This week at E3 2019, Oculus is showing their first ever demo of Lone Echo II, the anticipated followup to 2017’s Lone Echo. While the first game was an achievement in VR locomotion, interaction, and storytelling, Lone Echo II aims to up the ante with more dynamic gameplay, which starts with a new enemy that’s a more dynamic threat than anything seen in the original game.
Neat Corporation, the studio behind stealth VR game Budget Cuts (2018), unveiled a new VR project late last month called Garden of the Sea. The game, which puts you on a magical island where you tend to your garden, gather resources, and raise local fauna, is out now in Early Access.
LOW-FI is an upcoming VR game from the veteran indie VR developer behind TECHNOLUST (2016). The game presents a dark but plausible future where most of the population lives in a VR simulation, while at the same time the city’s poor inhabitants live unseen on the streets of the real-world. They are the ‘low-fi’.
At E3 today, Rebellion unveiled some fresh gameplay footage and revealed more details behind Sniper Elite VR, the critically acclaimed shooter’s first VR game. The studio also confirmed that PS Aim support is definitely coming to the PSVR version of the game in addition to support for PC VR headsets.
You may have noticed Oculus Quest is sold out practically everywhere, and while it’s not certain whether the company’s standalone 6DOF headset is selling famously, or is simply the result of artificially limited quantities to generate hype à la Nintendo, one thing is clear: Oculus has sold $5 million worth of Quest content in the first two weeks since its May 21st launch.
At E3 2019 this week, I got a chance to go hands-on with Phantom: Covert Ops, an Oculus Studios exclusive in development by nDreams. The game plays out over the course of a single night, and follows a special operative as they infiltrate a facility in a tactical kayak. While the kayak part sounds just a little ridiculous, it’s actually a genius bit of VR design which affords the game an immersive locomotion and interaction system that has huge potential.
First Contact Entertainment, the studio behind Firewall Zero Hour (2018) and Rom Extraction (2016), teased a new multiplayer shooter today called Solaris Offworld Combat.
Following mostly silence about the headset from the company after the reveal in January, HTC has confirmed that Vive Cosmos is due to launch in Q3. Vive Cosmos dev kits are now on their way to developers.
One of the most anticipated Oculus exclusives, Lone Echo II, has been delayed from 2019 to Q1 2020.
After years in development, VR stealth action game Espire 1 has a release date set for August. Developer Digital Lode confirmed that the game will be available on Rift, Vive, Index, PSVR, Windows VR, and Quest.
Survios today revealed the first public gameplay footage of their upcoming shooter The Walking Dead Onslaught, showing off some of the mechanics in action that aim to immerse players in the show’s zombie-infested world.
Cloudhead Games, the studio behind The Gallery and Aperture Hand Labs, has revealed Pistol Whip. In what appears to be a significant (and quite intriguing) departure from their previous works, Pistol Whip is described as “part first-person shooter, part rhythm game […,] an action-hero sensory trip.”
Ready at Dawn’s Echo Games today announced at UploadVR’s E3 VR showcase that Echo Arena (2017), the zero-G sports game exclusive to Rift, is coming to Oculus Quest.
Beat Games today announced that Beat Saber (2018) just dropped a ten-song DLC music pack featuring the music of Grammy Award-winning rock band Imagine Dragons. The studio is also showing off a new ‘360’ level mode at E3 this week, which promises to change up the game by throwing blocks at you from different directions.
With the curious case of Microsoft initially announcing VR support for Xbox One X and then later pulling the plug before launch, it wasn’t clear if the company would use its next console as its opportunity to finally jump into VR. Today at E3 2019, Microsoft revealed its next-gen Xbox ‘Project Scarlett’ but had nothing to say about VR on the console. Meanwhile, Sony has already confirmed support for PSVR on PS5, and hinted at plans for a next-gen headset.
