Funktronic Labs released a massive update today to its roguelike shooter The Light Brigade (2023), which includes new player classes, tactical items, power-ups, levels and more.
Called the ‘Memories of War’ Update, the new content drop is rolling out today to SteamVR, Quest 2, and PSVR 2, including a bunch of new stuff.
Check out what’s in the update below, courtesy of Funktronic Labs:
The Engineer: a new player class that deploys pilotable drones
The Breacher: a new shotgun-wielding player class, by popular request!
New tactical items and power-ups to find on runs or stock up in the shop: including flare gun, cigarettes/cigars (for style), equipable helmets to block damage, new health flasks, power-up syringes, and more)
New hand-crafted levels between procedurally generated stages
New shooting range mini-game
Game balancing and fixes
The Light Brigade is a roguelike shooter that mashes up fantasy ghosties with real-world weapons, making it feel like a spiritual successor to In Death: Unchained. The game was already noted for a high variety of upgrades and array of WWII-era weaponry, so today’s update is really only throwing more of the good stuff at us, making the already really great game even better.
Following a previous reveak in the UploadVR Summer Showcase, Odders Lab confirms Gazzlers arrives next month on Quest 2, PSVR 2, Pico and PC VR.
When we last discussed Gazzlers in December 2021 it was announced as a cooperative on-rails shooter from Odders Lab. Planned for PC VR in early access with a full release coming the year after, that's alongside a launch for Quest, Pico 4 and PlayStation platforms. A new trailer for Gazzlers premiered during June's UploadVR Summer Showcase and though the footage looks pretty familiar, the game has made a few pivots since we last covered it.
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However, fast forward a year and a half and some changes have been made. According to the official site, Gazzlers is now a single-player experience – not co-operative multiplayer. The site also confirms that the game is "nearing the end of development." Speaking to UploadVR directly, Odders Lab issued this statement:
When we started working on GAZZLERS, we indeed considered implementing co-op into our game. We soon felt however that our focus should be on the enemies, weapons, and the roguelite design, and at the end of the day it was simply a matter of choosing the right direction for a team of our size and resources.
Our leaderboards will still be a part of the game, so there's still a social aspect to it. We love multiplayer games and we definitely want to make some in the future, but for our first game we decided to shift the focus to other parts of the game design we deemed more important to the title.
The Steam page now describes the game as an "on-rails arcade shooter that features a roguelite-inspired encounter system" that will see you "complete challenges, collect scrap, upgrade your skills, and take on the Pilgrimage once more, discovering new lands, enemies, and weapons!"
It’s been six months since Sony launched PlayStation VR 2, handily one of the best pieces of consumer VR hardware we’ve laid eyes on. While the headset is undeniably great, Sony’s content strategy hasn’t been. Beyond a handful of launch titles, PSVR 2 didn’t really explode out of the gate like we hoped, and a future with high-quality content on the horizon hasn’t materialized either. This, compounded by the lack of backwards compatibility, has hobbled the platform to the point that long-term viability could be an issue if Sony doesn’t step up their game.
Like the original, PSVR 2 sports a unique selling proposition. If you own a PS5, spending that $550 to buy a shiny new PSVR 2 isn’t a bad move if you want to get into current-gen VR games right this second, making Sony’s job fairly straight forward: convert existing PS5 owners into new PSVR 2 owners. That, and keep those users coming back to the headset with new and compelling content.
The XR landscape has changed quite a bit since the OG PSVR launched in 2016 though. Meta’s standalone Quest platform has largely led the way in VR adoption in the last several years thanks to its ability to not only provide compelling experiences natively on mobile hardware, but to optionally tether to PCs, pulling double duty as capable PC VR headsets in their own right. The Quest content library spans multiple generations of devices now too, which is something PSVR 2 simply can’t say since it doesn’t support PSVR games.
What Sony needs to do is pretty simple if it wants PSVR 2 to stay relevant within PS5’s lifecycle: fund more and better content, and do it regularly so current users have something to look forward to as the competition inevitably mounts.
The Virtual Elephant in the Room
Because of the scale of Quest headsets compared to PSVR 2, most developers are building their games first and foremost to fit the limitations of the standalone headset, while maybe adapting their game for PSVR 2 as a secondary objective. Not a lot of games out there that use the headset’s built-in eye-tracking in any real way, and that’s telling.
But relying largely on visually enhanced made-for-Quest content isn’t going to give PSVR 2 a meaningful competitive edge given its other downsides (more expensive, not standalone, etc).
Quest 2 next to Quest 3 | Image courtesy Meta
While the strategy of selling PSVR 2 as an add-on to PS5 customers seems straightforward, the reality is Quest is a competing device with most of the same games and a cheaper price point. That means that even PS5 owners might see the Quest as the better value… unless PSVR 2 has a strong library of exclusive content to keep them on Sony’s turf.
This isn’t a wild idea either. Sony had actually built up an impressive set of exclusive games for the original PSVR, with some of the best games on any VR headset—like PlayStation VR Worlds (2016), Batman: Arkham VR (2016), Farpoint (2017), Astro Bot (2018), and Blood & Truth (2019). Not only not bringing these exclusives forward to PSVR 2, but not having a clear roadmap for great exclusive content in the future, is a real problem for PSVR 2 in the long run.
Great Headset Missing a Roadmap
PSVR 2 is a great headset. It’s got features that no other headset in its class has, like eye-tracking, HDR, and OLED displays. Ergonomics are on point for long gaming sessions. Eye-tracking allows developers to implement a ton of cool stuff like foveated rendering, allowing studios to push visuals that even complete with what you might see on PC VR. The addition of inside-out tracking and real VR controllers finally puts it squarely in the now of VR too. But, as we know, great hardware is nothing without games, and PSVR 2 is lagging behind in that department.
Photo by Road to VR
Sensitive readers, please avert your eyes. Exclusives. There, I said it. Exclusives are a dirty word in gaming for a reason; nobody wants to uproot from their chosen platform just for a single game. It feels excessively greedy to limit what would be good for all, but only made available to the lucky few. For all their ills though, exclusives are a pretty standard way of both attracting and keeping a platform’s playerbase happy with the promise of high-quality content which critically wouldn’t exist otherwise.
Outside of a handful of truly great VR franchises and games from medium to small studios, platform holder-funded exclusive content has been the primary way of getting most of the so-called ‘AAA’ content in VR, with standout titles including Half-Life: Alyx (2020) on PC, Lone Echo (2017) and Lone Echo 2 (2021) on Rift, the upcoming sequel to Rift exclusive Asgard’s Wrath on Quest, and Astro Bot Rescue Mission on the original PSVR.
It’s pretty rare when established studios willingly risk years of billing hours and studio resources for something that isn’t guaranteed to make cash. That’s why platform-funded exclusives are important in getting content built that wouldn’t otherwise be viable given the risk. And while Sony had been doing a pretty good job with that on their original headset, judging by the content available today on the PlayStation Store it feels like the company has been a little tighter with its purse strings.
At the time of this writing, PSVR 2 only has a scant few VR-native exclusive titles: Horizon Call of the Mountain, C-Smash VRS, The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR, Synapse, and Firewall Ultra—only one of which has the pedigree to be called ‘AAA’. To be fair, there’s also a few exclusive VR-optional ports like Resident Evil Village and Gran Turismo 7.
But looking forward, the only ostensibly Sony-funded content we’ve seen on the horizon is the Resident Evil 4 remake, which is launching exclusively on PSVR 2 sometime later this year. Not only is this not a VR-native title, but somewhat awkwardly, Resident Evil 4 VR (remastered but not remade) is already available on Quest, making this only a pseudo-exclusive non-native VR port for PSVR 2.
Backwards Compatible or Forward Looking?
Here’s a barrage of not entirely unjustified high-pitched whining: Where is Astro Bot Rescue Mission 2? Where is the PSVR 2 upgrade for the first game, which did so famously well and was beloved by all? Sony recently renewed the Astro Bot trademark, but we already knew Team Asobi was making their “biggest [game] to date” following the release of the non-VR Astro’s Playroom (2020) on PS5, but it’s unclear if that future game means VR as well.
Where is Blood & Truth 2?Farpoint 2? A PSVR 2 upgrade for Resident Evil 7 Biohazard (2017), one of the platform’s most celebrated titles? All of these things may arrive at some point (who knows!), but in the indeterminate meantime it feels like Sony has taken a decisive step back from funding VR content, and instead has pushed VR modes in traditional games to bridge what has increasingly become obvious gaps.
You’d be rightly concerned with the lack of backwards compatibility, but I’d wager you’d be a lot less concerned if Sony was more active in communicating a future pipeline of high-quality content. The fact is that six months since launch, we only have around 100 games on PSVR 2, which pales in comparison to what you find on Quest (500+) and PC VR (thousands).
The Clock is Ticking
Six weeks after its February 2023 launch, Sony revealed that PSVR 2 outsold the original by 8% in the same time period, selling around 450,000 units in its first week. We haven’t seen recent numbers from Sony, but the adoption chart from back then tells a pretty clear story; PSVR 2 started out only marginally more successful than the original. Granted, it is significantly more successful in terms of conversion rates, which isn’t something to sneeze at. Sony sold over 117 million PS4 units since launch in 2013, and now boasts over 40 million PS5 units since launch in 2020. Still, PSVR 2 unit sales probably aren’t that far off from the number of PSVR units during the same six-month time frame.
PSVR 2 Perfomance in First Six Weeks | Image courtesy Sony
Meanwhile, like the original PSVR from 2016, every year that passes gives companies like Meta a chance to iterate on their own console-like standalones. The next generation of standalones, such as Meta Quest 3, won’t be able to reach the graphical heights that are currently capable on PSVR 2 thanks to PS5’s dedicated GPU and PSVR 2’s foveated rendering capabilities, but PS5 owners still need to think twice before jumping into the comparatively shallow pool of PSVR 2 content—especially when a bulk of that content was made for Quest first and foremost, and only marginally enhanced for PSVR 2.
And every year that passes will inevitably compound this against Sony’s favor if it doesn’t take a more active role in content funding. What happens when a hypothetical Quest 4 arrives two to three years after Quest 3, and includes the entirety of the Quest platform’s library, which by then will probably include a glut of mixed reality games? If Sony is banking on the fact that PS5 owners would only choose PSVR 2 to suit their VR needs, they may be in for a rude awakening.
To stay relevant in the long-term, PSVR 2 needs more ‘AAA’ content like Astro Bot Rescue Mission soon. But even if that’s already coming, Sony needs to more clearly communicate where the platform is going, because PSVR 2 owners looking to make good use of their $550 headset—purchased on top of their $500 console—need confirmation they made the right choice one, two, and even five years down the line of the headset’s probable lifecycle.
Fast Travel Games announced that its upcoming single player RPG Vampire: The Masquerade – Justice will release on November 2 for Quest headsets and PSVR 2. After going hands-on with the game last week at Gamescom, we're looking forward to playing more.
Launching for $29.99 in November on Quest 2, Quest 3 and PSVR 2, Vampire is Fast Travel's latest bet on substantial single player VR campaigns, following on from Wraith: The Oblivion – Afterlife in 2021.
Besides their penchant for long names with hyphens and colons, both games share similarities: both are set in the World of Darkness universe and keep the focus on single player, first-person campaigns, unlike other recent Fast Travel titles. But while Afterlife focused on a survival horror angle, Vampire switches lanes over to more of a traditional single player stealth RPG experience, brought into VR.
Honorable Inspirations
After watching the game's trailers – and even moreso after trying the game out myself – Vampire's modern flatscreen stealth inspirations are clear. Yes, this very much looks and plays like a VR version of Dishonored, but that's not such a bad thing. In fact, it's about high time someone executed on the idea. Thankfully, from what I've tried so far, Fast Travel Games have done so fairly well. The game features a well-considered art direction that borrows from Dishonored but also presents a stunning take on the well-known Italian city of canals.
Smart creative direction with the visuals mean that they transfer admirably down to the lower-end Quest 2 on which I played my demo. While it still looks fantastic on that headset, I can't wait to see what it's like on it's more powerful Quest 3 successor and console-powered PSVR 2.
Vampiric Delights
Fast Travel have also been smart enough to put their own little VR twists on the Dishonored stealth gameplay formula, which give the game just enough panache to feel like it's own experience instead of a carbon copy.
Set in modern day Venice, you play as a vampire of the Banu Haqim clan in a linear narrative campaign, with a hub area from which you'll venture into main and side missions as you progress through the story. As you'd expect, the gameplay allows you to veer your play style across the spectrum of stealthy teeth-sinker to noisy vampiric menace. According to Fast Travel Games Creative Director and Co-Founder Erik Odeldahl, the less-stealthy options are more focused on noisy actions and being opaque with your intentions than playing in crazy aggressive and violent manner.
This also means that, like most games in the genre, missions will have optional objectives for those who remain a pacifist and/or complete levels undetected. You probably won't understand how to tick those boxes on your first try, but you'll be able to return and replay missions once you have better command of your vampiric ways.
The main gameplay loop will see you navigate towards mission objectives while evading or engaging enemies that stand in your way. In my demo, I encountered a puzzle-like arrangement of several patrolling bad guys, with a few options on how I chose to approach the situation.
Besides moving on foot, you have access to a Blink-like dash ability that lets you hop across canals or gaps, moving through windows or across enemy lines into hiding. There's also a Detective Mode-esque ability mapped to the trigger on your left controller, which will let you scan areas when pointing your left hand in any direction, revealing level obstacles and the bloody hearts of enemies ready to be bitten into.
When sneaking up behind a human – enemy or otherwise – you'll be able to grab their shoulder and pull them toward you. Once they're pulled close enough, you'll automatically bite into the human's neck and start draining blood, which you'll need to consume regularly if you want to use your abilities, such as your Vampiric Disciplines. These will drain you hunger meter when used, which is visible on your left palm and refillable by consuming the blood of living humans (the blood of dead humans is, unfortunately, worthless). You can also go the Edward Cullen vegetarian route, where you stick to finding rats to feast on and leave the humans alone.
The main Discipline I used in my demo was Clock of Shadows, which essentially allows you to move around mostly invisible for a short period of time. It's good for repositioning or passing an enemy unseen. There's also other noisier trap-like options, Cauldron of Blood and Shadow Trap, but I didn't get to using those.
Players can also use the wrist-mounted crossbow on their right hand, with different types of bolts that are crafted using your available hunger. The sleep bolt is invaluable, letting you put an enemy to rest from afar, either to sneak past them or drain their blood without attracting much attention.
As is standard in stealth games, you're also able to pick up items and throw them around the environment to attract or distract attention. It's a simple and staple mechanic, if slightly more engaging given you're now physically grabbing and throwing things in VR.
Overall, the vampire toolset is a familiar but solid set of abilities that seem like they should provide enough variety for players to alter the course of play to suit their preferred approach. New Vampiric Disciplines are unlocked with experienced earned in each level, so it will be interesting to see what unrevealed abilities lie ahead in the full game.
The physical grab-and-blood-suck mechanic is one that separate this from 'just' being a series of flatscreen stealth mechanics adapted into VR. That said, there's also an innate level of added stress that you get from being so present in-headset during stealth missions. There's not that same level of anxiety when you're playing on a screen and you definitely feel more of a heightened connection with the world and your stealth actions in VR.
Some Outstanding Questions
Heading towards release, Vampire's biggest unknowns relate to everything you can't show in a 30-minute hands-on demo. What I tried was a good set of tools with a decent first look at the serviceable semi-sandbox stealth levels. The real question is whether there will be enough variety – both in how your tools are used and the design of the levels that you use them in – to keep everything feeling fresh across a decently-sized campaign.
It's also difficult to gauge whether a given level will truly let you play 'your way', or whether the purported options to get from point A to B will end up tokenistic than meaningful.
On Quest 2, performance of the demo was mostly decent – especially given the impressive environments and visuals – but there were moments where it felt like the game was a bit jittery and struggling to keep up with my actions. Aiming the crossbow reticule felt a little unreliable and finicky at times, as did other interactions like aiming the dash ability or picking up objects.
It's of course worth keeping in mind that we played a demo build of a game that's still has two months worth of polish and optimization ahead before release. However, even considerable polish won't make up for areas where the game butts up against some fundamental unsolved problems with VR interactions.
While the concept of grabbing a human and pulling them close to suck their blood is fantastic, in practice it often felt like a bit of a cumbersome interaction to pull off correctly. The NPC body often didn't quite behave how I expected and sometimes it felt difficult to get everything in the right place. Again, it's something that might get improved between now and release, but even so, it won't change the fact that there's no weight to what should be a hefty action of pulling a body towards you with strong resistance.
Nonetheless, those are minor criticisms for what was otherwise an engaging look at one of the only big single player-focused campaign experiences coming to VR this year. The last couple of months have been drier than the Sahara Desert for such experiences on Quest, and Vampire looks like it will be a solid option for those players who have been waiting for something with more depth and substance than small arcade experiences or multiplayer titles. It's also a big step for Fast Travel Games, who might be able to capture a wider audience than ever before, given the general appeal of the subject matter.
Even with those few unknowns hanging open, I can't wait to jump in for more blood sucking fun with Vampire: The Masquerade – Justice later this year. It's available to pre-order now on Quest and PSVR 2, with a release date set for November 2.
Looking back at the limitations of PSVR 1’s tech, it’s remarkable that Firewall Zero Hour proved to be such a hit for First Contact Entertainment and resonated with a dedicated community happy to invest hundreds of hours in a single game mode.
You would then assume that Firewall Ultra, its follow-up on the much more powerful PSVR 2 with Sense controllers that allow for more immersive VR gameplay, would be a very straight shot.
Firewall Ultra Review - The Facts
Platforms: PSVR 2 Release Date: August 24 Developer: First Contact Entertainment Price: $39.99
Game Modes & Maps
In many ways, Firewall Ultra feels like more of a 1.5 rather than a straight sequel, though its no-nonsense objective-based gameplay means you’re hardly here for story. At its core is still the Rainbow Six Siege-style Contracts PvP mode, which pits two teams of four against each other. The teams rotate between attack and defend, with the former attempting to hack into a laptop to steal intel in the allotted five minutes while the latter team have to impede. This sometimes also means camping in the same room with the doors blocked and explosives triggered to catch trespassers. Alternatively, since there are no respawns, either team can win the round by wiping the other team entirely.
There is, however, a new PvE co-op mode called Exfil, which is a bit like the attacking portion of Contracts but against bots. The difference is that besides accessing the firewall, you have to hack not one but three laptops and then also make it to the extraction zone. And all while facing incredibly ruthless waves of bots that really do require all four team members working together to survive.
The majority of the eight launch maps are also remakes of the maps in Zero Hour, including the oil rig and office. There are some interesting changes though, such as how the latter, set in the fictional headquarters of a social media company, now looks like it’s in the aftermath of a raid with lights out and overturned furniture.
One benefit to remaking the old maps is how clearly it shows the visual leap that Firewall Ultra has made in switching to Unreal Engine 5, with more detailed environments and realistic lighting. Some of the maps are purposefully quite dark with poor visibility, so it feels great when you’re equipped with a gun that comes with a flashlight – though that of course risks giving your position away. Ultimately, I preferred the more open environments of the new urban Middle-Eastern map Crossroads. Set in the middle of the day, the map’s openness also means there’s more vantage points where you can be caught out.
Some Ultra Complications
While the solid core gameplay of Contracts remains and the brutal difficulty of Exfil saw our team screaming with glee when we made it out in one piece, a myriad of issues currently weigh down the overall experience of Firewall Ultra.
The biggest concern is with how the game handles aiming. There was a lot of praise for how Zero Hour made use of PSVR’s optional AIM controller, so you would expect the new VR-dedicated Sense controllers to be up to the job. Yet compared to other PSVR 2 shooters I’ve played, including Resident Evil Village and Synapse, it felt such a chore trying to hold the gun in front of me, let alone line it up so that I could actually see a rifle’s reticle or laser sight.
That’s how it works if you manually hold a weapon up to your head with L1 (or R1 for left-handed users like myself), which also has the misfortune of being the same button for interacting with objects like doors, pick-ups or reviving a downed teammate. However, L2 (or R2) gives you a dedicated ADS mode. This realistically just gives you a virtual stock, so that the butt of your gun is on your shoulder, which sometimes just makes it easier to aim by turning your head. While this mode does improve accuracy, it comes at the cost of immersion. I found the mode frequently required positioning my arms in a much less natural way.
Sadly, the ADS mode is not the only instance of immersion-breaking moments in Ultra. There’s also no manual reload option, for example. Likewise, being downed will snap you into an awkward third-person perspective, looking down on yourself as you crawl hopelessly on the ground calling for a teammate to revive you before an opponent finishes you off. It’s just baffling how much the design decisions feel geared towards a flatscreen FPS rather than a VR game.
Even if you can adjust to the control quirks, you’ll still likely be dragged down by the litany of bugs in Ultra. While some can be amusing, such as seeing team members’ limbs stuck in awkward poses when loading into the new Safehouse hub before matches, the majority just put a damper on the overall experience. From laggy, sticky gun inputs to every facet of UI issues, First Contact Entertainment will no doubt address many of these in post-launch patches, but it hasn’t made for a great first impression. (Editor's note: see below) It’s purely down to the core fundamentals of the game still being so exciting that I managed to persevere through launch weekend.
However, that still hinges on finding a team who have mics on, because I cannot stress how vital communication and sticking together is in this game. Even more frustrating is Firewall Ultra’s long-winded process to squad up with friends and begin playing a match. Instead of selecting a game mode on the main menu, you have to enter the Safehouse first, invite your friends, and then go through a confusing menu system via a terminal to get into a match as a squad.
On paper, having a physical hub where you can hang out and shoot the breeze in between matches sounds nice. In reality, I couldn’t help but wonder if a more streamlined no-frills interface would have worked better.
It’s also been tricky to assess Firewall Ultra at launch simply because some of its live service features were not live at the time of review. These features, such as Assignments and the battle pass-style Operations, aim to give meaningful progression to your play sessions. Instead, I spent the best part of launch weekend playing and yet was only able to reach Rank level 2 with barely 15,000 crypto (the in-game currency) to my name – a paltry fraction of what’s required to unlock anything of note. (Editor's note: see below) By contrast, the shop is already open and will let you fast-track progress by spending $4.99 on the premium Shadow Coin currency. Given the slow start to in-game rewards, that’s likely the way most players will be unlocking the game’s other playable contractors.
Editor's Note: UploadVR conducted its review of Firewall Ultra across launch weekend. First Contact Entertainment since issued a patch this week addressing a few bugs. The studio says its network engineers are “hard at work” on fixes for “matchmaking issues.” The patch also grants new and existing players 100,000 crypto (in-game currency), which will help players sooner unlock a selection of weapons and items.
Ultra's Assignments and Operations features also went live earlier this week. First Contact Entertainment says that this should "really help in earning rep [Reputation, used for ranking up] & crypto at a quicker rate!"
Firewall Ultra - Comfort & Control Options
All of Firewall Ultra’s menus, including weapon wheels, are navigated using eye tracking. As someone who has had an erratic experience with eye tracking, perhaps owing to a very strong glasses prescription, it’s frustrating that there are currently no other options for selection, such as gaze-based head tracking.
Firewall Ultra supports playing while either sitting or standing – while I usually opt for the former to reduce motion sickness, I found the more considered and stealthy movement meant that using the latter was not an issue. The game also has a Comfort tab with options for adjusting walking speed, snap or smooth turning, turn amount, the ability to toggle running by default, and the intensity of headset vibration.
You can choose to play either as right-handed or left-handed, with button controls flipping accordingly (e.g. reload switches from Cross to Square, while ADS mode switches from L2 to R2). This can be done via a menu tab or also in-game.
There are also subtitles available when receiving instructions and feedback from your handlers but there are no audio cues from other contractors so communicating with your squad is essential.
Firewall Ultra - Final Verdict
As a live-service game with a long road map ahead of it, it would be too early to consider this our ‘final’ verdict of Firewall Ultra. However, in its launch state, the game is riddled with bugs, as well as frustrating UI and design decisions that often make it a drag to play. If you nonetheless wade through all that, the core PvP Contracts and the new co-op Exfil mode can still be tense and exhilarating with the right team.
If these issues are ironed out, it may have better prospects in the long run with more content to come. However, the pricing structure at launch (with its push towards additional in-app purchases after the initial base game purchase) cynically encourages you to spend more to unlock additional content and features. It’s difficult to recommend Firewall Ultra to PSVR 2 owners right now, especially compared to progression-less but more polished and varied options like Pavlov.
UploadVR focuses on a label system for reviews, rather than a numeric score. Our reviews fall into one of four categories: Essential, Recommended, Avoid and reviews that we leave unlabeled. You can read more about ourreview guidelines here.
C-Smash VRS receives a free update in two weeks, adding co-op and new gameplay modes to the PSVR 2 exclusive.
Released in June after receiving a free demo, C-Smash VRS is a VR reboot of SEGA's Cosmic Smash, which mixes Squash and Breakout with a first-person perspective. Following a previous confirmation on Twitter, RapidEyeMovers and Wolf & Wood outlined some key features planned for this upcoming update.
The ultimate VR sports game is about to expand like the universe itself. With Co-Op, Infinity, AI Versus Bot, Emotes, @unkleofficial and more...
Detailed on PlayStation Blog, the update's highlights include 'Infinity Mode', which offers a dynamically generated arena that keeps changing with the music." Co-Op support is coming, though it's unclear how that will work. The music player lets you listen to the soundtrack, new levels are being added, there's a collaboration with UNKLE and more.
We had high praise in our recommended C-Smash VRS review, stating it "stylishly adapts this arcade classic for PSVR 2."
RapidEyeMovers and Wolf & Wood have done Cosmic Smash justice with this VR reimagining and I found C-Smash VRS successfully tapping into that "one more game" mindset. While Journey isn't a long campaign and the arcade-style gameplay doesn't have significant depth, there's strength in its simplicity that makes it an easy recommendation.
C-Smash VRS is available now on PSVR 2, while the content update arrives on September 14.
Note: This article, originally published on July 31, was updated on August 30 to reflect the release date confirmation.
A clip found in Meta's firmware visualizes Quest 3 using it depth sensor to generate a detailed 3D mesh of its environment.
Meta has hinted that Quest 3 is capable of "intelligently understanding and responding to objects in your physical space", but hasn't yet gone into detail about what that actually means.
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The short clip, found by firmware sleuth Samulia, visualizes depth mapping coming from the headset - likely representing the depth sensor - as it pans around the room. A detailed environment mesh is visible on furniture and objects.
The clip also appears to show semantic understanding, with the couch being labelled with a couch icon.
It ends by showing a mixed reality character standing on the real couch and then climbing over it, an example of occlusion, all while casting a realistic shadow across the scene. Without occlusion the character would be rendered in front and would always break the illusion. Occlusion is arguably as important to mixed reality as positional tracking is to VR.
Current Quest headsets can achieve basic occlusion if you manually mark out rectangular cuboids to represent your walls and furniture. This arduous process means almost no Quest developer today actually leverages the scene graph features though. Quest Pro was originally supposed to have a depth sensor, but it was dropped just a few months before release. Had it not been, it's possible Quest Pro could have had these same room scanning features Quest 3 now seems set to introduce.
Other clips found in the firmware by Samulia back in June suggest the room mesh won't only be used for mixed reality though.
To use VR on existing Quest headsets you manually draw Guardian bounds on your floor via a passthrough view of your room. An eight foot boundary wall will then show when you get near those bounds. But this limits you to using VR only within completely empty spaces with no furniture of any height, even if you could reach over it.
A Meta product roadmap leaked to The Verge in March mentioned Quest 3 having a feature called “Smart Guardian”. One of the previously leaked clips appeared to show this - the user in VR can see an outline of nearby furniture and is made aware when approaching real walls. Compared to traditional Guardian you could leverage more of your room for your hands in VR, including the space above beds and tables.
Meta hasn't yet revealed all of Quest 3's specs and features. What it has officially stated is the visor is 40% thinner thanks to pancake lenses, the GPU is more than twice as powerful, and it has dual color cameras and a depth sensor for mixed reality with scene understanding. The base model has 128GB storage and will be priced at $500.
Meta hasn't yet revealed the exact launch date, but the company opened preorders for Quest 2 and Quest Pro at its yearly Connect conference and this year it's scheduled for September 27.
We've reached out to Meta for comment on this potential leak, and will update this article if we hear back.
The 2023 Meta Connect conference is slated for September 27 this year. Meta announced Quest 2 and Quest Pro at Connect, and shipped each a few weeks after.
Quest 2 for example was announced on September 16 2020 and shipped from October 13, while Quest Pro was announced October 11 2022 and shipped from October 25.
That suggests Meta Quest 3 could be announced on September 27 this year and ship from October 10.
This isn't the first potential Quest 3 detail that's leaked from a premature retail listing. A Best Buy listing in June may have confirmed a previously datamined exact resolution figure, which Meta hasn't yet announced.
Last week an unofficial Quest 3 unboxing video was even posted anonymously to Reddit, revealing the package contents and a glasses support feature.
Meta has already officially confirmed some of Quest 3's specs and features, though.
The company says the visor is 40% thinner thanks to pancake lenses, the GPU is more than twice as powerful, and it has dual color cameras and a depth sensor for mixed reality with scene understanding.
The base Quest 3 model has 128GB storage and will be priced at $500. Meta has said there will be a higher storage tier too, but hasn't yet revealed how much storage it will have or its price.
Two quality VR games with more recent sequels are Meta's Quest+ titles for September.
Meta Quest+ is the company's new monthly games susbscription service which debuted at the end of June for $8 per month. You can cancel membership and when you re-join you get access to the games you previously unlocked with the subscription.
Starting Sept. 1 and continuing through the end of the month Meta Quest+ members can get Red Matter from Vertical Robot and A Fisherman's Tale from Innerspace. Both games frequent many of our best in VR lists.
Red Matter debuted in 2018 with impressive visuals for PC and PSVR headsets, and followed up the following year with a Quest release and "improved visuals." Developer Vertical Robot has turned improving visuals into a habit with the studio's work across all headsets continually impressing eyeballs. Check out the video embedded below for an example of one of Vertical Robot's graphical feature sizzle reels:
In 2019, A Fisherman's Tale from Innerspace achieved "a perfect storm of gameplay, immersion and narrative" with its perfect mix of poetic storytelling and "reality-defying gameplay." Check out the trailer below, but it stood out at release as a landmark VR experience and it remains a delight today.
Both Red Matter and A Fisherman's Tale have more recent sequels showcasing those same developers exploring new stories and gameplay concepts. So if any new Meta Quest+ members enjoy their time with either title, be sure to check out our reviews for Red Matter 2 and Another Fisherman's Tale if you're looking for more.
While priced at $8 per month, Meta also offers a $59.99 annual plan. Previous titles offered in the program included Walkabout Mini Golf, which is still available to new members until Sept. 1, and Pistol Whip back in June. That means annual subscribers who joined at the launch in June already have a library with some of VR's best games even if they never owned any Quest games before joining.
Even though much is already known about the device, Quest 3 is scheduled for formal reveal at Meta's Connect event on Sept. 27. Quest 3 starts at $500 and is both much slimmer and more powerful than Quest 2, which will continue to be sold as an entry level device alongside the newer headset.
As Meta moves to push its VR install base ahead of new competition in 2024, we could expect big name drops for October, November, and December games in the Quest+ lineup as the company presses its advantage.
Not ready to plonk down your first $100 on Quest 2 games? Thankfully there’s an impressive number of free games, experiences, apps, and social VR platforms to keep you playing before you’re paying.
We have however included App Lab games. If you want to see more, SideQuest’s search function is a great resource for finding free stuff and demos. Below you’ll find some of the top App Lab games in addition to those hosted on the official store.
Free Games
Population: One
Population: One is basically VR’s most successful battle royale, letting you climb, fly, shoot, and team-up with whoever dares. Once paid, the free-to-play game does feature microtransactions, but only for cosmetics, which is nice. It’s still a paid on game on Steam though, which makes sense considering developers BixBox VR were acquired by Meta. There is more than just battle royale though: you can play in the sandbox for custom maps and rules, team deathmatch with customizable loadouts, a 12v12 war mode, and more.
Once a paid game, this room-scale shooter is now free-to-play, letting you take on friends, family and foes in head-to-head 1v1 dueling. Refine your loadout and jump into the action as you scramble for weapons and send a volley of hellfire at your enemies, all the while Matrix dodging through this innovative bullet hell meets futuristic dueling game. Spend money on cosmetics, or don’t: it’s a massive slice of fun any which way.
There aren’t a ton of free-to-play shooters out there that promise multiplayer action, however Gun Raiders fits the bill with its multiple game modes that let you jetpack through the air, climbing from wall to wall, and shoot down the competition. There’s the same sort of microtransactions you see in bigger games, but it they’re all avatar skin stuff, so no pay-to-win here.
Hyper Dash is a multiplayer shooter that basically fills in where Echo Combat never could (never mind that Echo Combat was never on Quest, and is now entirely defunct on Oculus PC). Letting you quick dash, sprint, and rail grind around, Hyper Dash manages to serve up an impressive number of modes, including Payload, Domination, Control Point, (Team) Deathmatch, Capture The Flag, and Elimination. You can also take on both Quest and SteamVR users thanks to the inclusion of cross-play.
Ultimechs should look pretty familiar: it’s basically Rocket League, but instead of driving around in cars, you’re given rocket-powered fists to punch balls into the goal. Online multiplayer includes both 1v1 and 2v2 matches, offering up tons of opportunities to earn cosmetic gear that will let you outfit your battle mech into something unique. There are also now two paid battle passes too, offering up a ton of cosmetics to set you apart from the competition.
Battle Talent is one of those fighting sims that let you go ham on ragdoll baddies, which in this case are wily goblins and loads of skelingtons. This physics-based roguelite action game lets you climb, run and slide your way through levels as you slash, shoot, and wield magic against your foes.
Cards & Tankards is a pretty addictive social collectible card game, letting you collect and battle friends with over 180 cards. With cross-play against SteamVR headsets (also free on PC), you may consider hosting your regular game night playing more than a few rounds in the game’s characteristic medieval fantasy tavern.
Ever wanted to play Counter-Strike on Quest? Pavlov Shack offers up a pretty comparable experience, as you play in either deathmatch or co-op mode. It’s got all of the realistic gunplay and much of the fun of the paid PC VR title, but it’s still going strong with a free open beta on Quest.
Still in open beta, this 4v4 arena-scale shooter requires space and Quest 2 (or Quest Pro) owning buddies—both of which you may not have. Still, it makes for an incredible time that is basically the best version of laser tag you’ve ever played. You’ll need SideQuest to download this one since it disables Quest’s guardian system, but it’s well worth jumping through the hoops to get working if you have everything else.
This humble game of tag started out life on SideQuest and App Lab, offering up an infectious bit of gameplay that’s now available for free on the official Quest Store. You’ll be lumbering around a tree-lined arena using its unique grab-the-world locomotion style that lets you amble around like a great ape. Chase the other apes and infect them or climb for your life as the infected chase you. Pure and simple. Make sure you’re far from TVs, furniture, babies, and pets because you will punch something in the mad dash for sweet, low-poly freedom.
No real cash gambling here, but PokerStars VR not only let you go all-in on games of Texas Hold’em, but now a full casino’s worth of table games a machines that are sure to light up the dopamine starved pleasure centers of your brain. It’s all free play, so you won’t be risking real cash unless you buy in-game chips, which cannot be turned back into real money: it’s only to keep your bankroll flush for free play.
Gym Class – Basketball is the solution if you’re looking to shoot some hoops and dunk like you probably can’t on a physical court. Online multiplayer lets you go head-to-head for a pretty convincing game of b-ball thanks to the game’s physics-based and full-body kinematics.
This plucky roguelite dungeon crawler is still in beta (still!), but there’s a reason it’s become an App Lab favorite. Explore a vast dungeon to explore, housing plenty of baddies just asking for the steel of your sword, knives, and arrows. You’ll climb over deep pits, dodge lethal traps, and search for hidden treasures. Smash all the pots and crates you can before it officially launches on Quest sometime in the near future.
Would-be wizards, this is your time to shine. Explore a magical laboratory and take on the job of apprentice wizard. The lab is full of gadgets and magical stuff to mess around with; as one of the games that natively supports Quest’s hand tracking, you can put your controllers down and get experimenting with this little slice of the dark arts.
Since the recent Fishin’ Buddies update, this classic VR title has gotten a whole new lease on life as a multiplayer VR fishing game that lets you sit back and crack a cold one with the boys as you reel in the big’uns. The additional social areas also let you sit back between your fishing adventures to take part in casual mini-games.
Gods of Gravity is an arcade-style RTS game where you compete in an epic showdown of between celestial gods (2-8 players). Scoop up ships and fling them to capture a nearby planet, or open wormholes to teleport them across the solar system. Hold planets and moons to boost your production. Mine asteroids for the powerful resources within. And if you dare, capture the sun for the ultimate buff. Then send a massive fleet to conquer your enemy’s home planet. Last god standing wins.
Without a doubt one of the most fun, and most expansive VR titles out there… and it’s free. Sure, you can pay real cash for in-game tokens to buy spiffy clothes for your avatar, but that’s really up to you. Gads of mini-games await you in both first-party creations such as the ever so popular co-op Quests—that could be games in their own right—to user-created stuff that will keep your pocket book gathering dust. It’s social VR, so meet people and have a ball for zero dollarydoos. Fair warning: there’s a ton of kids.
If you’ve been anywhere near the Internet in the last few years, it’s likely you’ve already heard about VRChat, the user-generated social VR space filled with… well… everything you can imagine, re-pro games included like Among Us, Mario Kart, and even a version of Beat Saber. Fashion your own avatar or download the millions of user-generated avatars out there so you can embody SpongeBob, Kirito from Sword Art Online, or any one of the million anime girl avatars that you’re bound to see there.
Horizon Worlds is still taking baby steps, although recent efforts have brought more tools and user-generated content to the platform which has rounded out things to make it more competitive with Rec Room and VRChat. You may want to check in just to see the state of Meta’s first-party VR social platform—and then check right out again—but at the price of ‘free’, you may just find an environment or community you really gel with, which is the whole reason behind social VR in the first place.
One of the best PC VR games of the last few years is coming to PlayStation VR2 in October.
First confirmed for the platform in July and now dated during Gamescom, Vertigo 2 will make its way over to PSVR 2 headsets on October 24. Vertigo first released in March on SteamVR.
During the earlier announcement it was confirmed that the PC version would get additional features like allowing custom textures to be imported into the upcoming level editor. Three alternate playable characters with different playstyles will also unlock after beating the game.
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Vertigo 2 is an enthralling action-adventure VR game from 22-year old creator and sole developer Zach Tsiakalis-Brown. Inspired by the campaigns of Valve classics like Half-Life and Portal, Tsiakalis-Brown takes a VR-first approach to game design with its satisfyingly-creative arsenal of weapons across the entire 18-chapter, boss-ridden campaign.
When we spoke to Tsiakalis-Brown in April, he was "really interested" in bringing Vertigo 2 to PSVR 2. He confirmed he had talked to Sony about getting a partnership going, but had no "concrete plans" to discuss at the time.
Vertigo 2 will be an absolute fantastic addition to the PSVR 2 library – in our review of the PC VR release, we outlined how it's easily one of the best VR campaigns to emerge for quite some time. Having such a beefy, campaign-driven release on PSVR 2 will be a huge boon for the platform.
Vertigo 2 arrives on PSVR 2 later this year, and we'll keep an eye out for more details in the following months. You can check out our review of Vertigo 2 below.
Firewall Ultra is out now exclusively for PlayStation VR2 headsets.
The highly anticipated shooter from First Contact Entertainment uses key new PSVR 2 features like eye tracking toward the goal of developing a more refined tactical game than its 2018 predecessor, Firewall Zero Hour. For example, earlier this year we noted how the blinding effects of the game's flash bangs or flashlights can be reduced by simply shutting your eyes quickly enough.
"It's a natural reaction your body has – you don't have to remember what button does what," said First Contact Entertainment spokesperson David Jagneaux, adding that with when making use of weapons like the new sniper rifle, in conjunciton with eye tracking and a button press, it can "give you more intention with your shot."
We tried out the game earlier this year and barely scratched the surface of its strategies, so we'll be looking to dive in in the coming days with active servers and see how it holds up.
Firewall Ultra's main draw is a 4v4 mode which sees teams attempt to hack a laptop or defend it, but there's a cooperative Exfil mode as well for up to four players working together to hack three laptops and get out. Just ahead of launch, First Contact Entertainment released a roadmap promising new co-op modes, maps, weapons, and contractors.
We'll be curious to see how active Firewall Ultra's servers get through the holiday season as it's shaping up to be a cornerstone of Sony's multiplayer shooter strategy for the PSVR 2. Check back for our review soon.
![The Year 1 Roadmap encapsulates plans for the first full year of content and updates for Firewall Ultra. Operations 1 through 4 will include 60 Rewards. Rewards include 1 Contractor + 1 Skill, 1 Weapon, Other Rewards [Encrypted]. Separate from the Operations, there will be 2 new maps and 2 new co-op modes. Operation Pass (each sold separately) and additional gameplay required to unlock each Operation’s contractor, skill, weapon, and premium rewards. Rewards require additional gameplay to unlock for the duration of its respective operation.](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53133363229_19b1952eb9_h.jpg)
