Facebook announced today that an upcoming update to the Quest development SDK will include experimental support for a Passthrough API which will allow Unity developers to build AR experiences and features into apps on Quest 2.
Two new Harry Potter VR experiences have launched at the Harry Potter New York retail location. Wizards Take Flight and Chaos at Hogwarts were developed in collaboration with Dreamscape, Wevr, and Keylight.
Carrier Command 2, a modern sequel to the 1988 game, puts players in control of a futuristic aircraft carrier, allowing up to nine players to manage the ship’s many systems from the bridge. Developer Geometa today announced the game will get full VR support, including cross-play with the non-VR version. Both versions will be bundled together and are expected to launch in early access later this year.
HaptX, the company building VR gloves with advanced haptics, this week announced that is has raised $12 million in a Series A-1 investment which will be used to open a new headquarters based in Redmond, WA, and expand its team.
Schell Games today announced that its long-awaited follow-up to I Expect You to Die (2016) is set to launch on all major VR headsets August 24th. The spy-themed puzzler is already looking like a worthy sequel, offering fun and interesting ways to die, plenty of easter eggs, and a story that would be the envy of any would-be writer of a James Bond film.
Impulse Gear announced that Larcenauts (2021), its 6v6 hero shooter for PC VR and Oculus Quest, is getting a few key updates today which focus on increasing immersion in the game.
The long-awaited sequel to Ready At Dawn’s space adventure Lone Echo (2017) is delayed again. Lone Echo II was set to arrive on August 24th, but now it’s coming “later this year,” likely making it one of the last PC-only games funded by Facebook to arrive on the Oculus Store.
Fracked, the upcoming PSVR exclusive from developer nDreams, is now due to launch next month, and today we got our first hands-on time with the game thanks to a new demo that’s available today.
Fracked, the upcoming shooter from Phantom: Covert Ops (2020) developer nDreams, is officially set to release on August 20th, arriving exclusively on PSVR. Can’t wait to strap on those skis and jump in? Well, there’s a free demo is now available on the PlayStation Store.
Google-owned Owlchemy Labs, the studio behind VR classics like Job Simulator and Vacation Simulator, has confirmed that it’s working on a new VR project after running quiet for much of the year.
Facebook’s Oculus Quest 2 headset launched in October 2020 in two flavors: 64GB and 256GB. Now images have surfaced via French online retailers LDLC and its subsidiary Top Achat suggesting the existence of an upcoming 128GB version of Quest 2. Notably, LDCL is an official partner retailer of Oculus, which may lend credence to the report.
Much like the ‘Xortex’ mini-game in Valve’s The Lab, ARVORE’s latest roguelike shooter YUKI taps into a veritable reservoir of nostalgia as you guide a pint-size action figure by hand through a seemingly impenetrable miasma of laser particles and moving obstacles. YUKI captures that child-like fun I first rekindled in ‘Xortex’, but ignites it on a much grander scale. It’s difficult, well-polished, sometimes a little repetitive, but in the end it shows off a knack for incentivizing the player to fight through a score of inevitable deaths to beat the final boss.
Moss (2018) and GORN (2019) have become the latest VR games to reach the 1 million unit ‘platinum’ mark, earning an estimated $22.5 million and $12 million, respectively, in revenue. Multi-platform development was key to their success.
