Meta is again cancelling its F8 developer conference this year. Meta skipped F8 in 2020 and 2021 explicitly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however this year the company says it’s taking a pause to work on the metaverse.
DigiLens, a maker of waveguide optics for AR glasses, today announced a second close of its Series D funding round, claiming a $530 million valuation.
Last year Meta announced that it would finally be bring social features to the Quest home environments, allowing users to easily get together in the same virtual space. We aren’t there yet, but the company has taken a first step in that direction by adding node-based locomotion to all of Quest’s home spaces.
This week Epic Games released the latest version of its next-gen game engine, Unreal Engine 5. Though the new version brings improvements in many areas, its most notable features are Lumen (global illumination) and Nanite (micro-polygon geometry), which could be game-changers for VR immersion. Unfortunately the company says neither feature is ready for VR developers.
It seems the Oculus brand is finally departing physical retail. While Quest 2 boxes emblazoned with the new Meta name and logo are already on store shelves in the US, the swap from Oculus to Meta still has a ways to go.
Little Cities was first announced back in late 2021, showing off what appeared to be pint-sized VR version of popular city simulator Cities: Skylines (2015)—only a few months before the very franchise announced the creation of its own official VR adaptation called Cities VR. Bad timing aside, we went hands-on with Little Cities before its April 21st release on the Quest platform to see if it offered up all of the expected charm of managing our own tiny diorama village in VR.
Incuvo Games announced that its upcoming VR adaptation of Green Hell (2019), the popular open-world survival game, is officially coming to Quest 2 this month.
Google’s VR studio Owlchemy Labs is back with its signature ‘play with everything’ approach to VR in Cosmonious High. As a student in an alien high school you’ll discover a bevy of fun powers and objects to play with. After graduating from Vacation Simulator, does the studio’s next game get a perfect grade? Find out in our full review of Cosmonious High.
Popular city-builder Cities: Skylines (2015) doesn’t offer native VR support, however the franchise is getting its first official made-for-VR game soon called Cities: VR, which will let you go hands-on as you take the reigns of your city from a new perspective. First unveiled back in December, now developers Fast Travel Games say the Quest 2 native is slated to arrive April 28th.
Meta announced it’s returning this year with another installment of its Quest Gaming Showcase, which means we’ll soon be getting our annual download on upcoming Quest games and updates coming this year.
Beat Saber, the popular block-slashing rhythm game, is getting a new paid music pack soon that will feature eight tracks from Fall Out Boy.
I’ve spent over 10,000 hours in ‘the metaverse’—or at least the proto-metaverse—virtual worlds inhabited by real people represented as avatars. The experiences and relationships I had there saved me from a dark place and set me on a mission to do the same for others.
QuestHaven is an upcoming tabletop simulator that’s aiming to bring VR and PC users all of the tools they need to play tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder. After a week on Kickstarter, QuestHaven has managed to secure its initial funding goal of $50,000.
Mersis announced on March 26th that QuestHaven is now fully funded. At the time of this writing, the project has secured over $54,000 from 791 backers.
The studio has put the project’s first stretch goal at $100,000, which promises to allow users to bring “more models” in-game for larger, more complex storytelling. Additional goals are set at $50,000 increments, which include features like status effect indicators, soundboards, map sharing function, and more.
Check out all stretch goals over at the Kickstarter for more info.
QuestHaven is coming to Kickstarter on Tuesday, March 22nd. The Reno, Nevada-based developers also released a new video (linked below) that shows off some of the creative possibilities within, including VR support for both a top-down POV and a 1:1 immersive POV, perfect for roleplaying.
We haven’t gotten a look at funding tiers yet, however you can sign up for notifications here so you’ll know precisely when the gates open. Anyway, we’ll be following along, so make sure to check back soon.
The original article announcing QuestHaven follows below:
Original Article (January 3rd, 2022): The team behind the project says the simulator will let you build environments and import game rules so you can play any essentially any roleplaying tabletop game, such as D&D, Pathfinder, or Shadowrun to name a few.
QuestHaven is said to target Quest 2, PC VR, and standard PC monitors, the latter of which is used by the dungeon master to run the campaign whilst player characters in VR either control pieces and dice like a standard tabletop game, or jump into a more immersive 1:1 view of things.
Developer NotNoxDev says in a Reddit thread that QuestHaven is more of a platform than a game since it doesn’t come with any set rules—those are imported by the user so they can play anything. Instead, dungeon masters generate their game worlds, just like you might with figurines and grid maps, and players create their characters via an avatar creator.
Still, the team says it eventually wants to add user-generated items through a marketplace so module creators can sell their modules bundled with handouts and elaborate maps—something akin to Steam Marketplace.
QuestHaven’s creators are looking to fund development via a Kickstarter campaign, which is slated to arrive sometime in Q1 2022.
In the meantime, you can sign up for updates on the game’s website so you can be among the first to hear about its launch on Kickstarter. We’ll of course be following along too, so make sure to check back soon for more info.
nDreams, the veteran VR studio behind titles like Fracked (2021) and Phantom: Covert Ops (2020), today announced a $35 million investment from Aonic Group.
