Justin Roiland’s VR studio Squanch Games announced last year that their upcoming game Trover Saves the Universe was exclusively targeting PSVR and PS4 consoles. This week at GDC 2019 though it seems the studio has reversed that decision, as the comedy platformer is also slated to arrive on PCs via Steam and Epic Game Store. To make things even more interesting, it appears PSVR users have a firm May release date now.
It’s been a while since I really dove into a multiplayer shooter without any of the new hotness in game mechanics slathered on top; I’m talking about the hero-centric games like Overwatch, or the rash of battle royales like Apex Legends, PUBG or Fortnite. Ubisoft’s latest VR game is however closer linked to an earlier breed of shooter and much less so than its contemporary brethren of today—ostensibly an homage to the founders of the genre like Unreal Tournament (1999) and Quake (1996). It’s not to say that Space Junkies doesn’t have a lot going on, but its core gameplay should be very familiar to anyone who’s been anywhere near a computer or console in the last 20 years. That aside, it’s a true VR native and very comfortable one despite some pretty frenetic gameplay.
Space Junkies, the upcoming Unreal Tournament-style VR shooter from Ubisoft Montpellier, is headed to all major VR platforms today, March 26th.
In February, HTC unveiled its full 6DOF version of the company’s standalone VR headset targeted at enterprise users, Vive Focus Plus. Now, the company has officially announced pricing and availability for the headset and controller bundle.
Sony today revealed its latest PlayStation VR sales milestone of 4.2 million units. The company says this figure represents headsets ‘sold through’ to consumers, as opposed to total outstanding units that might still be in the hands of distributors. The announcement shows that PSVR sales may even be accelerating.
In an avalanche of PSVR news today, Sony announced that Five Nights at Freddy’s is coming to PSVR. acclaimed survival horror video game. It’s not exclusive though, as the VR adaptation is officially coming to PSVR, Oculus and HTC Vive in April 2019.
During Sony’s inaugural ‘State of Play’ livestream, the company today announced a number of PSVR games with official street dates, many of which we’ve been salivating over for the past year.
As a part of Sony’s inaugural ‘State of Play’ webseries, the company today announced that the upcoming action shooter for PSVR Blood & Truth finally has a release date.
Sony today announced a number of games coming to PS4 and PSVR, among which was Marvel’s Iron Man VR.
With a history of developing some of the greatest games ever made—Half-Life, Portal, Counter Strike, Team Fortress, to name a few—the VR space has high hopes for the three VR games that the company has confirmed it’s developing. But some have taken recent layoffs as a sign that Valve’s interest in VR is waning. Valve head Gabe Newell recently took his to inbox to answer some questions, including affirming that the company is still working on its VR titles.
Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, who left the company back in 2017, says that the lack of hardware-adjustable IPD (distance between lenses) on the Rift S means he won’t be able to comfortably use the headset, and says that it will be a great headset but only for about 70% of the population which are comfortably covered by the headset’s IPD range.
OptiTrack at GDC last week showed off a demonstration of their enterprise/commercial tracking technology which is capable of accurately tracking hundreds of objects simultaneously in real-time. For those building out of home applications with VR, OptiTrack now has available a set of add-ons and a suite of tools for tracking of Rift and Vive headsets, bodies, and props, including a SteamVR plugin.
We weren’t certain the PSVR title Golem would ever see the light of day after its lengthy delay. It wasn’t until the studio assured us late last year that yes, the game was still in production well after its prospective March 16th, 2018 launch date had come and gone. Now it appears PAX East-goers will get a fresh whack at the game, which was unveiled way back in 2015.
Nintendo’s upcoming Labo VR Kit for Switch includes a trove of creative VR content along with six ‘build it yourself’ cardboard accessories which are paired with VR experiences that work together with them. One of the accessories might look like a goofy ‘elephant’, but a closer look reveals a genius makeshift 6DOF controller made from some cardboard, stickers, and the Switch’s Joy-Con controllers.
Valve’s resident experimental psychologist Dr. Mike Ambinder took the stage at GDC 2019 today for his talk on the state of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) and how they’ll inform the future of game design. In his talk, Ambinder put forth a near future where VR/AR headsets are kitted with non-invasive electroencephalogram (EEG) devices that could one day provide data to game designers so they can create a new generation of smarter, more reactive games. The long-term view is definitely trending towards neuronal implants, Ambinder says, but we’re not there yet.
