Earlier this month at Apple’s annual WWDC conference, the company introduced their latest operating system, macOS Mojave (10.14). Due to roll out as a public beta later this month, and launching widely this Fall as a free update, Mojave brings further VR-specific optimizations to Apple’s Metal graphics API, which the company detailed in a session at WWDC.
With the Echo Combat beta opening today, and the full experience launching later this year, Oculus and Ready at Dawn are doing some reorganization to set the stage for the ongoing expansion of the Echo universe. Today, Echo Arena becomes Echo VR, which will encompass both Echo Arena and Echo Combat.
Magic Leap One, the long-awaited AR headset from the secretive titular Florida startup, appears to be on its way to its supposed 2018 release date, as the headset’s motion controller, dubbed Control, has just hit the FCC for testing.
While we’re still waiting on the Steam Summer Sale to materialize, this year’s big Rift and Vive annual summer sales are already here, and hundreds of VR titles are on deep discount on the Oculus Store and Viveport until the beginning of next month.
After revealing the Vive Wireless Adapter earlier this year, the company confirmed this week at E3 2018 that the device is on track to launch by late Summer, and offered up some details on the device’s battery and operation. I went hands-on with a near-final version and came away impressed.
Back in April Leap Motion first revealed North Star, a prototype AR headset that’s designed to replicate the features of a future high-end AR headset, as a platform for experimentation. Today the company revealed the first extended look of a demo shot through the headset, offering a glimpse of its capabilities.
Arizona Sunshine (2016), the room-scale zombie shooter adventure, already got its first campaign DLC on Oculus Rift, Vive & Windows “Mixed Reality” VR headsets on May 24th, dubbed ‘Dead Man’ DLC. The single mission campaign, which was previously targeting a June release on PSVR, is now pushed back to July.
Oculus Home, the hub space that users see when putting on their Oculus Rift, has been updated with virtual screens for embedded Dash content and the ability to import custom objects.
Elbit Systems, an Israel-based defense company, recently announced that its medical technologies subsidiary Beyeonics Surgical successfully concluded its first funding round of $11.5 million, which the company says will be used to expand product development and accelerate commercialization of its surgeon-centric AR/VR technologies.
Oculus CTO John Carmack has developed a new approach to VR video playback which makes it possible to play 5K 3D 360 video on headsets like Oculus Go and Gear VR. The results, as shown in the recent re-release of Henry, are very impressive. In a new blog post, Carmack breaks down how the player works and offers up a sample for developers interested in using the technique.
Launched initially on Daydream in early 2017, and now available on Gear VR, Oculus Go, and Oculus Rift, Virtual Virtual Reality’s smart interaction design gives players freedom and control which—combined with a narrative tying it all together—makes Virtual Virtual Reality one of the most immersive mobile VR games to date. This guest article by Mitch Mastroni, Interaction Designer at Tender Claws, the studio behind the game, explores how the game achieved significant immersion even on more restrictive mobile VR headsets.
Successfully combining educational value with an entertaining, playful presentation, The Big Table is a VR laboratory that teaches many fundamental chemistry concepts, aimed at students aged 13 to 17. The app recently launched on Gear VR and Oculus Rift.
Following the wave of pre-show announcements and conferences, here’s a final roundup of all our E3 2018 coverage. Vive Wireless Adapter news, Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot platforms clarified, Ready at Dawn interview, and we go hands-on with Astro Bot Rescue Mission, Trover Saves the Universe, Blood & Truth, Megalith, Beat Saber, and Firewall: Zero Hour.
With the Echo Combat open beta just around the corner, we took a few minutes to catch up with Ready at Dawn CEO Ru Weerasuriya who filled us in on the newest abilities coming to the game, how it might change prior to launch, and the studio’s commitment to VR.
Ever since the early days of PSVR, fans have been hoping for games like Counter Strike or Rainbow Six—the sort of team-based shooters most gamers are familiar with one way or the other, be it on PC or console. Now First Contact Entertainment, the studio behind VR shooter ROM: Extraction (2016), have set their sights on the multiplayer, objective-based shooter genre; what I experienced at E3 2018 has not only shown that the four vs four shooter checks all the right boxes, but it does it with the sort of immersion PSVR players have been waiting for.
