‘Trover Saves the Universe’ to Get Free ‘Cosmic Jobs’ DLC in October
Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland loves VR, and his latest VR game, Trover Saves the Universe (2019), is getting its first DLC drop next month.
Small Form Factor Locomotion Device ‘VRGO Mini’ Surpasses Kickstarter Goal
Bristol, UK-based designer Joe Ryan launched his first Kickstarter back in 2015, the VRGO chair locomotion device, which saw a modest £22,100 (~$27,000) in crowdfunds. Now, a smaller form factor version of the device is being launched through a new Kickstarter campaign, the VRGO Mini.
Step Into Daft Punk’s ‘One More Time’ in This VR Fan Tribute
Daft Punk’s Interstella 5555 (2003) is an hour-long film that expertly blends the electronic music duo’s album Discovery with some pretty striking visuals, courtesy of Japanese anime studio Toei Animation. Now, thanks to a group of fans led by Sydney-based VR developer Jake Donaldson, you can finally jump into the crowd as the interstellar pop band jams away at Daft Punk’s One More Time.
Ubisoft Confirms “unannounced AAA VR project,” Building New 50 Person Team for the Task
Ubisoft, which has released five VR titles to date, confirmed that it’s building a large, 50 person team to develop an “unannounced AAA project” using one of the company’s well known IPs.
Where to Find All Quest & Rift Cross-buy Apps in One Place
For those with both an Oculus Rift and Oculus Quest, ‘cross-buy’ games mean that you can buy a game once and play it on both headsets. Because the Oculus store doesn’t explicitly label which games are cross-buy and which games aren’t, finding them can be challenging. Luckily there’s a place you can go to get an updated list all in one place.
Filming ‘The Lion King’ in VR was like a “multiplayer filmmaking game,” Says Director
Although The Lion King (2019) might have garnered a tepid reception from film critics, there’s no debating that Jon Favreau’s photorealistic remake of the 1994 original film roars in the visual department. It’s in part thanks to a production pipeline that uniquely relies on virtual reality to better incorporate traditional live-action story telling techniques to the computer generated world.
Ubisoft Ends Post-launch Development for ‘Space Junkies’, Scraps Non-VR Version
Space Junkies (2019), the multiplayer sci-fi arena shooter from Ubisoft Montpellier, has reached a pretty significant impasse; the studio is pulling its previously planned support for the flatscreen version of the game, and issuing its final update on PSVR and PC VR headsets.
Digital Frontier: Where Brain-computer Interfaces & AR/VR Could One Day Meet
Whenever I used to think about brain-computer interfaces (BCI), I typically imagined a world where the Internet was served up directly to my mind through cyborg-style neural implants—or basically how it’s portrayed in Ghost in the Shell. In that world, you can read, write, and speak to others without needing to lift a finger or open your mouth. It sounds fantastical, but the more I learn about BCI, the more I’ve come to realize that this wish list of functions is really only the tip of the iceberg. And when AR and VR converge with the consumer-ready BCI of the future, the world will be much stranger than fiction.
‘Until You Fall’ Index & Windows VR Support Coming in October, No Concrete Plans for Quest
Schell Games’ latest VR title, Until You Fall, launched in Early Access on Steam last week to strong reviews, but currently the game only officially supports the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. Come October, the developers expect to add support for Index & Windows VR as well.
Facebook Publishes New Research on Hyper-realistic Virtual Avatars
Facebook Reality Labs, the company’s AR/VR R&D group, published detailed research on a method for hyper-realistic real-time virtual avatars, expanding on prior work which the company calls ‘Codec Avatars’.
‘Spice & Wolf VR’ Coming to PSVR & Nintendo Labo VR Soon, Sequel Now in Production
Japan-based studio SpicyTails announced that Spice & Wolf VR will land on PSVR and Nintendo Labo VR this week. Furthermore, the studio says that the experience’s sequel is already in the making.
Road to VR Readership Survey 2019
Road to VR is running a survey with our partner Gamer Network to better understand our audience. Your participation is entirely optional and anonymous, but we’d be thrilled if you’d share your responses with us.
PSVR Launch Title ‘Driveclub VR’ to Be Delisted from PS Store Tomorrow
Sony is taking down a few beloved games from the PlayStation Store tomorrow, including Driveclub, Driveclub Bikes, and Driveclub VR.
Google Releases Real-time Mobile Hand Tracking to R&D Community
Google has released to researchers and developers its own mobile device-based hand tracking method using machine learning, something Google R call a “new approach to hand perception.”
Report: HoloLens 2 Could Go on Sale in September
The second-generation HoloLens, first unveiled at Mobile World Congress earlier this year in Barcelona, still doesn’t have a firm release date yet, although it appears that’s about to change pretty soon.
