July 2022

July 30, 2022 ,

The latest update for the VR FPS Zero Caliber: Reloaded is now available, adding a full multiplayer PvP mode to the game on Oculus Quest and Meta Quest 2.

The PvP mode is only on Quest for now, but PC VR support is coming later this year. A big PC VR-specific update will launch in the Fall, bringing “most of the improvements and new features of the standalone version [Reloaded] to the PC one – PvP included.”

As previously announced, Zero Caliber’s PvP offering includes four modes: Deathmatch (up to 8 players), Team Deathmatch (up to 4v4), Siege (up to 4v4) and Gungame (up to 8 players). These modes will be played on six brand new maps.

There’s dedicated servers across three regions – NA, EU and SEA – so hopefully most players will be able to play with low ping. There’s also a new ‘Vote to Kick’ option for all multiplayer modes, so you can get rid of pesky players who are disrupting sessions online.

The PvP mode adds to a large array of options for Zero Caliber: Reloaded players on Quest, which also features a single player campaign with co-op support and a survival mode.

Developer XREAL Games says there’s plans for more PvP maps to come, along with support for mods and user-generated content later this year. The studio is also working on cross-play support for PvP modes between Quest and PC VR, which it says will arrive towards the end of the year “if everything goes as planned.”

XREAL are also working on Gambit!, a four-player co-op heist shooter. You can check out some gameplay released earlier this week here. 



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July 30, 2022 ,

You can enter for a chance to win a BRAND NEW standalone Quest 2 VR headset right here sponsored by Green Hell VR developer Incuvo. Read on for more details.

Incuvo is the studio behind open world survival game Green Hell VR set in the heart of the jungle, with animals and disease to compete with alongside the need to eat and drink. The developers just released the challenge update on Steam which offers time-limited tasks to complete, like finding the special campfire and lighting it up or finding and building the raft.

You can check out Green Hell VR on Quest 2 and Steam and our thanks for their sponsorship this week allowing us to bring you this giveaway! You can enter for a chance to win in the form below:

Incuvo Giveaway Contest

 



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July 29, 2022 ,

Half-Life: Incursion is a new mod for Half-Life: Alyx that adds a one-hour campaign with wave-based combat and randomized enemy spawns.

The creators describe Incursion as “hour-long campaign with non-linear objectives” that offers more challenging combat than the base game. You’ll be able to choose your own weapon upgrades and forge your own path through Incursion, which is set in an open environment with random enemy and ammo spawn locations. Not only will that keep you on your feet, but it should vary the experience on subsequent playthroughs. 

You can check out the trailer in the tweet above, but here’s a short description, from the Steam Workshop listing:

When Alyx Vance is caught on the wrong side of the Quarantine Zone, she has only her wits, guns, and Russell to help her get back to City 17. But it won’t be easy: the Combine have her trapped at one of their checkpoints, and she’ll need to manage her resources and use clever tactics to escape…or stick around for some target practice.

The mod is a collaborative effort between a small group responsible for the voice overs, level design, artwork, scripting and more.

Despite launching more than two years ago, Half-Life: Alyx still stands tall as one of the most impressive VR experiences available. Since launch, the community has boosted the game’s longevity even further by providing Alyx players with a steady stream of mods, maps and extra content through the Steam Workshop.

Alyx regularly goes discounted at half price during large Steam sales, so if you haven’t nabbed it already, keep an eye out. Half-Life: Incursion is available for free on the Steam Workshop now.



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July 29, 2022 ,

A new update is available for Myst which adds hand tracking support and other requested features.

Players can now use hand tracking for the entire Myst experience from start to finish on Quest with gestures for smooth locomotion and other interactions. You can also seamlessly switch back to controllers whenever needed, so you can easily swap between the two input methods depending on your situation.

“Implementing hand tracking in Myst seemed like an exciting technical challenge and a cool new feature to bring to players,” said Cyan Development Director Hannah Gamiel, speaking to the Oculus Blog. “Additionally, it’s one of those things which makes sense for Myst—we already have a ton of options to make the game accessible to folks, and this is just one more way that people who otherwise couldn’t experience Myst can now play the game.”

There’s also a new “Classic Videos Mode” which adds in the original Myst videos (with sound) for most of the character interactions. Plus, there’s a new in-game journaling system, allowing you to take in-game screenshots for reference later with an in-game photo album. The developers say this should help you mark important information for reference, without having to take your headset off to write anything down.

Back on release, we thought Myst on Quest was a good translation of a classic into a new medium:

If you’re looking to explore Myst for the first time — or perhaps play “co-op” with family like I did — Myst VR is a definitely faithful, upgraded, and solid port of a landmark game that’s hard not to recommend everyone play at least once. It might be a little straining and lonely after a time, but that’s always been true of Myst.

You can read more in our full review. For further info on the Hands and More update, check out this post on the Oculus Blog.



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July 28, 2022 ,

Mark Zuckerberg wants Meta’s AR/VR business to be “as big as our current ad business within this decade”.

The goal was revealed earlier this month in an all-hands company meeting leaked to The Verge. It was part of a response to an employee asking how Apple’s upcoming headset and absence from the Metaverse Standards Forum will affect Meta:

Employee question: Apple is absent from metaverse standards and are coming out with their own AR glasses. How does that affect Oculus and our ecosystem? Thanks.

Mark Zuckerberg: I think it’s pretty clear that Apple is going to be a competitor for us, not just as a product but philosophically. We’re approaching this in an open way and trying to build a more open ecosystem. We’re trying to make more stuff interoperable with Android. We’re trying to develop the metaverse in a way where you can bring your virtual goods from one world to another. We created the Metaverse Open Standards Group with a bunch of other folks that you just mentioned, and Apple didn’t join. But I don’t think that’s a surprise. Apple, for a few generations of computing now, has been the closed provider of computing.

This is a competition of philosophies and ideas, where they believe that by doing everything themselves and tightly integrating that they build a better consumer experience. And we believe that there is a lot to be done in specialization across different companies, and [that] will allow a much larger ecosystem to exist.

One of the things I think is interesting is that it’s not really clear upfront whether an open or closed ecosystem is going to be better. If you look back to PCs, Windows was clearly the one that had a lot more scale and became the default and norm that people used. And Mac did fine, but I think PC and Windows were, I think, the premier ecosystem in that environment.

On mobile, I would say it’s more the other way. There’s more Android devices than there are iOS devices, but I think in developed countries and places like the US or Western Europe in kind of the high end, [and] a lot of the culture-setters and developers, I do think that skews quite a bit more towards iPhone and iOS. So I’d say on mobile, Apple has really carved out quite a good position for themselves, and that’s why they’re the most valuable company in the world, or maybe one of the couple most valuable companies in the world.

But I just don’t think that the future is written here yet for the metaverse. And I think part of our job is we’re going to continue doing leading research and pushing on this at all levels of the stack. We’re doing VR. We’re doing AR. We basically deliver our devices at cost or at a slight subsidy, or slightly more than cost in some cases. But the bottom line is our business is not primarily taking a premium on the devices. We want as many people to be interacting in there as possible. Part of that is having it be an open ecosystem that’s interoperable.

Our north star is can we get a billion people into the metaverse doing hundreds of dollars a piece in digital commerce by the end of the decade? If we do that, we’ll build a business that is as big as our current ad business within this decade. I think that’s a really exciting thing. I think a big part of how you do that is by pushing the open metaverse forward, which is what we’re going to do.

So yeah, Apple is going to be a competitor. I think that that’s pretty clear, but it’s actually a very deep competitor. It’s not just [that] they have a device that has some more features than us. It’s a very deep, philosophical competition about what direction the internet should go in. And I am proud of the investments that we’re making to help push forward the open metaverse on this and hopefully make the next version of computing a bit more open.

Targeted advertising currently makes up 98% of Meta’s revenue, bringing in over $100 billion yearly. The immense quantity of data the company holds about each user is fed into machine learning algorithms tasked with serving the ad most likely be to be clicked on. But this revenue model depends on keeping user attention – and this is bleeding to competitors like TikTok. Advertising spend is also decreasing across most industries amid a wider economic downturn.

Since acquiring Oculus in 2014 – reportedly for over $3 billion – Mark Zuckerberg has been slowly preparing to diversify Facebook’s business by “building the next computing platform”, investing tens of billions of dollars toward this goal. With the rebrand to Meta last year Zuckerberg doubled down on this long term goal and signaled he’s prepared to bet his company’s future on it.

Meta’s AR/VR division brought in just $2 billion revenue in 2021, but Q1 and Q2 of 2022 saw year-over-year growth of 35% and 48% respectively. To reach Zuckerberg’s lofty goal this growth will need to accelerate – yet in the short term CFO David Wehner told investors he expects Q3 Reality Labs revenue to be lower than Q2, following the announcement of Quest 2’s price rising by $100.



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July 26, 2022 ,

PSVR 2 will use its four onboard cameras to allow players to see into the real world and set up safe boundary zones, Sony has confirmed.

A post on the PlayStation Blog revealed new details for the upcoming headset, which runs off of the PS5 console. For starters, PSVR 2 features a black and white passthrough option similar to those on the Meta Quest 2 or Pico Neo Link 3. By acceessing a menu you can quickly select a ‘View Surroundings’ button to see the world around you.

PSVR 2 Boundary 2

You can also use ‘Set Play Area’ to start setting up your VR space. Again, this works much like it does on other headsets – you use the motion controllers to point around the play space and establish virtual boundaries. But PSVR 2 can also scan the area itself to give an initial layout, detecting objects like couches. The headset will then warn you when you approach those boundaries.

Other upcoming headsets like Meta’s Project Cambria are set to introduce color passthrough to give you a more accurate representation of the world, but it doesn’t appear that PSVR 2 will have a color option.

PSVR 2 Boundary 1

Elsewhere the system can record player’s own reactions for streams if they’re using the PS5 HD Camera (it doesn’t look like the original PS4 camera for PSVR 1 can be used). The Cinematic Mode will also return, allowing players to access any flat screen video content and games inside PSVR 2, played on a virtual screen. This mode uses 1920×1080 HDR video format with 24/60Hz and also 120Hz frame rate.

PSVR 2 Recording

Still no actual release date for the headset, though Sony says it will release this information as well as another look at upcoming games “soon”. Fingers crossed we’re talking weeks and not months.



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July 25, 2022 ,

Bonelab is now playable from the opening logos to the end credits, according to Brandon J Laatsch from Stress Level Zero.

In a tweet this week, Laatsch said that the game “is playable from logos to credits” and it “has been for a while.” The focus of development is now “polish, bugs, feature creep, polish!”

Bonelab is the much-anticipated sequel to Stress Level Zero’s 2019 title Boneworks, a physics-based action adventure game that set a new standard for physical interaction in VR. Spanning across an Aperture-inspired collection of test chambers, Boneworks gave every object in the world a sense of weight and tactile handling.

While Boneworks released exclusively for PC VR, the follow-up Bonelab is set to release on PC VR and Quest 2 this year, and potentially even PSVR 2 later down the line. Bonelab was officially unveiled in April at the Meta Quest Gaming Showcase, described as an action-adventure physics game with a brand new story and “two years of innovation and interaction engine progress,” building on Boneworks’ foundation.

With the bulk of Bonelab complete and the focus now on finalizing features and squashing bugs, it looks increasingly likely Bonelab will make its 2022 release window as planned. There’s still no word on a more specific date, but we could hear more at Meta’s annual Connect conference, which usually takes place late in the year.

Just a few weeks after Bonelab’s reveal it had been wishlisted more times than Boneworks. We also know that the physics won’t be downgraded on Quest 2 because of the headset’s “strong” CPU. When it comes to the visuals, store listing screenshots gave us an early indication at the differences we can expect between the PC VR and Quest 2 release.



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July 24, 2022 ,

After releasing on App Lab in March, Warplanes: Battles Over Pacific will fly onto the Oculus Store for Quest 2 in August.

The game is listed in the ‘Coming Soon’ section of the Oculus Store, with a date of August 18 attached. Battles Over Pacific is a sequel to Warplanes: WW1 Fighters, announced and released in early access on PC VR and via App Lab for Quest back in March.

As you might expect from the title, this sequel brings the Warplanes series forward to World War II. You will lead the US to victory over Japan in the main campaign, or participate in co-op missions and competitive multiplayer. It will feature 10 specific planes, two of which were revealed in the latest update: F8F Bearcat and J2M Raiden. 

In the same update, developers Home Net Games also made some changes to multiplayer and ranked play, adding in 60 decals to unlock and customize your planes with as you rank up. Warplanes currently remains in early access on Steam and it’s likely (but unconfirmed) that this August 18 release will mark the game’s transition into full release there as well.

This isn’t the only upcoming Home Net Games title on our radar either. At our Upload VR Showcase last month, the studio also announced a VR helicopter game, titled HeliSquad: Covert Operations. It will release for PC VR, Quest 2 and the Pico Neo Link 3, but other details are slim for now.

Warplanes: Battles Over Pacific is available to wishlist on Quest 2 now. You can read our review of the original game, Warplanes: WW1 Fighters, here.



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July 23, 2022 ,

Cooking Simulator VR is coming to Meta Quest 2, releasing next week on July 28.

Following on from the PC VR release last year, the Quest 2 version will be available for $24.99 on the Oculus Store — original Quest not supported. The PC VR version won Steam’s VR Game of the Year award last year, and in our review we called it “a frantic celebration of VR realism and chaos.”

Developers Gameboom VR announced the news on Reddit, alongside a trailer (embedded above) and an AMA with the developers. In a comment,  Gameboom VR said that the team “took a lot of effort to make sure that the Meta Quest 2 version of the game features all the mechanics (explosions and fires included!) known from the PCVR version and has comparable visuals.” Gameboom wrote that they “rewrote the game code” and the Quest 2 version runs at a “stable 72fps” on the standalone headset. 

Alongside optimizations for Quest, Gameboom said that the PC VR version of Cooking Simulator “should also receive major changes to the physics in the next update, which will improve the performance.” 

There’s also plans to update the game with free content over time, with potentially some DLC for both Quest and PC VR. Before the PC VR port, Cooking Simulator originally released as a flatscreen game in 2019 for PC and consoles, with its own DLC releases adding new content and expansions. One user on Reddit asked if any of that DLC will come to VR. Gameboom confirmed that “one of the bigger DLCs” will be ported to VR, but wouldn’t confirm which one just yet.

Cooking Simulator VR is available to wishlist on Quest 2 now.



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July 22, 2022 ,

Inspired by classics like Doom and Quake, Shock Troops is coming to Quest 2, available next week.

Announced last September, Shook Troops is the new game from developer Garage Collective and a spiritual successor to its 2018 title Theta Legion. It’s a fast-paced shooter that mixes 3D environments with 2D sprites, taking the frantic gameplay of classic shooters and bringing it into the modern immersive medium of VR.

We spoke to Garage Collective about Shook Troopers last year, alongside 10 minutes of gameplay footage. Of particular note was how the studio’s previous releases – Theta Legion and Stones of Harlath – informed a lot of the development process for Shock Troopers. Here’s some excerpts from artist and designer Cyril Guichard:

“Shock Troops is thematically connected to Theta Legion – the Lore is the same, the logos are very similar – they both exist in the same universe, and deal with similar threats – but it’s also a brand new game, with new art, new gameplay, a lot more story, a lot of additions and improvements on the previous formula, and we wanted the name to reflect that to the players.

“We realized that the outdoors portions of Theta Legion, or the more “open” approach of the island of Harlath, were very popular with our players. We will be designing the sequence of indoors VS outdoors spaces in Shock Troops to reflect this.” 

You can read more in our article from last September here. We also debuted a new launch trailer for Shock Troops last month, embedded above, as part of our Upload VR Showcase.

Shock Troops is available to wishlist now on Quest 2.



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July 22, 2022 ,

Meta is adjusting its content policies for Horizon Worlds and introducing a new content rating system for “mature audiences”.

Meta signposted the change in an email sent out to Horizon Worlds users, indicating that creators need to apply a content rating to their worlds to show whether it is appropriate for all ages or only for mature users (age 18 and over). If creators take no action and do not update their existing worlds within the next month, then those worlds “will default to 18+ regardless of the content in the world.” Creators can find the new rating option in the World tab in Build mode, and it can be adjusted at any time.

Meta’s Mature Worlds Policy for Horizon can be read here with examples listed below of the content the company will allow in the mature social spaces in Horizon Worlds as well as content “not allowed even with a 18+ tag.”

Mature:

  • “Content that is sexually suggestive; for example, near nudity, depictions of people in implied or suggestive positions, or an environment focused on activities that are overly suggestive.”
  • “Worlds that are dedicated to or have a core focus on the promotion of marijuana, alcohol, tobacco, or age-regulated activities (including gambling).”
  • “Intense or excessively violent fictional content, including blood and gore, that could shock or disgust users.”

Not allowed:

  • “Content that is sexually explicit or provocative, including nudity, depictions of people in explicit positions, or content or worlds that are sexually provocative or implied.”
  • “Content that depicts or promotes the use of illegal drugs or abuse of prescription drugs.”
  • “Content that promotes criminal or dangerous activity.”
  • “Content that depicts real life intense violence, including blood and gore.”
  • “Content that attempts to buy, sell or trade real life regulated goods such as firearms, blades, alcohol and tobacco.”

The change comes as Meta unbundles Facebook accounts from the core experience of its Quest VR headsets and replaces them with Meta accounts which require a name and “date of birth so we can verify your age”. Notably, Facebook required people use the name “they go by in everyday life” with its earlier policy, but that’s not the case for Meta accounts.

Meta had previously limited access to Horizon Worlds to adults by using their Facebook accounts as a gating system, but we’ll be curious how enforcement of these policies is handled going forward with the company moving to Meta accounts. Regardless of the experience, Meta advises Quest users be at least 13 years of age with other recent feature additions that give parents increased supervision over teenagers using Quest headsets.



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July 21, 2022 ,

After setting a new standard for standalone VR visuals with the first game, Vertical Robot’s Red Matter 2 looks likely to do the same again on Quest 2.

A technical showcase video shared by developers Vertical Robot on Twitter indicates Red Matter 2 should be a pretty visually stunning release, even on Quest 2. Even though the game is also releasing on PC VR, this new video suggests Quest 2 players shouldn’t be missing out on too much.

Vertical Robot explains that Red Matter 2 “runs a heavily modified version of Unreal Engine,” which the studio used to create some stunning graphics features that look unlike much of what we’ve seen on standalone hardware so far. Altogether it’s pretty stunning work, with some of the visual features highlighted including high-quality reflections, particle effects, glass and even liquids, as well as various forms of lighting and shadows with detailed character models called ‘optimized metahumans’ in the video.

Overall, it looks like an evolution of the fantastic visuals from the first game which we praised in our review:

Red Matter might not have been the most visually distinctive game on any of its previous release platforms but simply holding its own on Quest is an impressive feat unto itself. Crisp textures stay true to even the PC VR version, but special mention has to go to the game’s lighting effects. Whenever you use the game’s laser-pointed scanner, lights will realistically bounce off of any nearby surface. In some rooms, window lighting convincingly melts onto the floor and then moves with you around the room.

After that technical showcase, it’s safe to say we’re even more excited for Red Matter 2 to launch on Quest 2 and PC VR on August 18.



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July 20, 2022 ,

In this week’s episode of Backseat VR Developer, Alex and Skeeva play Demeo joined by Producer Gustav Stenmark from Resolution Games.

Tune in every Wednesday at 10 am Pacific on the UploadVR YouTube channel for a new episode of Backseat VR Developer as UploadVR Correspondents Alex & Skeeva play VR games joined by the people who make them!

You can catch up on earlier episodes embedded below as well as the most recent episode from Alex & Skeeva’s Between Realities podcast.



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July 19, 2022 ,

Meta shared new research toward realistic simulation of clothes for avatars.

This clothing solution is built on top of Codec Avatars – Meta’s long term project to develop photorealistic avatars driven in real time by VR hardware sensors – and comes from the same team. Instead of traditional rendering, the idea of Codec Avatars is to use a series of neural networks to learn the appearance of a given person, then constantly encode their current state based on sensor input, and finally decode this state as geometry and final output textures. Since originally presented, the Codec Avatars team has showed off several evolutions of the system, such as more realistic eyes, a version only requiring eye tracking and microphone input, a 2.0 version that approaches complete realism, and generation using only an iPhone with FaceID.

The latest research, Deep Photorealistic Appearance for Physically Simulated Clothing, applies neural networks to realistic deformation of clothing across any body type:

As we always note, Meta still has a long way to go to reach this kind of fidelity in shipping products. This clothing system currently runs at just 13 frames per second on an NVIDIA RTX 3090 GPU. But in the field of machine learning optimization can be dramatic over time. The speech synthesis and object recognition algorithms on smartphones today also once required expensive PC GPUs.

Meta Avatars today have a basic cartoony art style. Their realism has actually decreased over time, likely to better suit larger groups with complex environments in apps like Horizon Worlds on Quest 2’s mobile processor. Codec Avatars may, however, end up as a separate option, rather than a direct update to the cartoon avatars of today. In his interview with Lex Fridman, CEO Mark Zuckerberg described a future where you might use an “expressionist” avatar in casual games and a “realistic” avatar in work meetings.

In April Yaser Sheikh, who leads the Codec Avatars team, said it’s impossible to predict how far away it is from actually shipping. He did say that when the project started it was “ten miracles away” and he now believes it’s “five miracles away”.



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July 17, 2022 ,

Valve’s Steam VR Fest offers game demos and discounts across existing and upcoming VR releases through July 25th.

The event officially runs from July 18th through July 25th and it will be an exclusively VR affair highlighting what the immersive medium has to offer. We’ll update this post with some of the most notable deals and demos as soon as we have a chance to peruse the final content in Steam VR Fest.

The event follows on from last month’s Steam Next Fest, which gave us demos for titles like Requisition VR, Kayak VR: Mirage, Ruinsmagus and The Last Worker. However, Next Fest was a Steam-wide event, featuring flatscreen, traditional games alongside immersive content. Steam VR Fest puts the spotlight solely on content for PC VR headsets. In the trailer for VR Fest the games highlighted are mainly well known existing VR titles such as Boneworks and The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, so we’d expect titles like those to see discounts during the event alongside new VR demos for upcoming games.

We know a game called Increment is included in the event as it satirically channels the energy of clicker games, “Press buttons, pull levers, and use your body to discover a strange world in this VR game about increasing.” There’s a free demo available now and full release planned later this year. It also looks like psychedelic puzzle game Squingle will be participating in VR Fest in some capacity. based on a recent tweet.

Keep an eye out for more details on Steam VR Fest demos and discounts to come soon. The event runs from this Monday, July  18, until July 25 and can be found over on the Steam Store’s VR page.



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July 17, 2022 ,

In this week’s episode of Between Realities, Alex and Skeeva host VR YouTuber Paradise Decay.

In his first ever live appearance, Paradise Decay talks about his journey in content creation and VR. Other topics include impressions of Kayak VR: Mirage and Twilight Zone VR.

— Between Realities Links —
Merch Store: https://teespring.com/stores/between-…
Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/BetweenRealities
YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/BetweenRealities
Twitter – https://twitter.com/BtweenRealities
Discord – https://discord.gg/EvNnj2w
Facebook – https://fb.me/BetweenRealities
Alex VR – https://www.youtube.com/Alex_VR
Alex VR’s Twitter – https://www.twitter.com/Alex__VR
Skeeva – https://www.youtube.com/Skeeva007
Skeeva’s Twitter – https://www.twitter.com/Skeeva



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July 16, 2022 ,

Far Cry VR offers a compelling location-based multiplayer VR experience for the experienced and new to VR alike. Read on for our full hands-on.

Announced in 2020 and rolled out to Zero Latency locations last year, I only recently got the chance to try out Far Cry VR: Dive Into Insanity, a 30-minute location-based multiplayer experience developed by nDreams in partnership with Ubisoft and Zero Latency.

Compared to other location-based VR I’ve tried, the attention to detail brought to Far Cry VR from nDreams was very welcome. The entire experience is also bolstered by the setup improvements found in Zero Latency’s new wireless multiplayer headset system.

As I wrote last month, Docklands in Melbourne is the first Zero Latency location worldwide to implement its new wireless system, using Wi-Fi 6E technology paired with Vive Focus 3 headsets. Gone are the days of long user setup times and heavy PC backpacks — all you need with this new system is the gun peripheral and the standalone headset, with all the content streamed wirelessly to each player from on-location PCs. Overall, the system delivers impressive performance with surprisingly minimal latency. It supports up to 8 players at once — the maximum for Far Cry VR — and I was able to try it out alongside seven of my friends as one big group. There was a mix of VR experience in our group — some were fairly well acquainted, while others were trying VR for the very first time. Everyone came away impressed and entertained.

While the new wireless system streamlines the entire onboarding process, it’s the prowess of nDreams as a VR studio that shines through in Far Cry VR. It’s a solid experience that takes advantage of VR in interesting ways. The game’s premise is simple — your group find themselves held hostage on an island and you’ll have to shoot down a ridiculous number of island pirates in order to escape. Knowledge of the Far Cry franchise is certainly not needed, but fans should be satisfied with the frequent appearances of Vaas, the iconic villain from Far Cry 3.

It’s a cooperative experience, so no one in the group will be directly competing against each other during the game. That being said, there is an ongoing leaderboard that you can check between encounters and after you finish and take the headset off. For those like me with competitive spirit, my best tip is to focus on getting headshots if you want to take the top position.

The group of eight will be split up into two smaller groups of four for most of the experience, but you’ll often still be able to see the others as you navigate through the environments. There’s also some entertaining combat encounters that will see you come together as a full group of eight again, fighting off bigger waves of enemies.

The majority of Far Cry VR is combat-focused, but there’s a good amount of variety in the environments and some interesting areas to explore as you progress through the linear narrative.

Things start simple — generic island environments with simple gun gameplay to get everyone warmed up — before moving onto to slightly more interesting areas and more complex encounters. One section will play out on a moving cable car, while another will give you a break from combat to explore a cave ridden with psychedelic gas-expelling fungi, leading to some fun hallucination effects.

There’s a trippy and engaging full-group combat sequence in said hallucinogenic cave, with enemies will popping up from all angles — the ground, sideways on walls, even upside down above you. It’s a a well thought out sequence — not only does it work within the story, but it also shows players how VR gameplay can let you experience sequences and interactions that simply aren’t possible in the real world. You’re not just playing a virtual version of laser tag here — it’s doing things that only work in VR to great effect.

This is clearly the advantage in bringing in an experienced studio like nDreams to handle development. While Zero Latency’s other developed-in-house experiences are still entertaining, they don’t feel quite as mature or considered as Far Cry VR does in terms of VR design.

The grand combat finale is a mixture of everything you’ve seen so far — hallucinations, pirates, Vaas and some new enemies thrown into the mix as well — which you’ll fight through as one big group of eight.

As can happen with many location-based VR experiences, though, it felt over too soon. Considering the experience is the kind that could attract those who are completely new to VR, Far Cry VR is a well-designed taster. There’s still lots to enjoy for experienced VR players too, but those who are newcomers should get an understanding of not just what works best in VR, but why it works so well.

Fans of Far Cry will certainly enjoy the experience too, but it’s not a mind-blowing franchise tie-in. It doesn’t have to be either — using existing franchises like Far Cry is a great way to give a substantial backdrop to relatively simple action gameplay, without needing too much narrative context or explanation.

If you’re looking to try a substantial location-based experience with a group of friends Far Cry VR comes recommended — especially if you’re able to play it on Zero Latency’s newest wireless system which significantly improves the setup and comfort of the entire process from start to finish.

When I visited last month Zero Latency told me that the Docklands location was the only venue with the new wireless system. However, there are imminent plans to expand the system as soon as possible in other venues worldwide, so keep an eye out.

You can check out sessions and locations for Far Cry VR over on Zero Latency’s site.



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July 15, 2022 ,

Apple plans to release a “more affordable” headset in 2025, Ming-Chi Kuo claims.

Ming-Chi Kuo is a TF International Securities analyst mostly known for predicting Apple products & moves over a year in advance using his supply chain sources.

Last year Bloomberg, Kuo and The Information released reports claiming Apple is working on a premium headset for VR and AR with high resolution color passthrough. Kuo claimed this headset will weigh less than Meta’s Quest 2 and feature high resolution OLED microdisplays, while The Information claims it will be powered by Apple’s M2 chip seen in the latest MacBooks. All sources indicate it will launch in 2023.

Bloomberg and The Information report the first generation product is set to be priced north of $2000. But a new report from Kuo claims the second generation will launch in 2025, and consist of both a high end model and “more affordable” model. Kuo predicts this strategy will let Apple reach 10 million units by 2026.

The Information Apple VR

Meta executives say they sell Quest 2 at or near cost, resulting in a dramatically lower price than rumors suggest Apple will set for its first generation product. Back in November the CEO of Qualcomm, Meta’s chip provider, said Quest 2 was at 10 million units already – though a spokesperson later claimed this was merely an “average of third-party market size estimates”. Will Apple’s more affordable model approach Quest 2’s pricing, or be closer to Meta’s upcoming “significantly” higher than $800 Quest Pro?

For the first generation headset, Kuo predicts Apple will host a media event in January, deliver development kits 2-4 weeks later, and launch preorders in the second quarter of 2023 for a release before WWDC 2023. WWDC is Apple’s yearly software conference, almost always held in June.



via Mint VR
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July 14, 2022 ,

The VR Edition of indie adventure game Lost Ember is now available for PC VR, bundled for sale alongside the original game and available for free for existing players.

Lost Ember originally released for PC and consoles, but in January developers Mooneye Studios announced that a VR port would bring the short, narrative-focused indie experience to PC VR headsets, with support for Valve Index, Oculus and HTC Vive headsets.

You play as a wolf in Lost Ember, exploring the world around you alongside a spiritual companion, discovering more about the lost Yanrana culture. You’re able to possess other types of animals and creatures in the wilderness too, giving you a new perspective on the world or access to previously hidden areas.

Mooneye Studios says the VR Edition will give players roughly five hours of content. They also posted a new trailer specifically for the VR Edition, which you can see in the tweet embedded above.

While Lost Ember: VR Edition is listed as a separate entry on Steam, it’s only available as part of a bundle with the regular flatscreen edition. Likewise, the flat screen version of the game is only available in the bundle now too, so all players will receive both versions of the game with any purchase.

Mooneye Studios previously indicated that existing owners of Lost Ember should receive a copy of the VR Edition for free at launch, so those owners should now have a copy in their library automatically.

The Lost Ember bundle is available at a regular price of $29.99, but is available at 20% off until July 26. You can check it out over on Steam now.



via Mint VR
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July 14, 2022 ,

Kayak VR is now available for PC VR on Steam, offering a visually-stunning adventure paddling through some gorgeous environments, alongside asynchronous multiplayer functionality.

Kayak VR: Mirage lets you commandeer a physics-based, physically accurate kayak in VR, exploring and racing through beautiful locations with various times of day and different weather conditions.

There’s a couple of different modes — free roam for something more serene, time attack for a challenge, and asynchronous multiplayer functionality that lets you race against ghost players with records on global leaderboards.

We tried out Kayak VR back in May and came away suitably impressed with not just the mechanics, but the visuals on offer:

Even navigating the straight segments of a river is an achievement here, and your reward is some of the most stunning sights you’ll find in VR. Similar to when you finish a gruelling hike or bike ride, stumbling upon these places comes with a sense of pride and accomplishment and you can feel yourself slowly start to improve your technique the more you play. That’s a very rare, and meaningful thing in any game, let alone VR.

The title debuted to very positive reviews on Steam. In terms of system requirements, we haven’t verified the game’s performance ourselves yet but the listed specifications aren’t too bad — the minimum graphics card is listed as an Nvidia 1070 or AMD 5700, with recommended being an Nvidia 2080. Those requirements are fairly high, but still not as lofty as some other PC VR games as of late.

A roadmap outlining future development plans and upcoming features is also available, which lists new weather options, bHaptics support, real time multiplayer and more.

Kayak VR is listed at a regular price of $22.99 but is currently on sale to celebrate launch, available at 15% off until July 20. You can check it out now on Steam.



via Mint VR
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July 12, 2022 ,

Zombieland: Headshot Fever developer XR Games has raised a further $7 million in another round of funding.

As announced on the developer’s blog, existing investors Praetura Ventures and Maven led the round. It’s the UK-based company’s fourth round of funding, following on from a third in August 2021 in which it secured $2.1 million. At the time, the studio said it would use those funds to expand the team and work on original VR content.

Now, though, XR Games plans to use its latest investment to move into a larger office in the center of the city of Leeds and continue to grow the team. Currently, the studio sits at 85 employees, including members of VR developer Fierce Kaiju, which XR Games acquired earlier in the year.

XR Games hasn’t announced any new projects at this point in time but it does say it’s working on new games and “research into VR and augmented reality (AR) technologies”. To date, the company has released All-Star Fruit Racing VR, Angry Birds Under Pressure VR and last year’s Zombieland VR: Headshot Fever. The latter two projects were published in partnership with Sony Pictures VR.

We’ll bring you the latest on XR Games’ latest projects as soon as we have it.



via Mint VR
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July 11, 2022 ,

A new update for physics-based puzzle game Gadgeteer brings 23 musical gadgets to play with as well as a new environment to build in.

The Musical Gadget Update released recently for Gadgeteer on Quest and PC VR. It adds a bunch of new music-inspired tools for players to implement in their Rube Goldberg machines, such as a metronome, xylophone, drum parts, cymbals, gongs, cowbells and a rubber chicken.

As you can see in the trailer embedded above, players can use existing well-known Gadgeteer staples, such as the marble ball, to interact with the new musical elements to produce tones in sequences and create songs.

The update also adds in a new sandbox environment, ‘Study’, which is “purposely designed to offer a building canvas that’s different from the ‘Apartment’ environment” and provides a better canvas for building music-focused machines.

Metanaut CEO and Creative Director Peter Kao shared bit about future updates to come in a prepared statement, “Our players have been asking for gadgets that allow them to build perpetually running machines. They’ve also asked for powerful electrical gadgets. These are great suggestions and we have them on the top of our list of gadgets to prototype.”

Metanaut have consistently updated Gadgeteer through early access and post launch, adding in some key features such as online level sharing, while also expanding out with Quest and PSVR releases in 2019 and 2021 respectively.

The update is available now for Gadgeteer on PC VR and Quest platforms, with PSVR to come in the future.



via Mint VR
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July 11, 2022 ,

A new level of storytelling with Easter eggs placed around historical landmarks can be found in the new Behind High Walls paid content for Puzzling Places.

The incredibly well-reviewed puzzler recently got an AR passthrough mode on Quest 2 and its developers at Realities.io continue to add-on to the project with the release of new content packs for the game on a monthly basis. Behind High Walls, however, tests the waters for premium puzzling with four hand-crafted puzzles bundled together for $6 with a story told across “custom soundscapes and regional sound effects which build” as you complete it, according to the developers.

There’s even some animations in the scenes, like flags waving, as well as tiny Easter eggs to find. Check it out in the trailer below alongside some comments from developer Shahriar Shahrabi as he outlines their intent with Behind High Walls and goals for Puzzling Places overall.

“We have been trying to take Puzzling Places to the next level,” he told us. “People who play these develop their own sense of relationship and connection to these locations, and also have an understanding of the greater context of what these locations mean to other people.”

Shahrabi told us they are also working on features like multiplayer for Puzzling Places and the feedback they get from Behind High Walls can help guide how much time they spend on premium content like it in the future. The four puzzles cover Mar Saba Monastery, Sokol Fortress, Alcázar of Segovia, Valdštejn Castle — you can find more details linked here — and the developers are also hosting an hour-long podcast to walk through some of the historical context relevant to the locations.

Behind High Walls is available as paid DLC for Puzzling Places on Quest and PSVR now.



via Mint VR
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July 11, 2022 ,

Vertical Robot, the studio behind upcoming VR sequel Red Matter 2,  announced a release date confirming that it will arrive on August 18. Plus, a PC VR release has now been confirmed as well.

Vertical Robot announced Red Matter 2 back in April at the Meta Quest Gaming Showcase, but only confirmed a release on Quest 2 with no mention of other platforms.

Not only is the PC VR version now official, it also won’t be a delayed release or subject to any Quest 2 timed exclusivity. Red Matter 2 will launch on the same day for both Quest 2 and PC VR.

In a reply on Twitter, Vertical Robot confirmed that the PC VR version will be available on Steam, with a listing set to go live in the near future.

So far we’ve only got one good look at the game itself via the Quest Gaming Showcase’s reveal trailer, embedded above. There’s some elements returning from the original game — the two claws used to interact with the world, for example — as well as some new elements as well, such as the action sequences with gun gameplay and enemy drones to shoot down.

If you haven’t played the original, now is a great time to catch up. It was a solid adventure game on the original Quest headset that set quite a high visual standard — we’re hoping the sequel can do the same.

Red Matter 2 releases August 18 for Quest 2 via the Oculus Store and PC VR via Steam.



via Mint VR
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