Unreal Engine 4.20 officially launched today with heaps of updates. In the VR realm, the new version brings native mixed reality video compositing for VR applications, and an update to a much newer Oculus SDK. On the AR front, UE 4.20 adds supports for Apple’s ARKit 2.0 and Google’s ARCore 1.2, along with Magic Leap support.
Seismic Games, the studio behind Google Daydream’s Blade Runner: Revelations (2018), has been acquired by Niantic, the force behind popular location-based games Pokémon GO, Ingress, and the upcoming Harry Potter: Wizards Unite.
One of Europe’s largest water parks, Therme Erding’s Galaxy Erding water park in Germany, has a new claim to fame: a water slide that outfits guests with a VR headset. Dubbed VRSlide, the system includes a water-resistant VR headset powered by a Samsung Galaxy S8 for a deep dive through the waters of the digital unknown.
Hot on the heels of Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018), which hit the box offices last week, comes a newly announced VR rhythm game that lets you grove to the spooky beats DJ’ed by series’ characters Drac, Mavis, or Johnny. Called Hotel Transylvania Popstic, the game is said to be featured at around 500 VR arcades across North America, Europe, and China.
Oculus Go, the company’s recently launched standalone VR headset, is already on store shelves starting at $200 for the 32 GB version. And just like the company’s previous Rift for Business announced last year, now it’s Go’s turn for the commercial treatment.
Onward, the multiplayer VR shooter in Early Access, is hosting another free access weekend, this time on Steam for owners of Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.
Oculus and Sanzaru Games today announced two more villains coming to MARVEL Powers United VR, the superhero co-op battle Rift game which is slated to launch July 26th. Both villainous foes to the Avengers, the companies today revealed that Madame Hydra (aka ‘Viper’) and Scientist Supreme are coming to the game.
If you’ve been following VR since the early developer kit days, you may recognize the ultra-retro nostalgia headtrip that is Pixel Ripped 1989. The multi-dimensional platformer-meets-VR adventure is slated to arrive on PSVR, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Windows “Mixed Reality” VR headsets July 31st.
A consortium representing many of VR’s most prominent players—NVIDIA, AMD, Valve, Oculus, and Microsoft—have backed a new connector standard called VirtualLink which the companies say was “developed to meet the connectivity requirements of current and next-generation virtual reality (VR) headsets.”
Archangel: Hellfire, a multiplayer mech combat expansion to the original Archangel (2017) game, today launched out of open beta. In addition, the studio also released a free version of the multiplayer game, dubbed Archangel: Hellfire ‘Enlist Free’, that gives you basic access to much of multiplayer mech combat.
More than just the latest in a long line of niche gadgets, Oculus Go represents the linchpin of Facebook’s lofty goal of putting one billion people into virtual reality. Built with the new or casual user in mind, the device’s non-intimidating tether-free design and Snapdragon 821 mobile processor (which will be two years old in August) manage to keep costs low and user-friendliness high.
Lowe’s, a major North American retailer of home improvement goods, has dreamt up an interesting in-store use of VR. Using an HTC Vive and a specially made controller, the ‘Holoroom Test Drive’ allows anyone timid around power tools to put on a VR headset to learn how to use the tools in a safe virtual space.
The Oculus Go was released on Tuesday, May 1st at the Facebook F8 developer conference, and it is a self-contained, 3-DoF mobile VR headset priced at $200 that is optimized for media consumption and social VR interactions. Facebook showed off four first-party applications including Oculus TV, Oculus Gallery, Oculus Rooms, and Oculus Venues. The Oculus Venues will be treated as public spaces that will be governed by Oculus’ updated Terms of Service that has a code of conduct to ensure safe online spaces. In order to enforce the code of conduct, then Oculus will need to do some amount of capturing and recording of what happens in these virtual spaces, which has a number of privacy implications and tradeoffs between cultivating safe online spaces that may erode aspects of the freedom of speech and the 4th amendment rights to privacy within these virtual spaces.
If you’re already an Amazon Prime Member, or looking to become one starting today, there’s an Amazon Prime Day Oculus Rift deal waiting for you.
