2020 was a big year for VR on Steam with the release of new headsets, Valve’s flagship VR title Half-Life: Alyx, and the Coronavirus pandemic which drove large increases in gaming. These factors combined pushed monthly-connected VR headsets on Steam to pass the 2 million milestone for the first time.
Facebook announced that its long-awaited support for multiple user accounts and device-specific app sharing is heading to Oculus Quest 2 starting next month.
Easily joining my list of ‘things I didn’t foresee VR being used for’, Fencer is a virtual reality fencing trainer which uses a real fencing sword attached to an Oculus Quest controller to help would-be fencers learn the underlying strategies and movements.
Valve today shared a handful of new stats revealing the growth of VR on Steam over the course of 2020.
PlayStation has released the top 10 list for most-downloaded PS4, PS5 and PSVR games of 2020. It should come as no surprise to anyone that two of the VR industry’s most successful games have nabbed the top two spots: Beat Saber and Job Simulator.
Having started production on its first title even before the original Oculus Rift DK1 development kit was sent to developers, Canada-based Cloudhead Games is one of the world’s most veteran game studios dedicated to virtual reality. The studio has staked its very existence on its ability to build compelling VR games. With three prior games under its belt, Cloudhead poured its hard-won expertise into its latest, Pistol Whip, which has propelled the studio new levels of success.
Virtual reality rhythm game Synth Riders (2018) is getting a new music pack tomorrow called ‘Synthwave Essentials 2′ which is set to feature the heavy-hitting English rock band Muse. Now, developers Kluge Interactive have unveiled the full tracklist for its upcoming DLC in a Road to VR exclusive, and also sat down to talk about some of the finer points of grooving to the infectious electric beat of synthwave in VR.
As you’d imagine, Doom 3 (2004) wasn’t built for VR. But thanks to work by consummate modders Team Beef, the iconic first-person shooter from id Software can finally be played in all its horrific goodness on Oculus Quest, replete with Touch controls. There’s a few hoops to jump through to get it working, but it’s all in the name of doom-slaying.
At last year’s CES, Panasonic unveiled a prototype of a pretty sleek pair of VR glasses. Only a few journalists got a chance to try the prototype then, noting that they were more akin to a ‘VR viewer’ since they lacked room-scale tracking and was primarily used for watching immersive video whilst tethered to a PC. At this year’s all-digital CES 2021, Panasonic showed off a new and improved version of the device, which packs in some pretty intriguing specs alongside the new addition of optical 6DOF tracking.
It was only a month ago when social VR platform Rec Room reported it crossed the two million annual VR user mark, an important milestone worth celebrating along the app’s five-year journey. Its developers tell Road to VR that Rec Room has seen a significant uptick in users recently, as it now reports over one million monthly active VR users on the platform.
During the all-digital version of CES 2021 this year, Lenovo has officially unveiled its ThinkReality A3 augmented reality glasses, which is said to work with PC and select Motorola smartphones via a USB-C cable.
Tilt Brush co-creator Patrick Hackett announced today that he’s leaving Google after nearly six years with the company. His next project will be a VR collaboration with I-Illusions, the studio behind the VR classic Space Pirate Trainer.
Pavlov VR, the VR shooter in Early Access for PC VR headsets, just got its biggest update yet which not only brings WW2 weapons, character models, and maps to the game, but also multiplayer tanks so you can finally put a little more Blitz in your Krieg.
