Blog V Reality: January 2020

Friday, 31 January 2020

2MD: VR Football Unleashed (Oculus Quest) Review: Quarterback Bootcamp

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Even though 2MD: VR Football Unleashed from Truant Pixels is far from a full version of American football in VR, it still shines as an arcade delight when paired with wireless roomscale on Oculus Quest.

It absolutely baffles me why there aren’t more fully-fleshed out and well-funded VR adaptations of real world sports. It seems like a no-brainer. There are a handful of rough, unpolished attempts spread out across Steam, VR Sports Challenge from Sanzaru Games with abbreviated scrimmages, and a few whimsical takes on sports in VR like Sports Scramble, but that’s about it.

In the meantime we’ve at least got fun (albeit incredibly simple) arcade-style VR games like 2MD: VR Football Unleashed to tide us over.

A more accurate title for 2MD: VR Football Unleashed would probably have been something like ‘VR Quarterback Challenge’ or something to that effect because that’s all it actually is. You don’t play any other positions and you don’t have actual control over anything that happens once the ball is snapped other than where you throw it, so it’s not really a full football experience.

When you first load into 2MD VR Football you’ll go through some training exercised to get the hang of the controls. There are some nifty sliders that let you adjust the arc and power of your release so it feels just right for however your arm moves and throws. Releasing the trigger on a controller is a different feeling than letting go of a real-life football, so it can take some practice getting used to things. The training course has well-placed rings that do a good job of helping you get acclimated.

Visually it’s extremely unimpressive. There is little shading in any of the game’s models, all the stadiums more or less look and feel the same, characters are faceless and armless, and it just generally has an almost unfinished vibe to everything. This makes it approachable and not too intimidating, but as a football fan I’d prefer something with at least a bit more detail. The Quest is capable of much more impressive visuals with a better funded project.

2md vr football quest screenshot gameplay 2

Once you’re done there you’re faced with a whiteboard and a marker in the locker room of a 2MD VR Football stadium; this is where things get really interesting. In 2MD VR Football you’re not bound by a playbook at all. Instead, you have eight different plays saved at all times (up, down, left, and right on each analog stick to call audibles at the line) and the white board lets you manually draw each route. This is genius.

Not only does it give you something tactile and physical to do pre-game as preparation, but it really does add an extra layer of interactivity that isn’t even seen in most AAA football games. Unfortunately, team customization isn’t anywhere near as deep. There are a handful of mascots to pick from and then you can adjust the primary and secondary colors of uniforms, but that’s it. You can’t even change team names. Each mascot has their own stadium and theme song, but that’s about it.

2md vr football quest screenshot gameplay 3

The meat of the game is a two-minute drill tournament. You’re given two minutes to drive down the field and score a touchdown to win. If you turn the ball over then it just resets back where you started without putting time back on the clock. It’s a clever format because it ensures that the game is on-the-line at all times, but it’s a bummer you don’t get to catch passes, command a defense, swat down balls, stiff arm defenders, or anything like that.

Playing on Quest was great because when I cleared out room I was able to move around and actually feel like I was evading pressure from defenders. Which made the disappointment even more poignant that the core of the game is just throwing passes and nothing else.

Comfort

2MD: VR Football Unleashed is as comfortable as you want it to be. Realistically, you don’t need to movev artificially at all whatsoever. You’re not required to roll out of the pocket and throw on the run if you don’t want to. You can stand in the pocket and throw passes to receivers and still experience the entire game. But if you do want to move around once the ball is snapped that’s done with the left control stick via artificial smooth movement. Or, if you’re playing on the Quest like I was, just literally run around your play space doing your best Lamar Jackson impression.

Pull the trigger to hike the ball and let ‘er rip. That’s pretty much the entire game. The depth and replayability comes from being able to customize plays back in the locker room, unlocking new mascots, and toying around on the practice field. After each win you’ll go through a bonus stage of ring targets that let you rack up more points for the global leaderboard rankings. Collecting trophies for the locker room is a fun element, but that’s all there is to do in terms of collectibles.

2MD: VR Football Unleashed (Oculus Quest) Review Final Verdict

Make no mistake: 2MD: VR Football Unleashed is not a deep game. It doesn’t have a lot of the features you’d expect out of a VR football experience, but it still manages to be fun and unique game without comparison, especially on Quest, in the right circumstances. There’s something simple and addictive about jumping into a game and driving down the field as quickly as possible to score a touchdown and win the game. As a result, 2MD VR Football boils down the excitement of football and delivers it over and over until your arm is too sore to throw another pass — just don’t expect to find anything other than a surface level recreation of the gridiron here.

Final Score: 3/5 Stars | Pretty Good

good bad pro con list 2md vr football

You can read more about our five-star scoring policy here.

This review was conducted on the Oculus Quest version of 2MD: VR Football Unleashed, which is available now for $14.99. Alternatively, 2MD VR Football is also available on Steam for PC VR headsets for $12.99, Oculus Home for Rift for $14.99, and PSVR for $12.99. The PSVR version also includes multiplayer via a non-VR player controlling the defense on the TV social screen.

The Quest and Rift Home versions are cross-buy so owning one will grant access to both.

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Communal VR Music Video Took Us On A Volumetric Journey Through Reggae, Classical, Grime, And Calypso

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All Kinds of Limbo: a beautifully-choreographed volumetric performance for the ages.

The 2020 Sundance Film Festival has brought us some of the most interesting VR and AR projects we’ve ever seen on the festival circuit. From an aquatic VR experience that had us lying face-down in a pool to a meditative mixed reality piece that tracked breathing, there was no such thing as “too crazy” at New Frontier 2020. And while we came across a plethora of exciting use-cases and advancements, one project, in particular, showed us how immersive technology is changing the way we enjoy musical performances.

Tucked away at the back of New Frontier Central, the Biodigital Theater served as a venue for multiple VR projects. Unlike normal demo stations, however, projects featured in the Biodigital Theater could be enjoyed with others simultaneously in real-time. One such offering, All Kinds of Limbo, immersed us in an intimate 15-minute journey spanning multiple genres of music, including reggae, grime, classical, and calypso.

Commissioned by the National Theater, composed by Raffy Bushman alongside the NuShape Orchestra, and performed by Nubiya Brandon, All Kinds of Limbo revolves around Bushman’s life growing up mixed-race in the UK as well as the impact of West Indian culture on the UK music scene.

“Everyone just kind of said, why do you just write about you and what your upbringing has been like and the complications that you have faced?,” said Brandon while speaking to VRScout. “And it was really difficult. I really had to look at myself in the mirror to challenge myself; what I thought about myself in terms of colorism, features. These are very hard questions to ask yourself if you have to acknowledge that you’ve embodied certain elements of things. So I think that’s why I didn’t want to write about it initially, but I was ready to say what I needed to say.”

The result was a shared volumetric VR performance in which Brandon guides us via musical narration through multiple genres of music in the UK, each of which representing a different generation and message.

“We were looking for a way to produce projects that reflected the really positive influence of multiculturalism and mixed heritage culture on the UK and the world,” said Toby Coffey, Head of Digital Development at the National Theatre while speaking to VRScout. “And knowing that Raffy had come up with that idea for the musical evolution, I thought that was just a very beautiful idea. So we commissioned him to make that music, which is a 10-minute piece, and he brought in Nubia Brandon, who’s the lead performer in it.”

“She co-composed it with him and she’s written the lyrics of her own story. So you’ve got this decades-long musical evolution in the sound score, and then you’ve got Napier’s kind of contemporary reflection of what it’s like to grow up as a young black woman in the UK today.”

Right off the bat, All Kinds of Limbo hit us with some of the most impressive volumetric technology we’ve seen to date. As Brandon performed her catchy original, a 3D volumetric representation moved naturally throughout the digital space. Everything from the movement of her different outfits to the expression in her face had been captured with stunning clarity. As a result, I genuinely felt physical presence throughout the entirety of the performance. Viewing the action from a fleet of Oculus Quest headsets, each of us in attendance was represented in-headset as thin white lines. According to Coffey, this was a strategic decision.

“It was really important for me, that a group of people to do it together and also for it to be a life-size performance; we very much wanted to rest on the ceremony of performance. The reason avatars look the way they are is because I want you to know where the audience members are, but I don’t want you to see them dancing necessarily. Nubiya’s the performer here, not you with your bad dancing or moving around or whatever. So we made very specific decisions about how exactly the environment would be portrayed, how Nubia would be portrayed, and the audiences would be portrayed as well.”

“We did the whole show in a day, which is quite intense and quite significant I think, especially when you’ve got four costume changes and they’re completely different characters. But you know, the whole team is great; the process was great. We were the next people enough to Madonna, which added a certain vibe to the room. It was good because there are two musical performances back to back, but I think our performer is slightly better than the one that was in there before…”

Over the course of the 15-minute musical epic, we were immersed in four genres that have proved immensely important for the UK music scene: reggae, classical, grime, and calypso. Each genre offered a dramatic change in scenery as both Brandon and the environment transformed to better fit the current time period. For example, while exploring the calypso genre, we found ourselves outside a neon-lit nightclub standing next to Brandon, who is adorned in an old school white dress.

“A live performance to me is a real way to understand the fragile personalities that we as the artists have, which I know is like an age-old thing that a lot of us can be quite complicated as human beings, but that’s what makes it performance,” added Brandon. “So this was nice to carry that into something like this. And I felt like, you know, it’s quite weird watching myself, but it was really interesting. I got to really experience the idea of feeling my own pain through someone else’s eyes in a weird way.”

As for the future of this ambitious volumetric masterpiece, Coffey hopes to eventually tour the project in North America.

“So we are looking at U.S. venues at the moment. This piece is about the history of U.K. black music, which isn’t really known in the states. So it’s great for us to be able to bring that message out. We’re also being asked when it will be available in platform stores and I’ve got interesting tension because, yes, we want to get on stores so we can get downloads, but I also think that communal location-based entertainment is the more significant hurdle that we need to get over as an industry. So I feel like I need to put my energy in now a little bit more then we’ll release it to the stores, but I’m not sure about that yet.”

For more information on All Kinds of Limbo, check out the official Sundance profile or visit https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/all-kinds-of-limbo.

Feature Image Credit: Sundance Institute, Royal National Theatre

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Firewall Zero Hour’s Next Season Is Black Dawn, New Map Announced

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PSVR-exclusive shooter Firewall Zero Hour is due for its next big update with Operation: Black Dawn. The new season will introduce new free maps, weapons, contractors, and new rewards for its Op Pass.

Details are still extremely scarce on the Operation as a whole, but we’ve at least seen footage of the upcoming first of two new maps in action. Last week and today developers First Contact Entertainment showed off the map during their weekly ‘Firewall Zero Hour Dev Stream’ segment on the company’s YouTube channel.

You can watch last week’s video here, in which you can actually catch me playing with the developers:

And this week’s latest footage is here, where a new gun is shown off as well:

The new map takes place atop a large ship in the middle of the ocean with an impressive night sky overhead. There are multiple levels, staircases, and holes in the floor to get the jump on people below. It’s well laid out and, like most all maps in Firewall, does a good job of giving players lots of options.

In the past new season’s for Firewall Zero Hour always start with a new map and then bring a second new map midway through the season. The maps, as always, are free for all players, but other rewards, cosmetics, new contractors, etc all require you to pay. Some rewards can be earned for free during the season’s Operation by completing challenges and some can only be earned after purchasing the Op Pass, sort of like the Battle Pass you can get in games like Fortnite, PUBG, and Dauntless.

Firewall Zero Hour’s Black Dawn Operation begins on February 4th, 2020. The game is also free for all PS Plus subscribers throughout all of February.

For more on Firewall Zero Hour read our state of the game report from its first full year, our original review from launch, and our tips guide on getting started as a new player.

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Samsung Odyssey Bug-Eyed Patent, Quest’s Big Christmas & Win Audica! – VRecap

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There was a great mix of stories this week, from juicy headset rumors to VR success stories. Let’s jump right into the VRecap!

Okay, let’s state the facts here: These Samsung Odyssey patents are exciting, they’re not yet confirmed to be real, and they’d make me look like Jeff Goldblum in the worst way. It’s incredible how we’ve come so far in reducing bulky designs so quickly over the years, but Samsung is ready to throw it all away. Anyway, if you want to see more about the specs and less about it’s bugginess (get it, because the eyes), check out our article on it.

Oculus received the same Christmas present I’ve been asking for every year: five million dollars. It’s almost unsurprising to hear that they cashed in massively this Christmas – especially following the news of Quest being sold out during the holiday season.

And the last top story for this episode is the correction of the Steam’s VR hardware stats. VR is doing better than ever, we swear.

We’ve had two great ports this week, including Borderlands 2 VR on Index and Audica on Quest. Speaking of Audica on Quest, you’ve got a chance to grab a code for free in this week’s giveaway, courtesy of Harmonix! Enter the competition below for a chance to win – good luck!

GIVEAWAY: Win A Free Copy Of Audica On Oculus Quest!

There have been many great news stories this week but not all of them could make it into this episode, so here’s our honorable mentions for you:

Jesse Schell: ‘If Oculus Quest Can’t Succeed We Should Just Hang It Up’

Unity Now Supports Vulkan On Oculus Quest

February PlayStation Plus Games Include PSVR Shooter Firewall Zero Hour

Unity Deprecates Built-In Support For Daydream, Gear VR, And Valve’s OpenVR

Facebook Releases Beta Fix For Oculus Rift Stuttering Issue (But Not Link Yet)

Three New Free Beat Saber Songs Arrive In New Update From Cametek

Thanks for tuning in for another VRecap! See you same time next week.

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Audica Adds Four DLC Tracks Including Lizzo, The Weeknd, CHVRCHES

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Harmonix announced the addition of four more DLC tracks to Audica, including tracks from Lizzo, The Weeknd, CHVRCHES and Flo Rida. The tracks are available now, dropping just days after the Oculus Quest version of Audica released.

In our initial impressions of Audica on PC VR back in early access, we noted that the music library on offer was perhaps one of the weaker points at the time, with most of the music sounding similar and lacking diversity. This was one of the reasons it seemed hard to recommend Audica to anyone who was already enjoying Beat Saber.

However, since then the Audica library has really expanded and added some high profile tracks. As we noted earlier this week, the existing DLC tracks added since early access include high profile artists like Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande and Maroon 5. Now with this new drop of four DLC tracks, Harmonix is strengthening the selection even more.

The four new DLC tracks include Juice by Lizzo, Can’t Feel My Face by The Weeknd, The Mother We Share by CHVRCHES and GDFR by Flo Ride ft. Sage the Gemini and Lookas.

The DLC is available on all platforms, including the newly-launched Oculus Quest version of the game. I tried out Juice earlier today and had quite a bit of fun. It’s certainly nice to see rhythm games like Audica invoke such a wide and varied library of different songs – a book that Beat Games could probably take a page out of, in my opinion.

Will you be checking out these new DLC track in Audica? Let us know what you think in the comments.

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Editorial: If PSVR 2 Is To Be A Success, Sony Needs To Bring Out The Big Guns

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Earlier this week a rumor started circling, backed by respected outlets, that Resident Evil 8 would return to a first-person perspective.

Naturally, my first thought (and likely yours) was to what that could mean for VR support, which has been absent in the franchise since 2017’s Resident Evil 7. There’s been two admittedly very different Resident Evil games since and no VR support to speak of. The more I think about it, though, the more I’m convinced securing VR support for Resident Evil 8 is an essential step in Sony’s bid to win over skeptics with PSVR 2 and VR on PS5 in general.

Resident Evil 7’s surprise PSVR support — revealed in the middle of its historic E3 2016 press conference — sent a message for PSVR and the wider VR industry. It was an indication that VR wasn’t just going to be home to quirky, experimental experiences and franchises you’ve never heard of (even if, ultimately, the latter category hosts some of PSVR’s best games). More than anything, it was a promise that dedicated gamers would be rewarded for taking a risk on PSVR.

For the most part, Sony kept that promise over the past three and a bit years. Inarguably, PSVR performed far better than many skeptics would have believed, selling over 5 million units and amassing a hugely respectable library of games including big names like Skyrim VR and No Man’s Sky as well as compelling, VR-native properties like Blood & Truth and the wonderful Astro Bot: Rescue Mission.

But, overall, these releases have been few and far between; the last 6 months, in particular, have been noticeably barren for PSVR. August 2019’s release of No Man’s Sky Beyond was the last ‘big’ launch for the platform, and that won’t be followed up until at least the May 2020 launch of Iron Man VR. After that? Well, it may be a long wait for virtual salvation.

For its first run at the VR market, these shortcomings are frustrating, but understandable, especially given PS4’s relative lack of power compared to PCs. The next PSVR will be a headset with far less leniency paid its way. Much of PSVR’s life has been dominated by recurring discussions about how it is ‘early days’ for VR. The headset used decade-old tracking technology during a time when VR game design was still finding its footing. That can’t happen with PSVR 2; it must be a product that’s consumer ready from top to bottom.

But by the time Resident Evil 8 arrives we’ll be in a new era with very different expectations. Titles of Resident Evil’s size and scope made from the things learned after a half decade of VR game design would send the same kind of message Sony sent in 2016, especially when paired with the company’s stable of IP. Sony contends it cares about gamers and the games they play more than other companies, and doubling down on Resident Evil 8 in VR would reinforce that message for a new generation.

And that’s just the start of it. PSVR was also cursed with half-in VR modes like Gran Turismo Sport’s bare bones content. Gran Turismo 7, if it’s coming to PS5, needs to have full PSVR support. That is the level of commitment to the platform we should expect from Sony next generation, the level of commitment it needs to show to prove its serious about making VR a mainstream platform.

There are some quick wins the company could pull off in this category. Ports of some of the PC VR games that have evaded PSVR thus far are a must. Boneworks comes to mind, but Sony also needs to get Half-Life: Alyx running on a VR headset on PS5 as soon as humanly possible. Plus a rejuvenated backwards compatible library, which developers can patch to bring up to PC VR standards, will be essential.

PSVR 2 needs to be where Sony jumps from plucky experiments to a full fledged platform. To do that, it’s going to have to bring out the big guns. Let’s hope we see the company do just that in 2020.

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The VR Download EP13: New Odyssey, Walking Dead Crouching, Steam Hardware Survey, VR-AR-MR-XR

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VRMMO ‘OrbusVR’ to Launch Paid DLC Questlines This Year with ‘Mini Story Packs’

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OrbusVR, the virtual reality MMORPG, is getting heaps of new content this year, as the studio not only announced a continuation of the game’s ‘Explorer’s League’ questline, which is slated to bring multiple hours new gameplay next month, but also the first of a series of paid DLC ‘Mini Story Packs’ that promise to bring 10 -15 hours of additional content to the game.

Introduced last year, The Explorer’s League questline is getting its second phase starting February 10th, which is said to provide around 5-10 hours of new content and include rewards such as a Transmog chest piece, new dyes, achievements, and buildings upon completion of the storyline.

In light of the studio’s decision to make the game free-to-play up until level 10 on PC, it appears OrbusVR is looking towards paid DLC quests to keep players coming back for fresh content. The first paid Mini Story Pack is said to arrive Q2 2020, and will be priced at $10. The studio says it will include “all-new zones to explore, quest lines and NPCs, allowing you to experience Patreayl like you’ve never seen it before.”

Oculus Quest Duo Pack Discounts I Expect You To Die And The Under Presents

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This week’s Oculus Quest duo pack offers more savings on some of the platform’s lesser-known gems. You can currently grab I Expect You To Die and The Under Presents at a small discount.

Both games bundled together are going for $35.99, whereas they would have originally cost $44.98. It’s not the biggest price cut, but it’s a nice save to shave a few pennies off of two interesting Quest games. You have until Sunday to take advantage of the offer.

I Expect You To Die is Schell Games’ popular VR puzzler. You play as a secret agent dismantling evil plans from a secret organization. The escape room-style challenges make great use of VR. Plus, Schell Games has consistently added in new levels over the past few years (the final DLC went live in late 2019), significantly expanding the game’s value.

The Under Presents, meanwhile, is a more recent title from Virtual Virtual Reality developer, Tender Claws. It’s a sort of live VR theater in which actors give performances as you explore strange worlds. It has a set amount of content planned before it changes to a more pre-recorded format, so definitely jump into this one sooner rather than later.

The last duo bundle featured Sairento VR and Red Matter. These promotions seem to be doing a good job of highlighting some of Quest’s lesser known games beyond the usual heavy hitters like Beat Saber and Superhot.

Will you be picking up this bundle? What do you want to see in future duo packs? Let us know in the comments below.

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Social AR/VR Workspace ‘Spatial’ Secures $14M Series A Financing

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Spatial, a New York-based startup behind the eponymous real-time AR/VR collaboration platform, has secured $14 million in additional financing, bringing its overall funds to $22 million.

The latest funding round was led by White Star Capital, iNovia and Kakao Ventures, with continued participation from Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger and Zynga founder Mark Pincus. Existing Spatial investors also include the likes of Samsung NEXT, Baidu Ventures, and LG Ventures to name a few.

Founded in 2016 by Anand Agarawala and Jinha Lee, the company’s social AR/VR workspace has since gone on to include support for Microsoft HoloLens 2, Oculus Quest, Magic Leap 1, Qualcomm XR2, Android/iPhone mobile device and traditional monitors.

Thursday, 30 January 2020

Blood, Sweat, And Physics: How Boneworks Turns Your Body Into Its Key VR Game Mechanic

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When Boneworks (read our full review) released late last year from Stress Level Zero it led the charge in redefining how we interact with virtual objects in digital space. We took some time to speak with Brandon Laatsch from Stress Level Zero about the game’s innovations and successes.

By all accounts, Boneworks seems to have single-handedly ushered in a new era of interaction in VR games. For the next year or two I’d imagine we’ll often discuss types of interaction systems in terms of “pre” and “post” Boneworks. Or in other words, Stress Level Zero did some really impressive and immersive things with the way the game handles physics.

In most VR games before Boneworks when you reach out to touch something your virtual hand passes through it or becomes a silhouette of some kind to indicate you can’t do that. If you try to push open a door it doesn’t work unless you grab the door knob. If you want to shove an enemy you need to grapple them in the right spots and if you want to hit something hopefully you’ve found the right item and swing at something that’s assigned as having collision properties.

It was almost as if we were in the middle ground between traditional video games, limited by buttons and thumbsticks, and VR games, ideally limited only by the range of your body movement. It’s demonstrated best in this pseudo “Museum of VR” you find in the opening moments of Boneworks.

“After Duck Season we had a lot of ideas for what we could do that we felt would be much more mainstream and really push the medium forward, especially physics interaction in VR,” says Laatsch. “We had a lot of ideas from making YouTube videos [with Node] and seeing what people are responding to. Viral marketing is what sells games. What’s gonna sell new technology to people is seeing what their peers and people they relate to are playing and what they think of things. So we’re like, well, it’s very important to consider presentation inside the headset, as well as presentation outside of the headset.”

Boneworks Review 2

That’s on display immediately in Boneworks. When you pick up something that’s clearly heavy, like a metal barrel or a two-handed sledgehammer, you have to treat it as such. An early sign posted during the tutorial segment instructs you to pretend you’re lifting something in real life even though there’s not actually anything in your hands. Mime it, if you will.

That not only tricks your brain into moving accurately, but also makes it more entertaining and believable to watch for a viewer — which is crucial not just for selling VR to a consumer, but demonstrating it to friends too.

boneworks flashlight pistol

“We went after the genre of a physics action adventure FPS because it has a long tradition in the game industry of being a strong performer,” says Laatsch. “It’s what Sony goes after for a lot of their big tent pole releases.

“So we wanted to go after that and beyond and really tried to take a stab at being what we think action-adventures genre could become in VR, like, what does VR enable and that’s where the marriage of physics came in. Physics for a game can only go so far with a keyboard and mouse, you know. Following the launch of Half-Life 2 in 2004, you would say, ‘Oh, wow, the keyboard and mouse is really spectacular for physics input!’ But since then, in over 15 years, not a ton of expansion on physics has happened. You can list off some, like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of Wild, you have Red Faction, a handful of fitness games that have risen to the top, there’s Bioshock, There’s a handful of them, and then in terms of game design, a lot of that stuff somewhat stagnated over the last few years.”

If you draw a line charting the changes in how players interact with digital worlds using keyboards and gamepads since Half-Life 2, that line doesn’t have many fluctuations in it other than the titles Laatsch cites specifically.

Imagine playing a game like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (VR or otherwise) with an actual physics-simulated world rather than just a bunch of geometry you walk across and pick up a few items in. Bethesda does a great job of selling illusions, but when you craft a world full of physical interactions the illusion starts to become reality, at least virtually.

“Then we looked at VR input devices, like we have this three 6-DOF tracked devices between the headset and controllers and they’re very accurately tracked,” says Laatsch. This is the input we’ve been waiting for to be able to push things further, right? To push to beyond what’s out there in traditional gaming. And the nice thing too is because it’s your actual body, there are real world limitations to how fast those tracked devices can move. It’s not like the flick of a mouse where you can send your character spinning in a circle super rapidly because in the real world you can only move your hands so fast and you can only accelerate your hands so fast or whip your head so fast. Like there’s actual real world constraints which are tied to your own anatomy, right?”

boneworks holding gun

This is where the miming of actions becomes even more important. In a lot of video games your character learns new abilities and can suddenly swing weapons faster, hit harder, and do unnatural maneuvers that defy the laws of physics. But to instead flip things around and use the laws of physics as the basis for your gameplay puts added stress on your actual body. What looks cool and feels cool are often very different things in VR.

“So we figured this is ultimately where physics can take the next step. Boneworks is not saying, ‘Here’s a complete exploration of what can be done with physics in VR’ though, like no, we think of it as this is the beginning of it.

“And it’s our job and everybody else’s job, hopefully, to now try to go and, as much as I hate to say it, make Boneworks age poorly. Like, we want to look back in 10 years and say, ‘Dang! It was awesome for the first time, but it’s unplayable now!’ That just means that we’ve done a great job here and now.”

“We had to figure out what a longer form VR gameplay session looks like,” says Laatsch. “Like, how fast can you move and how quickly can you do things? Eventually playing just gets way too tiring for long sessions. We had that experience and compared to something like Sprint Vector, where it’s like, everyone only has a few good a few races in them where they’re trying their hardest before they get too tired…In that case, it’s a race. It’s supposed to be exertion. But looking at the action-adventure genre and looking at how we can encourage people to play for an hour-long session or two-hour long session or, you know, whatever…To try to stand, you know, try to be on your feet all day is like a very full day at work, and you come home, then you’re exhausted.”

As someone that often binges VR games to get through them for reviews, I can personally confirm how exhausting many of them tend to be. But as the medium continues to evolve and grow, making room for more physical games (without leaving behind less intensive experiences) is important for innovation.

“Design-wise we wanted to make something, reckoning back to what I was saying earlier about reading well to the 2D viewer as well as to the in-headset viewer,” says Laatsch.

“Ultimately, where does it go? It seems like VR is, you know, we’re getting to a great point in terms of the amount of installed hardware on the PC side of people having CPUs and GPUs powerful enough to buy it. They’re just a headset away and we’re seeing the headset conversion starting to really ramp up with a good assortment of quality headsets out there for them to buy.”

For more on the evolution of physics in VR, make sure and check out The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, which recently released, and Half-Life: Alyx, which is coming soon. You can also read our editorial on why these three games, including Boneworks, are so important.

Boneworks is available on Steam with support for all major PC VR headsets for $29.99. Read (or watch) our full review right here at UploadVR.

The post Blood, Sweat, And Physics: How Boneworks Turns Your Body Into Its Key VR Game Mechanic appeared first on UploadVR.

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Facebook CEO: “On Christmas Day, People Bought Almost $5M Worth Of Content In The Oculus Store”

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Mark Zuckerburg reveals interesting new sales figures during a Q4 2019 earnings call.

If you were one of the poor souls desperately trying to purchase an Oculus Quest this holiday season, you know better than anyone how difficult it’s been to locate a headset whose price hasn’t been inflated hundreds-of-dollars by third-party sellers. It’s clear Facebook’s standalone headset was a go-to gift this year, but a recent Q4 2019 earnings call delivered by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg sheds a little more light on Oculus’ success these past few months.

According to the Zuck, nearly $5M worth of VR content was purchased on the Oculus Store on Christmas Day; no doubt due in large part to the influx of new users who had been gifted their first Oculus headsets just that morning.

“We’ve also been focused on delivering the next computing platform with augmented and virtual reality,” stated Zuckerburg after briefly shining the spotlight on small businesses. “This is the holy grail of social experiences and it’s going to let us build things we’ve only dreamed of for the last 15 years — like letting people interact as if they’re in person together no matter where they are, or letting people live wherever they want and hologram into work so they can access opportunities anywhere and don’t have to move to a city or another country for a job.”

“We hit a real milestone for virtual reality with Quest,” he continues. “Sales are stronger than we expected and people are buying and engaging with more content than we’d expected too. On Christmas day, people bought almost $5 million worth of content in the Oculus Store. That’s an outlier day, but still this is real volume by any measure and it shows the progress this ecosystem is making. The experience also just keeps getting better. Last quarter we shipped hand-tracking, which almost no one thought we’d be able to pull off with the Quest hardware. And we shipped Oculus Link so you can run all your Rift content from your PC on Quest.”

Zuckerburg also took some time to reaffirm the company’s commitment to AR technology as well.

“On the AR side, while we’re working on the long term hardware and operating system, it’s worth noting that our Spark AR platform is the most widely used AR platform in the world with hundreds of millions of people interacting with effects every month. Artists are using this to create new face filters and other tools that are going viral across Instagram and Facebook. We’re well positioned here overall and we’re going to keep developing this platform.”

According to a recent SuperData report, Oculus sold over 705K Quest units in 2019, more than both the PC-powered Oculus Rift S and 3DoF standalone Oculus Go combined. Of course, there’s no way to confirm whether these figures are in fact accurate, a fact Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey is quick to point out.

For those interested in learning more about Oculus’ progress during Q4 2019, you can read through the entirety of Zuck’s earnings call here.

Feature Image Credit: Facebook Oculus

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Arizona Sunshine’s Free Old Mine Update Adds Terrifying New Horde Map To Oculus Quest

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Take on endless waves of Freddies in one of the campaigns scariest locations, the Old Dutchman Mine.

This past December, popular VR zombie shooter Arizona Sunshine made its way to the Oculus Quest, offering standalone users the chance to mow down hordes of undead flesh-eaters across a handful of captivating locations without the need of a beefed-up gaming PC. Later that month developer Vertigo Games released the Two-Handed Weapons Update, the first in a series of free updates heading to the Oculus Quest; this update introduced a handful of two-handed weapons such as the AK-47 and M1A1 Thompson.

Today we received our second free helping of content, The Old Mine Update. Available now to all Quest users, this latest DLC release adds a new horde map to the mix, the Old Dutchman Mine. Lauded as one of the most unsettling locations featured in the main campaign, this underground network of bridges and tunnels is hands-down one of the worst places you’d want to find yourself stuck in during a zombie apocalypse.

After playing a couple of rounds this morning, I found myself approaching each wave of enemies with a bit more strategy than I had while playing the original horde map. Tight corners made it easy for Freddies to sneak up on my team and me undetected and the maze-like system of ramps and platforms made ammo caches difficult to access. Of course, the biggest challenge is the map’s lighting.

Armed with a single flashlight, I kept my eyes fixated on the shadows around me, each one serving as the perfect cover for a flesh-hungry zombie. Even with my head on a constant swivel, it was difficult to keep track of the dozens of zombies that were spilling out of every crack and crevasse of the decrepit underground shaft.

To assist players in surviving this nightmarish map, Oculus has provided a handful of survival tips that should prove useful while navigating the Old Dutchman Mine:

Get to know the map. Explore as much as you can early on. Knowing where the ammo will be is a big advantage when the Freddies are coming.
The Freddies are endless. Before you can clear the first wave, another wave is already incoming! So keep moving and keep collecting ammo—you will definitely need it.
Build a solid loadout. A shotgun and a pistol is a good combo. Try to aim for the head to conserve ammo, and when they get too close, use your shotgun to get rid of them fast.
Bring a friend—or three. You’re stronger in a party. Having someone watch your back while you reload is vital, and getting that new weapon from a difficult spot is easier with someone at your side.

Arizona Sunshine’s next free update, Undead Valley, will offer yet another free horde map to standalone users when it arrives on Quest headsets next month. Following the release of Undead Valley will be the first of Arizona Sunshine’s two paid DLC add-ons, Dead Man DLC, for $2.49.

Arizona Sunshine is available now on Oculus Quest for $34.99.

Feature Image Credit:

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Join Us LIVE On YouTube To Discuss The Week’s News & The XR/VR/AR/MR Debate

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UploadVR’s weekly podcast, The VR Download, is LIVE on YouTube today at 10:30am PST (18:30 UTC)!

Unlike regular video podcasts, The VR Download is broadcast from virtual reality! Our team are together in a virtual space, giving us many of the benefits of a studio even though we live on different continents.

This week’s Hot Topic: What do the terms VR AR MR & XR actually mean? Does it matter?

If you want to know more about The VR Download, head on over to our new webpage for the show!

As always, we’ll also be making it available for audio-only listening on Apple, Google, Spotify, TuneIn/Alexa, Stitcher, and more within a couple of hours of airing.

Watch In VR With Bigscreen!

Every episode, you can watch The VR Download LIVE in virtual reality with an audience of other VR users on any major VR headset (including Oculus Quest and Oculus Go!), via the Bigscreen platform.

Click on the image above to subscribe to the event.

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Facebook’s Non-Advertising Revenue Growth ‘Driven By Sales Of Oculus Quest’

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During Facebook Q4 2019 earnings call, CFO David Wehner revealed that ‘Other’ revenue growth in 2019 was driven by the company’s room scale standalone VR headset, Oculus Quest.

“Other revenue was $346 million, up 26%. Year-over-year growth was driven by sales of Oculus Quest.”

Additionally, CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that Quest sales “are stronger than we expected” — a statement he has not made about any other Oculus headset.

It’s important to note that “Other” is the smallest section of Facebook’s revenue. The company’s main business is still targeted advertising, which brought in over 98 percent of revenue.

Facebook did not give specific sales numbers for its consumer VR hardware products, and it has never done so.

Comparing To Go & Rift Statements

A year ago, during the Q4 2018 earnings call, Wehner stated that Oculus Go, the company’s previous standalone headset, “contributed” to growth in that quarter. Go is a low end headset which can only track your head’s rotation, not position.

However, Go was also mentioned as also being a notable contributor to costs, in the form of marketing. This likely referred to its celebrity campaign featuring Wiz Khalifa, Jonah Hill, Adam Levine, Leslie Jones, and Awkwafina.

Oculus Go celebrity marketing — Oculus Go sales were notable in holiday quarter 2018 when the company launched an expensive celebrity marketing campaign.

The Quest statement from this week’s call is more significant because it referred to the entire year, not just the holiday quarter. Both Quest and Go launched in May (of 2019 and 2018 respectively). Quest driving non-advertising growth for 2019 despite launching almost half way through the year is thus fairly significant. However, this has to be balanced with the fact that each Quest sale earns twice the revenue of a Go sale.

Unlike Go, no mention was made of Quest contributing significantly to marketing costs. While Facebook has taken a more games-focused approach with ads such as Defy Reality, the ads without celebrities have also been blasted pretty widely across many channels.

In 2016 after the Rift launch Wehner had very different news, simply stating “It’s not going to be material to our financials this year.” That is the only time the Rift line’s financials have been referred to in Facebook earnings calls.

Quest: The Ideal Middle Ground?

The Oculus Rift delivered a high end positional tracked VR experience back in 2016, and the Rift S continues that category of PC-based VR. But the relatively small existing ownerbase and high cost of gaming computers limit this market’s size.

The $200 Oculus Go delivered on a low cost, completely standalone experience in 2018. But its lack of positional tracking and limited laser pointer controller meant it just doesn’t have the immersion or active content that 6DoF VR can deliver.

Quest appears to deliver on the ideal middle ground. In many ways, it is the type of VR headset Oculus always wanted to build, even before the Facebook acquisition. Fully standalone and wireless, but with room scale positional tracking and tracked controllers.

This lets Quest play the same kind of active room scale games as PC VR, while still remaining relatively affordable. The combination of these factors is the product’s unique offering.

Quest has been consistently backordered since late November. In the US, a Rift S order placed on the official sales site at this time of writing would arrive on Monday, whereas a Quest would arrive four weeks later. Facebook executives stated on multiple occasions that it is building Quest “as fast as we can”.

When Quest was formally announced as a product in September 2018, many in the industry were skeptical that its smartphone processor could deliver compelling enough experiences to drive consumer interest. Those doubts seem to have disappeared as many of PC VR’s most popular titles have been ported to the standalone headset. The graphics are much less detailed of course, but they retain the full body movement and hand-based interactions which work at any level of graphical realism.

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Mark Zuckerberg: ‘people bought nearly $5M in Oculus Store content on Christmas Day’

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Zuckerberg at F8 2019 | courtesy Anthony Quintano (CC BY 2.0)

In Facebook’s quarterly earnings call yesterday, company CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that the Oculus Store had sold nearly $5 million worth of content on Christmas Day alone.

Zuckerberg says in the Q4 2019 earnings call that the Christmas Day boom was an “outlier day,” although it represents what he calls “real volume by any measure” and that it shows the progress the ecosystem is making.

While the Oculus Store provides hardware-specific VR content for the ‘tethered’ PC VR headsets Rift & Rift S, the 6DOF standalone Oculus Quest, and the more diminutive 3DOF standalone Oculus Go, this year’s holiday winner seems to have been Quest.

The standalone headset provides many of the top games made famous on PC VR headsets, albeit tailored to fit onto Quest’s humble Snapdragon 835 mobile chipset. Releasing support for Oculus Link a month before Christmas, Quest users can also now play Rift games too by connecting to a VR-ready PC with a USB-C cable.

All of this combined with its $400 price point, and Facebook has managed to create a strong enough draw with Quest to send it out of stock since well before Christmas, with back orders still projected to ship in late February as stocks rebound from the holiday rush.