Talking to non-player characters (NPCs) in Skyrim VR may be easy—requiring a quick selection from the dialogue menu—but it isn’t exactly an immersive way of interacting with the world though. With a new speech recognition mod, called Dragonborn Speaks Naturally, all of that changes.
Disney and Lenovo teamed up last year to produce Star Wars: Jedi Challenges, a sampler of Star Wars games that worked with Lenovo’s smartphone-driven Mirage AR headset and wireless lightsaber. While the app supports both Android and iOS smartphones, now users on recent iPads and iPhones don’t need the headset at all to play one of the most iconic in the lot: Holochess. And it’s free.
In Death, the roguelike bow-shooter from Sólfar Studios, the developers behind Everest VR (2016), just received a much-awaited update that’s aiming to add a little more depth to the polished, and extremely difficult medieval-themed single player game. Starting today, In Death will include dungeons, dubbed ‘The Pits of Damnation’, and an asynchronous multiplayer challenge mode called ‘The Ladder’.
AntVR, the Beijing-based company known for their 2014 VR headset Kickstarter, is launching a new crowdfunding campaign soon focusing on a hybrid AR headset called simply Mix. The makers are promising a bevy of bells and whistles, including the ability to integrate with the SteamVR platform so users can play VR games too, and all at only $500.
Ready Player One: Oasis beta (2018), the free mini-game sampler with experiences inspired by Steven Spielberg’s latest film Ready Player One (2018), is finally on Steam, which includes support for HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and Windows “Mixed Reality” VR headsets.
Microcenter is known for knocking down prices ahead of its competitors, even if it’s just by a little to draw in the crowds. Today, Microcenter stores are selling Oculus Rift + Touch for $50 under the suggested price, putting the whole system at $350.
Google has partnered with CyArk, the non-profit studio behind VR app MasterWorks: Journey Through History (2018), to expand CyArk’s mission to 3D laser-scan the world’s historical sites and provide open access to the data. Called the Open Heritage Project, Google and CyArk aim to preserve the historical sites digitally for future generations in case disaster strikes
Both the Rift and the Vive first launched to consumers around this time two years ago, but their debut, and the games that launched alongside them, were the culmination of years of prior game design experimentation in a new medium that brought both new opportunities and challenges. Cloudhead Games, developers of Vive launch title The Gallery: Call of the Starseed, were among those leading the charge. On this occasion, the two year anniversary of modern VR headsets becoming available to consumers, the studio’s Lead Programmer, Paul White, and Narrative Designer, Antony Stevens, look back at the studio’s journey in VR development and where it has led them today.
The developers behind Modbox (2016), the VR physics sandbox for SteamVR-compatible headsets, have been experimenting with augmented reality recently, something they say is a perfect fit for the Modbox software.
HTC has announced a new set of tools allowing developers to build applications which take advantage of the Vive Pro’s stereo front-facing cameras, effectively turning the device into an AR headset dev kit. The new tools allow the cameras to capture depth, spatial mapping data, hand input, and seamlessly shift between VR and AR worlds.
Researchers at The Human Computer Interaction Lab at Hasso-Plattner-Institut in Potsdam, Germany, published a video recently showing a novel solution to the problem of wearable haptics for augmented reality. Using a lightweight, mobile electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) device that provides low-voltage to arm muscles, the idea is to let AR headset-users stay hands-free, but also be able to experience force-feedback when interacting with virtual objects, and feel extra forces when touching physical objects in their environment too.
Downward Spiral: Horus Station is an upcoming sci-fi adventure set in the lost and forgotten Horus space station. Created by Finland-based 3rd Eye Studios, the minds behind the game recently put out an extended look at some of the its atmospheric exploration and puzzles in a new gameplay video.
Following a small rash of reports from new Vive and Vive Pro users, HTC says they’re looking into issues regarding mismatched display brightness. Additionally, SteamVR’s beta branch brings a firmware update to the Vive Pro which is said to improve the initially disappointing audio quality.
Oculus Studios today revealed their latest Rift exclusive, Defector, a high-action first-person adventure from Twisted Pixel, the studio behind Wilson’s Heart (2017). Defector aims to put players in the shoes of a veritable action movie spy, with gadgets and guns aplenty.
