CEO Darshan Shankar sits down with the upcoming Bigscreen Beyond VR headset for a teardown and explanation of the company’s design decisions.
Eye of the Temple is one of the rare VR games that focuses on not just on pure room-scale movement, but dynamic room-scale movement. The result is a uniquely immersive experience that required some clever design behind the scenes to make it all work. This guest article by developer Rune Skovbo Johansen explains the approach.
Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus who left the company in 2017, appears to have insider knowledge of the upcoming Apple XR headset, which is expected to be unveiled at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) next month. To Luckey, Apple’s hotly awaited entrance into the space is apparently “so good.”
It’s been nearly two years since Google first introduced Project Starline, a telepresence platform designed to facilitate natural-feeling remote communication between two people. While we haven’t heard much about the project, the company recently confirmed it’s still ongoing, recently revealing a more compact and affordable system.
Independent tech analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says Apple’s highly anticipated mixed reality headset is very likely set for its reported Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) unveiling in June. Another generation is also in the pipeline, Kuo maintains, which he suggests may come at some point in 2025.
HUMANITY, the crowd simulation puzzler from Enhance and THA, is here, bringing all of its Lemmings-inspired glory to PSVR 2 and PC VR headsets today.
HUMANITY is available on PSVR, PSVR 2 and PC VR headsets starting today. As a PlayStation Plus title for May, it will also be free to PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium members during the month of May. You can find it here on the PlayStation Store and on Steam, priced at $30.
At the time of this writing, HUMANITY is already available in Europe on the PS Store and is soon to unlock on the platform in North America in the coming hours. We’ve included the new launch trailer ahead of the original article below:
Japan-based studio Enhance and developers THA LTD announced HUMANITY is coming to PSVR, PSVR 2 and PC VR headsets on May 16th, which also includes flatscreen support.
The game is set to launch on PS5/PS4 as a PlayStation Plus title for May, which means it will be free to PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium members throughout the month.
The studio also released a new trailer showing off some of the infectiously weird (and patently Japanese) marketing spliced in with gameplay which may pique your interest, embedded below the update.
Note: The previously mentioned demo is no longer available.
Original Article (February 28th, 2023): It was pretty vague what the hell HUMANITY was all about when it was first announced in 2019, however now the studio reveals its upcoming game is a “unique blend of puzzle-solving and action-platforming,” giving you control over an ethereal Shiba Inu dog who commands a massive crowd.
Like Lemmings, you control the crowd as they jump, turn, push, float, shoot, and climb their way to the end goal. Move past obstacles, enemies, puzzles, and gain unlockable skills in the main game, and upload and try out user-built levels with the in-game Stage Creator.
To create its stark and unique environments, developer Tha LTD is working with creative studio Enhance—founded by Tetsuya Mizuguchi, known as the mind behind Rez and Tetris Effect: Connected—and director and visual designer Yugo Nakamura.
Tha game is considered a VR-optional experience, offering up a fairly straightforward implementation that lets you turn the game’s puzzle-filled levels around and control your Shiba Inu buddy and direct the human horde. While nothing ground-breaking, it’s nice to see VR support from the get-go.
The game is slated to release on PSVR, PSVR 2, and SteamVR headsets sometime in May (see update). What’s more, you can now play a free demo on those platforms from now until March 6th. The demo contains 10 levels, while the full game has “90 plus”, the studio says.
In the meantime, check out the demo gameplay video overview below to learn more:
Ever-agile VR developer Joy Way announced this week that its upcoming roguelike Dead Hook will be delayed into June, a little more than a month after the previously announced released date. To satiate your appetite in the meantime, a new gameplay trailer shows more about how the game will play.
tinyBuild Games and Steel Wool Studios announced their upcoming VR take on viral indie hit Hello Neighbor is landing on PSVR 2, Quest 2, and SteamVR headsets later this month.
We’re back for another dose of mind-bending puzzles à la Bob the Fisherman. The sequel offers up a longer, more emotionally complex story while packing in a ton of new puzzle mechanics that makes Another Fisherman’s Tale feel leagues ahead of the original in almost every sense.
Red Matter 2, the sci-fi VR puzzle adventure for Quest 2 and PC VR, is bringing its best-in-class graphics and interactions to PSVR 2 next week.
As a part of its big send off, Meta has already deprecated first-party social features on the original 2019 Quest, which includes access to Parties and Meta Horizon Home. If you thought you could keep using Quest 1 with other social VR platforms though, your choices are about to get even more limited, as VRChat is soon dropping support too.
PlayStation VR 2 is a little over two months old now, and the charts are still very much in flux thanks to a rash of new and upgraded games. Last month, Survios’ high-profile boxing title took the top spot in the US and Canada, and fared pretty well across other regions too.
The creator of a PC VR driver which includes support for the original PSVR 1 headset says it is stepping away from hacking PSVR 2 to work with PC VR, citing frustrating technical, financial, and social challenges.
Codemasters, the EA-owned developer behind the F1 racing franchise, announced F1 23 is coming to consoles and PC next month, again bringing its high-profile racing game to VR.
Into the Radius is a cult favorite for a reason, as it offers up some of the most hardcore gameplay in a very Stalker-inspired post-apocalyptic world, making for an absolutely unforgiving experience in the anomaly-ridden wasteland. Now developers CM Games say a sequel is in the works.
