Reject Humanity: Gorilla Tag Comes To The Quest Store

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Gorilla Tag is launching on the Quest Store after gathering more than 4.5 million monkeys and nearly 46,000 reviews without a public store listing.

The free-to-play game from Another Axiom launches officially on the Meta Quest Store on December 15, just in time to make monke Christmas on countless new Quest 2s being opened through the holidays. We already awarded it best competitive multiplayer game of last year even without official release, and in the year since it has continued to win over players with its direct and simple description: “Become gorilla.”

No buttons, no sticks, no teleportation. Push off of surfaces to jump and squeeze them with both hands to climb. The game mode is simple tag, for up to 3 players, or infection mode, with 4 or more. Run from the infected gorillas, or outmaneuver the survivors to catch them. Parkour up trees and cliff faces to evade and chase people down. Hang out in a virtual, low-fi jungle with randos or group up in a private room with friends to hang out and play. The stakes are low, so feel free to just chat or make up your own games. The movement is easy to learn, and hard to master. Crossplay with the PC versions of the game, so play with anyone on any platform.

Gorilla Tag is also available on Steam.

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Indie VR Hit ‘Gorilla Tag’ is the Most-rated Quest Game Ever, and Only Just Coming to the Main Store

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Indie VR hit Gorilla Tag has been staggeringly popular despite only being available thus far on Quest’s App Lab. Now set for release on the main Quest store on December 15th, it will launch as the most-rated game on the entire store, even surpassing Beat Saber, one of VR’s best known apps.

App Lab is Meta’s ‘unlisted’ app store for Quest, which allows developers a way onto the platform but precludes them from being promoted or easily found through the main Quest store that most customers see.

Still, we’ve seen apps find success on App Lab, and none more so than Gorilla Tag, a simple game of multiplayer tag with unique hand-based locomotion and charmingly low-fi visuals, which has succeeded in finding an audience despite not being visible in the main Quest store.

Having only been on App Lab since March 2021, Gorilla Tag has already amassed 46,000 reviews; that’s more than any other Quest app—even those on the main store—including Beat Saber’s 45,000 reviews, which is perhaps VR’s most well known game to date. Compared to Beat Saber, Gorilla Tag of course has the advantage of being free, but the game also has the most reviews among free apps too—even those on the main store—pulling ahead of the top free app, Rec Room, which sits at 22,000 reviews.

And now the game is finally headed to the main Quest store, where it’s destined to only become more popular. Developer Kerestell Smith has announced a Gorilla Tag release date of December 15th on the main Quest store. Gorilla Tag is also available on PC VR.

Smith began Gorilla Tag as a one-man project under the studio name Another Axiom. With the game’s explosive popularity, Smith has grown the studio to 15 people, according to Meta.

Gorilla Tag’s popularity isn’t only measured in reviews though; Smith said earlier this year that the game had reached a staggering 4.5 million players.

And where has the app found such traction, despite being ‘unlisted’ in the Quest store? Smith tells Road to VR that TikTok has been a huge driver, with the hashtag #gorillatag seeing 4.4 billion views to date—purely organic, according to the developer.

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PSVR 2 & Steam Release Dates For The Walking Dead Saints & Sinners Chapter 2: Retribution

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The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners Chapter 2: Retribution releases early in 2023 on Steam and PSVR 2.

Saints & Sinners Chapter 2: Retribution from Skydance Interactive launches December 1 on the Quest store. A representative for Skydance confirmed over email the release targets for other platforms — February 2023 for Steam and March 20th, 2023 for PlayStation VR2.

We reached out for clarity after a PlayStation Store listing showed a PS5 version of The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners Tourist Edition bundled with Chapter 2: Retribution on PSVR 2. The $59.99 “Ch. 1 & 2 Deluxe Edition” pack for PSVR 2 on the PlayStation Store mentions “base games” for Chapter 1 and 2 alongside some weapon recipes and collectibles.

Earlier this year, Sony said “Saints & Sinners – Chapter 2: Retribution is currently set to come to PSVR in late 2022 and PS VR2 in 2023” and the wishlist page on Steam mentions a late 2022 release window. PSVR 2 headsets themselves are slated to start arriving at the end of February. According to the email, regarding the PSVR 1 version of Chapter 2, now “the team is aiming for sometime in 2023”.

Pico standalones have been slated to get Saints & Sinners as well.

The Chapter 2: Retribution edition of the game is priced $39.99 on the PlayStation Store. Last month we published the uncensored version of the latest Retribution trailer showing some of the intense encounters players might expect in the follow-up.

The first Saints & Sinners game set a high mark for zombie apocalypse games and it sits at the top of many of our best of VR lists — so we’re extremely curious to see how the newest entry holds up on the wide range of hardware it is set to ship on.

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From Myst To Riven With Rand Miller & Cyan Playing Walkabout Mini Golf

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What’s the hardest puzzle in Myst? What’s the secret to making a satisfying puzzle? Is Myst sequel Riven coming to VR? Almost 30 years after first envisioning Myst island, what’s it like seeing that world at night and visiting it with others?

I put those questions to Cyan co-founder Rand Miller along with development director Hannah Gamiel and creative director Eric A. Anderson as they joined me for a round of mini golf playing Mighty Coconut’s Walkabout Mini Golf version of Myst island. I recently played through a near-final version of the day mode of the Myst course with Mighty Coconut founder Lucas Martell, but the night mode offers a far bigger challenge.

In the edited recording embedded below Miller joined the round from the original Quest headset while I recorded from Quest Pro and we played until his battery nearly died. To put the focus on the developers, I only included my microphone for a few moments later in our playthrough. Though the hard mode course crushed us, we covered a number of subjects ranging from the market size of AR vs. VR, Tilt Five’s tabletop AR system, Apple VR, Riven VR, user-generated content, what makes a good puzzle, how well the Quest & Steam versions of Myst VR sold, and how VR relates to the evolution of technology over the last 30 years.

Is Riven Coming To VR?

Riven, Myst’s sequel, originally released in 1997 spread across five compact discs. Cyan just announced a remake is in active development and “will be fully traversable in 3D space” while few other details have been confirmed.

“What we have said so far is there clearly is a pattern with the way that we’re releasing our games and remakes and that folks won’t be disappointed,” Gamiel said of Riven.

Myst released for Quest headsets at the end of 2020 and came to Steam VR in late 2021. Earlier this year, Cyan added hand tracking support for the entire game on Quest.

“If you were satisfied with the Myst remake, you’ll likely be satisfied with what we’re doing with Riven,” said Anderson.

“Let’s just say we’re getting pretty good at VR,” Miller added later.

Other portions of our discussion revealed how for the VR version of Myst, Cyan maxed out the Quest’s guardian system while clearing out a basement area, Miller said, and “it was almost big enough that you could walk from end to end without hitting the wall. So it was, it was like a real space adventure….you could walk around and just go from wall to wall in the library in real space… It was so interesting to do that.”

Miller, Gamiel and Anderson also covered the challenges of puzzle design and world-building as we played through our 18 holes, ending with a view of Myst island at night.

“We design puzzles, that in the end, even if they’re hard, once they’re solved, the player says ‘Oh, that was my fault. I should have seen that. I should have gotten that. I should have understood that.’ We’ve done our job. If at the end of it…they go, ‘well, how was I supposed to see that?’ Then we haven’t done our jobs,” Miller said. “So much of this computer game stuff is the same as any other kind of entertainment where it’s about this right balance of frustration and relief.”

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‘Super Smash Bros’ Creator Masahiro Sakurai Says VR is “Truly the perfect fit” for Some Games

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In his video series introducing aspiring developers to the basics of game development, Super Smash Bros creator Masahiro Sakurai recommends viewers give VR a try to understand what it does uniquely well.

Masahiro Sakurai has had an illustrious career in game development. Though best known as the creator and director of the Super Smash Bros series, the first game in the series was actually his fourth game. He first got his start back in 1992 with another franchise you’ve probably heard of… Kirby.

With 30 years of experience under his belt, Sakurai recently started up his own YouTube channel to share his game design philosophy with the world. The series, straightforwardly called Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games, covers everything from game pitching to game design to managing a dev team—all in bite-sized videos that are short, sweet, and geared toward aspiring developers.

Sakurai briefly touched on VR in one of his recent videos that focused on choosing the right field-of-view for a given game. Speaking of both VR’s strengths and weaknesses, he ultimately encourages his viewers to give VR racing games a try to understand what a VR headset brings to the table in terms of field-of-view and immersive first-person perspective.

In racing games, a cockpit viewpoint would probably feel the most realistic. And yet, I feel like most developers tend to go for something different [like a third-person point of view]. [First-person] can make the game hard to play, since the screen space available for actual gameplay ends up severely decreased [because of the limited view out the car’s windshield].

You could try playing VR instead, but the lower resolution will make distant objects too blurry to really see. That’s a problem when the player is using it to see more. And when driving in real life, you can glance sideways like this… but the only way to do that in VR is to turn your entire head.

Still, I recommend you overlook these downsides and give VR racing a try, even just once. Motion sickness is always a possibility, but for games that separate your viewpoint and direction of travel, VR is truly the perfect fit. Back to the topic at hand…

Despite clearly appreciating the unique experience that a VR headset can bring to a game, Sakurai hasn’t created any VR content himself. According to NintendoLife, back in 2015 Oculus offered to contract Sakurai to create a VR game, but ultimately he declined, citing the medium’s small audience size.

While the VR audience is still far from the size of mainstream gaming at large, it has no doubt increased significantly since 2015; I wonder what if Sakurai would make of the VR landscape today.

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HP Reverb G2 Discounted to Lowest Price Yet for US Black Friday Sale

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HP’s Reverb G2 is a solid PC VR headset with class-leading resolution. Now the headset is on sale for its lowest price yet in the US for Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2022.

The Best Reverb G2 Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2022 Sale

Even at its original MSRP of $600, HP’s Reverb G2 headset is a solid PC VR headset, especially for games and applications where resolution really counts. Now at its most discounted price yet, the headset feels nearly like a steal.

The best Reverb G2 Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2022 sale so far is $300 from HP.

According to HP, the model on sale is the newer and somewhat improved version of the headset, which we’ve taken to calling the Reverb G2.1. In our hands-on with the G2.1 we found improved tracking coverage and field-of-view thanks to some tweaks the company made to the cameras and to the facepad.

Reverb G2 Specs

Resolution	2,160 x 2,160 (4.7MP) per-eye, LCD (2x)
Refresh Rate	90Hz
Lenses	Single element Fresnel
Field-of-view (claimed)	114° diagonal
Optical Adjustments	IPD, eye-relief (only on newer units in US)
IPD Adjustment Range	60–68mm
Connectors	USB-C, DisplayPort, Power
Cable Length	6m
Tracking	Inside-out (no external beacons)
On-board cameras	4x B&W
Input	Reverb G2 controllers (AA battery 2x), voice
Audio	Off-ear headphones
Microphone	Yes
Pass-through view	Yes

Reverb G2 Content Compatibility

HP Reverb G2 works natively with the Windows Mixed Reality store, but very few VR applications are available there. Fortunately a free and official plugin from Microsoft also makes it compatible with SteamVR content. If you’re looking to play content that’s exclusive to the Oculus PC library (like Asgard’s Wrath) you can use the free but unofficial Revive mod to play Oculus PC content on Reverb G2. You can’t play Oculus Quest games on Reverb G2 or any PC VR headset.

Reverb G2 Black Friday 2022 Game Sales

Available through November 29th, 10AM PT

Steam Autumn Sale

• Nearly 1,300 VR-only and VR-optional SteamVR games on are on sale for Black Friday 2022

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AEXLAB Hosts tournament for Vail VR with LAN Finals held in Miami

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AEXLAB recently held a major tournament for their new competitive VR game VAIL VR. The event ran for six weeks, with over 200 teams battling it out online to secure their spot in the LAN Finals held in Miami. Superblue Miami, an illustrious digital art gallery, partnered with the event to allow attendees to enjoy a full day of activities, with all the live matches showcased alongside several world-renowned artists’ work.

With the official esports league launch in 2023, AEXLAB wanted to bring together the top creators, players, and brands in the VR community under one roof to foster a new era of gaming events. It is planned to be a continued annual event hosted across different cities worldwide to showcase the exciting world of competitive VR. For more updates and announcements on the upcoming season, join the IVRL – VAIL Discord. More on the previous season is available at ivrl.org. 

The event saw esports leaders and respected VR brands come together to share an event of competitive VR gaming with both a tournament and convention-style atmosphere. Activations from brands such as Smash Drums, Redpill, bHaptics, and many more were in attendance, allowing people to interact with esteemed VR brands. Entertainment was also provided thanks to the DJ and Youtuber, Thrillseeker, who played a set during the halftime show.

The event was made possible by a partnership with the International Virtual Reality League (IVRL) and is the beginning of future seasons of VR’s first gaming federation centered around live events, teams, and players. Working with such esteemed brands allowed the event to run smoothly and enabled high-quality broadcasting. In addition, new features were built around spectator modes to highlight the gameplay better for viewers while adding improvements to the UI. LIV was also a big part of the MIAMI VAIL MAJOR as their tools allowed for optimized streaming outputs, allowing spectators to feel more involved in the experience. Players later utilized the content created with their tools to grow their brands and push VR as a competitive platform.

IVRL sees teams and players as partners in a journey to grow VR esports together. Through this attitude and togetherness, VR esports is snowballing in the gaming community amongst competitive gamers. The projection is that VR esports will expand globally within the next decade, so players from anywhere can showcase their talents in competitive VR, with VAIL right at the forefront. VR esports has the potential to surpass traditional competitive gaming, as the drama and immersion are much higher due to a combination of physical movements and complex technical skills. This combination can make mastery mean something quite different compared with mouse and keyboard input.

IVRL encourages all players to “Play VAIL, start a team, get active with your friends and start preparing for the next season coming Q1 of 2023”. VAIL VR is still in early access, you should expect frequent updates and additions to be made throughout the holiday season. To know more about AEXLAB’s push towards VR esports, check out this video with the studio’s CTO explaining what VAIL is doing for the esports community.

For more from AEXLAB, visit their link tree, the VAIL VR Discord, or the IVRL Discord.

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Best VR Black Friday Deals 2022 – Meta Quest 2, Pico, HP Reverb & More

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Looking for the best VR deals, bargains and discounts this holiday season? Here are all the biggest Black Friday VR deals for 2022, in one place.

VR Hardware Black Friday Deals

Meta Quest 2 Black Friday Deal

This deal, which started a bit before Black Friday and extends beyond it “while supplies last”, sees Meta offering its Quest 2 headset bundled with Resident Evil 4 and Beat Saber from $350 for the 128GB model and $430 for the 128GB model. You can find more details and the specific conditions here.

Pico 4 Black Friday Deal

Pico is offering free copies of After the Fall, Ruinsmagus and Les Mills Bodycombat with any purchase and activation of a Pico 4 headset until November 30. More details here.

HTC Vive Flow & Vive Pro 2 Black Friday Deal

HTC is offering Black Friday discounts on its lightweight Vive Flow headset, designed for immersive media viewing. The deal brings it down to €379/£379 and includes the optional controller accessory bundled in for free. Likewise, HTC is also offering discounts on its Vive Pro 2 range, bringing the full kit down to €1199/£1199, including 12 months access to Viveport Infinity. However, these deals are only available to customers in Europe. 

You can read more details about HTC’s Black Friday offers here.

HP Reverb G2 Black Friday Deal

HP is offering its Reverb G2 headset for just $300 for a limited time. You can read more details here.

Varjo Black Friday Deal

Normally available for $1990, the Varjo Aero headset will be available at $300 off between now and November 29 through Varjo’s online store and selected retailers.

VR Accessories & Software Black Friday Deals

VR Cover Accessories Black Friday Deals

Running until November 29, VR Cover is offering a range of discounts on its accessories for Quest 2 and other headsets, including custom headstraps, lens covers and facial interface replacements. You can read more here.

Quest Store Black Friday Deals

The Quest Store is running a big Black Friday sale on games and apps until November 29, including a new Daily Deal which rotates daily with a unique offer each day. There’s also savings to be found in bundles and individual discounts across the Quest 2 software range, including 40% off Resident Evil 4, 50% off Little Cities and 33% off Demeo, to name a few. You can find more details here

SteamVR Black Friday Deals

Steam’s Black Friday sale is actually called the ‘Autumn Sale’, but runs across the same period as other Black Friday sales, until November 29. There’s too many discounted titles to list here, but perhaps one of the most notable is Half-Life: Alyx, which is available at 60% off – an all-time low price. You can check out the VR section of the Steam Store here.

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Meta Reportedly Talking With Samsung & LG To Secure MicroLED & OLED Microdisplays

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Meta is reportedly looking to secure next-gen microdisplays for AR glasses and future VR headsets.

SBS Biz reports “dozens” of Meta executives have held private meetings in South Korea with executives at Samsung and LG’s display divisions. The companies are in discussions to supply OLED and MicroLED microdisplays for VR and AR devices, the report suggests.

The Verge previously reported Meta plans to use microLED displays in AR glasses, expected to launch around 2026. Meta is spending more than 50% of its AR/VR division budget developing AR glasses, Mark Zuckerberg reportedly told staff.

Tech	Size	Self-Emissive	Efficiency	Peak Brightness	Cost
LCD	Regular	𐄂	Low	Medium	Low
OLED	Regular	✓	Medium	Low	Medium
OLEDoS	Small	✓	High	High	High
MicroLED	Small	✓	Very High	Extremely High	N/A

MicroLED is a truly new display technology, not a variant of LCD such as “Mini LED” or “QLED”. MicroLED is self-emissive like OLED, meaning pixels output light as well as color and don’t use a backlight, but is more power efficient and can reach much higher brightness. This makes MicroLED uniquely suitable for consumer AR glasses, which need to be usable even on sunny days yet powered by a small and light battery.

While most major electronics companies are actively researching microLED – including Samsung, Sony, and Apple – no company has yet figured out how to affordably mass manufacture it for consumer products.

Panasonic (non-standalone) headset with OLED microdisplays

In the nearer term, OLED microdisplays (OLED on Silicon) could enable significantly slimmer and lighter VR headsets than even Pico 4. Panasonic showed off ultra-compact VR goggles with OLED microdisplays at CES 2020, and at this year’s CES its subsidiary Shiftall announced a headset using this design.

OLED microdisplays are currently used in low volume products like high-end camera viewfinders and in some industrial smart glasses, so are expensive today. But if companies like Meta can secure mass-manufacturing supply deals the cost could come down over time. Last year LG announced it was building 3K and 4K OLED microdisplays for VR, with brightness over 5000 nits.

Meta’s recently released Quest Pro is slimmer than Quest 2 but actually heavier overall. Part of this heaviness is caused by the use of Mini LED backlighting for its LCD displays to achieve contrast closer to (but not equal to) OLED. The over 500 LEDs generate non-trivial heat, and Quest Pro has enormous cooling fans behind each panel. It also has a battery life of just 1-3 hours. OLED microdisplays are smaller, more efficient, and generate just a tiny fraction of the heat.

The Information previously reported Meta plans a successor to Quest Pro for 2024. If it uses OLED microdisplays it could be noticeably lighter and have longer battery life, bringing it closer to Mark Zuckerberg’s goal of an ultra-comfortable all-day wearable headset to one day replace your laptop.

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Meta Quest 2 Will Finally Be Sold In Germany Very Soon

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Quest 2 will finally be sold in Germany by the end of the year, Meta announced.

A Meta spokesperson told German news outlet Heise online Quest Pro will also be sold in Germany “as soon as possible”.

While Meta was never officially banned from selling hardware in Germany, it voluntarily suspended VR headset sales just before the release of Quest 2 after announcing a Facebook account would be required to use them. Heise Online reports this move had caused the German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) to initiate abuse proceedings, the likely trigger for Meta’s decision.

In August, almost two years later, Meta removed the Facebook account requirement for its VR headsets worldwide by introducing the new Meta account system. “Meta has responded to our concerns and offered a solution by creating a separate Meta account for using the Quest glasses.”, the President of the German FCO said.

However, the FCO isn’t finished with its investigation. It says it’s also looking into “the question of the connection of the data processed within the framework of the various meta-services” in relation to wider concerns about Meta’s data handling. “Until this has been clarified, Meta will, in principle, keep the data generated when using the Meta Quest glasses separately from data from other Meta services for users who use a separate Meta account.”, the FCO said.

Returning to the German market means Quest 2 will be taking on ByteDane’s Pico 4 which offers superior hardware at a lower price – though with a much less fleshed-out content library.

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Camouflaj Working On Batman VR For Quest, According To FTC

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According to Federal Trade Commission court documents spotted by Janko Roettgers, Camouflaj is working on a Batman VR game for Quest headsets.

Camouflaj is the studio behind Iron Man VR, which launched as a PSVR exclusive title in 2020. Last month at Connect, Meta announced that it had acquired Camouflaj and that Iron Man VR would subsequently release on Quest 2 in November.

The court documents spotted by Roettgers can be viewed here. In the ‘FTC’s Proposed Findings Of Fact’, one section details Meta’s acquisitions over the last few years and on page six, the document notes the Camouflaj acquisition and reveals what the studio is working on next:

“In September 2022, Meta acquired Camouflaj, which currently [sic] developing Ironman and Batman VR apps for Quest.”

Based on positions advertised in the middle of 2021, we already knew that Camouflaj was working on “a new AAA project.” However, these court documents confirm that the next project will stick with a superhero theme, crossing over from Marvel into DC Comics territory.

Iron Man VR is an amazing VR experience that truly lets you embody Tony Stark and control his iconic suit of armor. Given how well Camouflaj translated the character into VR while also telling a compelling and original story, a Batman VR game with a similar level of care is sure to be a delight for Quest users.

However, this won’t be Batman’s first foray into VR. Many fans will be familiar with the Batman: Arkham VR release from 2016, which wasn’t terrible but also felt more like a tech demo than a fully realized game. There was also a Batman VR skydiving experience in 2019 and the shoddy Batman VRSE experience in 2017.

Here’s hoping that Camouflaj delivers an authentic and thrilling Batman VR experience on Quest headsets soon. You can read our full review of Camouflaj’s latest release, Iron Man VR on Quest 2, here.

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Valve Patents New VR Controller With Quest-Like Tracking Ring

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A Valve patent may reveal the controller for its in-development VR headset.

Index has now been on the market for well over three years. It still has best-in-class tracking and audio quality but its resolution has been surpassed by even low-cost headsets like Quest 2 and Pico 4, and it doesn’t support wireless play (though a startup is working on an adapter).

Valve first mentioned investing in a new headset last year, and strongly hinted at it having onboard compute to run standalone without the need for a PC. When discussing Steam Deck’s technology in February, CEO Gabe Newell mused “why can’t I have that in a tetherless integrated VR solution?”.

Late last year YouTuber Brad Lynch (SadlyItsBradley) found references to a new headset model codenamed ‘Deckard’ in the SteamVR driver files. Ars Technica said its sources confirmed Deckard’s existence.

A Valve job listing posted last month seeks an engineer to “prototype, ship, and support” a headset with advanced tracking features.

Now, a patent awarded today titled ‘Electronic controller with linear hand strap adjuster’ depicts a new VR controller with Index-like hand straps but a Quest-like tracking ring.

As the title suggests, the patent is mainly focused on the strap design – allowing the user to let go of the controller to drop or throw objects, while accommodating a range of different hand shapes. The tracking dots seen on the ring are described as being either infrared (IR) LEDs to be tracked by the headset or photodiodes for SteamVR “Lighthouse” base stations.

It’s common practice for patents to be broad so as to cover multiple possible embodiments of the core idea, but the mention of “visual-inertial tracking (HMD and controllers)” in the job listing posted last month suggests Valve is going with headset-based computer vision tracking, and thus controllers with IR LEDs. It’s possible though Valve plans to offer multiple variants of the controller.

 

Another Valve patent filing made public in June might have revealed the design of the headset’s strap, though it didn’t concretely reveal any technical details.

If Valve Deckard is shipping any time soon it could be strong competition for Meta’s Quest Pro and Apple’s upcoming headset.

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Massive Quest Black Friday Sale Discounts Green Hell, Demeo, Resident Evil & More

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Meta revealed its Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale offerings today, with big discounts available across the Quest range and bundles with bulk discounts on multiple titles.

There’s a really comprehensive set of discounts available across the entire catalogue of Quest 2 experiences, so you’re best checking out the full list yourself here.

However, there’s a few notable discounts worth pointing out. Little Cities, the poignant and expertly-designed VR city simulator, is available for $9.99 (50% off), while the VR adaption of classic puzzle game Myst is available for $17.99 (40% off). Resident Evil 4 is available for $23.99 (40% off).

Ultrawings 2 (which we gave an essential rating in our review in February) is available at a 40% discount as well, bringing it down to just $14.99. Meanwhile survival game Green Hell VR and multiplayer tabletop dungeon crawler Demeo are both discounted down to $19.99 each (33% off). If rhythm games are more to your liking, then Ragnorock is just $12.49 (50% off).

That’s just a small selection of the individual discounts, but there’s also a series of bundles available. The Fight to the Finish Pack includes Gorn, Contractors and Superhot for $39.99 (9% off), while the Stayin’ Alive Pack includes Population: One and Onward for $32.99 (10% off). If simulators are more your vibe, then the Simulators Pack includes Vacation Simulator, Cooking Simulator VR and Thief Simulator VR for $43.99 (13% off).

There’s a few other bundles offering similar levels of discounts, but the bundle with the largest discount is the Enchantment Bundle, which includes Wands Alliances and Down the Rabbit Hole for $23.99 (39% off).

There’s also a rotating Daily Deal, which changes each morning at 10am PT. At the time of writing, the current offer is 50% off Arizona Sunshine, bringing it down to $19.99 for the next few hours.

The Meta Quest Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale runs until 10am PT on November 29. You can view the full list of discounts here.

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Niantic Reveals Snapdragon AR2-powered Headset Reference Design for Outdoor Use

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Back in early 2021 Pokémon GO developer Niantic gave just a brief tease that it was working on some kind of see-through headset. Now the company has revealed that it’s been working with Qualcomm on a reference AR headset based on the Snapdragon AR2 platform.

Niantic has been quietly developing a sleek reference design for what the company is calling an “outdoor AR headset.” Qualcomm has been part of the project too, with Niantic calling the headset a “shared vision for an outdoor AR headset,” in an announcement this month.

There’s very few actual details on the specs of Niantic’s reference headset, but as far as we know it’s built atop Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon AR2, a platform of chips specially designed to enable compact, low-powered AR headsets and glasses. It isn’t clear if the headset is utilizing a host device (like a smartphone) for additional computing.

Image courtesy Niantic

Compact indeed… while we have very few details on the reference headset, the device is almost certainly using waveguide optics (considering how compact it is). We can also spot three cameras on the front which will be used for positional tracking. And from a render of the Niantic AR headset, it appears to be able to fold in on itself to become more compact for travel. It isn’t clear from the rendering if this is a completely soft strap or if there’s a mechanical hinge hiding somewhere under the cloth-looking struts of the headstrap.

Image courtesy Niantic

In the video above we actually see two different headsets. The first shot is of a white headset and controller that appears to be the same as the render.

Image courtesy Niantic

The second is a black headset and black controller that doesn’t look quite as compact—this is presumably closer to the first version of the headset which the company teased previously.

Considering that only the black headset is shown throughout the bulk of the video, it seems the white headset may not be fully functional just yet.

“The hardware reference design showcases the potential for outdoor-capable AR headsets that can orient themselves using the Niantic map and render information and virtual worlds on top of the physical world,” says Niantic’s Head of AR Headsets, Maryam Sabour. “The reference design will continue to evolve, and we are excited about the new Snapdragon AR2 platform that delivers ground-breaking technology to enable headset manufactures to quickly and more efficiently build sleek, commercial products based on our vision for consumers.

The company is making it clear that this is a reference headset—Niantic doesn’t want to bring it to market on its own, but wants to allow other companies to use it as a blueprint to make their own headsets. And because it’s Niantic, it makes sense that the company is hoping others will build AR headsets specifically for the outdoors.

Most commercial AR headsets to date have poor outdoor capabilities. Meanwhile, Niantic’s entire current business hinges on outdoor games like Pokémon GO, and the company is hoping to become the localization layer that everyone uses to synchronize city-scale AR experiences, via its Lightship Visual Positioning System.

On that front, Niantic’s headset reveal also came alongside the announcement that Lightship VPS will be baked into Snapdragon Spaces, Qualcomm’s AR developer toolset, starting in 2023.

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Niantic Built An Outdoor AR Development Kit Headset With Snapdragon AR2

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Pokémon GO maker Niantic built a reference design AR headset using Qualcomm’s latest chips.

Snapdragon AR2 was announced on Wednesday. It’s a triple-chip solution for thin AR glasses wirelessly powered by a phone, laptop, or puck. Neither Niantic nor Qualcomm mentioned what device is actually running the apps on this reference design headset, but a large controller is visible in the trailer. Niantic’s previous reference design from last year was tethered to a phone and a battery via a USB-C cable.

The headset uses transparent waveguide optics, features three tracking cameras, and weighs less than 250 grams. It has a folding design to make it more portable than rigid-strap headsets like Quest Pro and HoloLens 2.

As a reminder: this is a reference design. Niantic is a software company, and this isn’t a consumer product. There’s no indication Niantic plans to become a consumer hardware company. The intention here may instead be to give its developers and partners real devices to experiment with today so that when mass-market outdoor AR glasses are available it will have a significant head start on building content.

Niantic also announced that its Lightship VPS service will be compatible with Snapdragon Spaces, Qualcomm’s AR SDK some hardware makers support (though consumer devices so far use their own proprietary SDKs). Visual Positioning Systems (VPS) use computer vision algorithms to determine the device’s exact geographical position in the real world down to the centimeter – especially useful in cities where large buildings occlude GPS signals. VPS enables positioning virtual objects in real-world landmarks to be viewed by any AR users passing by.

Last year Niantic launched smartphone AR game Pikmin Bloom, but it shut down Harry Potter – Wizards Unite and Transformers: Heavy Metal. Next year it plans to launch Marvel World Of Heroes. Niantic is well positioned to bring these games and more to consumer AR glasses – though reports suggest Meta & Apple don’t plan on shipping them until the second half of the decade.

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Build-your-own VR Drum Kit App ‘Paradiddle’ Launches on Quest and PC VR

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After five years of early access, VR drumming app Paradiddle launches out of Early Access on PC VR and for the first time on Oculus Quest.

Paradiddle started in Early Access on PC VR way back in 2017. Over the last five years developer Emre Tanirgan and team have continued to hone the application which gives players access to a build-your-own drum kit tool where they can build the drum kit of their dreams, and even build ‘impossible’ drum kits (like fusing a drum and a cymbal together to play both sounds with one hit).

Paradiddle is part instrument, part teacher, and part game. The launch version supports MIDI input/output (on PC for now, but possibly Quest in the future) for serious drummers that want to connect things like pedals for bass drum and hi-hat; beginner drum lessons, for those interested in picking up the instrument for the first time; and even a rhythm game mode with a ‘note highway’, custom songs, and leaderboards. Here’s a look at the app’s rhythm game mode:

While you might imagine that drumming with no physical feedback is challenging, Paradiddle has shown itself capable in the hands of serious drummers, leading to some impressive performances:

As for audio quality, the app gives special attention to the subtly different sounds a single drum can make; according to the developers “each drum plays different audio samples based on a variety of factors, such as how hard or what part of the drum was hit. Almost every drum in the app has 100+ audio sample variations based on these parameters, which leads to the natural sound you get when you play.”

In addition to a range of drums players can use, Paradiddle also includes instruments like the xylophone, marimba and glockenspiel, and auxiliary percussion such as bongos, tambourines and timpanis.

Paradiddle 1.0 is now available on PC VR via Steam ($25) and Quest via App Lab ($20). When asked about the price difference between the platforms, the developer said they wanted to give Quest users a discount on App Lab before it makes it to the main Quest store; PC users were similarly availed a discount when the game was in Early Access.

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Major Zenith Patch Adds Pets, Revamped Tutorial, New Areas & More

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The Legends Untold update for Zenith: The Last City is available now, adding a bunch of new content including pets, dungeons, raids and a revamping onboarding experience for new players.

This update is patch 1.2 for the VR MMO and follows on from the Celestial Throne update back in June. Developer Ramen VR say this new patch adds “hours of early and end game content, interactive systems, storylines, quality of life improvements, bug fixes” and more. 

Perhaps the biggest addition is an overhauled introduction for new players, replacing the previous new player onboarding experience. This includes a “completely revamped intro storyline with a memorable cast of new characters and new early game dungeon.” There’s new cutscenes, voiced characters and a new safe zone where players can learn the basics of Zenith. Alongside new tutorials and rewritten sections of the early story and quests, the overall onboarding experience for new players should be more comprehensive than ever before.

However, that’s far from the only new content in the Legends Untold update. Pets are another big addition in this patch, as seen in the video above. They can be acquired in-game via the new creature catching system and then summoned as a companion to offer you some company as you complete quests. While all catchable creatures in-game can be turned into a pet, there’s also a few pets available through systems outside the game world.

Zenith also now supports full body tracking in SteamVR, which Ramen VR says is just one of “many steps [they’re] taking towards making Zenith more immersive.” PC players will also have access to a handheld streamer camera to use in-game as well.

Other new content includes new areas, dungeons, raids, amor sets and weapons, character titles and cosmetic sets, alongside a huge list of feature and system updates. You can find full details over in the patch notes. The 1.2 Legend Untold update is available now for Zenith: The Last City on PC VR, Quest and PSVR.

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How To Enable Local Dimming In WebXR On Quest Pro

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Quest Pro’s browser now supports local dimming in WebXR content.

It’s an experimental opt-in feature, so to enable it you’ll need to navigate to chrome://flags and search for ‘WebXR Local Dimming’.

Regular LCD displays have at most a few backlight LEDs which control the brightness of the display. Quest Pro’s panels have over 500 Mini LED backlights, so it can control the brightness of individual tiny regions. This is called Local Dimming. It enables LCD to deliver contrast and black levels gap closer to OLED.

Local Dimming is an opt-in per-app feature on Quest Pro. In native apps, this opt-in is done by the developers, but for WebXR it’s a user-side toggle.

Meta WebXR engineer Rik Cabanier put out a request on Twitter for any incorrect rendering issues caused by Local Dimming. If none are found, Cabanier said, Meta could turn the feature on by default.

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ForeVR Pool Arrives For Quest 2 & Quest Pro

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ForeVR Pool is available now for Quest 2 and Quest Pro.

ForeVR already has Bowl, Darts, and Cornhole available, with 1 versus 1 8-ball pool now joining the lineup of classic games Meta’s standalone VR headsets. Support for the original Quest headset isn’t listed.

ForeVR Pool features 50 different cues with five different halls to play inside. There’s optional aim assist as well as both public and private multiplayer. The developers have a local pass and play feature as well, and say 2v2 matches are coming soon. Additional features listed include 12 bots to play against as well as the ability to bet in-game coins against other players or use a jukebox that’s pulls in songs from YouTube.

ForeVR says it raised $10 million in investment recently from Lobby Capital — with $18.5 million in total since their launch in 2020 — as the development studio works to rapidly build out a Wii Sports-esque collection of games for VR.

It’s a bit surprising pool has taken this long to make it onto the official Quest store but the studio’s other games are doing well on the store, with 2/3 of ForeVR Bowl’s 1600+ ratings giving the game five starts. We’ll be looking to dive into ForeVR Pool soon.

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Qualcomm Reveals Snapdragon AR2 Processor for Glasses-sized AR Devices

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Qualcomm today announced Snapdragon AR2, its “purpose-built headworn augmented reality platform.” Differentiating from the company’s existing Snapdragon XR2 chips, Qualcomm says the AR2 architecture is better suited for creating AR glasses with low power consumption and compact form factors.

Today during Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit event, the company revealed the Snapdragon AR2 platform which consists of a trio of chips which the company says will help make truly glasses-sized AR devices possible.

Qualcomm was early to the standalone VR space and has been dominant with its Snapdragon XR2 chips which have found their way into many of the leading standalone headsets on the market, and are now in more than 60 devices total, the company says.

Aiming to take a similar bite out of the forthcoming AR glasses segment, Qualcomm has created a new Snapdragon AR2 platform with a distributed processing design. The platform consists of three chips:

• AR processor (for sensor perception and video output)
• AR co-processor (for sensor fusion and dedicated computer vision tasks)
• Wi-Fi 7 chip (for communication to a host processing device)

By creating a more distributed workload across a main processor and a co-processor, Qualcomm claims AR2 is up to 50% more power efficient while offering 2.5 times better AI performance, and a more compact form-factor, compared to the single-chip Snapdragon XR2 solution.

Not only will the AR processor and co-processor help share a workload, Qualcomm also sees AR2 devices using the speedy Wi-Fi 7 chip to communicate with a host device like a smartphone or wireless compute puck that will do the heavy lifting like application processing and rendering. Qualcomm claims the Wi-Fi 7 chip (FastConnect 7800) can achieve 5.8 Gbps bandwidth with just 2ms of latency.

Using this three-chip framework for distributed processing, Qualcomm claims it will be possible to build compact AR glasses that consume less than one watt of power.

The AR2 platform supports up to nine concurrent cameras for a bevy of head-tracking, environment-sensing, and user-tracking tasks.

“We built Snapdragon AR2 to address the unique challenges of headworn AR and provide industry leading processing, AI and connectivity that can fit inside a stylish form factor,” said Hugo Swart, vice president of XR product management at Qualcomm. “With the technical and physical requirements for VR/MR and AR diverging, Snapdragon AR2 represents another metaverse-defining platform in our XR portfolio to help our OEM partners revolutionize AR glasses.”

There’s no word yet on when the first AR2 devices will hit the market, but Qualcomm lists a handful of partners actively working with the platform: Lenovo, LG, Niantic, Nreal, Oppo, Pico, Qonoq, Rokid, Sharp, TCL, Vuzix, and Xiaomi.

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Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate – Episode 2 Drops On Quest 2 This December

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Two months after releasing Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate – Episode 1, developer MyDearest confirms Episode 2 – The Eleventh Hour is coming to Meta Quest 2 on December 8.

An episodic trilogy, Dyschronia is more anime adventure than a VR visual novel. Set within an artificial marine city, Astrum Close, you play as Special Supervisor Hal Scion, investigating an unprecedented murder in a world where crime’s virtually non-existent. MyDearest advised Episode 2 will bring “unexpected twists,” following Episode 1’s cliffhanger ending. 

This follows on from The Lost Children, a free Episode 1 update that dropped earlier this month. Described as a “new standalone story,” this tasks Hal with completing a new mission, finding missing children across Astrum Close. The mission will  only be available until the release of  Episode 2, but completing it unlocks a look at Dyschronia’s second part.

We had high praise in our Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate – Episode 1 review. Calling it a “promising start to this episodic adventure,” it felt much more involved than its predecessors, Tokyo Chronos and Altdeus: Beyond Chronos. Despite minor criticisms regarding the English voice acting, we praised its “engaging story” and gave Episode 1 our recommendation.

Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate Episode 2 releases on December 8 for Meta Quest 2 for $14.99. Episode 1 is available now for $19.99, while Episode 3 will conclude the adventure in 2023.

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