Announced back in October, Oculus is launching the Rift Core 2.0 update today in beta, a major overhaul to the platform’s underlying experience. The update not only rebuilds the default ‘Home’ environment with huge customization potential, it also introduces ‘Dash’, a new take on the former Universal Menu, which also allows you to use desktop PC applications from within any VR app.
High Fidelity, the social VR app founded by Second Life founder Philip Rosedale, recently launched Avatar Island – the first of many future in-world stores stocked with digital assets for its users to buy. While purchasing digital items like hats and t-shirts may not be anything out of the ordinary for fans of its spiritual predecessor Second Life, the store is showcasing High Fidelity‘s more recent development: its own cryptocurrency and a blockchain-based ledger system, both of which aim to pave the way for a functioning in-world economy.
It’s been exactly one year since Oculus launched Touch, the motion controller that made Rift a truly competitive room-scale headset. To celebrate, the company is hosting a dedicated flash sale of up to 75% on 80+ major Touch titles. The sale expires today (December 6th) at 11:59 pm PT (your local time).
Farpoint (2017), PSVR’s bug-shooting showcase for the mightily impressive PS Aim, has had one free expansion so far, the ‘Cryo Pack’, which added additional co-op levels and challenge mode. Now the game has just received its next free DLC in the form of ‘Versus’, an update that greatly expands the game with two different 1v1 multiplayer modes while bumping the game’s weapon roster up from 5 to 20.
With so many choices for graphics cards out there, it’s hard to know exactly what you should buy to outfit your next VR-ready PC. To make things a little easier, Oculus recently published a list of GPUs that meets its Minimum and Recommended specs. The list helps clear up confusion regarding which older and less popular GPUs the company considers ‘equivalent’ to the company’s prior recommendations which often consisted of just one GPU from NVIDIA and one GPU from AMD.
The Dark Corner app is creating a new distribution channel for immersive horror experiences and 360-degree videos. Guy Shelmerdine and Teal Greyhavens are hoping that fans of the horror genre will be enthusiastic enough about the potential of VR to achieve new depths of terror that audiences will be willing to pay for 360 video experiences. Shelmerdine is featuring Dark Corner’s own creations including Catatonic and their latest nightmare-inspired Night Night, but also opening up a new marketplace for creators of horror content to sell and distribute their content.
There was a time not long ago when just buying the PC required to power a high-end desktop VR headset cost at least $1,000. The last eight months in VR land has seen aggressive drops in pricing, culminating in this excellent deal from Microsoft which will net you a VR Ready PC and an HP VR headset together for just $750.
Justice League VR: The Complete Experience is making its way from IMAX VR locations to PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift & HTC Vive headsets in the multi-hero experience that has you stepping into the shiny boots of Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, The Flash, Aquaman, or Cyborg.
Gang Beasts (2014), the multiplayer brawler made famous on PC, is finally heading to PlayStation 4 next week. Although the December 12th launch date means you can technically buy the game, it won’t have PSVR support until “some time after launch as a free update,” says Double Fine Production community manager James Spafford.
The name Doom carries a great weight of expectation in video game circles. One part technical showcase, one part genre-defining milestone – with a giant dash of adrenaline for good measure – the series is rightly feted as one of the cherished elders of gaming. What it never had much of a story to tell, with a back-of-a-napkin premise that was ample support for the on-screen carnage. In recent years, it’s the story of the studio that Doom built that ‘s taken the spotlight, especially in VR circles where ex-id alumni John Carmack and Michael Abrash have become prominent figures. Then of course there’s the matter of the rather public multi-million-dollar spat between Zenimax and Oculus—but we won’t get into that. Independent from this dramatic backdrop, can Doom VFR live up to its heritage?
Wands (2017), the first-person magic-dueling game, is available today for HTC Vive via Viveport. Already supporting Gear VR, Daydream, and Oculus Rift platforms, developing studio Cortopia confirmed with Road to VR that cross-play with other headsets is coming today, or at very latest “later this week.”
Huawei first announced its Mate 10-compatible ‘Huawei VR 2’ headset back in October, although it wasn’t certain if it would ever leave China. A recent FCC filing however confirms the existence of a VR controller very similar to the one seen in Chinese promotional material, meaning the West may soon get a bonafide Huawei VR headset.
Oculus has now confirmed the launch the ‘Rift Core 2.0’ update in public beta; it’s hitting Rift headsets December 6th. The anticipated updated will bring a major overhaul to ‘Home’—the place you see in the headset when you’re not inside of a VR game—as well as ‘Dash’, a revamped universal menu which also lets you run traditional desktop PC apps in VR.
Back in February this year, Valve confirmed that they were internally developing three “full” VR titles. While there’s still no information surrounding genres or launch dates, it now looks like Valve may just be keeping them tight under wraps as usual, and hasn’t forgotten about the projects after all.
