless standalone headset as the wire can be a frequent reminder that you might get tangled if you turn around too much.
If you don’t already own a gaming PC that meets the required specifications, PC VR can quickly become a very expensive option.
Console VR currently only consists two headsets: PlayStation VR for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Labo VR for the Nintendo Switch.
PlayStation VR is an add-on VR system for the PlayStation 4. The PSVR headset is an additional purchase that connects to your PlayStation 4 and, similar to PC VR, requires a constant tethered connection to the console to operate. It uses the PlayStation camera, sold with the headset and wired to the console for tracking. Some PlayStation VR games also require an additional purchase of PlayStation Move controllers to be played.
Nintendo Labo VR for the Nintendo Switch is a build-able, cardboard headset shell that you can slip the original full-size Nintendo Switch into, allowing you to play certain games in a VR mode. It does not have a headset strap, so you are required to hold the headset to your face. Many of the experiences with Labo VR are, simply put, extremely underwhelming and not really worth your time.
The Valve Index is Valve’s first solo VR headset (the original HTC Vive was a collaboration between Valve and HTC) and offers what many consider to be a near sublime VR experience for a very high price.
The Index offers a series of fine adjustments to the HMD’s optics of that allows it to maximize its field of view as well as a new type of controller that straps to the hand and allows full release. It uses lighthouse sensors for outside-in tracking and all around offers one of the best consumer VR headsets – if you can afford it.
The full Valve Index kit, including the headset, the two controllers and the two lighthouse sensors, costs $1,000. That’s a gigantic increase over other PC VR options, like the $400 Rift S. The big question, for most people, is whether the huge quality-of-life improvements and features are enough to make the Index worth another $600.
Pros: Amazing optics and fitting flexibility, Index controllers provide increased hand and environment interactions, and it’s one of the best headsets on the market.
Cons: Extremely high price and lighthouse sensors restrict portability.
Read our full Index review for more information, and check out this list of the best SteamVR games. You can also check out our buying guide for the HTC Vive (which has a lot of stuff that still applies for the Index) for recommendations on accessories and more.
The Quest is one of the most versatile headsets available on the market.
For $400, you get a full standalone headset that requires no other equipment, with a selection available of some of the best experiences and games on any platform. However, some of its coolest features like being able to send text messages to friends, send party invites over Messenger, or watch live events in Oculus Venues all require a Facebook account linked to the device. In the future, Facebook Horizons, the social VR platform, will require one as well.
But the big benefit here is that you can take it anywhere, use it anywhere and let anyone else try the headset in a matter of seconds. The Oculus Quest provides the least friction of any headset available at the moment.
But that’s not all – if you do have a VR-ready PC, you can now use Oculus Link to connect the Oculus Quest to your computer via USB C and enjoy any experiences a Rift can run on your Quest while you remain tethered. The Quest is a move towards offering, to some degree, the best of both worlds.
That being said, because the Quest is a standalone headset, all of the components are in the headset itself. This makes the headset front heavy and not super ideal for long play sessions. Some people also aren’t fans of the Quest head strap, and overall, some people might get headaches quickly from the way it sits on your face.
Pros: Full standalone 6DoF headset and controllers, no existing equipment required, portable, Oculus Link gives you access to the best of both standalone VR and PC VR.
Cons: Front heavy, not comfortable for everyone, inside out tracking is less accurate than outside in, and some features require Facebook integration.
Read our full Oculus Quest review for more information and check out this list of the best Quest games. You can also check out our buying guide for the Oculus Quest for recommendations on accessories and more.
The Rift S is a good headset in a difficult spot. For a PC VR headset at a $400 price, it is a great option, especially considering that the top of the PC VR quality ladder is the Valve Index, which is $600 more expensive.
For most of 2019 the Rift S was Oculus headset to buy that could play PC VR games. The Quest was a standalone option with its own store, requiring ports of Rift games to be rebuilt to run on the system.
Oculus Link, however, now allows you to play Rift S games on the Quest via a tethered USB C cord, if you have a compatible gaming PC. Considering that both the Rift S and the Quest are priced the same – $400 – it is hard to recommend buying the Rift S when the Quest can do most of what the Rift S can as well as offering standalone, portable VR as well.
That being said, the Rift S does have some notable benefits and people who don’t plan to use the wireless standalone mode of Quest might still want one. The fitting system of the Rift S is generally more comfortable than Quest. The Rift S, made by Lenovo, uses the very popular halo strap design popularized by PlayStation VR.
The Rift S, however, does not offer any form of physical IPD adjustment. Facebook confirmed to us the range of lens separation adjustment for Quest is 58–72mm. For Rift S, the lenses are fixed at 63.5mm. This means Quest is “Best for users between 56mm and 74mm” and Rift S is “Best for users between 61.5 and 65.5mm,” according to Facebook. For those who sit outside the range or on the edges, this difference might be a deal breaker for Rift S.
Additionally, like the Quest, some of its coolest features such as being able to send text messages to friends, send party invites over Messenger, and in the future use Facebook Horizons, the social VR platform, all require a Facebook account linked to the device.
Pros: More comfortable than the Quest for most people, higher frame rate and better visuals for PC experiences, a good relatively inexpensive option for PC VR, and inside out tracking increases ease of setup with more flexibility.
Cons: Overshadowed by the Quest and Oculus Link, no physical IPD adjustment, inside out tracking is less accurate than outside in, and some features require Facebook integration.
Read our full Oculus Rift S review here for more information and check out this list for all of the best Rift games. You can also check out our buying guide for the Oculus Rift S for recommendations on accessories and more.
The PSVR system is a good option for someone who already owns a PS4 and wants an easy way to use VR on a system they already own. If you’re not willing to shell out the $400 for a Quest and you already own a PS4, then you might be able to find a PSVR bundle for a good price.
While the PSVR system has a good library, it also has some limitations. The tracking, which uses the PlayStation camera to track bright lights on the headset and controllers, is not up to par with other more modern tracking systems. The headset also just doesn’t offer the same level of graphic fidelity as other options – some VR games, such as No Man’s Sky, will run on PSVR with the base PS4 model, but are significantly scaled down graphically compared to other systems.
It’s also worth noting that the PS4 and the PSVR are at the end of their generational life cycle – the PS5 is coming holiday 2020 and PSVR 2 may not launch alongside the new console. it’s fair to say that we could expect it soon after. Whether you want to invest in a PSVR at the moment is a bit of a fraught topic. However, if you don’t already own a PS4, then you’re probably better off going with an Oculus Quest instead.
Pros: Good for existing PS4 owners, good library of content with some great exclusives, PS Aim Controller is great for games that support it.
Cons: Tracking may be unacceptable in 2019 for some people, hardware is at the end of a generation’s life cycle, no analog stick on Move controllers, and it has lower graphic fidelity than other options.
Read our full PSVR headset review here for more information and check out this list for the best PSVR games. You can also check out our buying guide for PSVR for recommendations on accessories and more.
There you have it! This is our absolute beginner’s guide to VR. You can also read our lists of the best VR RPGs, best VR shooters, best VR roguelikes, and more here at UploadVR.
[When you purchase items through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission from those sales.]
The post Beginner’s Guide To VR: FAQ And Everything You Need To Know appeared first on UploadVR.
So far VRFocus has listed its favourite PlayStation VR and Oculus Quest videogames of 2019 and now it’s the turn of Oculus Rift. While there will always be some crossover thanks to some awesome multiplatform releases, the headset also has some choice exclusives which aren’t to be missed. So here’s VRFocus’ roundup of the best titles which have arrived this year.
There were always going to be certain titles which would make this list, showcasing how far VR development has come over the last few years and Sanzaru Games’ Asgard’s Wrath is most certainly one of them. While it may require a decent VR-capable PC to make the most of the stunning visuals, Asgard’s Wrath also rewards Oculus Rift owners with plenty of close-quarters combat, a rich narrative based on Norse mythology and challenges galore.
As an Oculus Rift exclusive Asgard’s Wrath is one of those videogames all owners of the headset really should own, being a definitive AAA VR experience.
Another massive VR exclusive for Oculus Rift was Insomniac Games’ sci-fi adventure Stormland. If you prefer guns and robots over swords and monsters then Stormland is the place to be. Giving players an ever-changing open world to explore set across three cloud levels, Stormland offers a campaign allowing for single-player and co-op multiplayer gaming.
With excellent gun mechanics and a mixture of locomotion options including gliding across clouds, Stormland encourages you to explore everywhere by making almost everything climbable. Once the campaign has been completed you can keep returning to find fresh challenges as each week the world changes.
If there’s one genre that’s surely captured the imagination of VR developers and consumers alike it’s rhythm-action. There are a number of videogames which could’ve made the cut but VRFocus went from Cloudhead Games’ latest, Pistol Whip.
Designed to make you feel like an action hero badass such as John Wick, on the standard setting you can hit bad guys at distance like a marksman, all to thumping beats. Find the gameplay is a little too easy then start to activate some modifiers like Dead Eye which removes the auto-aim feature. With or without these extras Pistol Whip is super fun to play no matter your VR experience.
Only available for Oculus Rift and Oculus Quest, Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series made the cut on the standalone headset and equally does the job here. While some may consider this an interactive experience rather than a fully-fledged videogame, however, you want to categorise it ILMxLAB’s trilogy expertly mixes the iconic franchise with VR technology.
Almost putting you inside a Star Wars film where you’re the central character, the main storyline lets you learn skills such as lightsaber duelling and using the force, all taught by Darth Vader himself. Once the campaign is over you can head to the dojo to really practice those skills. Sci-fi and VR fans will enjoy the experience, Star Wars fans will love it.
Certainly one of the more unusual (and unexpected) movie tie-ins of 2019, Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son is essentially a sequel to the early 90s movie starring Bill Murray. As the title suggests, you play Phil Connors Jr. as he returns to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Caught in another time loop, you need to relive the same day over and over, solving residents problems and other challenges to escape.
VRFocus’ four-star review noted: “Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son is a lovable VR adventure that doesn’t do any disservice to the original material on which it’s based. With a unique art style and engaging story, Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son offers an unexpectedly enjoyable adventure, and you don’t even need to have seen the film.”
After blood, carnage, and utter, utter mayhem? Well, then Gorn should be on your want list. Originally a Steam Early Access title from 2017, Gorn saw its official launch back in the summer, allowing players to engage in some brutal gladiatorial combat.
While screenshots make this bloody brawler look gruesome thanks to decapitated heads, smashed in body parts and wall to wall crimson, Gorn doesn’t take itself seriously. The weapons bend and flex like comedy mallets, and enemy bodies all have rag-doll physics. Due to the nature of the combat, the experience is very physical, encouraging you to put in plenty of effort. As VRFocus said in its review: “Brutal, dumb and addictively fun.”
Resolution Games brought Rovio Entertainment’s massively popular mobile puzzler Angry Birds into VR at the beginning of the year, with the experience offering a fine take on the building destruction videogame. Its inclusion in this listing is thanks to a new update, greatly expanding the gameplay possibilities.
This month saw the studio release a Level Builder option for Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs so you can make your own levels and challenge your friends to complete them. Thanks to the level builder Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs now offers a far more rounded experience, that doesn’t simply end when he single-player campaign is over. One for puzzle fans the world over.
Digital Lode’s very first VR title Espire 1: VR Operative had a bit of a rocky start, with the initial September launch delayed with 24hrs notice. The delay saw the videogame pushed back a couple of months but that hasn’t hindered the experience. Offering a futuristic plot where you control an Espire model 1 robot to complete missions, the gameplay is designed around stealth, so there are plenty of places to hide, you can scale walls to maintain vantage points and you can tranquilise enemies rather than killing them.
Of course, should you get spotted or simply find a gung-ho approach more exciting then all hell will break loose and guards will start raining down gunfire. Espire 1: VR Operative offers the most standard first-person shooter (FPS) gameplay of any title on this roundup, yet it manages to deliver a videogame for VR fans looking for a Metal Gear Solid or Splinter Cell experience.
Who doesn’t love a good scare from a horror videogame? It’s something VR does so well and for 2019 fans were treated to the resurgence of a classic, Five Nights at Freddy’s. Steel Wool Studios kept what made the originals great and expanded upon the concept of original creator Scott Cawthon, including both the classics and brand new mini-games.
If you’ve not heard of the Five Nights universe the basic premise revolves around a theme park with some fairly questionable animatronics. Each mini-game will have you watching CCTV systems or repairing ventilation systems, whilst at the same time trying to stay alive and avoid being…well you know, killed. Not one for the faint of heart, Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted offers some of the best jump-scares for any VR headset.
Possibly a little controversial because the PC version of Tetris Effect is exclusive to the Epic Games Store, that doesn’t mean to say it shouldn’t be included here as its still an awesome VR puzzle experience.
The classic Tetris gameplay is still there, it’s the visuals and audio that have really been overhauled. They are in sync with the gameplay so as you score more points by making lines you’ll be treated to evermore stunning effects which envelop and mesmerize, without distracting from the gameplay. It’s why VRFocus gave Tetris Effect five stars for its review.
The Walking Dead: Saint & Sinners
The Walking Dead Onslaught
Lone Echo II
Medal of Honor: Above & Beyond
Low-Fi
Iron Man VR
The Room VR: A Dark Matter
Pixel Ripped 1995
Phantom: Covert Ops
Stormland
Pistol Whip
GORN
Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs
Espire 1: VR Operative
Tetris Effect