More than three years in the making, Quentin Lengelé’s Blade Runner 9732 VR fan project is finally set to hit Steam on January 7th. The experience, which lets you stroll a screen-accurate replica of Blade Runner (1982) neo-noir protagonist Rick Deckard’s entire apartment, is coming to HTC Vive for free.
Described by Danish developer Decochon as a “revolutionary music sandbox for VR”, MuX features virtual, low-level synth components that can be connected together and adjusted to generate unique sounds. The various tools allow the creation of complex electronic instruments, which can be easily shared with the community.
For some games, VR locomotion is simply ends to a mean; getting you from point A to point B in an efficient manner so other game mechanics can take the spotlight. Not so in PvP battle arena Light Strike Array, which integrates a novel form of teleportation into the very heart of gameplay.
It’s been a fantastic year for virtual reality games, and with VR titles hailing from ambitious indie studios and well-established developers alike, the prospect of having truly great games in VR is decidedly here. We at the Road to VR editorial staff, having explored content across VR platforms over the last year, have deliberated over the past few weeks and have come to a decision on 2017’s top honors.
House of Secrets, the Amsterdam-based studio behind acclaimed real-time VR music videos Surge (2015) and Apex (2017), have released their first full VR game, a puzzle platformer titled KIN. Now available on Gear VR for $10, the game will also be headed to Oculus Rift in January 2018.
When we first saw KFC created a bizarre BioShock-esque VR training experience, we weren’t sure if it was the company’s next attempt at creating a brand engagement advert, or if KFC really intended on using the wacky chicken-frying escape room to train its employees. While the company says they’re actually using the KFC The Hard Way to train employees, they’ve also released the experience for free on the Oculus Store for Rift—making it a little less clear of the company’s overall intentions.
Jaron Lanier is a pioneer of the first commercially-available virtual reality systems with his VPL Research Inc startup that was founded in 1984. He has written a memoir called Dawn of the New Everything about his life leading up to and during his transition from a country hippie hacker to a over-stressed Silicon Valley CEO.
Go Touch VR, which is developing a simple haptic device that’s surprisingly effective, has raised €837,000 (approx. $1 million) in venture capital for ongoing development. The company has offered a look at the latest version of the VRTouch DK1 dev kit, which has come quite far from the 3D printed prototype we saw earlier this year.
Ubisoft’s cooperative VR bridge sim, Star Trek: Bridge Crew, is hoping to bolster player populations with a new update which opens the doors to both Windows VR headsets and non-VR players on PC.
Google Earth VR is pretty self-explanatory; it’s Google Earth, but available on VR headsets like Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. What isn’t so easy to communicate is the sheer immensity of the world around you as you view everything Google has captured on the planet Earth, replete with 3D rendered models and its vast stores of 360 shots from around the globe. Now, the company has updated Earth VR to allow for in-Street View navigation, meaning you can easily move from 360 sphere to 360 sphere just like on the flatscreen version of Google Maps.
Pimax, the Shanghai-based VR headset manufacturer known for their upcoming wide field of view headset Pimax ‘8K’, have raised nearly $15 million in their first post-Kickstarter investment round.
Pokémon GO, the massively successful location-based mobile game, just got an update on iOS 11 thanks to Apple’s ARKit that gives iPhone 6s and above more realistic Pokémon-catching encounters.
In a surprise move, Magic Leap finally released images and info regarding their upcoming Magic Leap One AR headset today. Hard specs are still thin on the ground at the moment, but it appears that press embargoes on information are finally being lifted as the company looks forward to an official release of its Creator Edition headset in 2018. Magic Leap gave Rolling Stone the rock star treatment in their exclusive tour of the headquarters, which includes a hands-on with the headset.
After the long wait, Magic Leap, the secretive augmented reality startup, finally unveiled its first AR headset. Releasing first as a ‘Creator Edition’, the so-called ‘Magic Leap One’ AR headset is said to start shipping in 2018.
Bigscreen, the social VR app which lets users connect in a virtual environment while retaining the ability to use (and share) their own PC desktop content, now supports Microsoft’s ‘Windows Mixed Reality’ VR headsets. In 2018, the app will offer cross-play with mobile users on Oculus Go, Gear VR, and Daydream, as well as PSVR.
