Hawkeye and Blackwidow—not the most important, or even most powerful character’s in the Marvel Universe—but the underappreciated Avengers are coming to Sanzaru Games and Oculus Studio’s upcoming co-op game MARVEL Powers United VR just the same.
Just in time for the end of Steam’s summer sale, Valve has released a list of the top selling VR games of 2018 so far.
Speaking at an industry event last week, Valve offered an update on Steam, the company’s massive digital marketplace for PC games, including the continued growth the company has seen in the VR segment over the last year.
Traveling through Terminal 4 on your way to, or through JFK International? Then you might have a chance to jump into VR thanks to Periscape VR’s recent pop-up installation that brings a number of high-quality PC VR games and experiences to international travellers.
The heyday of virtual pets like Tamagotchi and Digimon may be long gone, reaching the height of their popularity in the late ’90s, but with new mediums come new possibilities, and new ways to interact with virtual pets too. Enter Waba, an impossibly cute, amorphous little guy that aims to wobble your heartstrings.
VR veterans Aldin, the indie studio behind Waltz of the Wizard and other early and innovative VR titles, has announced the closure of a $1 million Seed investment. The money will be used to support the studio’s next project which aims to create “believable virtual realities” by fusing VR and AI to push the boundary of interactive storytelling.
The Walker (2018) is a VR action-shooter from Haymaker that puts a six-shooter in one hand and magic talismans in the other—all to fend off zombies of increasingly horrific sizes in the streets of old Shanghai. The Walker is now available on PSVR in the US; EU players will have to wait until July 6th for the game to hit PSN.
With Marvel Powers United VR headed to Rift next moth, the hype train for the official Marvel superhero co-op game from Sanzaru Games and Oculus Studios is just about left the station. The next set of villains on this list: the sentient (and evil) robot Ultron and the dastardly symbiote Venom.
For VR users, the following question inevitably arises in some shape or form: why isn’t ‘x-studio’ making my favorite ‘y’ game in VR? While the answer usually ends up being a lack of sufficient profit motive on the part of established studios, sometimes indie devs step up to deliver what people are clamoring for. Case in point: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) in VR—at least tantalizing pieces of it, including epic (and super nostalgic) boss battles.
Plexus Immersive Corp, a San Francisco-based startup, announced a pair of VR gloves that integrate haptic feedback and interface with multiple tracking standards, including SteamVR, Oculus Rift, and Windows “Mixed Reality” VR. Dubbed Plexus, a pair of dev kit gloves will cost $250, and a waitlist in now available through the company’s website.
A report from Tom’s Hardware states that NVIDIA’s next-generation GeForce GPUs, tentatively being referred to as the GTX 11-series, will include a new connector with enough bandwidth to support future VR headsets much higher resolutions and greater refresh rates.
HTC is reportedly laying off 1,500 employees in its Taiwan manufacturing division, something Bloomberg’s Taipei bureau chief Samson Ellis reports to be around 22% of HTC employees.
German ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst is participating in a study aboard the International Space Station (ISS) that’s designed to give Earth-bound researchers a better understanding of how sight, sound, and gravity impacts hand-eye coordination. Using a modified Oculus Rift, Gerst isn’t strapping in for fun and games though (even if Echo VR or Space Junkies would take on a whole new level of immersion).
Using state-of-the-art photogrammetry technology with millimeter accuracy, Simon Che de Boer of Reality Virtual and Experius VR have digitally scanned Nerfertari’s tomb, letting owners of Vive, Rift, and Windows VR headsets step inside the fabled burial site and learn about the over 3,000 year-old Egyptian queen’s life, religion, and culture.
