Nicolas Doucet, the Creative Director behind 2018 PSVR hit Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, is now head of Sony PlayStation’s Japan Studio, it’s been announced.
An HR announcement from Sony itself confirmed the news this weekend. Doucet now carries the title Japan Studio Studio Director. The developer previously headed up Japan Studio’s ASOBI Team, which developed Astro Bot as well as its predecessor, The Playroom VR. The Playroom launched for free alongside PSVR in 2016 and featured several mini games, including one that grew into the full Astro Bot game.
We’re hopeful that this means Japan Studio’s future involves yet more PSVR projects. To this day, Astro Bot remains one of the best PSVR games available. The third-person platformer is bursting with charm and innovation, offering an absolutely delightful and powerfully immersive gameplay experience. In fact, the game currently sits at the top of our list of best PSVR games.
There’s plenty of potential for an Astro Bot sequel, for example. In fact, scrapped plans for the original game included local multiplayer, which we’d still love to see integrated into another title.
Of course, Sony’s PlayStation 5 is on the horizon, set to launch this holiday season. It’s very likely that Japan Studio is working on projects for the new console; could it perhaps also be preparing VR games to launch on the device? We know PS5 will support the original PSVR and we also know Sony is prototyping a potential new headset, but we’re yet to see a PSVR 2 formally be announced.
What would you like to see Sony’s Japan Studio work on next in VR? Let us know in the comments below!
A new video appears showing the potential of hand tracking in VR.
When Facebook announced that they were bringing native hand tracking to the Oculus Quest back in September during Oculus Connect 6, attendees gleamed with excitement. Since rolling out on standalone headsets through a December software update, users have been having a blast navigating through the Oculus Home interface using their own two hands. But how exactly does this exciting new feature apply to VR gaming?
In a new video released by Aldin Dynamics, the VR developer shows how hand-tracking technology is already being used as part of their popular VR magic game Waltz of the Wizards.
Throughout the 1-minute video, a player can be seen using hand-tracking technology to interact with a variety of magic objects and spells. He begins with smaller interactions at first; drawing lines on a skull with a digital quill, using telepathy to move small objects across the room, etc.
As the video progresses, however, the wizard-in-training steps it up with more complex interactions. At one point he pours a mysterious potion on his hand which then magically extends each of his fingers, resulting in a sort of frog-like appendage. By wiggling his fingers, he’s able to transform random objects into fluttering butterflies. There’s even an impromptu puppet show.
Image Credit: Aldin Dynamics
Unfortunately, the developers state that this was merely an experiment and it’s unclear at this time when official support will arrive.
“We are excited to get features out but don’t have a release timeline yet,” states a member of the development team on Reddit. This is also only a few of the features we’re considering. A big factor will be Oculus’ roadmap for tracking improvements and third-party release rollouts, which will hopefully get clarified soon.”
Yup, today is the official date that Bill Murray’s Phil Connors gets stuck in time loop hell. And, if you’re a VR fan, you also know its the day his son, Phil Connors Jr, gets stuck too. Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son released for PC VR and PSVR headsets late last year, so this is the first actual Groundhog Day you can experience for yourself. But be sure to take your headset off at midnight.
To celebrate, the game’s getting an official, permanent price drop. You’ll now be able to pick it up for $14.99 across all platforms. That’s 50% off of the original price it launched at in 2019. Still no word on a Quest version just yet, though.
Not only that, but Sony Pictures Virtual Reality and developer Tequila Works just released another developer diary for the game. This time around the team is talking about the cast of the game. Tequila Works used mo-cap to bring its scenes to life, but they also had the lofty task of living up to the quick-witted legacy of Bill Murray’s original. There’s some very cool shots in the trailer showing just how they did that, including a look into table readings and live recordings. Definitely check it out if you have an interest in that sort of stuff.
Anyways, happy Groundhog Day! Plan on picking the game up? Let us know in the comments below.
Funny things, bullets. In VR, they have a tendency to be a bit, well, weak? I’m not talking about the rattle of gunfire that erupts from the barrel when you squeeze the trigger of a rifle in, say, Boneworks, but more the visceral panic of being under fire instead. In most VR games, there’s no deafening clang of metal mercilessly catapulting itself into slabs of concrete, nor the genuine pang of panic that should come with being pinned down.
Crisis VRigade very much has that sense of urgency intact.
Don’t get me wrong, this free Oculus Quest shooter — currently the most popular on the SideQuest platform — is a fairly simple one. It’s a stationary shooting gallery in which you gun down comically large gangs of criminals. Visually it’s quite simple, too. But Crisis VRigade’s hard mode offers one compelling rule that twists the game on its head; one bullet will kill you.
Suddenly an otherwise fairly standard shooter is morphed into anarchic exercise session in which you’re throwing yourself behind cover with force and slowly emerging from behind it with the greatest of care. Not only that, but a level timer piles the pressure on to perform. Even though there’s otherwise very little to separate Crisis from a deluge of other VR shooters — right down to the boxy art style — this one twist gives the game a welcome spark of variety.
In one level, for example, you’re tasked with stopping a bank heist in its tracks in a scene similar to something like Heat. At first you find yourself pinned down behind the safety of your police car. Slowly picking enemies off becomes a methodical game of finding the right angles and daring to take the chance. One enemy unaccounted for and you’ll find a one way ticket back to the start arriving directly in the middle of your face.
This is a game that pushes you and wants you to replay over and over. It’s a demanding bit of VR arcade action that wants to take full advantage of the physicality of cover-based shootouts.
Crisis VRigade isn’t a stunningly innovative or even especially deep Oculus Quest shooter, but its demanding rule set gives it a touch of challenge and threat. That’s something a lot of other titles are sorely lacking. If you’re looking for a Quest game that will put your shooter skills to the test, you could do a lot worse.
Crisis VRigade is available for free on Oculus Quest via SideQuest and is also available for purchase on PC VR and PSVR headsets.
Back at the end of April, 2019, Oculus introduced “the new Oculus for Business” program, an enterprise-focused program which would see Oculus headsets sold with customized software aimed at large scale device management and business and commercial use-cases, along with specialized support and warranties. While the company expected the program to launch in the Fall of 2019, the Oculus for Business program is still not open for business.
If you’re an enterprise looking to use VR to enhance your business, you may have come across the Oculus for Business program. Through it, Oculus pairs the Quest headset for $1,000 with specialized software, licenses, and support for large scale enterprise deployments.
The official site presents the program as ripe and ready for enterprise needs, but for anyone except select pilot partners, the program has been “available soon” for months following its expected Fall 2019 launch. For businesses hoping to integrate VR into their organization, that’s months of frustrating uncertainty.
When we reached out to the company, Facebook gave us a status update but still wasn’t able to be any more specific than “soon” regarding open availability of the Oculus for Business program.
“We recently completed beta with a closed group of customers and ISVs, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. This month we’re continuing a gradual rollout to additional customers in the order with which they purchased and as hardware becomes available,” a Facebook spokesperson said. “Oculus Quest is currently backordered, and we’re working hard to replenish stock. We plan to continue with release to everyone, including new customers, soon.”
While other companies have had enterprise programs in place for some time, the slow and uncertain rollout of Oculus for Business continues a trend which has earned Facebook a reputation for being obtuse to the needs of enterprise VR customers outside of hand-picked high-profile organizations.
That extends to which Oculus hardware Facebook even offers through the Oculus for Business program. If Rift S or Oculus Go are the best fit for your business, you’re out of luck; Quest is the only option, making ‘Oculus Quest for Business’ a more fitting name.
Facebook will sell Rift S and Go in bulk with an enterprise license, but key enterprise-focused features—like remote device management, provisioning, kiosk mode, and more—are only available on Quest. Oculus had planned to offer Go as part of Oculus for Business, but said it dropped the headset based on pilot feedback.
Image courtesy Facebook
HTC on the other hand—which has long touted its Vive Enterprise program alongside a turnkey VR arcade platform—offers enterprise features across its entire line of products, both PC and standalone.
Speaking with Facebook about the Oculus for Business program, the company pointed us to both the Enterprise Use Agreement which governs the program, and the Hospitality Entertainment Combination Addendum, which further details limitations and responsibilities for business-to-consumer use-cases like VR arcades and attractions. The latter, interestingly, forbids companies from “implementing any custom co-location functionality” (ie: two users sharing the same physical space for a multiplayer experience), a capability which, to our knowledge, Oculus has not made available to developers since demonstrating it more than a year ago.
On the night of August 29th, 2016, Dante Buckley started crying.
Editor’s Note: This story was originally published in September 2017.
It wasn’t because he was heartbroken from a devastating breakup, or because he was sad and distraught from horrible events in his life. No, this night, Dante Buckley was crying tears of joy, relief, and excitement. After dropping out of college and focusing on teaching himself how to create a video game from scratch almost entirely by himself, his game, Onward, was finally released on Steam Early Access. The weight had been lifted and he could finally breathe again. A long, arduous road he started down over a year ago had finally reached its first milestone.
But this wasn’t the end of the road — he was just getting started.
The Anatomy of a Surprise Hit
“This is my first-ever interview,” Buckley confessed nervously during a Skype call. “I honestly did not know how big the game would be. I dropped out of college and focused for a full year on game development. I had some funds left that didn’t go towards tuition and I just went heads down and focused. I had a bit of programming background, but not in gaming. I watched YouTube, used resources online, and just built Onward. That’s where the name for the game came from. I wanted to keep moving forward and this was the perfect name for that point in my life.”
Now, two short months later, Onward has over 700 reviews on Steam with a ‘Very Positive’ designation and it’s widely regarded as one of the best VR shooters available on any headset. It’s easily one of the most popular games among Vive gamers on Steam.
Which, in some ways, defies logic. Conventional wisdom says create a fun, accessible game that can be enjoyed by gamers of all types and VR-comfort levels. Make it sickness free. Provide a multitude of movement options. Hold hands and simplify controls. That’s what common knowledge says for a brand new medium, but Onward isn’t like that. It’s a hardcore, simulation-style, multiplayer military shooter that requires motion controls and a roomscale environment.
According to the game analysis website Steam Charts, Onward had over 270 concurrent players at its all-time peak and maintained over 50 players on average throughout the past month — which means you should never have issue finding a game. That may not sound like much, but compare those numbers to other multiplayer VR shooters you may be more familiar with, such as Battle Dome (87 all-time peak,) Hover Junkers (107 all-time peak,) or even the 100% free Rec Room (112 all-time peak) and the popularity is clear.
“It’s my first game and nobody knows who I am and I just really didn’t expect it to be this big,” Buckley admitted. “I started working on the game when I was 18 and I’m 20 now. It’s just so much bigger than I could have expected.”
Much to his surprise, the game was a hit in the budding market of VR gaming. The surprise success adds up to approximately 18,000 sales so far to date. The game costs $25, and with a little quick math, that means the game has made ~$400,000 from Onward, not counting any limited sale periods and not factoring in the revenue split from Steam. For a small game made by a single college dropout, that’s tremendous.
“I definitely grew up playing a lot of first-person shooter games,” Buckley said. “The biggest one for me was probably Halo, back when I was around six on the first Xbox. I used to play the old Call of Duty games on PC too, my dad let me try those. Medal of Honor, Battlefield,Ghost Recon, and Rainbow Six too.”
A Hardcore Shooter Without Compromises
The VR landscape is constantly in flux in its early stages and there is an apparent mad dash to be one of the first in various different genre categories. Buckley knew that people would release shooters, but they weren’t the shooters he wanted. A focus on arcadey, simple experiences was a far cry from he tactical realism the desired.
“I knew there would be a market for it, ” Buckley said. “So I just made this game for myself. I want Onward to be my dream game. This is based on what I want to play and what I’ve played in the past. ”
The game’s entire development was also chronicled in a series of dev blogs on YouTube, the first of which was posted almost a full year ago. That was a crucial part in building the game’s fan base. But he wasn’t just creating Onward, he was creating an entire game development studio. By hiring some freelance commissions and contractors to help with art work and other assets, he took on the job of programming and launching the game, and thus Downpour Interactive was born.
When someone loads into the game for the first time, it can be overwhelming. There is a brief series of tutorial-esque moments and a shooting range to practice on, but it definitely isn’t a game for the feint of heart. He encourages everyone to watch the tutorial video (embedded above) before actually playing the game. It feels like one of those safety training videos they make you watch before going on certain rides at Disneyland.
Due to the type of game that Onward is, you’ll be using the full compliment of both Vive controllers. You can move yourself freely around the environment using the left touchpad, or physically walk, duck, and maneuver in your actual physical room. Reach down and grab your gun, put a magazine in, load the chamber, and configure settings all using actual switches and slots on the physical gun’s model.
You can reach up to your shoulder and talk to teammates on your radio, or grab the grenade at your belt, pull the pin, and toss it at your enemies. You’ve even got a knife at the ready for use in close-quarters combat. All of these things I’ve described are in most other modern military shooters — but they’re not in VR. Using your hands and physically doing all of these things — like ducking behind a wall as an enemy fires at you from 100 yards away — is a visceral feeling unlike anything else I’ve tried inside a headset.
Since the game uses a mixture of roomscale movement and artificial trackpad locomotion, you’d initially assume people would get sick, as that’s the common understanding. But according to Buckley, that’s almost never the case.
“I got lucky with how people don’t really get sick. People that get sick in other games don’t seem to get sick in Onward,” Buckley laughed. “I can make some guesses, but I don’t really know what I did to avoid sickness.”
Essentially, there are three main contributing factors, he surmises. Firstly, there is no yaw rotation, meaning you can’t artificially move your head’s view from side-to-side using the trackpad. That’s often a big contributing factor, so he makes you physically turn your head. Secondly, the touchpad movement actually help as well, as you can adjust your speed and acceleration based on where you place your thumb — or lack of acceleration, as it were — however you want. Finally, by focusing your vision downfield at enemies and points of interest, it creates a subconscious tunnel vision that emulates the narrowing field of view seen in other games, like Eagle Flight.
I’ve never been susceptible to motion sickness either inside or outside of VR, but I can verify that I also don’t experience it in Onward either. Granted, it could also be the hardcore-leaning nature of the experience as well. I assume it’s tough to focus on whether or not you’re nauseous when you’re splayed out, prone on the ground, trying to line up a shot a few hundred yards away.
In fact, I’ll never forget the first time someone opened fire on me — it had that sudden, adrenaline-infused impact of an event that was actually happening. It didn’t feel like a video game as I ducked for cover.
Building VR For The Future
As much as Buckley loves making Onward, he doesn’t want to stop with where he’s at right now. Ultimately, he’s a creator at heart. He has ideas for adding cooperative missions and expanding the competitive modes, as well as other game ideas for the future.
“I don’t think multiplayer is going anywhere for me, but I want to go into singleplayer storytelling soon,” Buckley explained. “I don’t see myself leaving the shooter genre much, but there are other genres I enjoy. I am really interested in telling stories in VR and I just knew that multiplayer was a great place to start and learn. That’s really what the studio name, Downpour Interactive, is all about. I want to make people feel a downpour of emotions when they play my games.”
There is already such a wide variety of content available for VR devices, it’s easy to see the allure of other genres at some point in the future. He’s working on building a team for Onward right now, since it’s still mostly just him by himself pushing out patches and updates.
“It’s been super stressful with lots of Red Bull,” Buckley told me. “Continuous 14+ hour work days. It’s been worth it though — it’s lots of fun and I love it. After Onward, I’ve got at least 5-10 other game ideas I want to work on in the future. It’s been really scary though, putting myself out there so much as the face of this game and the company. Gamers can get a little extreme with their opinions. For the most part though, it’s been super positive and I wouldn’t be where I am without the fans. Their support means everything to me.”
Onward and upward, indeed.
Onward is now available on Steam for $24.99 with official support for the HTC Vive with motion controllers.
[Editor’s Note:] This article was originally published on October 25, 2016 and has been republished as commemoration for the game’s one year anniversary on August 29, 2017. For tips on playing the game well you can read our Onward Field Guide here.
Just a day after Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk drops a killer EDM track on Soundcloud, the creator behind Beat Saber tweets out that he wants it in the game.
Billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk has his hands in seemingly everything, from electric cars and solar panels to sustainable future, space exploration, and now music. Musk just dropped a killer EDM track titled “Don’t Doubt ur Vibe” on Soundcloud, and then tweeted it out to his 31 million followers where it caught fire nearly instantly.
One of his Twitter followers just so happens to be Jaroslav Beck, Co-founder and Head of Music for Beat Saber Studios, who loved the track so much that he tweeted back to Musk saying, “Hey, how about to bring this to @beatSaber ?;).”
The 4-minute track – which was written, produced, recorded and performed by Musk, has already garnered over 1.9 million plays and is continuing to draw attention from a handful of notable figures. Epic Games Brian Sharon tweeted out “EDM = Elon Does Music,” while Brandon Boyd, lead singer of Incubus tweeted, “@IncubusBand and @elonmusk release new dope tracks on the same day…coincidence? Come on tour with us, bro.”
At the time of writing Musk hasn’t responded to Beck’s offer of bringing his track – which by the way is actually a really great song – over to Beat Saber, but fans of Musk, EDM, and Beat Saber have their fingers crossed.
Of course, now that Facebook owns Beat Games – the developer behind Beat Saber, fans might have to cross a lot of fingers to make that happen. Musk has been a vocal critic of Facebook for a while now; he even deleted the official Tesla and SpaceX Facebook pages back in 2018. At one point Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, tweeted the hashtag #deletefacebook to Musk, with Musk cheekily responding, “What’s Facebook?”
So when all’s said and done there’s a very good chance we won’t see Elon’s killer EDM tune in Beat Saber any time soon. But hey, we can all dream.
Beat Saber has been one of VR’s most popular games since it arrived on headsets back in 2018, due in large part to a regular stream of new songs and music packs from Grammy-winning artists like Imagine Dragons, Panic at the Disco, and Green Day.
