‘Mobile Suit Gundam VR’ Trailer Shows Off Story for Interactive Anime, Coming to Quest Fall 2024

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Bandai Namco revealed late last year that it was partnering with XR studio Atlas V (Gloom Eyes, BATTLESCAR) to release a Mobile Suit Gundam game for Quest, slated to arrive sometime this fall. We’re now getting a clearer picture of what to expect, as the studios tossed out a new story trailer for its “full-length” VR anime.

Update (July 23rd, 2024)

Atlas V showed off a trailer featuring some of the story behind Mobile Suit Gundam: Silver Phantom.

“Neither belonging to Earth Federation nor Zeon. The unofficial mercenary organization Argent Keil. You become the protagonist. Carry out an assassination order. Following the Phantom, from past to the future. Your story begins now.” the trailer states, showing off a mix of 3D and 2D anime scenes in the process.

The original article, including the trailer originally shown last month, follows below:

Update (June 26th, 2024)

Announced during UploadVR’s Summer Showcase today, Mobile Suit Gundam: Silver Phantom is officially coming to Quest this fall, bringing along with it some mixed reality gameplay elements revealed in a new trailer. UploadVR says the MR part of the game is set to include the ability to fight battles in your own living room using mobile suits featured in the main storyline and exclusive suits “designed specifically for this immersive experience,” 

The new trailer follows above the original article, which includes all other extant information about the game.

Original Article (March 21st, 2024): Mobile Suit Gundam: Silver Phantom is being pitched as a “virtual reality interactive movie,” which is said to provide fans with the opportunity to immerse themselves in the Gundam series in a new way and brand new story.

While the studios were previously very light on the detail when the project was announced late last year, it’s now been revealed the narrative will take place in the Universal Century 0096, including battle scenes in outer space.

Now, just in time for the Tokyo-based anime consumer show Anime Japan, we’ve got a brand new teaser for Mobile Suit Gundam: Silver Phantom (linked above).

If you’re looking for a slightly deeper dive, Bandai Namco Filmworks and Altas V also showed off a behind-the-scenes video at SXSW 2024 last week, which gives us a brief glimpse its storyboards and character design.

In the meantime, we’ll be waiting to hear word on exactly when to expect Mobile Suit Gundam: Silver Phantom on Quest, as for now the release date is still a complete mystery. The studios tell us we should expect a Quest Store page soon however, which will let you wishlist the game.

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Quest 3 is Getting AI Vision Features While Apple Intelligence on Vision Pro Still Isn’t Confirmed

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Meta today announced plans to update Quest 3 with AI vision features similar to what’s on the company’s latest Meta Ray-Ban glasses. Meanwhile, Apple still hasn’t confirmed if Apple Intelligence features will hit Vision Pro at the same time as other Apple devices this Fall.

Meta has pointed to AI investments as its other major area of R&D alongside XR, and now the company is starting to bring the two together with consumer-facing AI features.

Sometime later this Summer in the US and Canada, Meta says it will roll out an update to Quest 3 enabling the ‘Meta AI with Vision’ feature. The feature will give the headset AI voice chat capabilities and also allow the headset to ‘see’ what’s in the user’s real-world field-of-view. Users can ask general questions but also inquire about things in front of them. Meta gives some examples in its announcement:

Let’s say you’re watching YouTube videos of some breathtaking hikes in mixed reality while packing for your upcoming trip to Joshua Tree. You can ask Meta AI for advice on how to best dress for the summer weather. Or you could hold up a pair of shorts and say, “Look and tell me what kind of top would complete this outfit.” You can get the forecast so you can prep for the weather ahead and even ask for local restaurant recommendations to indulge your inner foodie.

Or say you’re in-headset and listening to music while working on a paper for school on a massive virtual monitor. You could ask Meta AI to identify some of the most memorable quotes from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and explain the significance of the “to be or not to be” soliloquy or the play within a play.

You might be playing Assassin’s Creed® Nexus VR, parkouring across rooftops when your curiosity is piqued. Why not ask Meta AI whether or not there were actual assassins in colonial Boston? The answer may surprise you…

For the time being, the camera can only see what’s in the real world, but won’t have awareness of virtual content shown by the headset. Meta is alluding that the Meta AI with Vision feature may eventually include both real world and virtual world awareness.

Unfortunately Meta confirms the feature won’t be coming to Quest 2 or older devices (and it’s likely Quest Pro won’t get it either).

Meta didn’t talk about whether requests for this feature are being processed on-device or in the cloud, nor did it address things like encryption, though it did confirm the feature is based on Bing AI. The company hasn’t yet responded to our request for more info on privacy architecture.

While Meta is rapidly deploying AI capabilities to its devices, Apple has yet to confirm if its so-called ‘Apple Intelligence’ features are coming to Vision Pro.

Earlier this year Apple announced a range of Apple Intelligence features coming to iPhones, iPads, and Macs in beta this fall. Despite announcing visionOS 2 at the same time, no Apple Intelligence features have been confirmed for Vision Pro. That leaves it up in the air whether the headset will get any Apple Intelligence features at the same time as other Apple devices, or if users will need to wait until later versions of VisionOS.

Apple says many Apple Intelligence features are processed on-device, but some requests—including those which lean on ChatGPT—will request off-device processing. Apple claims off-device requests “never store your data,” “are used only for your requests,” and that Apple will make the behind-the-scenes code available for privacy auditing.

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‘Walkabout Mini Golf’ Gets Wallace & Gromit Course This Week, Trailer Here

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Walkabout Mini Golf developer Mighty Coconut announced its long-awaited ‘Wallace & Gromit’ paid DLC course is coming this Thursday.

Starting July 25th you’ll be able to step into the duo’s 62 West Wallaby Street residence where you’ll play through a bevy of ingenious contraptions and “iconic moments from the beloved films.”

Granted, it’s not a 1:1 replica of the original, although you’d be pretty hard-pressed to see where the studio took liberties—outside of looping an entire mini golf course through the Edwardian row house, that is.

Image courtesy Mighty Coonut

“The house is a very different shape to the original. It gave us a lot of consternation. We were expanding and contracting and trying to make it feel just right,” lead modeler Edward Felix says.

Created in partnership with Wallace & Gromit creators Aardman Animation, the course includes 18 easy mode and hard mode holes, a commemorative in-game putter and themed avatars.

The paid DLC course will release on all supported VR platforms (Quest, PSVR 2, Pico & SteamVR) and the non-VR Pocket Edition for iOS on July 25th, priced at $4.

The studio also released a behind-the-scenes video, showing off a bit more of the inspiration and partnership with Aardman

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XR News Bits – New VR Brawler Launches Alongside Big Updates for Existing Games

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Brazen Blaze is a unique VR brawler that’s just launched on Quest and PC VR. Meanwhile, Chess Club, Ironlights, and Battle Talent have all gotten exciting updates.

Those of you who have been reading Road to VR for a long time might recall the ‘Oculus Rift News Bits‘ articles we ran more than a decade ago. These were roundups of smaller pieces of news pertaining to the Oculus Rift (as there was little else happening to cover at the time!) that we felt were worth sharing, even if each one individually didn’t need a full article.

Today we’re reviving this idea with ‘XR News Bits’. XR has grown by an unfathomable amount compared to where we were all those years ago, and an incredible amount of exciting XR news comes our way every day. Very often we see pitches come across our desk that are worth highlighting, but we don’t always have the bandwidth for a full article on every one of them. XR News Bits is our new, occasional roundup of stories we think are worth a shout-out, even if we can’t take you in-depth.

Chess Club Update Brings Mixed Reality Mode and Permanent Price Reduction

Odders Lab, the Spanish developers behind popular XR titles like OhShape and Les Mills XR Bodycombat, has released a mixed reality update for their Quest game Chess Club on World Chess Day. In a move to make the game more accessible, Odders Lab is also permanently reducing the price from $15 to $10. Chess enthusiasts can look forward to experiencing this classic game in a whole new dimension.

VR Brawler Brazen Blaze Launches on Quest and PC VR

Brazen Blaze, a VR multiplayer brawler, has made its debut on Quest and PC VR. Developed by experienced VR studio MyDearest, the game has a unique take on VR melee combat, equipping players with gauntlets powerful enough to smash entire buildings. And hey, what do you know—here’s three Quest keys for the game, courtesy of the studio.

• RJGP4-EY9FK-YWHW6-74YAN-YN9MC
• XQCY7-FKNPW-PJWT3-69XP9-99WRG
• 99FF9-6HKY6-6KG77-MP6CP-PQ7N6

VR Melee Dueler Ironlights Resurges with Surprise Update

If you want to fight up close but gauntlets aren’t quote your fancy, Ironlights, the 1v1 VR dueling game is being revived with a major update, its first since late 2021. The ‘Gauntlet Update’ introduces a challenging new single-player mode called Endless Gauntlet, where players face a relentless series of opponents without healing. The update also significantly expands customization options, adding over 30 new armors and helmets, plus 30 new armor materials. Ironlights and its new update is available on Quest and PC VR.

Battle Talent Celebrates 1st Anniversary with Multiplayer & Mixed Reality Update

And if competitive melee isn’t your cup of tea, how about fighting alongside a friend against the forces of evil instead? Battle Talent, the VR melee combat game, marks its first anniversary with a substantial update. The centerpiece is a new cross-play multiplayer mode. This update introduces cooperative magic, weapon enchantments, and even playful item-stealing between players. The update also includes a mixed reality mode with LAN support for local play. The developers have also refined combat feedback, effects, and UI elements. You can find Battle Talent on Quest and PC VR.

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‘Metro Awakening’ Interview Reveals New Screenshots, Game Details & Locomotion Options

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Metro Awakening is set to launch on all major VR headsets sometime later this year, and while we got a good eye-full in its announcement trailer from January, developer Vertigo Games tells us a bit more what to expect in an interview on the PlayStation blog, including new screenshots, VR implementation details, and a bit about locomotion too.

The game’s standalone story, which has been created in collaboration with the series’ original author Dmitry Glukhovsky, is slated to take place before the events of Metro 2033 (2010).

If you’ve never played or read Glukhovsky’s eponymous novel, Metro 2033 is set in the aftermath of a nuclear war where survivors have found refuge in Moscow’s Metro tunnels. Taking on the role of Artyom, a man tasked with protecting his home station from various threats within the Metro, you face off guns a-blazing against both human and mutant enemies.

Now, Metro Awakening’s Creative Director Martin de Ronde and Game Director Samar Louwe weighed in with a fair bit of detail beyond the game’s announcement from earlier this year. The team reveals Metro Awakening focuses on a personal, emotional story for a new character, putting heavy emphasis on a story-driven approach.

Image courtesy Vertigo Games

And as any Metro fan might hope, it’s also set to have a similar playstyle to mainline Metro games, including a mix of stealth and combat. The protagonist isn’t supposed to be an OP combat expert though, which is said to lead to slower-paced combat.

“But rest assured for everybody that is a little bit more trigger happy. There’s plenty of classic Metro action in the game,” de Ronde says.

There’s also the ongoing concern with finding ammo, making exploration essential to finding scattered bullets.

“We chose to keep a lot of our UI and interactions as diegetic as possible,” Louwe says. “For example, if you want to see how many bullets you have left in your gun, we could have put a counter on it. But we didn’t do that. Instead we opened up the clip, so that you can actually see how many bullets are in there.”

Image courtesy Vertigo Games

Built in collaboration with original developer 4A Games, Vertigo Games is making use of
existing assets in addition to creating new ones to maintain the series’ look and feel. As for its VR-native bits, tactile interactions such as wiping gas masks and checking ammo manually sets the stage for immersive interaction.

Image courtesy Vertigo Games

Locomotion options include ‘Comfort’, which focuses on teleportation, and ‘Immersion’, which offers continuous movement. Customization options will also be included; default locomotion setting is continuous stick movements with snap rotation, however it will also smooth rotation for fans of the locomotion style.

“That said, we are not really shying away from pushing the boundaries of VR when it comes to creating a visceral experience. So in Immersion mode, you can also expect to be moved around a bed or knocked over to wake up unconscious on the floor or, or even be thrown off a rail car for example,” Louwe says.

There’s no release date yet beyond the “2024” window, however you can wishlist the game now on PSVR 2 and SteamVR headsets. The link for Quest seems to be broken for now, however it’s likely set to go live here at some point.

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Magic Leap Lays Off Sales & Marketing Amid Report of “last ditch” Pivot to License AR Optics

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Storied AR headset unicorn Magic Leap has laid off its entire sales and marketing departments, making for around 75 jobs cut from its rolls.

Initially the focus of a Bloomberg report, Magic Leap has now confirmed the layoff round, stating the move was to adjust its strategy moving forward:

“Magic Leap has been evolving our go-to-market approach to better align with market dynamics and emerging opportunities, optimizing how we support our customers and our ecosystem,” Magic Leap told Bloomberg. “As part of this, we have consolidated our frontline engagement to our developer support and care teams. We will continue to actively support Magic Leap’s customers, developers and our large ecosystem through the Developer Support and Care teams.”

Citing two people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reports Magic Leap has been struggling in recent months, as the company allegedly told employees earlier this year it would pivot from selling AR headsets to enterprise, and instead move to license its AR optics tech.

Magic Leap 2 | Photo by Road to VR

While no such plans have been made public, one of the insiders told Bloomberg it represented “a last-ditch effort” by leadership to salvage its remaining value. The other insider maintains laid-off employees will receive two months of severance pay, stating the layoff came “out of left field” despite the company’s recent struggles.

Founded in 2010, the Plantation, Florida-based company initially had high hopes it could pitch Magic Leap 1, its first headset released in 2018, to both consumers and enterprise. Priced at $2,300, the AR headset had difficulty gaining traction, forcing Magic Leap to pivot and drop its consumer-focused ambitions in mid-2020 amid the departure of CEO and co-founder Rony Abovitz. The company released Magic Leap 2 in late 2020 solely targeted at enterprise.

The company has amassed nearly $4.5 billion in funds to date, which included early investments from Google, Qualcomm, Alibaba, and AT&T. In late 2022, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund became majority stakeholder after injecting $450 million into the company. That country’s investment fund further pumped in an additional $590 million in January 2024.

More recently, Google announced earlier this summer it was forming a “strategic technology partnership” with Magic Leap, the details of which still aren’t well understood.

Considering Magic Leap’s recent layoff and further claims of potential optics licensing, it could potentially mean Google is looking to leverage some of Magic Leap’s waveguide tech in future AR hardware.

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‘Disembodied’ is an Inventive Platformer for Quest That’s All About Hand-tracking

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Disembodied is a unique platformer coming to Quest that answers the question: how do you build a ‘traditional’ game entirely around hand-tracking?

Retroactively adding hand-tracking to existing games is a bit of a mixed bag. Sometimes it works just fine, like in the case of Cubism or Job Simulator, although adapting many games originally built for motion controllers isn’t so straightforward—one of the major reasons (beyond price) why Vision Pro isn’t chock full of immersive games right now.

That’s where Disembodied comes in, featuring a unique style of platforming gameplay that puts it squarely in the camp of ‘hand-tracking native’.

“Just hold your hands in front of you, and every movement will be mirrored to a pair of disembodied hands, which you must manoeuvre through small levels featuring various mechanics and challenges,” developer Middle Man Games explains.

It’s admittedly a little more than that. Built for mixed reality, you can twiddle your fingers for fine movement, or ‘paddle’ them back and forth to vault up platforms and ride across moving cranes—all in search of green orbs which allow you to activate the exit.

We’re curious to go ‘hands-on’ with this hand-tracking native, which for now looks to still be fairly early in development. Disembodied is however slated to launch “soon(ish)” on Quest, which will likely arrive on the main store in an early access since Meta is dissolving App Lab on August 5th.

In the meantime, you can wishlist Disembodied on Quest and see some early demo gameplay below, courtesy Erik Hartley.

This isn’t the first project from Middle Man Games. The Essex, UK-based indie also developed non-VR 2D platformer Ziode Shadow (2021) and falling block puzzle game for Quest and PC VR headsets Twistex (2024), which is a bit like a 3D version of Tetris.

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