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.
Researchers from Facebook Reality Labs and the University of Arizona published new work exploring the use of high-speed mechanical display shifting to reduce the so-called screen-door-effect (SDE) of immersive displays. SDE is caused by unlit spaces between pixels leading to the immersion-reducing appearance of a ‘screen door’ between the viewer and the virtual world. The researchers experiment with rapidly and minutely shifting the entire display to cause the display’s pixels to fill in the gaps.
Hitman 3 is slated to release on consoles and PC on January 20th, however the only version getting VR support for now is on the PS4/PS5 platforms. To get the hype train moving, developers IO Interactive just gave us another peek at the upcoming first-person PSVR mode in a new video.
In a look back at 2020, Facebook Reality Lab’s head Andrew Bosworth revealed that Quest 2 quietly celebrated a few new milestones shortly after its October 13th launch.
You can relieve stress by meditating, making art, or getting a good workout in VR. Alternatively, you can also unload a heavy machine gun at anything that moves. And there’s a few really great choices out there if you’re looking for a little explosive therapy to soothe your woes.
Eye of the Temple is an upcoming room-scale puzzle game that basically turns you into Indiana Jones—torch, hat, and bullwhip included. Now developer Rune Skovbo Johansen says the full game is aiming to release on SteamVR headsets sometime this spring.
Cybershoes, the makers of a locomotion peripheral for VR headsets, launched a Kickstarter in late November for a new Quest-compatible version of the device. Now heading into the new year, Cybershoes for Quest has concluded its campaign after tripling its initial funding goal.
Many social VR platforms are playing host to informal New Year’s Eve parties, with users banding together to ring in the new year. VRChat is going the extra mile this year though to put on a 24-hour NYE bash that includes ball drops on the hour and live music so everyone can celebrate.
While Oculus doesn’t offer much publicly in the way of understanding how well individual apps are performing across its VR storefronts, it’s possible to glean some insight by looking at apps relative to each other. Here’s a snapshot of the top 20 Oculus Quest games and apps as of December 2020.
Oculus Quest 2 has been backordered at major online retailers since before Christmas. If you act now though, you may just be able to snag one and start playing next week, all with an added bonus of a $15 gift card for future purchases at NewEgg.
Despite the world grinding to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic, indie game studios and ‘AAA’ studios alike continued their work from afar and set new bars for VR gaming. Although some of the games we were looking forward to in 2020 were delayed, the good news is there’s a steady stream of content coming down the pipeline next year.
Tundra Labs, which makes chips and development kits for devices which use SteamVR Tracking, is building its own tracking accessory for the tracking ecosystem. The company is positioning its Tundra Tracker as a smaller, cheaper, and better alternative to HTC’s Vive Tracker. A Kickstarter campaign to fund the project and gather feedback is planned for next month.
Steam’s annual winter sale is already in full swing, bringing big savings to top VR games like Half-Life: Alyx (2020), Star Wars: Squadrons (2020), Elite Dangerous (2014) and more.
