Mint Virtual Reality

Upcoming PSVR-compatible assassination sim, Hitman 3, is moving to China with its latest location.

As revealed in a behind-the-scenes video today, the Chinese municipality of Chongqing is the newest destination for Agent 47 in the upcoming release. Developer IO Interactive didn’t go into too much detail about the new locale itself, though, as the video is primairly concerned with the updates the team is making to its engine with the latest iteration of the series.

IO’s in-house engine will support improved lighting and reflections in Hitman 3, which Chongqing showcases quite nicely with its neon streets. There are added benefits for next-generation systems too, including 4K and 60FPS support.

Of course, we know that Hitman 3’s all-new VR support is limited to just PSVR on PS4 when the game releases this January, so don’t expect to see all of these visual tweaks make it into a version of the game that’s running on older hardware. Last month we confirmed that, even if you get the game on Ps5, you’ll still need the PS4 version to access the VR support, and IO Interactive isn’t yet talking about any possibility of a PC VR port.

Other locations confirmed for Hitman 3 include England and Dubai, though you can also important levels from the older games (which will support these engine updates) to play the entire current trilogy in VR.

Elsewhere, IO last week announced it’s working on a James Bond game, too. Now that definitely sounds like a great fit for VR, no?

Are you looking forward to picking up Hitman 3 on January 20th, 2021? Let us know in the comments below!

The upcoming Dreamhouse: The Game will let you — you guessed it — build your dream house and then view it in VR.

Announced today from developer DeSand Game Studios, Dreamhouse is coming to PC soon with optional VR support. In the main bulk of the game, you’ll be given the tools to expertly design your ideal paradise, either in single or multiplayer modes. Check it out in the trailer below.

Dreamhouse VR On the Way

From the looks of it, Dreamhouse will take you through every stage of building a home, from planning out the construction to putting the finishing touches on the interior. You can even import other assets into the game to give your creations a personal touch and there’s a physics-based system ready for when you want to tear a wall down, too.

Not only that but the game’s developed on Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5, so it sports some pretty lovely visuals. All that said, the game’s VR support appears to be limited to simply viewing your creations once they’re complete. We’ve reached out to the team to clarify exactly what elements of the game you can experience in VR.

The game’s Steam listing confirms native support for the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Valve Index. It’s also coming to PlayStation platforms, but there’s no confirmation of possible PSVR support just yet. There’s no release date attached to the game right now but, considering it’s using Unreal Engine 5, we might be looking at a release later in 2021 at the earliest.

Raindance Immersive 2020 concluded just over a week ago, showcasing some great virtual reality (VR) content. This past weekend the festival held its awards event, celebrating immersive projects across 10 categories with winners including well-known titles such as Paper Beast and more obscure offerings.

This year’s event was held across HTC’s Viveport and VRChat, with the latter also playing host to the digital awards ceremony, just like the VR Awards, Venice VR Expanded and other events.

Raindance Immersive 2020 Winners:

• Best Narrative Experience – The Under Presents: Tempest (Tender Claws) – A live, interactive VR show inspired by Shakespeare’s famed tale.
• Best Documentary Experience – Fly – (Picture This Productions) – Become a time-travelling pilot, from Leonardo da Vinci’s ornithopter, to the potential future of flight.
• Best Animation Experience – Paper Birds (3DAR) – A story about a short-sighted child with an exceptional talent for music.
• Best Immersive Game – The Devouring (Lakuza, Fionna, CyanLaser and Legends) – A four-player VR horror experience created and based entirely inside social platform VRChat.
• Best Multiplayer Experience – Dr. Crumb’s School For Disobedient Pets (Adventure Lab) – A live escape room suitable for 2-4 players.
• Discovery Award: Best Debut – Rinlo (Gurashop) – A puzzle adventure set inside a steampunk dystopia.
• Best Immersive World – The Devouring (Lakuza, Fionna, CyanLaser and Legends)
• Outstanding Achievement in Art – Paper Beast (Pixel Reef) – Venture into an environmental puzzler with and ecosystem borning from big data.
• Outstanding Achievement in Audio – Paper Beast (Pixel Reef)
• Outstanding Achievement in Design – Dr. Crumb’s School For Disobedient Pets (Adventure Lab)
• Spirit of Raindance Award – Scarecrow VRC (Sngmoo Lee and Jihyun Jung) A theatrical VR experience with a live actor for up to three players where they have to save the scarecrow.
• Spirit of Raindance Honourable Mention – VRChat Community

“This year Virtual Reality has grown more than ever,” said Raindance Immersive curator Mária Rakušanová in a statement. “From AAA games with mind-bending physics, to virtual theatre performances with live actors and full-body tracked avatars, we’ve seen a huge expansion of innovation and creativity. We’re living in unprecedented times. When we’re unable to gather in person, VR has turned social distancing into ‘social instancing’, bringing us all closer together.”

Should this forced trend into the realm of digital events continue in 2021, VRFocus will bring you all the latest details.

A few days ago to mark the anniversary of Oculus Link, Facebook announced a new deal for the recently released Oculus Quest 2 whereby anyone buying the headset between 20th November and the end of Jan 2021 would get PC title Asgard’s Wrath for free. This obviously caused a stir in the community and so Oculus has widened the deal to include early adopters.

In a tweet from Oculus support the company confirms that the promotion has been opened up to those customers who either pre-ordered or bought an Oculus Quest between 16th Sept to 20 November 2020, covering all current owners. It did seem a little strange that such an offer would be released so close to the launch of the standalone headset, almost penalising those who embraced the platform early.

If you’re one of those and wondering how to go about claiming Oculus Support notes in a further tweet: “To submit a ticket with Customer Support, please use this link https://tickets.oculusvr.com/hc/en-us/requests/new… and select “I am having an issue with Oculus Software or content” as the reason. Have a PDF with proof of Quest 2 purchase from Sept 16 – Nov 20 ready to share as well.”

Hopefully that should be it and you’ll all be able to enjoy Sanzaru Games’ Asgard’s Wrath – if you have a capable PC of course – for free. It’s a hefty videogame in terms of performance (165GB is required to install it) but it was also one of the best reasons to own an Oculus Rift as one of the headset’s exclusive AAA VR experiences.

A big fantasy single-player adventure based on Norse mythology, you play a new Asgardian god guided by Loki. The campaign is based around you possessing several mortal heroes and helping them fulfil their fates. Queue plenty of close melee sword fighting combat in mortal form; you can also shift back into your more god-like role to complete environmental puzzles and other tasks. Other abilities also include being able to transform animals into warrior companions, each with their own particular skill set.

With Black Friday on the way expect to see some VR deals being rolled out – like this one from HTC Vive – which VRFocus will keep you updated on.

Remember that VR space simulator Ubisoft announced seemingly out of the blue a few months back? AGOS? Whatever happened to that? Let’s find out!

Yup, today we’re streaming this bizarre space odyssey on the HP Reverb G2. Expect plenty of misadventure as we travel the cosmos, mining resources and crashing into things with seemingly no control over what we’re doing. About par for the course for an UploadVR stream, then.

We’ll be live at 8:30am PT or 4:30pm in the UK. Make sure to join in below.

Oh and don’t forget we’ll be live all week with other shenanigans – expect a new episode of VR Roulette tomorrow and the return of the VR Download podcast on Thursday. Honestly? You don’t even need that TV. Go on – throw it away; we’ve got you covered.