Ilysia is an upcoming VR MMO that hit Kickstarter earlier this month with a modest budget of $60,000. It seems developers Team 21 Studio have struck a chord with the VR community, as the Sword Art Online-style MMORPG has recently doubled its funding goal with only a few days remaining in the campaign.
Creating an MMO for VR is a tall order, however Team 21 Studio is hoping to bring their ambitious project to life on all major VR headsets, including PC VR, Oculus Quest, and PlayStation VR. The game is expected to release to backers sometime in 2021.
The funding campaign is set to end on October 4th, but it’s already unlocked a number of stretch goals along the way, including additional starting races, multi-user mounts, additional starting zones, a pet & mount breeding system, and full-body tracking support.
Here’s how the studio describes Ilysia:
In Ilysia, players will travel alongside one another or embark on solo journeys as they quest, fight, grow, and explore a multitude of unique areas with their own set of challenges throughout their adventures. These zones will present an increasing challenge of monsters, quests, dungeons, world bosses, caves, and large outdoor cities, all waiting to be explored, conquered, and to have their secrets revealed. Live the wonder, excitement, and glory days of MMOs like never before, in truly immersive VR.
Ilysia is said to allow players to explore each area without limits, letting you climb rocks and trees, explore caves, discover secrets and treasures distinctive to each area which include things like unique armors, weapons, and items that the player can then use or sell.
According to Team 21 Studio, there’s also plenty of beasts, world bosses, and both megalithic ‘Guardians’ and ‘Titans’ to contend with, which can be done via both melee and ranged weapons. PvP combat in Ilysia will be entirely optional for players, the studio says.
Players will be able to pick a number of different humanoid races such as Humans, Elves, Dwarves and the possibility of animalistic races in the future too. There’s no rigid class system to speak of, as leveling is done through the game’s 24 skill trees, which lets you pick up any weapon or activity and level up with that specific skill.
If you want to learn more about Ilysia, check out the game’s Kickstarter campaign for a wealth of information surrounding the game’s finer points. We haven’t gone hands-on with the pre-alpha yet, which was available at the start of the campaign, but if you want to see some of Ilysia in action, check out YouTuber ‘Matteo331’ for an insider look at the pre-alpha.
ILMxLAB is again teaming up with VR arcade company Nomadic to bring a new version of the ‘Lightsaber Dojo’ from Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series to locations worldwide.
With the help of Nomadic, Lucasfilms’ immersive entertainment studio ILMxLAB brought an arcade-style Lightsaber Dojo experience to pop-up installation at select locations late last year. Now the studios are partnering again to produce a version inspired by the Lightsaber Dojo in the third, and final episode.
There’s no word on where you’ll be able to play just yet, however Sean Griffin, President of Nomadic, says Star Wars fans “worldwide” will be able to experience it. The studios’ Lightsaber Dojo from last year, which was based on the mini-game from Vader Immortal: Episode II (2019), was held in pop-up locations across North America.
“The ILMxLAB team is excited to bring a new chapter to the Lightsaber Dojo experience,” said ILMxLAB Senior Producer, Shereif Fattouh. “Fans will soon have the unique opportunity to battle Darth Vader himself using all their abilities in the ultimate test of skill.”
Just like in the Lightsaber Dojo from the third episode, fans will get a chance to handle lightsabers, blasters, and use the Force to combat waves of droids, stormtroopers, and other creatures before a climactic fight with Darth Vader. Check out some gameplay footage of the original Lightsaber Dojo III below, courtesy YouTube channel ‘cycyclist’:
“Nomadic is thrilled to once again partner with ILMxLAB to bring guests into the world of Star Wars,” said Sean Griffin, President of Nomadic. “Our new form factor will deliver a more immersive experience for players, will provide a social viewing experience for their friends and family, and is more efficient for family entertainment centers and arcades to operate. We can’t wait for Star Wars fans worldwide to experience it.”
There’s no word on which VR headset arcade-goers will play on, as the studios only make mention of “a top-of-the-line virtual reality headset,” however it’s likely that due to ILMxLAB’s previous engagements with Oculus that it will be an Oculus Quest 2 headset.
The studios says details on availability and pricing of Vader Immortal – Lightsaber Dojo will be available at a later date. We’ll have our eyes peeled in the coming weeks.
Until You Fall brings a refreshingly unique approach to VR sword fighting which combines the satisfaction of a hack & slash game with the depth of RPG combat, all wrapped up in a VR-native design. The game’s Quest port is a near-perfect translation from its PC counterpart which benefits from the lack of tether.
Until You Fall Details:
Available On:Oculus Quest, Oculus PC, SteamVR, PSVR Release Date: September 29th, 2020 Price: $25 Oculus Cross-buy: Yes Developer: Schell Games Reviewed On: Quest
Gameplay
Until You Fall is a rogue-lite VR melee combat game where you battle your way through rooms of enemies until you are inevitably struck down, only to rise again more experienced and more powerful to try to make it even further in your next bout.
Rather than the purely physics-based approach of a VR melee combat game like Blade & Sorcery, Until You Fall delivers a somewhat more abstract experience. From the outside, the ‘block’ and ‘combo’ markers might make the game look arcade-ish, but there’s heaps of depth hiding underneath. Not only does this approach leave room for meta-game strategy—like which weapons you use and how you use them—it also allows the game to carefully set the ‘pace’ of combat to make it both challenging and rewarding without the intermittent funkiness that often comes with a pure-physics approach.
Image courtesy Schell Games
Make no mistake though, Until You Fall is an active game and you can easily build up a sweat while you play. Although hits and blocks are more dependant on the overall gesture than ensuring that you make perfect contact with the enemy’s hitbox, to succeed you’ll still need to make big swings in the right directions and at the right time.
Until You Fall’s combat is wholly dictated by the ‘shield’ meter of each enemy, which must be broken before you can begin slashing away at their health bar. Shield damage is dealt both by hitting enemies and blocking their attacks. Since they can attack you at any time while their shield is up, you can get a few hits in here and there but you’ll largely be on the defensive until their shield is down. Once their shield is broken it’s your turn to dish out big damage by swinging in the indicated direction to chain together several devastating hits. Some enemies will die after just one combo set, but others will need their shields taken down multiple times before they fall—until you become more powerful, that is.
Until You Fall has two types of progression: temporary upgrades which you unlock in the current run but disappear afterward, and permanent upgrades to your weapons which are bought between runs in the hub area. In addition to upgrading your weapons, you can also buy from a reasonably large selection of new weapons. But your effectiveness is also dictated by the proficiency of your play rather than by your stats alone.
Each weapon has its own unique characteristics, and choosing which weapons you bring into battle is a very meaningful decision because it can have a drastic impact on how you play—from your overall combat strategy right down to the way you swing.
This is the heart of what makes Until You Fall’s combat so interesting. In one run you might choose a dagger for your blocking weapon—because it’s light and fast—and an axe for your attacking weapon—because it deals big damage. In the next run you might pair a broadsword—for its balance of range and speed—with an amulet—which gives big stat boosts but can’t be used to block. Or you might want to attack with two daggers—for their speed—and hope to find the mid-run upgrade which increases damage when you alternate attacks between your blades.
On one of my better runs in the Quest version of Until You Fall I chose the mace for dishing out big shield damage, but opted to block and combo with my broadsword because the mace is too slow for quick blocks and the broadsword does more damage to health than shields. As I fought through the run I grabbed a few mid-run upgrades which made my mace deal even more shield damage, turning it into a brute-force shield smasher that I would swing with abandon while focusing on precise blocking and combos with my sword.
Image courtesy Schell Games
That’s just one idea for a weapon pairing and combat strategy, and there’s many more to formulate, experiment with, and perfect.
It takes some time to grasp all the systems at play though, and this is one place where Until You Fall could use some added clarity. Sorting out the difference between permanent and temporary weapon bonuses, player bonuses, weapon sockets, block damage, shield damage, and health damage will take some back-and-forth comparisons between menus and getting a few runs under your belt. Revamping the interface to more clearly indicate which upgrades are temporary and which are permanent (and whether the upgrade applies to the player or the weapon) would help players get up to speed with the underlying systems more quickly. The game would also benefit from more explicitly explaining that each weapon has differing ‘physical’ weight which impacts how fast it moves. That’s an important consideration when it comes to choosing your kit and how you’ll use it.
Image courtesy Schell Games
Though a bit hazy at the outset, the meta-game elements are paired with satisfying and challenging moment-to-moment combat that will test your mettle and leave you with that feeling of wanting to squeeze in just one more run.
Runs start out easy enough and after upgrading your weapons a few times you’ll be crushing the fodder with a single swing. But with just a few non-regenerating hit points, every enemy is a potential threat. Getting cocky and overextending is the surest way to lose a hitpoint, and you’ll be kicking yourself later when you have to give up a crucial mid-run weapon upgrade to recover your hit points instead.
Photo by Road to VR
And then there’s the real enemies. As you go deeper through your run you’ll start facing off against Knights and Captains which each present a serious threat. And just when you start to master those encounters you’ll start facing off with empowered versions of those enemies which bring amped-up attacks that will have you on your heels in a heartbeat if you aren’t lock-step with their attacks. Narrowly escaping one of these challenging encounters with a single hit point is a thrilling experience—the essence of Until You Fall.
Image courtesy Schell Games
Although there’s some structure to your runs in Until You Fall, including a few boss encounters along the way, there isn’t really a definitive ‘end’ to the game. Even once you vanquish the most difficult encounter, there’s always new weapon combos and combat strategies to try and harder difficulties to master. That said, I think players could expect to spend around 10 hours becoming proficient enough to conquer the final encounter.
Immersion
Image courtesy Schell Games
Until You Fall for Quest is a superb port of its PC counterpart. While there are some graphical downgrades, the heart and soul of the gameplay and visuals remain entirely intact.
Although the ground texture could use some work and the foliage has become sparse and chunky, the most interesting objects in the game—namely your hands, weapons, and upgrade crystals—retain an impressive amount of geometric detail and much of the lighting sheen that keeps them from the ‘cardboard’ look that we’ve seen with some Quest ports. Generally speaking, the game seems to look better in motion through the headset than I’ve been able to capture with screenshots, likely because the in-game visuals are so crisp and well defined compared to some games which use blurry anti-aliasing (or lack it outright).
Photo by Road to VR
Although the game’s many particle effects aren’t nearly as complex what’s seen in the PC version, they’ve been tastefully replaced with thicker, ribbon and pedal-like particles that feel perfectly at home in the game’s imaginative neon art style.
Image courtesy Schell Games
With carefully adapted visuals backed by strong sound design and quality music, there’s almost nothing lost in the Quest port of Until You Fall—except for the tether. Being unbounded by a cable doesn’t radically change the game, but it adds immersion by allowing you to rotate your body to face enemies with no fear of a cord twisting below your feet or getting in the way of your strikes.
Immersion in Until You Fall comes more from how it feels than how it looks. Summoning your weapons into your hands before a battle by squeezing both grip buttons—accompanied by a satisfying ‘shwiiinng‘ sound—never seems to get old. Nor does the feeling of defly slicing through a combo sequence and watching the enemy collapse in a ragdoll heap.
It may not feel like you need to fear the precise geometric boundary of the enemy’s blade, but there’s something to be said about a game where you unconsciously take stock of the challenge before you when coming face to face with its toughest enemies.
What is here, for the most part, is superbly executed. So well, in fact, that Until You Fall’s biggest ‘flaw’ is what’s it doesn’t have. The strategic depth and moment-to-moment satisfaction of the combat system leave the game screaming for a larger scope, a more dynamic world, and a proper story.
Comfort
Until You Fall is an active game that’s generally comfortable and has well-rounded comfort options. Players are prompted from the outset to choose between seated and standing modes. Vignetting is on by default and can be reduced or disabled outright. I turned it off for the sake of immersion and didn’t have any discomfort.
Image courtesy Schell Games
Although there’s some smooth stick movement, it’s kept quite slow because the game smartly brings enemies toward you and asks you to use your weapons and bodily movements to block and dodge rather than strafing around with a thumbstick. Dashing is used to get around more quickly, but a cooldown prevents players from exploiting it for constant locomotion.
Until You Fall can be a workout if you really get into it. The game rewards physical effort by dealing more damage for broad swings and allowing players to block any attack as long as they can physically get their hand into blocking position with enough time to spare. Dodging left/right and ducking are required for some encounters, but the movement threshold is low enough that it can be done while seated.
The Walking Dead Onslaught is this year’s second Walking Dead franchise game for VR, following the release of the The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners (2020)in January. Unlike its scrappy RPG-style older sibling, Onslaught does away with dark and gloomy trepidation of entering a room halfcocked, instead replacing it with a constant pressure to run, gun, and scrounge your way through levels to an oftentimes ineffectual conclusion.
The Walking Dead Onslaught Details:
Available On: Oculus PC, SteamVR, PlayStation Store (PSVR) Release Date: September 29th, 2020 Developer: Survios Reviewed On: Oculus Quest (via Link), Oculus Rift
Gameplay
I quit watching AMC’s The Walking Dead probably after the third season, which, for me, was when the show stopped being about surviving zombies and sort of became a zombie it is own right. It shambled along in a way that just made me question: where the hell is this all going?
Whatever your level of fandom though, if you’re going to play The Walking Dead Onslaught, you only really need to know a few things to succeed: Methodically search through every building for supplies. Have a balanced loadout with at least one edged weapon. Make sure to point the shooty part of the gun at the zombie’s head. And run.
Image captured by Road to VR
You don’t need to know where to go, or what to do, and you won’t need to solve any puzzles along the way. Just aim down the iron sights, shoot, reload, and run from the constantly marching red fog of zombies behind you until the credits roll. The red fog works just like in a battle royale, which gives you all the motivation you’ll need to make your way to the finish line.
There’s no stamina, thirst, or hunger bars to worry about here (not a bad thing), making it all about moving quickly through the one-way snake-like pathway through each level—but not so fast that you’ll breeze past the inexplicably massive amounts of food, wood, metal scraps, adhesives, etc—all of which either helps you upgrade weapons or unlocks the next bit of story.
The game is divided into two discrete sections: Daryl, reprised by Norman Reedus, has a story to tell about trying to save a little girl. As Daryl, you play through a half-dozen levels to meet the conclusion of his story arc. It probably took around 3 hours to play through Daryl’s bit alone, but you aren’t set loose right away to run through each chapter as you please.
Image captured by Road to VR
For some reason you need to attract survivors to your encampment which is done by scrounging for food across a map that sequentially unlocks different zones after you meet a survivor number requirement. This basically ties you to grinding through scrounging missions to unlock Daryl’s story which then kicks you back out to more scrounging missions, rinse and repeat.
Image captured by Road to VR
It all felt a bit like the game was tacking on a pretty useless bit in the name of extending gameplay length. You’re forced to go through these missions, which have no other purpose than to find stuff, to then make self-serving upgrades to weapons, health, and supply retrieval ability.
Daryl’s story was interesting, and acted somewhat of a retreat from the grind, but I found myself mechanically repeating the same scrounging levels over and over just to get enough supplies to unlock the next chapter. These missions quickly started to feel like a dull chore than an honest way of engaging with the game.
The red fog of the horde, Image captured by Road to VR
That’s not to say there aren’t some really fun bits in shooting a massive crowd of walkers (all of them slow until they get within striking distance) and seeing the hardest zombies go down. The constant pressure of an enclosing zombie horde fog also keeps you on your toes during scrounging missions, never giving you enough time to search the byways for everything. Stabbing, slicing, shooting, and pushing the physics-based baddies around is all really satisfying.
I also liked that you can attack each level of the game, both story and scrounging missions, in easy, medium or hard difficulty modes, although the amount of stuff you find decreases the easier you take it. Onslaught does those things well, but I feel like it would be better served with a larger, more engaging storyline and significantly less supply grinding.
Image captured by Road to VR
As for the game’s antagonists, there’s not a ton of functional variation to the slow walking zombies in Onslaught. Later in the game, you’ll meet armored zombies in riot gear or covered in spikes that add additional pressure to the level’s slolam, however its overwhelmingly populated with civilian walkers that can die with a single knife plunge to the brain. Have enough ammo, aim for the head, and eventually all of the bullet sponges will lurch their last step.
In all, both Daryl’s story and the scrounging missions took me a little over seven hours to complete. After the credits roll, you can always head back in to upgrade every weapon, melee and gun alike, but I just didn’t see a need since I’d be playing through all of the same missions again with the only real variation being where key items are located.
Immersion
Onslaught misses the mark by being a little too simplistic and overly grindy, but it also misses the mark somewhat in the Immersion section too by being too damn predictable.
Level design is nearly always built around a one-way slog through a ruined town, which all starts to feel the same after about the first hour. It’s a shame, because the visual variety of the levels feels actually really quite good. Although you aren’t going to stop and smell the daisies ever, it’s clear there was some serious love in making the each level feel uniquely ruined by the zombie apocalypse.
Image captured by Road to VR
Unfortunately there’s no object interaction to speak of, as your dominant hand is tied to your weapon until you switch it out for another. Force grab is used in place of actually picking things up. Those aren’t bad things in and of themselves, but the abstraction away from actually holding something with your hands does limit user immersion somewhat.
Both character design and voice acting are however pretty exceptional considering Norman Reedus was the only original actor in the game. There is somewhat of an uncanny valley effect when characters speak, which only happens when you’re back at base, but it’s not very often that you even see another human being in the bulk of the game, so it’s mostly a non-issue. Although zombies are functionally the same, with the only variation being armor level, the designs are extremely well crafted.
Image captured by Road to VR
Onslaught’s clever use of positional audio is a highlight too, as you have to keep your ear out for the foggy horde inching ever closer behind you, free range zombies lurking around the level, and valuable caches of supplies, which sound like a soft radio fizzle when you get near them.
The game’s UI also smartly stays out of the way, which is a nice touch, letting you more fluidly engage with the hordes of zombies. You can also turn the UI completely off in the settings, although you may not even notice it most of the time since it hides in the upper and lower registers of the screen.
Comfort
The game’s developers, Survios, are old pros when it comes to VR comfort design. You can choose a number of locomotion options including teleport, snap turn, smooth turning, head or hand- relative forward motion, and even the arm-swinging style they’ve used in Creed: Rise to Glory (2018) and Sprint Vector (2017).
All of this, combined with a well-studied use of particle effects to help you stay grounded as you move forward, give you a wide swath of options according to your individual comfort level.
You can play both seated and standing, which is done through an automatic calibration process. An in-game recalibration button is also there if for some reason you want to switch between standing and sitting.
Sony Interactive Entertainment recently published a patent for a VR motion controller that look suspiciously similar to Valve’s Index controllers, aka ‘Knuckles. The news was first reported by LetsGoDigital (Dutch).
All products have patents, although not all patents have products—it’s not clear whether the controller outlined in the 34-page Japanese language document is indeed destined to make its way into a bonafide piece of hardware, or if it’s simply a case of Sony planting a flag in the ground ‘just in case’.
What’s more, it’s also not clear whether this is indeed even intended for PSVR 2, Sony’s upcoming VR headset follow-up intended for use with the PS5 console. Let’s pretend for a second it is though, and talk a bit about the implications.
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Image courtesy Sony Interactive Entertainment, WIPO
Image courtesy Sony Interactive Entertainment, WIPO
Image courtesy Sony Interactive Entertainment, WIPO
Filed with the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO), the patent outlines a VR motion controller with embedded LED tracking markers, or similar to how Oculus Rift S and Oculus Quest track its respective Touch controllers.
The technical document also outlines that it could be tracked optically from the headset—again, very Oculus-like implementation here.
Image courtesy Sony Interactive Entertainment, WIPO
If that weren’t a stark enough contrast from the current PS Move controllers, as it would imply more reliable tracking that could include a which wider tracking volume than the front-facing PS Camera currently allows, it also presumes a more standard button layout with (gasp) a joystick. If you’ve ever dealt with the now seven year-old PS Move controllers for any length of time, you know how big of a deal that would be—and that’s for players and developers alike.
There’s no mention of finger tracking as with Valve Index Controllers, or a strap that would allow for open-hand gameplay, although the patent is more concerned with differing sensor configurations, detailing a cluster of 30 per controller.
Again, this may or may not be a PSVR 2 controller in the making, but it’s clear a more standard, optically tracked controller would be a big step in the right direction in bringing the platform’s capabilities in line with both the PC and standalone headset side of things. That’s of course provided the VR headset doesn’t rely on the upcoming PS5 HD Camera, which would bring up back to square one in terms of 360, occlusion-free tracking. Here’s to hoping.
The Pimax VR Experience software for all Pimax VR headsets is finally launching as the first Open Beta release! Pimax VR Experience is a VR dashboard, game launcher and Pimax headset configurator made entirely for VR! If you are an owner of any Pimax VR headset, go ahead and try the first Open Beta 0.50 version of Pimax VR Experience - and let us know what you think! The software is available at the Pimax official OpenMR community forum and bundled with the latest PiTool runtime. Just install PiTool and Pimax VR Experience will automatically and instantly launch in your Pimax VR headset. Configure your VR headset, create setting profiles, launch games and have fun! The current version supports VR controller, mouse and UltraLeap (Leap Motion) hand tracking UI interaction: - Get Pimax VR Experience from the official OpenMR forum: https://community.openmr.ai/t/pimax-vr-experience-open-beta-0-50-releasing-now/31649 - Visit the Pimax official Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pimax_Official/comments/iznpec/pimax_vr_experience_open_beta_050_available_now/ Join the Beta discussion, bug reports and suggestions here: https://community.openmr.ai/c/PEXPBeta/62/l/latest Please support our first volunteering VR developer Armin (ArtArmin) on Patreon! Armin is helping me making the Pimax VR Experience better for every day: https://www.patreon.com/artarmin Thanks for watching and let me know what you think about the Pimax VR Experience Beta 0.50! :)
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Budget Cuts (2018) was originally slated to arrive on PSVR back in May, and due to the global slowdown it also fell victim to another delay in June. Starting today though, PSVR users will finally be able to step into the stealth action game that was so highly anticipated on the PC VR platform.
Budget Cuts is now live on the PlayStation Store, priced at $30 and $24 for PS Plus members. North America hasphysical copies as well; Europe is said to get them starting October 23rd, with pre-orders opening on the Perp Games Store next week.
We reviewed the game back at its PC VR release in 2018, and while we gave it a resounding [9.2/10] at the time, some users did notice pesky performance issues at launch that prevented them from enjoying the full unfettered fun of sneaking around office corridors and ganking robot guards.
Although those perf issues on PC VR have since been ironed out, it was still uncertain whether the game would actually fit all of its physics-based interactions onto the more modest PS4 platform. It appears though Neat Corp and Coatsink have done an admirable job porting the game for PSVR.
While we haven’t had an opportunity to test it on PSVR yet, YouTube channel Shugghead Gaming has a video review (linked below) that drills into the game’s specifics, noting that performance is a non-issue.
Shugghead Gaming highlights in the video that one of the sticking points to the game is the snap-turn control scheme, which is necessary due to PSVR’s front-facing PS Camera sensor. According to him, the game also feels somewhat dated in comparison to subsequently released titles on the platform, which is in part owed to the teleportation-only locomotion style.
Still, for what we can gather, Budget Cuts on PSVR is basically the same experience you can have on PC, albeit with an extra PSVR exclusive level in addition to the previously released DLC. We’re still waiting to see if Neat Corp/Coatsink will bring the game to Quest, which would be the next logical step for a title that’s already been slimmed down enough to fit on PSVR.
HP announced today that its upcoming Reverb G2 headset will begin shipping in “early November” to those who pre-ordered, and new pre-orders starting today will ship in December.
Reverb G2 is HP’s highly anticipated upcoming headset which brings a range of improvements and refinements over its predecessor. Sporting the highest resolution of any major headset, improved controllers, and some of the best parts of Valve Index (like its excellent off-ear headphones), the Reverb G2 is shaping up to be the first ‘next-generation’ Windows VR headset.
The headset was initially announced all the way back in May, at which time HP began taking pre-orders for the $600 device and said that it would launch in the Fall.
Today HP announced that the Reverb G2 release date would fall in “early November,” at which point the first headsets will be shipped out to pre-order customers. As for anyone ordering from today and beyond, HP expects that new orders will be delivered in December.
The company also says it’s made a few additional tweaks since first introducing the headset. For one, the lenses have been improved “to reduce the Fresnel ring reflections and improve clarity.” The menu button on the controllers has gotten a convex shape so that it’s easier to distinguish from the similarly sized ‘Windows’ button that’s on all WMR controllers. Included with the headset will be a full-size to mini DisplayPort adapter and a USB-C to USB-A adapter. Additionally the company says that after improving low persistence of the display, Reverb G2 will now require its power adapter to be plugged into a wall outlet.
Wondering why people are excited for Reverb G2? Check out our exclusive hands-on preview from earlier this year:
Let's deep dive into the Oculus Quest 2 display in this newest DIVE INTO VR episode. We show 'through the lens' photos and videos of the display while reviewing the LCD VS OLED screens + answering your questions. ► All our VR equipment kits & tips here → https://www.amazon.com/shop/caschary ► Subscribe here → https://goo.gl/bSJ6L8 Thanks to Oculus for sending the headset early so we can share our impressions. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LINKS ► Pre-order Oculus Quest 2 (US): http://bit.ly/quest2-casvr ► Pre-order Oculus Quest 2 (NL - Coolblue): https://cb.prf.hn/l/784dkp8 ► Pre-order 64gb on Amazon → https://amzn.to/2RSxaDi ► Pre-order 256gb on Amazon → https://amzn.to/305gv3Q ► Tyriel's Through The Lens video → https://youtu.be/2FH4iIrY5LU ► John Carmack's Keynote (Display at 14:55) → https://youtu.be/ZKjbJR2JYzM ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Video Intro 01:33 Quest 2 & Quest 1 Display Specs Refresh 01:59 Important Note 02:24 LCD VS OLED 03:43 Black Levels 04:51 Subpixel Layout & Screen Door Effect 06:12 Colors 06:58 Latency & Glare?! 08:16 Field Of View 09:29 Conclusion & Outro ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUPPORT THE CONTENT (and become our VR Champion) ► Become our Patron → http://bit.ly/PatreonCasandChary ► Become a Sponsor on YouTube → http://bit.ly/JoinCasandChary ► Buy our VR Merch → http://bit.ly/casandchary-merch VR DISCOUNT CODES & AFFILIATE LINKS ► ► https://casandchary.com/discount-codes-affiliate-links/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OUR GEAR Our VR Equipment & Tips → https://www.amazon.com/shop/caschary Our PC Specs → https://casandchary.com/vr-equipment/ MUSIC Music we use is from Epidemic Sounds → http://bit.ly/CCEpidemicSound ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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: 😘 BaxornVR, Wintceas, Studioform VR, Andy, Albert, Ben P., Steve Dunlap, Thomas M. Rice, Andy Fidel, VR Balance, Nathan Schmidt ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DISCLAIMER We got the headset for early and for free from Oculus to share our impressions, but the video was not paid for. Plus per our guidelines, no review direction is received. Our opinion is our own. Links in this description may contain affiliate links. We may earn from qualifying purchases from these links without costing you more. #oculusquest2 #oculusquest1 #casandchary VR on! - Cas and Chary VR
Quest 2 is on the horizon, and with its October 13th release date inching ever closer, you might want to know what new games we’re looking forward to playing on the company’s next standalone headset.
Many of the games below were first announced at Facebook Connect last week, however there’s a few on the list that we’ve been waiting to hear about for a while now. We’ll be keeping an eye out for their respective launch dates, as well as more new games to tally up, so make sure to check back as our list evolves further.
Note: These are all considered ‘Quest platform’ titles, so all of them should come to the original Quest too. We’d be kidding if we said Quest 2’s higher resolution, increased horsepower, and optional ergonomic ‘Elite’ strap didn’t increase immersion across the board. It does. Check out our deep dive review of Quest 2 to find out more.
Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge
We already knew Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge was coming to Oculus headsets when it was announced back in May, but none of the specifics were clear at the time. From the creators of Vader Immortal, this narrative-driven adventure is set to take you to the edge of the galaxy where you’ll slip through some of the franchise’s larger than life tales. Expect blasters, light sabers and droids that go beep boop and “oh dear!”
Developer: ILMxLAB
Launch Date: Holiday 2020
Sniper Elite VR
Sniper Elite VR is set to bring a new twist to the sharp shooter franchise with this first-person VR entry, which is landing on all major VR headsets—Quest included. You’d probably do well to buy a VR gun stock, 3D print your own, or just duct tape your controllers to a sawed-off broomstick to steady that shaky aim.
Developer: Rebellion
Launch Date: “coming soon”
Project 4 (Boneworks)
Image courtesy Facebook
Boneworks (2019) offers up some awesome physics-based shooting madness on PC VR headsets, and we were intrigued when the studio announced they’d be bringing the game’s mechanics and core systems to Quest. There’s nothing out there on the so-called Project 4 game yet, but we’re hoping to learn more sometime later this year.
Developer: Stress Level Zero
Launch Date: TBD
Assassin’s Creed & Splinter Cell
Image courtesy Ubisoft
After a rash of first-gen VR games and a (pre-pandemic) foray into VR arcade experiences, Ubisoft is again renewing its commitment to at-home VR gaming with bonafide Assassin’s Creed and Splinter Cell VR games. Although the studio didn’t say as much, Oculus’ retirement of the Rift platform strongly suggests we’re seeing two new Quest exclusives in the making. No specifics yet, but we’re waiting in kitchen cupboard, you know, for practice.
Developer: Ubisoft
Launch Date: TBD
Myst
Cyan cut its teeth in the early ’90s developing one of the most iconic puzzle adventure games, Myst (1993). We’ve been wondering when we’d finally get a freshly remastered version, and it seems the company decided to go full ham with a VR mode on Steam for PC, and a VR version for Quest too. Whether you played the original or not, there’s multiple hours of puzzles and narrative gubbins to experience here, and no better way to do it than in VR.
Developer: Cyan Worlds
LaunchDate: 2020
Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister
Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister is an upcoming narrative-driven shooter that’s promising to let you dive head-first into the Warhammer 40k universe, replete with oversized armor, magical acts of faith, and more guns than you can shake a gun at. Both single and multiplayer modes are coming.
Developer: Pixel Toys
Launch Date: 2020
The Climb 2
The Climb 2 is bringing us back to the rocky cliffs again, this time taking you to new heights in a city setting. Reach for the next handhold, but make sure to chalk up, rest when you need to (with both hands steady), and look around for alternate paths to the summit. The first was a smorgasbord of breathtaking visuals, and we’re probably in for a repeat with the sequel.
Developer: Crytek
Launch Date: Holiday 2020
Jurassic World Aftermath
In a very Alien Isolation turn of events, you find yourself creeping through corridors on your way to recover valuable research materials from an abandoned research facility. Instead of a ruthless Xenomorph, you’ll be pitted against pack of intelligent Velociraptors. If the developers are thinking what we’re thinking, Aftermath would make for a great Halloween release.
Developer: Coatsink Games, Universal Games, Digital Platforms Team
Launch Date: “coming soon”
Population: One
Ok. Battle Royale-style shooters are kind of old news, but we haven’t really gotten a highly polished one in VR yet, so there’s a reason to be excited about Population: One. It’s been in private beta testing for a pretty long time now, so we’re expecting big things from this 18-player shooter which lets you climb, shoot, glide, scrounge, duck and dodge. We went hands-on back at Gamescom 2018, and it was already pretty awesome.
Developer: BigBox VR
LaunchDate: “coming soon”
What new games are you excited to play on Quest? Let us know in the comments below!
Launching today, Solaris Offworld Combat is a team-based VR arena shooter from First Contact Entertainment, the studio behind the lauded Firewall: Zero Hour (2018). This time around, the studio wants to deliver a fast-paced experience that anyone can pick up and play. My preview of the game reveals strong technical merit, but a potential clash between casual and competitive ambitions.
Thematically, Solaris Offworld Combat presents itself to players as a sort of future sport where competitors jump into virtual arenas and duke it out for the top place on the leaderboards. And that’s exactly what the game hopes to accomplish: foster a level of hardcore competition which keeps players and teams coming back for more.
And while developer First Contact Entertainment attracted a hardcore player base to its prior title, Firewall: Zero Hour, in many ways Solaris is doing the opposite of what resonated with that community.
Firewall Zero Hour | Image courtesy First Contact Entertainment
Firewall: Zero Hour is a team-based PSVR mil-sim shooter with a slow, tactical pace. And that comes with the sort of mechanics you’d expect: loadouts, attachments, perks, reloads, ADS aiming, recoil control, etc. The sort of mechanics which give room for a deeper level of gameplay and strategy that goes beyond the act of putting your reticle on another player and pulling the trigger.
Solaris, on the other hand, is designed first and foremost for ease of play and a run-and-gun pace. The studio says its goal is to get anyone and everyone quickly into the action and deliver a “point and shoot” experience. And that’s apparently meant removing pretty much all of Firewall’s deeper gameplay elements; Solaris has no reloading, loadouts, attachments, or recoil control, and weapons project their reticle into the world so that there’s no need to aim down sights.
Rather than the slower, more tactical pace of Firewall—which gives an advantage to players who get themselves into the right position ahead of time—Solaris seems to expect players to be constantly moving, mostly using the thumbstick to strafe and juke rather than expecting much bodily movement from players like physically crouching or peeking around corners.
This breed of quick run-and-gun gameplay is par for the course in non-VR arena shooters, and on the surface Solaris has done a commendable job of translating the main tropes into VR. Player movement is quite fast compared to most VR games, even allowing players to slide for a few feet to try to stay behind cover while moving quickly. Everyone starts with the same basic pistol with unlimited ammo and can pick up weapons by walking over pads on the ground. Weapons have limited ammo and disappear once empty. Respawns are fast and time to kill is low. Shooting is of the point-and-shoot variety with no bullet travel or drop. It’s all undeniably functional.
After playing a few matches, it felt like I was playing a very cool version of VR laser tag. But it’s not clear to me yet whether the game has the level of depth needed to foster the competitive allure that First Contact hopes will keep the game buzzing with a stable player base. After all, laser tag is fun, but it’s not something most people are going to do on a weekly basis.
That’s not to say that Solaris doesn’t have—or won’t eventually be updated with—what it takes to bring out that high-level play, but there’s a lot left to prove. The most successful multiplayer VR shooter games so far have all been of the mil-sim variety, and have leaned into nuanced weapon interactions and a slower pace which are a natural fit for VR.
First Contact has taken the goal of ease-of-use so far that it has opted to make Solaris entirely free of two-handed interactions. In fact I was surprised to find that my off-hand in the game isn’t even tracked. Even as I move my hand around, my virtual hand wouldn’t respond to the motion at all, leaving me with the very awkward sensation that one of my arms was an extra appendage that I had no control over.
Image courtesy First Contact Entertainment
The studio said this was done for performance reasons and wanting to avoid the complexity of two-handed interactions. That’s well and good, but it’s a bit odd then that all of the weapons are—by their 3D models at least—designed to be held with two hands. It’s even more odd when my fake arm automatically grabs the gun’s grip all on its own.
Anyone that’s read my perspective on VR knows that I’m all-for ease-of-use in VR; overly complex interactions can often be more frustrating than they are fun. Half-Life: Alyx simplified its weapons by making them single-handed only, but it at least made use of the player’s off hand for reloading and other interactions like throwing grenades or opening doors. But it’s possible to get too simple as well.
If anyone can figure out how to make it work, First Contact Entertainment is a good bet. The studio cut their teeth on Firewall: Zero Hour, a game which after two years appears to still be going strong on PSVR. The studio says it’s continuing to deliver content updates to the game and has seen individual players top 1,000 hours in the game. The title is still lauded as one of the best shooters and best multiplayer games on the system.
That experience shines through clearly in the Solaris presentation; built on Unreal Engine 4, even on Quest the game is impressively sharp and runs very smoothly, with matches underpinned with dedicated servers.
And it’s the Quest audience—a younger demographic that your average enthusiast PC VR user—that Solaris is likely targeted toward. The game’s ease of entry and rapid-fire pace might be just the right combination for that group.
– – — – –
Solaris launches today on Oculus Rift and Oculus Quest with support for cross-buy and cross-play (it will launch on Steam and PSVR at some later date). First Contact is calling the launch a “pre-season,” and expects to listen carefully to player feedback. There’s one caveat with the pre-season which is odd for a team-based shooter—the pre-season will not allow players to form teams with their friends. All matches will be comprised of random teams, with the ability to invite friends being added at a later date.
SideQuest is an unofficial app store for Facebook’s Oculus Quest headset which offers an avenue for developers to distribute apps without being subject to Oculus’ approval process. The team behind the project has raised $650,000 in seed investment, including funding from departed Oculus founder Palmer Luckey.
Despite being pushed out of Facebook in 2017 and moving into the defense sector, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey has continued to keep a close eye on the VR space and support projects that align with his vision for VR.
TechCrunch today reported that Luckey was among several investors that participated in a $650,000 seed investment in SideQuest. The bulk of the investment ($500,000) comes from BoostVC, a startup accelerator program, while the rest was split between Luckey and VC firm The Fund.
The appeal of SideQuest is that it sidesteps the official Oculus Store which, on Quest, imposes a quality or scope bar on apps. That means smaller or less polished projects are unlikely to be approved on the store.
“No HMD manufacturer should have a stranglehold on the VR ecosystem or unilateral control over what people run on their VR headsets, and when I look at Sidequest, I see the spirit of Oculus Share,” Luckey told TechCrunch.
Oculus Share was the company’s proto-app store which hosted VR apps regardless of quality or scope. Oculus continued the approach of allowing any app onto its VR app store (so long as it met technical requirements) up until Quest, at which point the company pivoted to a curated approval process for the headset.
SideQuest is basically an unofficial app-store built atop Quest’s ‘side-loading’ capability, which allows developers to manually load applications onto the headset. That poses a significant risk to the project and its investors. At any point Facebook could declare that side-loading is intended only for developers and move to lock the door with a more complicated side-loading procedure.
But it may be too late. With hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors to SideQuest and hundreds of hosted apps, according to TechCrunch, and now with a seed investment, significantly hampering SideQuest might be too risky for Facebook’s developer relations.
In fact, Facebook may ultimately end up solidifying SideQuest as the official, unofficial app store for Quest. The company announced last week that it plans to begin allowing apps onto its store infrastructure, even before approval, with the caveat that unapproved apps won’t be listed in the official store and it will be up to developers to distribute by themselves. SideQuest creator Shane Harris told UploadVR that his platform will serve as a distribution hub for those unlisted apps.
For Luckey’s part, the investment in SideQuest is not the first time he’s supported projects that directly challenge Facebook’s grip on the VR app ecosystem. In 2017 he began supporting Revive—an unofficial mod which allows Oculus Store content to be played on non-Oculus headsets—with $2,000 in monthly funding through its Patreon campaign.
