We’ll be in our virtual studio broadcasting the VR Download podcast live to YouTube Thursday at 1 pm Pacific! More than one of us will be wearing Oculus Quest 2 for the conversation in our studio made in Unity by David Heaney and using both hand tracking and Oculus Avatars. If you have any questions about Quest 2 or VR in general, tune in live — we’re able to read all the YouTube comments from within the studio. Even if we don’t answer your question, there’s a good chance our helpful community might have the answer.
We’ll also be diving into the huge game release season that’s underway with hands-on reports, impressions and reviews to share for all the latest major game releases. We plan on talking about each of the following subjects in depth:
Just ask your virtual assistant to play “The VR Download Podcast” and you should be listening to our latest episode. Subscribe to our channel to get notifications for new videos and check back here at 1 pm Pacific time to dig through the latest VR news with us!
Star Wars: Squadrons releases October 2nd (check out our info roundup for more details) and is fully playable not only in VR, but with a flight stick or full HOTAS (Hands-On Throttle And Stick) setup on both PC VR and PSVR. This is our list of the best options!
[When you purchase items through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission from those sales.]
One note worth mentioning is that Star Wars: Squadrons is not a space flight sim. This is an arcade-style space combat game. While you will need to manage power systems and fly well during dogfights, it’s relatively pick up and play compared to more complex games. As a result, it’s totally playable on just a controller, keyboard and mouse, or even a single flight stick without a full HOTAS if you wanted.
Since this very well may be the first real game many people have played with a flight stick or HOTAS, we’ve got a list of the best controllers to get for that game — or any compatible VR game.
Best Flight Sticks And HOTAS Controllers For Flight Sims and Star Wars: Squadrons
This is the HOTAS I have at home that I have continued to use personally after reviewing it back in 2017. while I haven’t too spend much time with it since I don’t play a lot of flight sims, it’s still been a great experience every time I have used it. The stick itself is extremely sturdy and feels fantastic in my hand. There is a throttle as well, but I personally usually just use the stick because it has a built-in slider at the bottom that acts like a throttle. So I rest my left hand on the left side and move the throttle slider with my thumb.
One feature I love is that you can twist the stick (in addition to pushing it forward, back, left, and right obviously) which is great in flight games for yaw control, or rotation of your ship. You can get just the stick for around $100 instead, which is what I prefer on PC as explained.
I have not personally used this one but it’s recommended often across message boards and Reddit, plus it has great reviews coming in at 4.5 stars after over 5,000 ratings. That’s quite solid. It’s more affordable than the previous option with similar functionality here — although the stick and throttle do seem to be connected. I love the ergonomic design and easily accessible buttons on both sides of the device though.
I have not used this stick, but plenty of people recommend it (4.5 stars on nearly 4,000 ratings) as an extremely affordable entry-level stick-only device. There’s no throttle included at all, but for this price it’s hard to beat. You get 12 buttons and enough stick movement to play most VR games that function with a stick only.
If you’re planning to play Squadrons on PSVR (or other games like Ace Combat 7 or EVE Valkyrie Warzone) then this is a great HOTAS to get. Jamie played Ace Combat 7 in PSVR with this and loved using it. I haven’t used it recently, but I did use it at an event once and really enjoyed the feel and design. It’s similar to the HOTAS X from above, but a little cheaper, and with PS4 support. There are only 440 reviews on Amazon as of the time of this writing, but it seems to be a good all-around choice if you want a decent HOTAS setup without breaking the bank.
This setup is a little pricier, but you get the benefit of a device that is tailor-made for the PS4. This even has a built-in PS4 touchpad so you don’t need to take off the headset or grab a controller at all. Additionally, like the T.16000 for PC and most other premium HOTAS setups, you can separate the throttle and stick for a more comfortable arrangement.
Good luck finding one, but this is one of the most premium HOTAS setups you can get for PC. As a premium offering, this setup is more than just a game controller — it’s an actual replica from the U.S. Air Force A 10C aircraft. All the buttons, switches, and physical components look just like they do in that aircraft’s cockpit. That’s pretty wild and it features over 19 buttons with fantastic precision.
That’s our list of flight stick and HOTAS recommendations for VR space combat and flight sim games. Are you excited for Star Wars: Squadrons? Do you have other recommendations? Let us know down in the comments below!
ViRTC allows you to stream your PC screen to your Oculus Quest entirely through browsers on both ends. It’s free and you don’t install anything on either end.
To use it, simply navigate to ViRTC.app in a browser on your PC. You’ll get a 6 digit code. Now load up that same website in Oculus Browser on your Quest and enter the code. It’s really that simple.
You don’t need to install anything, and the streaming quality is surprisingly great. This article was written using it. Annoyingly though, ViRTC doesn’t send input- you need to use your PC’s mouse & keyboard.
Oculus Browser treats ViRTC as a fullscreen video, so you can actually use it to watch 3D or 360 videos from your PC too.
So what is this sorcery? ViRTC leverages WebRTC, the open source real time communications framework built into every modern web browser. If you’ve used voice or video calling in a browser, it was very likely powered by WebRTC. It operates peer to peer and your PC connects to your Quest directly.
Of course, streaming is only one of the many features of Virtual Desktop. The $20 app is a result of years of work. Virtual Desktop lets you precisely customize the size, position and curvature of your screen. It lets you use your Touch controllers or hands as a mouse pointer. It passes through Bluetooth gamepads and keyboards. It has special environments like a cinema. It works even outside your LAN. It supports multiple monitors. And with the patch on SideQuest, it even turns your Quest into a wireless PC VR headset.
But if all you want to do is view your PC screen in VR, ViRTC can do just that.
What Virtual Desktop doesn’t have though is passthrough support. Since ViRTC uses Oculus Browser, you can set your Oculus Home to Passthrough+ to stay aware of the real world. Facebook doesn’t yet let apps support passthrough, but plans to next year.
Star Wars: Squadrons releases October 2nd (check out our info roundup for more details) and is fully playable not only in VR, but with a flight stick or full HOTAS (Hands-On Throttle And Stick) setup on both PC VR and PSVR. This is our list of the best options!
[When you purchase items through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission from those sales.]
One note worth mentioning is that Star Wars: Squadrons is not a space flight sim. This is an arcade-style space combat game. While you will need to manage power systems and fly well during dogfights, it’s relatively pick up and play compared to more complex games. As a result, it’s totally playable on just a controller, keyboard and mouse, or even a single flight stick without a full HOTAS if you wanted.
Since this very well may be the first real game many people have played with a flight stick or HOTAS, we’ve got a list of the best controllers to get for that game — or any compatible VR game.
Best Flight Sticks And HOTAS Controllers For Flight Sims and Star Wars: Squadrons
This is the HOTAS I have at home that I have continued to use personally after reviewing it back in 2017. while I haven’t too spend much time with it since I don’t play a lot of flight sims, it’s still been a great experience every time I have used it. The stick itself is extremely sturdy and feels fantastic in my hand. There is a throttle as well, but I personally usually just use the stick because it has a built-in slider at the bottom that acts like a throttle. So I rest my left hand on the left side and move the throttle slider with my thumb.
One feature I love is that you can twist the stick (in addition to pushing it forward, back, left, and right obviously) which is great in flight games for yaw control, or rotation of your ship. You can get just the stick for around $100 instead, which is what I prefer on PC as explained.
I have not personally used this one but it’s recommended often across message boards and Reddit, plus it has great reviews coming in at 4.5 stars after over 5,000 ratings. That’s quite solid. It’s more affordable than the previous option with similar functionality here — although the stick and throttle do seem to be connected. I love the ergonomic design and easily accessible buttons on both sides of the device though.
I have not used this stick, but plenty of people recommend it (4.5 stars on nearly 4,000 ratings) as an extremely affordable entry-level stick-only device. There’s no throttle included at all, but for this price it’s hard to beat. You get 12 buttons and enough stick movement to play most VR games that function with a stick only.
If you’re planning to play Squadrons on PSVR (or other games like Ace Combat 7 or EVE Valkyrie Warzone) then this is a great HOTAS to get. Jamie played Ace Combat 7 in PSVR with this and loved using it. I haven’t used it recently, but I did use it at an event once and really enjoyed the feel and design. It’s similar to the HOTAS X from above, but a little cheaper, and with PS4 support. There are only 440 reviews on Amazon as of the time of this writing, but it seems to be a good all-around choice if you want a decent HOTAS setup without breaking the bank.
This setup is a little pricier, but you get the benefit of a device that is tailor-made for the PS4. This even has a built-in PS4 touchpad so you don’t need to take off the headset or grab a controller at all. Additionally, like the T.16000 for PC and most other premium HOTAS setups, you can separate the throttle and stick for a more comfortable arrangement.
Good luck finding one, but this is one of the most premium HOTAS setups you can get for PC. As a premium offering, this setup is more than just a game controller — it’s an actual replica from the U.S. Air Force A 10C aircraft. All the buttons, switches, and physical components look just like they do in that aircraft’s cockpit. That’s pretty wild and it features over 19 buttons with fantastic precision.
That’s our list of flight stick and HOTAS recommendations for VR space combat and flight sim games. Are you excited for Star Wars: Squadrons? Do you have other recommendations? Let us know down in the comments below!
The colossal, inner-city VR arcade is back in business and ready to finally re-open.
In Midtown Manhattan, on East 34th Street, you simply cannot miss VR World. Its owners are not trying to be discreet—by design, the cyber-funky facade and neon-lit interior stand out against the gray and soft brown modern architecture of the notable neighborhood.
Having moved right to the address next door and remodeled everything from its image and brand to the multiple floors of the former bank it now lives in, VR World re-opened to the public in January this year, only to shut its doors just six weeks later after its owners successfully predicted the quarantine orders that would come to hit the streets of New York City.
Leo Tsimmer and Angelika Lee, founding members of the mixed reality space, weathered the bad news given the massive renovation they had counted on to entice new customers. Recently, VR World has been allowed to start up reservations and bookings again, or in other words, re-re-open.
The venue currently includes multiple floors of mixed reality content, including games, films, experimental works, and music experiences, plus a bar area and rotating selection of new media art installations. Don’t forget the gift shop, too.
“Technology can make people feel disconnected. We want to use virtual reality to bring people together in a meaningful way. It’s really powerful,” says Lee. She’s always felt profoundly connected to immersive technology from the start, seeing it as a tool for empathy, spirituality and storytelling.
The VR World founders know that the business of location-based entertainment (LBE) spaces, namely VR arcades, is a risky venture given that many consumers still don’t know or have any experience with modern VR technology. It’s also the reason why Lee and Tsimmer are adamant about maintaining their venue—they know it makes the immersive headsets more readily accessible and people love having experiences out in the world with friends.
“People ask, ‘Why would you want to [start an arcade]?’ Why can’t I just do [VR] at home?’” says Tsimmer. “I ask back, “When I try to drink at home it doesn’t feel as good as when I go out and drink at the bar.’ We’re leveraging technology to bring people together. They laugh, they share, they talk to each other while watching the same film in different headsets; people want to do things together, they want to share experiences. We show new entertainment through this new and amazing technology to bring people together to make them happy.”
Even in a global pandemic people still want to have fun…clean, safe, fun. In an effort to give the people what they want, VR World has been trying new ways to give guests a dignified and accessible arrangement regardless of recent complications. Despite the hardship and devastation the pandemic has caused to countless businesses and industries, Tsimmer still sees it as a silver-lining and a “nitro booster for XR.”
“VR World’s multilevel design with partitioned spaces is conducive to social distancing,” he shares. “With futuristic minimalist design and chemical lab-like epoxy flooring, the UV cleaning chamber and antibacterial cleaning supplies, [we are protected]. Things that we were already doing have become a new norm for many due to COVID-19, but for us it’s quite normal to how we are used to operating [to keep things clean].”
“We think of COVID as a catalyst for the industry,” he goes on. “It’s a catalyst that accelerated our digital strategy implementation. If you are in retail, entertainment or any other consumer-facing location based business with no model for digital operation, your days are numbered. What worked poorly in pre-COVID will not survive, and what worked well, will keep going.”
Itching to check out VR World? Shoot some zombies? Watch some VR-ready art films? Check out the venue’s Covid-19 policies before visiting. With their newly implemented time slot reservation system helps visitors book a time and date while signing a waiver before entering. Participants will receive an automatic reply with access to user-profile and QR code that serves as a ticket and payment method onsite.
Welcome to VR Roulette! This is our LIVE weekly game show on YouTube that’s streamed (usually) at 10AM PT on Wednesdays. We select a list of weird, quirky, and/or bizarre VR games and take turns spinning the wheel to see what we’ve all got to play next. Tune in with us live on YouTube! Read our announcement article for more details.
David’s out fighting space scuffles, so it’s time for an all-UK episode of VR Roulette with Jamie and Zeena!
No time for being overly polite and discussing foreign trade policy though (that’s the only Brexit joke we’ll be allowing). I’m afraid we’ll be busy chucking snowballs in Snowday, sorting eggs from bombs (for some reason) in Egg Time and fending off hordes of giant rats in the rather terrifying-looking MegaRats. There’s also a Doritos VR Battle game, which is the most exciting thing to happen to Zeena since the advent of the 3D Dorito. We even have our first request! But you’ll have to tune in to learn all about it.
But enough 90’s confectionary trivia; we’ve got a gameshow to make. Be here bright and early at 10am PT for all the usual shenanigans. Apologies in advance for this week’s thumbnail.
Do you have any recommendations for games or types of games you’d like to see in future VR Roulette episodes? Do you think we could do anything to make the show better (keeping in mind David lives in California and Jamie/Zeena live in the UK) or is it good as-is right now?
Let us know your thoughts down in the comments down below!
HP takes aim at developers and enterprises with its Omnicept ecosystem.
HP today announced the latest addition to its growing lineup of PC VR headsets, the HP Reverb G2 Omnicept Edition, an even more powerful rendition of the previously-announced HP Reverb G2 designed specifically for use by developer and enterprise clients. What makes the Omnicept Edition so unique compared to the consumer and business-focused Reverb G2, you ask?
It all comes down to the new Omnicept Solution Ecosystem, which is composed of the HP Reverb G2 Omnicept Edition headset, the HP Omnicept SDK, and ISV XR Application Partners.
HP REVERB G2 OMNICEPT EDITION
According to HP, the Reverb G2 Omnicept Edition was designed around four specific use-cases: training, collaboration, creation, and well-being. In order to accomplish these diverse objectives, the enterprise-focused headset has been outfitted with a number of game-changing features. The first of which being built-in eye-tracking technology capable of monitoring the wearer’s eye movements while in-headset. From an enterprise and developer perspective, this technology could prove to be a well of information in regards to user behavior.
In addition to eye-tracking, the Omnicept Edition also features what HP claims to be the “first” built-in face camera on a VR headset. This additional tracker, which is located beneath the headset near the wearers’ mouth, is capable of tracking various lip movements and facial expressions, allowing for more natural face-to-face encounters in VR as opposed to the stoic encounters we’re used to.
Finally, there’s the heart rate tracker. Yes, the heart rate tracker. Located near the wearer’s forehead, a nifty little sensor can be used to capturer the wearers’ heart rate in real-time. HP hopes this could prove useful when it comes to well-being applications. During the virtual announcement, HP explained how the technology could be used in tandem with the headsets’ various other tracking capabilities to monitor a wearers’ stress throughout various experiences, offering developers better insight into what parts of their projects users find the most relaxing and or stressful.
Other than these additional sensors, the Omnicept features the same core design and visual capabilities as the standard Reverb G2, the lone exception being the return of the classic ratcheting headband featured on OG Windows Mixed Reality headsets.
OMNICEPT SDK
In addition to hardware, HP also revealed their new Omnicept SDK, a powerful new solution that, when paired with the Reverb G2 Omnicept, can be used to understand a user’s behavior and provide detailed information based on their “in-game” performance. As previously mentioned, Omnicept technology could allow developers to track the stress level of a user as they interact with a particular experience in real-time.
One Omnicept partner, Ovation, uses VR technology to help clients develop their soft skills via public speaking simulations. The Omnicept platform can accurately track the user’s stress to determine which portions of the speech they are struggling with the most. It can detect not only where a user is focusing their attention, but how effectively their attention is being held.
Doing particular well in a certain training exercise? The platform could recognize your individual skill level and ramp up the difficulty to offer a more appropriate challenge.
With full access to real-time biometric data, developers have a whole new level of insight into a user’s behavior and psychology. All this power will come at a price, however. While the SDK itself is free to all, those looking to launch an in-house solution will need to purchase a one-time license; official license holders are barred from reselling the product. There’s also the ISV Application Partnership, a program in which developers can sell their Omnicept software to enterprise customers with a certain percentage of their revenue going back to HP.
According to HP, all this extremely private biometric data is safely secured off the headset and protected by a legal framework.
APPLICATION PARTNERS
At the moment, HP is currently in talks with over 30 potential clients looking to integrate the Omnicept platform into their respective organizations. As previously mentioned, public speaking skills specialist Ovation has already begun using Omnicept’s biometric capabilities to enhance their existing VR public speaking platform. Workplace safety expert Pixo has also incorporated the technology into its training curriculum.
The HP Reverb G2 Omnicept Edition is expected to launch Spring 2021, with certain features, such as facial tracking, arriving at a later date. Developers can begin working on software today using the official Omnicept SDK.
Ilysia is an upcoming VR MMO that hit Kickstarter earlier this month with a modest budget of $60,000. It seems developers Team 21 Studio have struck a chord with the VR community, as the Sword Art Online-style MMORPG has recently doubled its funding goal with only a few days remaining in the campaign.
Creating an MMO for VR is a tall order, however Team 21 Studio is hoping to bring their ambitious project to life on all major VR headsets, including PC VR, Oculus Quest, and PlayStation VR. The game is expected to release to backers sometime in 2021.
The funding campaign is set to end on October 4th, but it’s already unlocked a number of stretch goals along the way, including additional starting races, multi-user mounts, additional starting zones, a pet & mount breeding system, and full-body tracking support.
Here’s how the studio describes Ilysia:
In Ilysia, players will travel alongside one another or embark on solo journeys as they quest, fight, grow, and explore a multitude of unique areas with their own set of challenges throughout their adventures. These zones will present an increasing challenge of monsters, quests, dungeons, world bosses, caves, and large outdoor cities, all waiting to be explored, conquered, and to have their secrets revealed. Live the wonder, excitement, and glory days of MMOs like never before, in truly immersive VR.
Ilysia is said to allow players to explore each area without limits, letting you climb rocks and trees, explore caves, discover secrets and treasures distinctive to each area which include things like unique armors, weapons, and items that the player can then use or sell.
According to Team 21 Studio, there’s also plenty of beasts, world bosses, and both megalithic ‘Guardians’ and ‘Titans’ to contend with, which can be done via both melee and ranged weapons. PvP combat in Ilysia will be entirely optional for players, the studio says.
Players will be able to pick a number of different humanoid races such as Humans, Elves, Dwarves and the possibility of animalistic races in the future too. There’s no rigid class system to speak of, as leveling is done through the game’s 24 skill trees, which lets you pick up any weapon or activity and level up with that specific skill.
If you want to learn more about Ilysia, check out the game’s Kickstarter campaign for a wealth of information surrounding the game’s finer points. We haven’t gone hands-on with the pre-alpha yet, which was available at the start of the campaign, but if you want to see some of Ilysia in action, check out YouTuber ‘Matteo331’ for an insider look at the pre-alpha.
Facebook’s technical guide John Carmack spoke unscripted for more than an hour on September 16th.
Carmack’s talk followed a day of presentations and a news-packed keynote formally announcing the $299 Oculus Quest 2 powered by Facebook. The talk came at the end of the day and requires your full attention to process in real-time, so it’s totally understandable if you haven’t had time yet to watch it.
The densely packed talk covers the internal debate over the prospect of a wireless PC VR “Air Link” for Oculus Quest as well as the overall execution of Facebook’s social VR strategy. I’ve listened through the talk a couple times now and pulled out the following 11 quotations to highlight the most interesting things Carmack said.
Facebook Defying Distance
“This could be kind of insensitive but the global lockdown and pandemic should have been sort of the global coming of age for virtual reality where this was the opportunity to defy distance, defy reality, and all of that, but we’re only sort of accidentally benefitting from this, where not only were we sold out most of the time — we couldn’t just produce units that people wanted to buy, and that is not an easy thing to just rapidly change….but worse, all of our social experiences were basically killed or deprecated…so we made this huge bet on Horizon.” — 00:03:03
Location-Based VR Killed By COVID-19
“Unfortunately location-based VR has probably taken a terminal hit from this. It’s going to be a long time before people probably feel comfortable going someplace and putting on a shared public headset and that’s, you know, too bad.” — 00:05:12
Exercise In VR Is A Winning Application
“Exercise as a primary application of VR is really winning…People are ok with kind of making a sweaty mess in their own personal headset.” — 00:06:00
Quest 2 “Very Close To A Pure Win”
“The original Quest turned out to be more right than we really expected…Quest 2 is better, faster, cheaper, and we’re making a ton more of them…this is very close to a pure win…The actual resolution is 3664×1920 but it’s a full RGB stripe…that means it is a little over twice the number of subpixels [as compared to Quest].” — 00:14:06
“You Could Start Doing Real Work” With VR Now
“You can have multiple 1080 screens…this is getting to the point where you could start doing some real work with it, it might have some advantages over laptops in some situations.” — 00:16:33
Oculus Quest’s Wireless “Air Link”
“We still haven’t announced a full wireless connection system for Link and we have these interminable arguments internally about this — about quality bars — and I…can say right this very minute someone is using a wireless VR streaming system and getting value from it…we should have some kind of an Air Link.” — 00:31:29
Improved Headset Cameras After Quest 2
“Whatever the next headset is we’ve got to get higher resolution on the tracking cameras.” — 00:59:12
Ultra Lightweight Headsets
“We did look at this for the latter days of Gear VR, doing this kind of two part plug-in instead of drop-in, and there may still be some useful things to go there…There are still some things for which Go is the best headset.” — 01:00:45
VR Phone Calls
“Eventually putting on the headset should be as seamless as answering a phone call because eventually you might sort of be answering phone calls in VR if we get to where we want to be with communication…you want to be able to be paged, put on the headset and just immediately be there. …” — 01:02:04
Competing Visions
“Having things converged now on our VR platforms is an enormous relief. It’s really hard to overstate how much drama internally this has been over the years, where my vision for VR was always as this universal device — we should be able to play games, we should be able to browse the web, we should be able to do productivity things, we should be able to connect to a PC, to cloud services…its virtual, we can do anything, it should be universal. But most of the other founders were really about ‘we want this high-end awesome gaming system’ and this caused enormous tension through the years. And its kind of ironic how we wound up with this system where we have this lower-powered gaming focused device which wasn’t really what anybody was aiming for at the beginning…” — 1:02:31
Future Controllers
“Maybe you have a controller-free SKU but the controllers are more expensive but they never lose tracking.” — 1:08:47
HP stated that its upcoming Reverb G2 headset currently doesn’t support Xbox One consoles after a Microsoft Store listing suggested otherwise.
The listing is a free app that appears to be a utility for performing a first-time setup of the headset. Under both the minimum and recommended specifications, the OS category reads “Windows 10 version 15063.0 or higher, Xbox One,” as pictured below.
Reaching out to HP, the company told us that there is “no current support” for Xbox One with the Reverb G2. The listing is likely an error, though it’s still up and visible as of the time of this writing.
Xbox VR support has been rumored for a long time in one form or another. The Reverb G2 is made in partnership with Microsoft (along with Valve), so a partnership to bring the kit to console would make sense. Another reason the listing is likely a mistake is that only the Xbox One is mentioned in the app listing, and not the newer Xbox One S, Xbox One X, Xbox Series S or Series X consoles. However, if the original Xbox One model can support VR content, then the newer One models and the next generation Series models should hypothetically be able to as well.
While the application listing is specifically for the Reverb G2, that doesn’t rule out the possibility of connecting other VR headsets to Xbox consoles either. That being said, Flight Simulator will launch VR support exclusively for Windows MR headsets this Fall, and the Xbox release of the title is still forthcoming. Xbox VR could take a similar path, with exclusive support for Windows MR hardware to tie in with the launch Xbox of Flight Simulator around the same time.
ILMxLAB is again teaming up with VR arcade company Nomadic to bring a new version of the ‘Lightsaber Dojo’ from Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series to locations worldwide.
With the help of Nomadic, Lucasfilms’ immersive entertainment studio ILMxLAB brought an arcade-style Lightsaber Dojo experience to pop-up installation at select locations late last year. Now the studios are partnering again to produce a version inspired by the Lightsaber Dojo in the third, and final episode.
There’s no word on where you’ll be able to play just yet, however Sean Griffin, President of Nomadic, says Star Wars fans “worldwide” will be able to experience it. The studios’ Lightsaber Dojo from last year, which was based on the mini-game from Vader Immortal: Episode II (2019), was held in pop-up locations across North America.
“The ILMxLAB team is excited to bring a new chapter to the Lightsaber Dojo experience,” said ILMxLAB Senior Producer, Shereif Fattouh. “Fans will soon have the unique opportunity to battle Darth Vader himself using all their abilities in the ultimate test of skill.”
Just like in the Lightsaber Dojo from the third episode, fans will get a chance to handle lightsabers, blasters, and use the Force to combat waves of droids, stormtroopers, and other creatures before a climactic fight with Darth Vader. Check out some gameplay footage of the original Lightsaber Dojo III below, courtesy YouTube channel ‘cycyclist’:
“Nomadic is thrilled to once again partner with ILMxLAB to bring guests into the world of Star Wars,” said Sean Griffin, President of Nomadic. “Our new form factor will deliver a more immersive experience for players, will provide a social viewing experience for their friends and family, and is more efficient for family entertainment centers and arcades to operate. We can’t wait for Star Wars fans worldwide to experience it.”
There’s no word on which VR headset arcade-goers will play on, as the studios only make mention of “a top-of-the-line virtual reality headset,” however it’s likely that due to ILMxLAB’s previous engagements with Oculus that it will be an Oculus Quest 2 headset.
The studios says details on availability and pricing of Vader Immortal – Lightsaber Dojo will be available at a later date. We’ll have our eyes peeled in the coming weeks.
Mark Scrhamm’s Gravity Lab is the next game to get a seemingly noticeable bump in graphics for the upcoming Oculus Quest 2.
The physics-based puzzler, which first released on PC VR back in 2016 but hit Quest a little earlier this year, just got the update for free. Quest 2 isn’t out for another few weeks, landing on October 13th, but at least this means this version of the game will be primed and ready for launch day.
Over on Twitter, Schramm provided a quick look at the differences between the Quest version and the Quest 2 update, which you can see below. It’s just a small glimpse (and we’ll hopefully bring some video coverage ourselves soon), but you can see that some of the instruments you use in the game are now look a lot, well, shinier.
Gravity Lab is a little like Lemmings with marbles. In each of its 30 levels — which each have three variations via different difficulty options — you need to transport a set number of objects from one point to another. This will require using a mix of ramps, gateways that alter item’s gravity, switches and more. Things start off pretty simple but the game quickly descends into some pretty devious challenges.
We thought the game wasn’t quite as groundbreaking as it might have seemed in 2016 when it arrived on Quest 1, but its accessible brand of trials made for a lot of fun. “This is an enjoyable, accessible and (whisper it) incidentally educational piece of to-the-point VR gaming that’ll still put a smile on faces today. Not a bad return for a face from VR’s past, then,” we said in our 3/5 review.
Gravity Lab is the second game we’ve seen get noticable visual differences on Quest 2 beyond a bump in resolution. The other, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, has some striking differences in its early gameplay demo. We’ll keep you up to date with other updates as we get closer to launch.
HP is planning an Omnicept Edition of its Reverb G2 VR headset for early 2021 with additional face-tracking sensors and the ability to measure “cognitive load”.
The upcoming PC VR headset can sense expressions, eye movements and heart rate, with the promise of “foveated rendering, this HMD delivers lifelike VR like never before,” a HP document pitches.
“By capturing user responses in real time, you can generate insights and adapt each user’s experience,” the document suggests. HP promises software development tools informed by the “cognitive load” of the headset wearer. Taken all together, you could have agents in a virtual world who know whether you are tense, what you are looking at, what you are interested in, and potentially much more.
HP Reverb G2 Omnicept Edition Revealed
“HMD firmware safeguards sensor data at every moment of capture and no data is stored on the headset. HP Omnicept powered applications help ensure the capture and transfer of data comply with GDPR and keep user data confidential,” HP suggests.
HP is selling the base Reverb G2 PC-powered headset without the “Omnicept” sensing capabilities for around $600. Made in partnership with Valve and Microsoft and boasting a 2160 x 2160 resolution per eye, the device is hugely anticipated by the PC VR community. New orders for the headset featuring Valve audio and lens technology are expected to ship in December.
When it comes to the Omnicept Edition of G2 in 2021, HP is pitching the product to developers and researchers seeking a “2% revenue share for profit” on applications built for the sensor-laden headset.
Here’s a look at the included APIs and terms that HP is pitching for Omnicept:
There’s obviously a lot of unanswered questions at this point regarding the Omnicept Edition of the Reverb G2 and the applications developers are likely to make for the system.
We’ll bring you updates as soon as we have them. For more updates on the HP Reverb G2 Omnicept Edition, stay tuned to Upload and our Youtube channel.
Until You Fall brings a refreshingly unique approach to VR sword fighting which combines the satisfaction of a hack & slash game with the depth of RPG combat, all wrapped up in a VR-native design. The game’s Quest port is a near-perfect translation from its PC counterpart which benefits from the lack of tether.
Until You Fall Details:
Available On:Oculus Quest, Oculus PC, SteamVR, PSVR Release Date: September 29th, 2020 Price: $25 Oculus Cross-buy: Yes Developer: Schell Games Reviewed On: Quest
Gameplay
Until You Fall is a rogue-lite VR melee combat game where you battle your way through rooms of enemies until you are inevitably struck down, only to rise again more experienced and more powerful to try to make it even further in your next bout.
Rather than the purely physics-based approach of a VR melee combat game like Blade & Sorcery, Until You Fall delivers a somewhat more abstract experience. From the outside, the ‘block’ and ‘combo’ markers might make the game look arcade-ish, but there’s heaps of depth hiding underneath. Not only does this approach leave room for meta-game strategy—like which weapons you use and how you use them—it also allows the game to carefully set the ‘pace’ of combat to make it both challenging and rewarding without the intermittent funkiness that often comes with a pure-physics approach.
Image courtesy Schell Games
Make no mistake though, Until You Fall is an active game and you can easily build up a sweat while you play. Although hits and blocks are more dependant on the overall gesture than ensuring that you make perfect contact with the enemy’s hitbox, to succeed you’ll still need to make big swings in the right directions and at the right time.
Until You Fall’s combat is wholly dictated by the ‘shield’ meter of each enemy, which must be broken before you can begin slashing away at their health bar. Shield damage is dealt both by hitting enemies and blocking their attacks. Since they can attack you at any time while their shield is up, you can get a few hits in here and there but you’ll largely be on the defensive until their shield is down. Once their shield is broken it’s your turn to dish out big damage by swinging in the indicated direction to chain together several devastating hits. Some enemies will die after just one combo set, but others will need their shields taken down multiple times before they fall—until you become more powerful, that is.
Until You Fall has two types of progression: temporary upgrades which you unlock in the current run but disappear afterward, and permanent upgrades to your weapons which are bought between runs in the hub area. In addition to upgrading your weapons, you can also buy from a reasonably large selection of new weapons. But your effectiveness is also dictated by the proficiency of your play rather than by your stats alone.
Each weapon has its own unique characteristics, and choosing which weapons you bring into battle is a very meaningful decision because it can have a drastic impact on how you play—from your overall combat strategy right down to the way you swing.
This is the heart of what makes Until You Fall’s combat so interesting. In one run you might choose a dagger for your blocking weapon—because it’s light and fast—and an axe for your attacking weapon—because it deals big damage. In the next run you might pair a broadsword—for its balance of range and speed—with an amulet—which gives big stat boosts but can’t be used to block. Or you might want to attack with two daggers—for their speed—and hope to find the mid-run upgrade which increases damage when you alternate attacks between your blades.
On one of my better runs in the Quest version of Until You Fall I chose the mace for dishing out big shield damage, but opted to block and combo with my broadsword because the mace is too slow for quick blocks and the broadsword does more damage to health than shields. As I fought through the run I grabbed a few mid-run upgrades which made my mace deal even more shield damage, turning it into a brute-force shield smasher that I would swing with abandon while focusing on precise blocking and combos with my sword.
Image courtesy Schell Games
That’s just one idea for a weapon pairing and combat strategy, and there’s many more to formulate, experiment with, and perfect.
It takes some time to grasp all the systems at play though, and this is one place where Until You Fall could use some added clarity. Sorting out the difference between permanent and temporary weapon bonuses, player bonuses, weapon sockets, block damage, shield damage, and health damage will take some back-and-forth comparisons between menus and getting a few runs under your belt. Revamping the interface to more clearly indicate which upgrades are temporary and which are permanent (and whether the upgrade applies to the player or the weapon) would help players get up to speed with the underlying systems more quickly. The game would also benefit from more explicitly explaining that each weapon has differing ‘physical’ weight which impacts how fast it moves. That’s an important consideration when it comes to choosing your kit and how you’ll use it.
Image courtesy Schell Games
Though a bit hazy at the outset, the meta-game elements are paired with satisfying and challenging moment-to-moment combat that will test your mettle and leave you with that feeling of wanting to squeeze in just one more run.
Runs start out easy enough and after upgrading your weapons a few times you’ll be crushing the fodder with a single swing. But with just a few non-regenerating hit points, every enemy is a potential threat. Getting cocky and overextending is the surest way to lose a hitpoint, and you’ll be kicking yourself later when you have to give up a crucial mid-run weapon upgrade to recover your hit points instead.
Photo by Road to VR
And then there’s the real enemies. As you go deeper through your run you’ll start facing off against Knights and Captains which each present a serious threat. And just when you start to master those encounters you’ll start facing off with empowered versions of those enemies which bring amped-up attacks that will have you on your heels in a heartbeat if you aren’t lock-step with their attacks. Narrowly escaping one of these challenging encounters with a single hit point is a thrilling experience—the essence of Until You Fall.
Image courtesy Schell Games
Although there’s some structure to your runs in Until You Fall, including a few boss encounters along the way, there isn’t really a definitive ‘end’ to the game. Even once you vanquish the most difficult encounter, there’s always new weapon combos and combat strategies to try and harder difficulties to master. That said, I think players could expect to spend around 10 hours becoming proficient enough to conquer the final encounter.
Immersion
Image courtesy Schell Games
Until You Fall for Quest is a superb port of its PC counterpart. While there are some graphical downgrades, the heart and soul of the gameplay and visuals remain entirely intact.
Although the ground texture could use some work and the foliage has become sparse and chunky, the most interesting objects in the game—namely your hands, weapons, and upgrade crystals—retain an impressive amount of geometric detail and much of the lighting sheen that keeps them from the ‘cardboard’ look that we’ve seen with some Quest ports. Generally speaking, the game seems to look better in motion through the headset than I’ve been able to capture with screenshots, likely because the in-game visuals are so crisp and well defined compared to some games which use blurry anti-aliasing (or lack it outright).
Photo by Road to VR
Although the game’s many particle effects aren’t nearly as complex what’s seen in the PC version, they’ve been tastefully replaced with thicker, ribbon and pedal-like particles that feel perfectly at home in the game’s imaginative neon art style.
Image courtesy Schell Games
With carefully adapted visuals backed by strong sound design and quality music, there’s almost nothing lost in the Quest port of Until You Fall—except for the tether. Being unbounded by a cable doesn’t radically change the game, but it adds immersion by allowing you to rotate your body to face enemies with no fear of a cord twisting below your feet or getting in the way of your strikes.
Immersion in Until You Fall comes more from how it feels than how it looks. Summoning your weapons into your hands before a battle by squeezing both grip buttons—accompanied by a satisfying ‘shwiiinng‘ sound—never seems to get old. Nor does the feeling of defly slicing through a combo sequence and watching the enemy collapse in a ragdoll heap.
It may not feel like you need to fear the precise geometric boundary of the enemy’s blade, but there’s something to be said about a game where you unconsciously take stock of the challenge before you when coming face to face with its toughest enemies.
What is here, for the most part, is superbly executed. So well, in fact, that Until You Fall’s biggest ‘flaw’ is what’s it doesn’t have. The strategic depth and moment-to-moment satisfaction of the combat system leave the game screaming for a larger scope, a more dynamic world, and a proper story.
Comfort
Until You Fall is an active game that’s generally comfortable and has well-rounded comfort options. Players are prompted from the outset to choose between seated and standing modes. Vignetting is on by default and can be reduced or disabled outright. I turned it off for the sake of immersion and didn’t have any discomfort.
Image courtesy Schell Games
Although there’s some smooth stick movement, it’s kept quite slow because the game smartly brings enemies toward you and asks you to use your weapons and bodily movements to block and dodge rather than strafing around with a thumbstick. Dashing is used to get around more quickly, but a cooldown prevents players from exploiting it for constant locomotion.
Until You Fall can be a workout if you really get into it. The game rewards physical effort by dealing more damage for broad swings and allowing players to block any attack as long as they can physically get their hand into blocking position with enough time to spare. Dodging left/right and ducking are required for some encounters, but the movement threshold is low enough that it can be done while seated.
