Play Hellishly Difficult Bow-shooter ‘In Death’ for Free This Weekend on Rift
In Death, the roguelike bow-shooter in Early Access from Everest VR (2016) developers Sólfar Studios, just opened up a free access weekend on Rift.
Insomniac Games Teases New VR Project, Promising an Open World Adventure
Insomniac Games, developers behind The Unspoken (2017), Edge of Nowhere (2016), and Ratchet & Clank, showed off a sneak peek of their next VR game. While still unnamed, the studio is aiming to break boundaries with what they say is ‘an open world adventure.’
‘Battlezone VR’ Studio Announces VR Puzzle Game ‘Arca’s Path’, Teaser Trailer Here
Arca’s Path VR is an upcoming puzzle adventure from Dream Reality Interactive and Rebellion, the studio behind Battlezone VR (2016).
BBC to Stream World Cup 2018 Matches in UK on PSVR, Cardboard, Oculus Go & Gear VR
The BBC is bringing live coverage of all 33 of its licensed World Cup 2018 matches from Russia to a new dedicated app, dubbed BBC Sport VR – FIFA World Cup Russia 2018. The app will support Gear VR, Oculus Go, PlayStation VR, and Google Cardboard; as with all BBC iPlayer content, it’s likely to be region locked to the UK though.
Pimax Starts Shipping Pre-production “8K” Headsets Today, Kickstarter Version Slated for June
Pimax today updated their “8K” headset Kickstarter page to announce that pre-production units of the 200-degree field of view headset, dubbed M1, are now shipping to a handful of closed beta testers. The company says 10 of the Pimax 8K testing units will go out in total, which will proceed the general launch to backers.
Varjo Reveals Add-on for High Quality Pass-through AR, Launching in 2019
The first version of Varjo’s ‘bionic display’ enterprise VR headset is due out later this year (see our latest hands-on), and the company has announced plans to offer an add-on upgrade in 2019 which brings high-quality pass-through AR capabilities to the headset. Varjo showed off a tech demo of the headset’s add-on capabilities this week at AWE 2018.
Action RPG ‘Swords of Gargantua’ Demo Now Available on Vive & Rift
We had a chance to go hands-on with Gumi and Yomuneco’s Sword of Gargantua at GDC back in March, and while an official write-up never materialized out of the hectic game-filled dev conference, a demo for the studio’s upcoming online action RPG is finally here for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.
Oculus Go Launches in China Under Xiaomi Branding
Oculus previously announced earlier this year that Oculus Go, the company’s 3DOF standalone headset, would officially launch in 23 consumer markets, although China would be receiving its own version with Xiaomi branding. Now, at a conference in Shenzhen, the Chinese tech giant announced that Mi VR has officially launched in China.
Hands-on: Varjo’s Latest ‘Beta’ Prototype is a Promising Shortcut to Retina Resolution
Today’s VR headsets may have relatively high resolutions on paper, but when the pixels are stretched across a wide field of view, the effective angular resolution is far lower than what you might expect from a typical 1080p TV or monitor. Unfortunately, a suitable VR display capable of achieving both a wide field of view and retina resolution isn’t readily available yet. Until then, Finland-based VR startup Varjo is using a combination of macrodisplays and microdisplays to put high density resolution to the center of your view without giving up the wide field of view.
‘Oculus Venues’ Live Event App Now Available on Go and Gear VR, Event Schedule Here
Oculus Venues, the social app that allows ‘thousands of users’ to watch live events en masse in VR, is now available on Oculus Go and Gear VR starting today. The company has also published a full list of upcoming live events (below).
Review: ‘Downward Spiral: Horus Station’ is a Visual Feast, But Skimps on Story & Gunplay
Downward Spiral: Horus Station is a sci-fi adventure that puts you aboard a vast, abandoned space station that was cleared out of all life after military-grade robots turned on the station’s human inhabitants. There’s a lot to admire about the full release of Downward Spiral—an expanded universe first seen in Downward Spiral: Prologue (2017), a 20-minute taster that released on Steam in fall of last year—although after playing through the campaign, which features first-person shooter elements and can be played in single player or co-op mode, I left feeling unclear about what Downward Spiral really wanted to be, making it a jack of all trades, but master of none.
Vive Eye-tracking & Corrective Lens Add-on Confirmed Compatible with Vive Pro
7invensun, one of the latest companies accepted into HTC’s Vive X accelerator program, is launching an eye-tracking add-on made specially for the Vive headset. The device, which went on sale last year, uses a series of IR LEDs and a near-eye camera to track the user’s eyes in real-time, enabling a range of potential benefits for VR.
Snapdragon XR1 is Qualcomm’s First Dedicated Chip for AR/VR Headsets
When it comes to mobile VR and AR headsets, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips are dominating the space, with every major mobile headset launched so far this year built on the company’s Snapdragon 821 or 835 chips. And while those existing chips are also found in smartphones, Qualcomm today is announcing XR1, a new chip specifically built for AR and VR devices, which the company is calling its “first dedicated XR platform.”
