Action-physics adventure game Boneworks released earlier this month to a strong reception despite little formal marketing. The title surpassed 100,000 players in its first week, reeling in an impressive $3 million in revenue despite being available on just one of several key VR platforms.
Now Boneworks, the action-physics adventure from veteran VR developer Stress Level Zero reached an impressive milestone for an indie VR release, selling more than 100K units for $3 million in revenue in its first week, the studio confirmed. Even more impressively, the game reached this milestone despite being available only on Steam at launch.
Boneworks’ launch was so successful relative to other VR games on Steam that the title ranked in the highest tier of Steam’s ‘Best of 2019 Virtual Reality‘ ranking (which ranks by gross revenue for the entire year), despite Boneworks having launched just two weeks before the list was published. That means the game earned enough in two weeks to be comparable to the sales of games that have been earning revenue for the entirety of 2019, like Beat Saber, Gorn, Superhot VR, Pavlov, Blade & Sorcery, and Skyrim VR.
Content Marketing Success
Beyond pushing the envelope in physical simulation for VR interactions, Boneworks‘ launch success appears to have been driven largely by non-traditional content marketing.
Stress Level Zero founder Brandon Laatsch was formerly part of the major YouTube channels ‘Freddiew’ and ‘Node’, and leveraged his significant experience and connections in online filmmaking to expose Boneworks to an audience far beyond the core VR community.
Since April 2018, 10 videos showing off Boneworks at various stages in development were published on Node or Laatsch’s own YouTube channel, garnering more than 21 million collective views. The most successful of the videos (‘Boneworks – Next Gen VR Gameplay!‘) was released in April 2019 and has pulled in 6.7 million views alone.
The videos, which demonstrated compelling physics-based VR interactions, also spawned countless GIFs which were shared both within and beyond the VR community.
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Boneworks is only available on Steam at present. While it isn’t clear if the game will eventually come to Oculus’ PC platform, the studio has confirmed that a game ‘in the Boneworks universe’ is in development for Oculus Quest (though details are still scarce). Considering the game’s computationally-demanding physics simulations and limited comfort options, it’s doubtful that Boneworks will ever launch on PSVR due to the system’s limited processing power and Sony’s more stringent comfort standards. That said, the ‘Boneworks universe’ Quest-focused game could be perfectly suited for PSVR as well.
We knew Superhot VR (2017) was doing extremely well when Superhot Team announced the VR adaptation had generated more revenue than the original PC game back in April. Now the studio has set one of the most impressive benchmarks of success for the medium, as over the past week Superhot VR garnered a cool $2 million in gross revenue across all VR platforms.
Callum Underwood, an industry consultant and talent scout, announced the news on the studio’s behalf:
SUPERHOT VR has grossed over 2 million dollars on all platforms in the past 7 days alone. Thank you players!! pic.twitter.com/jkTINcGH4f
Underwood also notes that numbers on the PlayStation platform aren’t precise, as Sony will furnish the exact sales numbers next year.
He couldn’t specify the breakdown of which platform made the most money for the studio (supported headsets include Oculus Quest, PSVR, and SteamVR headsets), although Superhot VR is a pretty reliable watermark of success of the VR medium in whole.
For comparison’s sake, the breakout hit parody sim Job Simulator (2016) passed the thee million dollar mark after around eight months after launching on Steam. It also rolled out slowly to other stores, including a day-one launch on PSVR in October 2016 and on the Oculus Store in December of that year for Oculus Touch’s launch—the absolute ideal launch plan for any VR game at the time when consumer VR first took off.
We have no way of knowing the specifics surrounding Superhot VR’s success, but it’s at very least clear that a bunch of new headsets have been bought as gifts this holiday season. Oculus Quest, the $400 standalone headset launched by Facebook earlier this year, has been out of stock all over the Internet this holiday season.
Intuition points to Quest making the biggest effect on Superhot VR’s sales numbers. The headset, although capable of playing PC VR games via Oculus Link, has a comparatively smaller native library of games than Oculus, Steam and the PlayStation Store, which might have created a bottleneck for new users looking for their first game.
And it’s a pretty excellent choice too; it’s both a highly-rated game by users, and also one of the few with brand name cachet for non-VR gamers too, as the original version saw viral success when it released on PCs back in 2016.
So uou’ve just got a new Oculus Quest in hand, and you’re wondering what to buy after you’ve exhausted all of the best free games and experiences available on the standalone headset. We’re here to help you settle into your new Quest with a few games that should keep you playing for tens of hours yet to come.
Note: Don’t forget that you can also play Rift games with an Oculus Link-compatible USB cable and a VR-ready PC. Find out if your PC is ready for Link. There’s plenty of fresh Rift games from 2019 that are just waiting to be played through Link.
This list below is a great starting point if you’re looking to burn a single Benjamin, although you should definitely check out our list of the best and most rated Oculus Quest games now available, which also includes prices to help you whittle away your hard-earned cash.
If you didn’t already get the Star Wars Vader Immortal series for free with your Quest (seriously, check right now to see), you should definitely consider it too as you head into paid app territory.
Now, for our top picks to help you burn your first $100 on Quest games:
Beat Saber – $30
If you swear you don’t have any rhythm, maybe you’ve never had the chance to slash a pair of light sabers at flying directional blocks before. Rest assured, you’ll find yourself honing your new Jedi skills to heady EDM beats and plenty of tracks from bands such as Green Day, Panic at the Disco!, and Imagine Dragons.
First released on PC VR and PSVR in 2018, Beat Saber has proven to be a key addition to any Quester’s game library thanks to the expert port that feels just as good as (or better than) playing on any other headset platform out there.
The hype is real. Superhot VR, a PC VR and PSVR classic, has come to Quest to awesome effect.
If you’ve never had a chance to play either the VR version or the original Superhot on PC, it works like this: every time you move, time moves forward. Stand still, and the world stops. You’d think it would be easy to win against the evil red crystal dudes that run at you, but each movement is death sentence waiting to happen if you’re not careful. Catch guns, shoot, punch, die, repeat until you feel like Neo from The Matrix or John Wick from … John Wick. You’re bound to feel like some version of Keanu Reeves in Superhot VR.
Although not a super long game, it’s super replayable—not to mention another easy party game to toss your unsuspecting friends into.
Bond fans, look no further. You’ve found the game that puts you in a literal hot seat that tasks you with making a frantic escape from certain doom, orchestrated by the very Bond-esque villain Dr. Zor.
This is a real headscratcher of a puzzle game that puts a big emphasis on object interaction (defuse the bomb, unscrew the panel to turn off the laser) and absolutely zero on locomotion, making it ideal for anyone who may be wary of motion-induced nausea.
Thanks to Schell Games’ constant free DLC updates, I Expect You to Die has not only become a well-rounded title, but also a fairly long one too, as you play from each exciting scenario to another. It also looks and runs pretty much the same as it does on other platforms, making it an easy buy if you’re looking for a dedicated puzzle game for your Quest library.
This plucky little platformer will have you awwwing over little Quill for a few solid hours, as you control your mouse-pal through a world fraught with puzzles, danger, and an environment that literally leaps out of the pages of a story book.
It isn’t just a standard platformer though, where you control Quill with thumbstick and a smattering of buttons, rather you use your own to hands to interact with puzzle pieces throughout the environment to keep little Quill on here merry way.
This makes for a great first longer format game that really highlights Quest’s ability to render beautiful visuals that are pretty on-par with its bigger brothers. Younger kids will definitely vibe with Moss.
At the time of this writing, those games actually add up to $100 thanks to the Oculus Quest Winter game sale going on currently. That said, the full $110 asking price is definitely fair for what we rate as some of the best games on the platform.
Let us know in the comments below what your favorite Quest game is, and what you would include on the list.
Beat Saber had an awesome year in 2019, launching out of Early Access on the platform in May with multiple music packs following behind it, which featured bands such as Green Day, Imagine Dragons, and Panic at the Disco. It seems the Prague-based studio has done well to bring the flair of name brand music to the game, as it officially ranked as a Steam top seller this year.
Last year didn’t feature any VR games in Steam’s generalized list; this year Beat Saber has broken through to the ‘bronze’ level, which is based on gross revenue for this year.
Although this doesn’t specify sales numbers, it does put it in company with titles such as Far Cry 5, Tropico 6, Rimworld, and No Man’s Sky. That’s a pretty big feat considering the comparatively smaller install base of SteamVR headsets on the platform, which according to the latest Steam hardware survey accounts for only a little over one percent of total players using Steam.
Of course, this is only a single dimension of Beat Saber’s overall success this year, as it also sells on the PlayStation Store for PSVR, and the Oculus Store for both Oculus Rift and Oculus Quest.
While a bronze-level seller overall, in Steam’s 2019 list of VR Best SellersBeat Saber ranks platinum, the highest level sitting above gold, silver, and bronze.
Take a look at the full of platinum-level VR top sellers below:
Valve also released a month-by-month breakdown of top new games based on gross revenue, which includes Beat Saber, Boneworks, Vacation Simulator, Five Nights at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted, Trover Saves the Universe, GORN, Pistol Whip, and Nostos.
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If you’re looking to pick up an Oculus Quest after the holiday rush, you may be more than a bit disappointed to find out that online retailers across the board have listed it as ‘back ordered’, with Oculus US quoting an earliest delivery date well into February.
It seems all of Oculus’ standard online retail partners in the US are out of stock in both the 64GB and 128GB variants currently, which respectively MSPR for $400 and $500. This includes Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, NewEgg, Walmart, MicroCenter, and B&H Photo Video.
Oculus.com is taking orders as usual, however you’ll find that the 64GB version is slated to ship at earliest on February 20th. The 128GB version is quoted to ship two days earlier.
Of course, that doesn’t mean they’re impossible to find; you can always sniff around for remaining stock at brick-and-mortar stores, which in the US typically includes Walmart, Best Buy, MicroCenter, and GameStop.
Barring that, both eBay and independent Amazon sellers have both versions readily available, however you’ll find that demand has sufficiently jacked up asking prices to around $600 for the 64GB version and between $700 – $800 for the 128GB version.
If you’re in Europe however, you shouldn’t have an issue buying direct from Oculus or via any of the standard channels such as regional Amazon sites and local big box stores, as it seems the Black Friday hype and build up to the holiday season didn’t hit stocks nearly as hard there.
The company’s latest PC VR headset, Rift S, is only backlogged through official channels to early January, although you’ll of course need a VR-ready PC to play.
Notably, Oculus Link, the $80 cable that lets you play Rift games on Quest, is also out of stock, with shipping starting back up on January 15th.
Do you know where to find an Oculus Quest in-stock? Let us know in the comments below!
We loved 2019 for its bounty of VR games and emphasis on new hardware, but 2020 is looking to bring a host of big budget titles and polished indies alike that should not only keep us all happily strapped into the headset, but attract a steady flow of new users to VR in the process too.
Here, we take a look at our top anticipated VR titles coming to the full gamut of platforms out there, which includes SteamVR headsets (Rift, Vive, Windows MR, Valve Index, etc), Oculus Quest, and PSVR.
Note: PlayStation 5 is set to arrive for holiday season 2020, which ought to arrive with a bevy of new games for the backwards compatible PSVR. Sony hasn’t announced the second iteration of PSVR yet, so we’re hoping to learn more about awesome PSVR platform games soon.
Studio description: Half-Life: Alyx is Valve’s VR return to the Half-Life series. It’s the story of an impossible fight against a vicious alien race known as the Combine, set between the events of Half-Life and Half-Life 2. Playing as Alyx Vance, you are humanity’s only chance for survival.
Studio description:Don the PlayStation VR headset to suit up as the Armored Avenger in an original Iron Man adventure! Using two PlayStation Move motion controllers fire up Iron Man’s Repulsor Jets and blast into the skies with an arsenal of iconic Iron Man weapons at your fingertips. Face off against Iron Man’s greatest foes in high stakes, action-packed battles. Upgrade tech in Tony Stark’s garage to customize Iron Man’s sleek suit and awesome abilities.
Studio description: Explore the remains of a civilization ground to a halt in an alternate 1980s, craft a range of ranged and melee weapons, and wield devastating powers with real-life movements. Go solo or join up with players worldwide as you face relentless hordes and colossal bosses in a bid to take back the city.
Studio description: Dispatched into hostile wetlands in your tactical kayak, utilise military weapons and equipment to evade and neutralise the enemy threat. Engage your targets lethally or infiltrate unnoticed from the shadows: it’s your mission to execute your way. Phantom: Covert Ops is stealth action redefined.
Studio description: Jack and Liv are back in Lone Echo II. Return to the rings of Saturn in this highly-anticipated sequel, to unravel the mysteries of Lone Echo and journey deeper into space – past the very boundaries of time itself.
Studio description: Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is an action-packed and incredibly immersive VR experience set in World War II, where you step into the boots of an agent of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in war torn Europe. A deep single-player campaign takes you through historic events on land, air, and sea, sabotaging Nazi bases, subverting enemy plans, aiding the French Resistance, and much, much more.
Studio description: You’re the sheriff of cityblock 303, a retro-futuristic cyberpunk slum where the only inhabitants of note are other “low-fi”. Humans too poor to jack into the platform, and rusting old robots that didn’t achieve the intelligence singularity. What you do with your time is up to you. Are you a good cop, hotshot?
Studio description: Vertigo 2 is a single-player VR adventure. Explore the depths of the vast Quantum Reactor as you descend to finish your journey home.
Studio description: A dedicated VR stealth-action experience from the makers of Battlezone and the BAFTA-nominated Sniper Elite 4, in partnership with Just Add Water. Fight for the Italian Resistance in a daring mission to rid World War 2 Sicily of the Nazi U-boat menace.
Description: Solaris: Offworld Combat is a multiplayer team shooter developed by First Contact Entertainment, the studio behind Firewall Zero Hour (2018). The studio is still extremely tight-lipped, having only revealed the trailer above.
Studio description: Firmament is a resplendent fantastic steampunk journey — a monumental voyage through diverse and curious realms with the ever-present assistance of a helpful clockwork adjunct, and the deep and moving instruction and emotional chronicles of an ethereal mentor.
Studio description: Saints & Sinners is a game unlike any other in The Walking Dead universe. Every challenge you face and decision you make is driven by YOU. Fight the undead, scavenge through the flooded ruins of New Orleans, and face gut-wrenching choices for you and the other survivors. Live The Walking Dead.
Studio description: Fight your fears head-on in The Walking Dead Onslaught, the official VR game of AMC’s The Walking Dead. Experience an all-new exclusive TWD story, defend yourself with real-motion melee and ranged combat, and confront both the horrors and humanity of the apocalypse.
Description: Population: One is an upcoming battle royale shooter from the studio behind VR indie hit Smashbox Arena (2016). Although it may be late to the table, as its been delayed from its original early 2019 launch window to a vague ‘2020’ release date, we’re still looking forward to what promises to be a capable, clever, and solid battle royale shooter in VR.
Studio description:Paper Beast is a playful exploration game set in a colorful ecosystem born out of big data. Undertake a virtual journey of discovery through an immersive and poetic gameplay experience.
Have me missed anything important to you? Let us known in the comment section below!
Neal Stephenson’s classic cyberpunk novel Snow Crash (1992) is an oft referenced starting point for many in the VR scene. Now, a Deadline exclusive holds that HBO Max is officially developing a TV series out of the novel.
According to Deadline, Michael Bacall (21 Jump Street) has signed on as the show’s writer, with Joe Cornish (The Kid Who Would Be King) directing.
Both Bacall and Cornish will serve as executive producers alongside co-showrunner Angela Robinson (The L Word), Frank Marshall, Robert Zotnowski, and the novelist himself, Neal Stephenson. The show is being developed under Paramount TV, a division of Paramount Pictures, a unit of ViacomCBS.
Bacall is known for his work on the screenplay for 21 Jump Street (2012) and Scott Pilgrim vs the World (2010). Cornish is known for having directed Attack the Block (2011) and for having written The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011) and Ant-Man (2015).
There’s no word yet on the show’s cast, or when it’s set to release.
Well before the Internet took its hold on the public psyche, Snow Crash took a few prescient steps farther as an early pioneer of the VR headspace, coining the word ‘Metaverse’ and painting a picture of a world canopied by a virtual layer that essentially runs like a massive multiplayer online game (MMO).
As with all TV adaptations, it’ll be interesting to see how faithful Snow Crash is handled, or whether it gets a major overhaul like in another recent VR novel brought life, Ernest Cline’s 2011 novel Ready Player One, which was admittedly puffed out into a Hollywood action film by Steven Spielberg in 2018, losing a bit of its gleefully nerdiness in the process.
Snow Crash was notably first slated to go the movie route, with Cornish tapped as director, but it was later shelved. Talking to SyFy back in January 2019, Cornish said that he wanted to get it right, but that he thought it was simply too complex to do justice at the time in movie form:
“Snow Crash in particular needs to be done right,” Cornish told SyFy. “There’s no point in doing Snow Crash unless it’s as clever as the book is; there’s no point in doing the dumbed down version. That’s a [film] project where I’d rather not do it than do it wrong, and that’s a question of finding someone who really loves it as much as we do. But anything’s possible.”
Considering it’s supposed to be a long-format series, we’re hoping it has enough space to digest the novel’s take on anarcho-capitalism, religion, immigration, language, and the monolithic metaverse—all of it hopefully realized to awesome early ’90s retro-future effect.
Valve let Tested’s Norman Chan and Will Smith into their headquarters recently for a multi-hour session with Half-Life: Alyx, the studio’s famed flagship VR game coming out in March 2020.
Although Chan and Smith couldn’t reveal plot details and some of the mechanics after their three-hour preview of the still in-progress game, but testing it out on eight major VR headsets did give them some latitude to talk about some of the game’s design elements as well as Valve’s work to make Half-Life: Alyx equally playable on all of the major PC VR headsets.
The 30-minute video shows off a small portion of what we assume are the early parts of the game. The video didn’t reveal much about the game itself, which is said to take around 15 hours to complete, although we did get a good look at some of the nuts and bolts, such as the quick inventory system, which lets you highlight and select items from a limited number of slots, locomotion schemes, and some of the super detailed art in the game.
Although still in-progress, locomotion thus far seems to include both teleportation and free locomotion, which also includes snap-turning. Rotational teleportation also lets you select your ‘landing’ position, ostensibly the same movement scheme seen in Oculus Home.
The video spends a good amount of time going through some of the finer points of platform-specific hardware such as ergonomics, viewing experience, and their individual motion controllers, all of which are important in its own right when thinking about which headset plays best with Half-Life: Alyx.
Chan and Smith agree that Valve Index is the most comfortable headset and adept at meshing with the game’s heavy emphasis on object interaction, which is thanks to the Valve Index Controllers (ex-Knuckles). Throwing objects, which has some measure of auto-aim, was especially suited to the open-hand design of the Index Controllers.
Image courtesy Valve
Smith rated the Vive Cosmos as the least reliable due to what he called the headset’s “hinky” motion controller tracking, something we noted too in our review of Cosmos. Much of the game requires aiming with iron sights, so having a stable, mostly occlusion-free tracking solution is key, something Cosmos just doesn’t seem to be able to handle when you bring your controllers too close to the headset’s inside-out tracking sensors. Smith mentioned that all of the systems they tested, including Cosmos, were entirely viable though, which include the original Oculus Rift, Rift S, HTC Vive, Valve Index, Samsung Odyssey Plus, Oculus Quest via Link, and the Pimax “5K”.
Tested mostly focuses in on headset comfort and motion controller design, things you ought to know about before buying any VR headset. Both new and old Touch variants seem to play well with the game’s manual reload scheme. Both the Vive wands and the Windows MR controllers were least adept at reloading, which may require Valve to implement some platform-specific workarounds. Comfort is well documented on all of the VR headsets we tested, so make sure to check out our hardware reviews if you’re looking to pick up a headset for Half-Life Alyx.
One of the least talked about factors here was the wide variation when it comes to headset display type and resolution. To Chan and Smith, Pimax “5K” suffers from its standard distortion, although it is remarkably comfortable and capable of using the Valve Index controllers, two big pluses.
In the end, Smith concludes that Half-Life: Alyx is “awesome on everything,” which they say demonstrates the fact that Valve isn’t just making a game to tempt prospective players into buying a Valve Index, but rather building something everyone, regardless of chosen PC VR headset, can enjoy.
Nostos has been out for a few weeks now for PC and VR. Let's try it out together and see what it is like on the Oculus Rift S. ► Check out our VR equipment → https://www.amazon.com/shop/caschary ► Subscribe to see more videos like this one → https://goo.gl/bSJ6L8 Nostos is a new open-world MMORPG that supports cross-platform online gameplay between VR and pancake PC gamers. This is our weekly Virtual Reality live stream. Our live streams are usually centered around one topic but we can talk about anything. Come hang out and let's discover VR worlds together. Today's topics: Nostos VR playthrough While you wait, catch up on our closed beta test of Nostos VR: - NOSTOS - Open World VR MMO Game! (Beta Gameplay): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i50DMOErdA SCHEDULE Every Friday at: 🕛 1 PM PT 🕘 9 PM CET 🕗 8 PM UK Time 🍿 Watch us from within Bigscreen VR too! LINKS OF TODAY'S EQUIPMENT * ► Oculus Rift S (US) - https://amzn.to/2Wn20HQ - Oculus Rift S (UK) - https://amzn.to/2HOmcci - Oculus Rift S (NL Coolblue) - https://prf.hn/l/6WJ3bgr SUPPORT US Subscribing and watching our videos is by far the biggest support you can give us. However, if you want to do more - you can also donate. All donations go to improving the channel. BUY US A COFFEE & BOOST THE CHANNEL ► One-time donation → http://bit.ly/DonateCasandChary BECOME A CHAMPION (LONG-TIME SUPPORTER) ► Become our Patron (includes exclusive rewards) → http://bit.ly/PatreonCasandChary ► Become a Sponsor on YouTube (includes exclusive rewards) → http://bit.ly/JoinCasandChary USE OUR LINKS TO SUPPORT US ► VRcover → http://bit.ly/CCVRCover ► VR Prescription Lens Adapters (5% discount code: "CAS&CHARY") → http://bit.ly/CCWidmoVR ► Play PC VR games with your Quest (10% discount code: "JWGTCASCHARY") → http://bit.ly/CCRiftcat ► More on our website → https://casandchary.com/discount-codes-affiliate-links/ OUR GEAR Our VR equipment → https://www.amazon.com/shop/caschary Full PC Specs → https://casandchary.com/vr-equipment/ GET LATEST UPDATES Twitter → https://twitter.com/CasandChary Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/casandchary/ Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/casandchary/ Join our Discord → https://discord.gg/YH52W2k A special thanks to these Patreon Champs for their support: - artArmin - BaxornVR - Olemartinorg - Studioform VR - Wintceas - Ztreak - Albert - Ben P. - D Coetzee MUSIC Music we use is from Epidemic Sounds → http://share.epidemicsound.com/zqM3g DISCLAIMER Links in this description may contain affiliate links. You don't have to use them, but if you do, a small referral fee will go to this channel supporting the content. VR on! - Cas and Chary VR #oculusrifts #nostosvr #casandchary
What VR headset should you buy in 2020? In this video, we compare 10 VR headsets to answer that question. ► Check out our VR equipment → https://www.amazon.com/shop/caschary ► Subscribe to see more videos like this one → https://goo.gl/bSJ6L8 It’s almost the end of the year, and so I wanted to make a big comparison of all the VR headsets that we own. This video is for you if you are looking to buy your first VR headset or are looking to upgrade. For those that don’t know me, I have been running this VR channel together with Chary, my girlfriend, for over three years now. And in those years, we’ve spent many hours in VR testing headsets, games, and apps. So by now, we have quite a collection of VR headsets. It'll be interesting to compare them today! TIMESTAMPS * 00:24 - Introducing the VR headsets in this video 02:00 - Video introduction 02:50 - Oculus Go Get it here: - Oculus Go (US) https://amzn.to/2ryrOQx - Oculus Go (UK) https://amzn.to/2EA9psO - Oculus Go (NL) https://cb.prf.hn/l/7xRG5P6 04:41 - Oculus Quest Get it here: - Oculus Quest (US) https://amzn.to/2H5ECGx - Oculus Quest (UK) https://amzn.to/2Jip6Zg - Oculus Quest (NL) http://bit.ly/2QlCpd2 (Coolblue) - Our Oculus Quest review video: https://youtu.be/8-jKNpmZTFg 07:12 - Oculus Rift S Get it here: - Oculus Rift S (US) https://amzn.to/2Wn20HQ - Oculus Rift S (UK) https://amzn.to/2HOmcci - Oculus Rift S (NL Coolblue) - https://prf.hn/l/6WJ3bgr 09:08 - Oculus Rift CV1 10:18 - HTC VIVE original Get it here: - https://www.vive.com/eu/product/ - HTC VIVE (NL) https://cb.prf.hn/l/rdDO2Lr 12:04 - HTC VIVE PRO Get it here: - HTC VIVE PRO (US) https://amzn.to/38YjaiE - HTC VIVE PRO (UK) https://amzn.to/36UjLzR - HTC VIVE PRO (NL) https://cb.prf.hn/l/rwBLV97 12:44 - HTC VIVE Cosmos Get it here: - Cosmos (US) https://amzn.to/2sJtzhx - Cosmos (UK) https://amzn.to/2ScI2NF - Cosmos (NL) https://cb.prf.hn/l/75eLBx7 - Our video on HTC VIVE Cosmos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR011Jtx90w 15:01 - PlayStation VR (PSVR) Get it here: - PSVR (US) https://amzn.to/2tvl0XN - PSVR (UK) https://amzn.to/2Q4zMN1 16:31 - Pimax 5K Plus (5K+) Get it here: - Pimax 5K+ (US) https://amzn.to/35JQwzz - Pimax 5K+ (UK) https://amzn.to/2Q7xsoi - More info on Pimax 5K+: https://youtu.be/IxGX-c_lGXE 19:32 - Valve Index Get it here: - https://store.steampowered.com/valveindex - More info on Valve Index: https://youtu.be/IxGX-c_lGXE Glossary: 22:01 - IPD 22:43 - Difference between 3DoF & 6DoF 23:45 - Inside-out & outside-in tracking 24:33 - Outro SUPPORT THE CONTENT ► Become our Patron (includes exclusive rewards) → http://bit.ly/PatreonCasandChary ► Become a Sponsor on YouTube (includes exclusive rewards) → http://bit.ly/JoinCasandChary ► Check out our VR Merch → http://bit.ly/casandchary-merch USE OUR LINKS TO SUPPORT US ► VRcover → http://bit.ly/CCVRCover ► VR Prescription Lens Adapters (5% discount code: "CAS&CHARY") → http://bit.ly/CCWidmoVR ► Oculus Quest Comfort Strap (5% discount code: "CAS&CHARY") → http://bit.ly/CCStudioformVR ► Play PC VR games with your Quest (10% discount code: "JWGTCASCHARY") → http://bit.ly/CCRiftcat ► More on our website → https://casandchary.com/discount-codes-affiliate-links/ OUR GEAR Our VR equipment → https://www.amazon.com/shop/caschary Full PC Specs → https://casandchary.com/vr-equipment/ GET LATEST UPDATES Twitter → https://twitter.com/CasandChary Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/casandchary/ Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/casandchary/ Join our Discord → https://discord.gg/YH52W2k A special thanks to these Patreon Champs for their support: - artArmin - BaxornVR - Olemartinorg - Studioform VR - Wintceas - Andy - Albert - Ben P. - D Coetzee MUSIC Music we use is from Epidemic Sounds → http://bit.ly/CCEpidemicSound DISCLAIMER Links in this description may contain affiliate links. If you use it, a small referral fee will go to the channel, supporting the content without costing you anything extra. If you use it, thank you very much. VR on! - Cas and Chary VR #vrheadsets #vrheadsetcomparison #casandchary
Every year is the biggest year for virtual reality. It seems more developers are delving into VR to explore the medium, hone their techniques and find out what works and what doesn’t. Virtual reality fans walk a similar path; every achievement in this burgeoning medium sets a new bar, and a new expectation of something greater as a result.
Now, a little under four years since the big names in hardware released their first generation consumer headsets, we live in a time when a number of VR games have actually approached the best that any gaming platform has to offer. And although this next decade is slated to include big titles from established studios, next-gen hardware built by the biggest in manufacturing, and experiences that teeter on complete photorealism, it’s these formative steps that are defining what’s fun, meaningful, and technically possible.
In our third annual Game of the Year Awards, we again celebrate those VR games—those stories that can only be told through the act of suspending your disbelief and immersing yourself in another world, head-first.
Without further ado, Road to VR’s 2019 Game of the Year Award winners:
Sanzaru Games and Oculus Studios brought Asgard’s Wrath to life as a part of the Oculus initiative to fund less, but bigger titles for the Rift platform. And outside of some PC-to-VR ports, it doesn’t get bigger than this melee-focused action RPG, which puts you squarely in a world that’s surprisingly alive, and boasts a depth in gameplay and visuals that make it truly something to behold. There’s little filler in the 30+ hour adventure, but even if you go for the meatiest bits, you’re looking at very least a hearty helping of gameplay that should last you well into the double digits.
While this Norse-inspired adventure doesn’t occupy an open world, it feels impressively large in scope as you traverse the game’s many layers, including moments when you need to either be god-sized or mortal-sized to solve puzzles and engage in epic combat, and when you have to control your chimeric animal pals to act as both keys to specific puzzles or order around as essential combat partners.
The game’s gestural-based combat takes some time to massage into muscle memory, but once you get down the basic moves of parrying, blocking, and countering, the game really starts to take flight. And when you begin matching those moves with more difficult enemies, many of which have their own combat styles, you’ll quickly learn that Asgard’s Wrath demands nothing short of precision (i.e. no wildly waggling your controller).
How much you like the puzzles or combat is basically subjective, but one thing that’s positively undeniable is the game’s visual finesse. Although object interaction wasn’t notable, Sanzaru expertly showcases its attention to detail as one of the key pillars of immersion. Textures, character animations, level design, all of these things are impressively realized, making it one of those games that begs for your attention long after you complete its twisty-turny story.
Wary of other rhythm games in the wake of Beat Saber (2018) hype? You shouldn’t be, as Cloudhead Games thrusts into the genre with its addictive and mightily impressive title Pistol Whip.
Pistol Whip successfully marries rhythm and shooting, and gets mega style points in the process, as it draws on things like the John Wick film series and Equilibrium (2002) for inspiration. You might also describe it as a fun mashup between Superhot VR (2017), Beat Saber, and Smash Hit (2015).
Like any good arcade game, cognitive load is high in Pistol Whip. You’re tasked with returning fire and dodging incoming bullets from scores of enemies—approaching the sort of flow state you achieve in a bullet hell game, except you’re using your whole upper body to physically flow to the beat. Its bass-heavy music goes particularly well with the punchy tones of your gunshots.
The more you fire on-beat, the more points you get, forcing you to not only shoot accurately, but to feel the music and really immerse yourself in the cool, stylized world. The song library is still a little on the low side, but it doesn’t stop the game’s replayability from being both extremely high and ultimately super satisfying.
PlayStation London Studio heard loud and clear from players of PlayStation VR Worlds (2016), the studio’s PSVR launch title, that VR needed more of the narrative-driven action teased by the ‘London Heist’ mini-game. And in Blood & Truth, the studio delivered, full stop.
Blood & Truth is the fully fleshed out vision that ‘London Heist’ deserved. Set in the midst of two warring crime families, the game takes players on an action-packed journey with strong gun and shooting mechanics, richly detailed environments, and action set pieces made to make you feel like you’re the star of your own action movie. With a smart approach to locomotion (which lets players focus on the fun) and thoughtful details (like the ability to twirl pistols around your finger for extra flair) the game manages to hit a consistently satisfying note throughout.
We also really enjoyed the scene where the player sneaks into a modern art museum, which London Studio used as a genius way to pepper the game with some rather unique VR moments that otherwise would have lacked context.
Blood & Truth is an impressively crafted experience that is not only expertly designed around the limitations of the aging PSVR, but even manages to raise the technical bar for character rendering and performances on any VR platform even against much more powerful PC hardware.
Note: VR games which were available on other VR platforms in previous years were not considered for our Quest Game of the Year award.
From the earliest days of VR you can people talking about how cool it would be to wield a lightsaber. And as VR matured over the years that talk slowly moved toward wanting a full-blown VR game in the Star War universe. There were teases… oh there were teases. ILMxLab itself put out the 10 minute Trials on Tatooine back in 2016, but it only made one thing clear: this wasn’t enough.
That project, along with other pioneering VR work by ILMxLab, like Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire at The VOID, finally culminated in Star Wars: Vader Immortal – Episode I, the first of a three-part narrative adventure on Oculus Quest.
Not only is Vader Immortal – Episode I (and the two following episodes) likely the most successful fusion to date of consumer VR and one of the worlds biggest media franchises, it’s also a stunning proof that you don’t need high-end computing power for an engaging and immersive experience.
For players taking their first steps into VR with Quest, Vader Immortal – Episode I is an ideal opening act that strikes a great balance between narrative and gameplay. Though this singular episode doesn’t run very long, it takes players on a thoughtfully crafted journey that sells the feeling of actually being part of the Star Wars story.
And for the more hardcore gamers that can’t quite get enough Vader Immortal – Episode I‘s ‘lightsaber dojo’ offers up wave-based combat which is challenging and engaging enough to easily triple the time spend in the campaign portion of the game. And as the first part of a trilogy, Episode II & Episode III are already available for players to continue the story.
Five Nights at Freddy’s took the Internet by storm back in 2014 with its memorable jump scares and bizarre re-imagining of the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant/arcade attraction. Now, Steel Wool Studios has rebuilt the game from the ground-up as a Freddy Fazbear-brand VR experience, which includes a number of minigames in addition to the good ol’ classic task of evading the deadly animatronics from your curiously unsafe control room.
Object interaction is well designed in Five Nights at Freddy’s VR, which helps ground you in the world, and it’s really well polished on the graphical side as well. One big part of what makes FNAF VR great though is sound design, as you’re forced to not only look at the CRT monitors to see where each of the monstrous creations could be lurking, but you also have to listen for them clanking around. Ambient noises such as spinning fans and flickering lights really crank up the fear factor as you frantically pick apart what’s an important sound and what’s simply background filler. The lack of sound is even worse, as any FNAF fan can attest to.
Taking a big screaming Freddy to your face when you eventually fail to correctly manage resources is about 100 times scarier in VR; you simply can’t look away. You’d be forgiven if you’d rather watch someone else play from the comfort of your couch and a security blanket than actually dive in head-first based on how immersive and scary Five Nights at Freddy’s VR truly is.
Stormland, like most great VR games, is very much designed around its locomotion. While all too many VR games have players slowly (and boorishly) walking from A to B, Stormland makes moving around part of the game’s core fun.
This is achieved first with an expansive world. The game is set in a world where floating islands jet out of a sea of clouds. The disparate islands are a marvel to look at as the sun strikes them just right, and knowing that they are real places that you can actually travel to makes them that much more alluring.
Second, Stormland makes its movement between important gameplay spaces fun by making it interesting and different from the typical locomotion. When you set foot onto the cloud sea, you immediately kick into speedy slipstream which has you jetting around at high speeds. While we’d normally expect this kind of quick movement in VR could make players dizzy, developer Insomniac Games realized that trying fast locomotion to broad body movements goes a long way to helping players remain comfortable. And so when you slipstream along the clouds, you keep your arms pointed outward in a superman pose and steer based on the direction they face.
Third, Stormland mixes and mashes locomotion schemes to give players freedom. Slipstreaming gets you from island to island quickly, but what do you do when you get there and find that the precipice is hundreds of feet overhead? Nearly everything in the game can be climbed with a laser that projects to nearby objects from the palm of your hands, and you can even grab a wall and ‘fling’ yourself for some extremely quick cliff scaling. And once you’re up there, you can glide naturally through the air to land on unsuspecting opponents or even cruise toward your next island destination.
With these gesture-driven locomotion schemes working together effectively, Stormland gives players a thrilling freedom of movement that’s unsurpassed in other titles. We hope (and expect) to see future VR titles borrow heavily from the foundation of excellent locomotion that Insomniac built into the game.
Available On: Steam (Vive, Rift, Windows VR), PlayStation (PSVR)
Release Date: August 14th, 2019 (VR mode)
PC-to-VR ports aren’t “perfect” for a number of reasons. It can come down to the limitations of aging game engines, a misunderstanding of what makes VR great, or the basic lack of time investment to fully realize a true VR version. Here, No Many’s Sky bucks the trend by presenting a fun and fully-playable VR mode, which thankfully came to all users this summer for free as a part of the base game on PC or PlayStation 4.
The VR mode is basically exactly what you’d imagine from No Man’s Sky in VR;blasting off into space is magical, exploring planets is awe inspiring, riding around in exovehicles is really awesome. It also looks great too, as the rich and vibrant universe demands even more inspection from the immersive viewpoint of a VR headset. That’s not to say we didn’t have our gripes with No Man’s Sky’s VR mode, as it largely ports over the same 2D inventory scheme as in the flatscreen version, and suffers from some clunk around the edges, the latter of which seems to have gotten better over the course of the last few updates.
But what really attracts us to No Man’s Sky is the utter vastness of the universe. The game is rife with opportunities to become a pirate, trader, fighter, bounty hunter, farmer—so much so that every quality-of-life update seems to tip the balance in favor of staying in the VR headset as opposed to just firing the game up on a flatscreen—the true mark of a great VR adaptation.
Available On: Oculus (Rift), Steam (Index, Vive, Rift)
Release Date: August 27th, 2019 (Early Access)
Until You Fall might seem like an odd choice for an Excellence in UI accolade, but the game succeeds here by knowing what to avoid in the game as much as what to add to it.
This rogue-lite melee combat game does a lot well, but in the interface department it makes several especially smart choices. For one, Schell Games was smart enough to realize that—in a game where players would not be using weapons other than their own—the ability to drop your weapons would merely add useless clunk to the game. Instead, weapons are summoned into players hands whenever they squeeze the grip buttons. This not only serves as a supremely efficient version of a ‘holster’, but it also feels really bad-ass to manifest your blades in the palm of your hand just before diving head first into a fight.
What’s more, when players aren’t holding their weapons, their hands become useful for other critical game tasks. Turning your palm upright reveals a menu of stats which speaks specifically to the weapon assigned to that hand. The menu floats above your hand, making it easy to optimally position, and disappears when you don’t need it any longer.
The game has also pioneered a very satisfying ‘crushing’ interaction which serves as a very engaging way to make important choices and selections. At the end of each room you get to pick between three different power-ups. When you decide which one you want, you reach out and grab it and continue to squeeze your grab trigger until you crush the power-up and consume its energy. With the addition of haptics and sound effects, it feels great every time, so it’s no wonder that we also see this same interaction used back in the forge for selecting and upgrading weapons.
And then there’s the game’s block and attack indicators. When enemies are attacking you you’ll see blue 2D block indicators appear showing you where to place your sword to block the attack. Although these can look and feel ‘arcadey’, their function outweighs any visual concerns; knowing when to block and where is part of the way that Until You Fall manages to set a deliberate and satisfying combat pace. Equally ‘arcadey’ but important and satisfying are the attack indicators. Once you break through the opponents shield you’ll get the opportunity to start a combo. In a combo you can dish out tremendous damage, but only if you strike along the indicated line in quick succession. Here too, great haptic and audio feedback make this feel awesome and satisfying.
Boneworks is a prime example of how independent developers who have the freedom to take risks can make huge contributions to their field. With two VR titles previously already under their belt, Stress Level Zero set out to make a no-compromise physically simulated VR experience.
By making nearly everything in the game physical and interactive, Boneworks delivers on player’s expectations of agency in a way that often goes far beyond its contemporaries. In the game, just about every object, enemy, and weapon is physically interactive, leading to moments where novel ideas—like, say, using a coffee mug as a melee weapon—actually work.
While the heavy emphasis on physics can be frustrating and wonky at times, it’s hard not to feel a sense of added embodiment when your ideas about what’s possible in the game world are satisfied in a realistic fashion. Things as simple as being able to push enemies away from you with the barrel of your gun—or as morbid as stabbing through multiple enemies simultaneously with a claymore—show a glimpse of the rich interactivity that is the ultimate goal of VR.
For its part, Boneworks is a flag in the ground which represents perhaps the most interactive physics sandbox seen in VR to date, and a proof point that glimpses the immersive benefits which come from more realistic virtual interactions.
Wolves in the Walls started out in life as an Oculus Story Studios project, although Facebook shuttered its first-party VR studio before the experience could be finished. It would have been a real shame if this highly immersive and well-realized retelling of Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean’s eponymous children’s book wasn’t completed as a result. Thankfully, some ex-Story Studio veterans created Fable Studio and picked up the mantle to finish what Oculus had started.
Releasing its final chapter in November, the end result culminated in an intriguing and engaging story that centers around eight year-old Lucy, whose wild imagination has her convinced that wolves live in the walls of her home.
One of the biggest takeaways from Wolves in the Walls was how much digital humans can provide a sort of emotional immersion that will no doubt play a fundamental role in the VR games and stories of tomorrow. As cartoony as she was, it feels like Fable Studio really made it impossible to disappoint little Lucy. You’re her only friend and ally, and it’s too cold-hearted a prospect to break that trust, even just to see what happens if you don’t pay attention to her when she reaches out for assurance. In so doing, Wolves in the Walls shows off Pixar-level character design, which comes part and parcel with a rich color palette, cohesive set design, and a depth of animation expertise—all of which makes you genuinely feel like you’ve jumped into the pages of the book.
Fable Studio based their VR experience on a solid source material, but drawing you into that story would have been fruitless if you couldn’t connect with Lucy on some level. Here, she’s a real enough person to make you care about where the story ultimately goes, leaving you with a solid moment of self-reflection on your own ‘wolves in the walls’ once the credits roll.
Note: Games eligible for Road to VR‘s Game of the Year Award must be available to the public on or before December 13th, 2019 to allow for ample deliberation. Games must also natively support the target platform as to ensure full operability.
HaptX, a producer of haptic VR gloves, today announced it’s secured $12 million in its Series A financing round. The company has additionally signed a strategic partnership with Advanced Input Systems, which the companies say will include shared product development, manufacturing, and go-to-market collaboration.
The series A financing brings the company’s total funding to $19 million. The round included participation from existing investors NetEase and Amit Kapur of Dawn Patrol Ventures, and was joined by new investors Mason Avenue Investments, Taylor Frigon Capital Partners, Upheaval Investments, Votiv Capital, Keiretsu Forum and Keiretsu Capital.
Founded in 2012 (then known as AxonVR), HaptX has been focused on creating haptic gloves for use in VR, training, and robotics. The company has impressed with its HaptX Gloves developer kit, which Road to VR’s Ben Lang called in late 2018 “the most detailed and convincing haptics and force feedback that I’ve tried to date.”
HaptX says the financing will fund the production of the next generation of HaptX Gloves.
Image courtesy HaptX
“Over the past year, we’ve had dozens of world-class companies successfully pilot our HaptX Gloves Development Kit,” said Jake Rubin, founder and CEO of HaptX. “With this foundational strategic partnership and fresh capital, we’re well positioned to scale up production to meet rapidly growing demand.”
HaptX has previously worked with companies such as Nissan to bring touch to the its virtual vehicle prototypes, Fundamental Surgery to support its gloves in the company’s VR medical training platform, and All Nippon Airways, Tangible Research, and Shadow Robot Company to integrate HaptX into a telepresence robot.
Jeff Bezos also apparently thought the experience was pretty compelling too, as it called it “really impressive” in a recent demo:
“HaptX and Advanced Input Systems are overcoming a long-standing technology gap of seamlessly connecting the physical world to the virtual world,” said Eric Ballew, president of Advanced Input Systems. “The ability of the HaptX solution to provide realistic touch feedback in wearable haptic devices bridges this gap, accelerating the adoption of VR products in enterprise applications.”
Advanced Input Systems has a 40-year history in engineering and manufacturing human-machine-interfaces, which stands to help HaptX navigate to a more public-facing device with finer haptics, better force feedback, and a price they can actually publish; HaptX only offers its gloves currently to vetted companies.
HaptX will be showing off its latest work in haptics at CES in January 2020. We’ll have feet on the ground in Las Vegas, so check back soon for all things AR/VR to come from one of the biggest consumer tech trade shows in the world.
