Before I get to Snap’s new Spectacles, a confession: I have a long history of putting goofy new things on my face and liking it. Back in 2011, I tried on Sony’s head-mounted 3D glasses and, apparently, enjoyed them. Sort of. At the beginning of 2013, I was enamored with a Kickstarter project I saw at CES called Oculus Rift. I then spent the better part of the year with Google’s ridiculous Glass on my face and thought it was the future. Microsoft HoloLens? Loved it. Google Cardboard? Totally normal. Apple Vision Pro? A breakthrough, baby.
Anyway. Snap announced a new version of its Spectacles today. These are AR glasses that could finally deliver on the promises devices like Magic Leap, or HoloLens, or even Google Glass, made many years ago. I got to try them out a couple of weeks ago. They are pretty great! (But also: See above)
These fifth-generation Spectacles can display visual information and applications directly on their see-through lenses, making objects appear as if they are in the real world. The interface is powered by the company’s new operating system, Snap OS. Unlike typical VR headsets or spatial computing devices, these augmented-reality (AR) lenses don’t obscure your vision and re-create it with cameras. There is no screen covering your field of view. Instead, images appear to float and exist in three dimensions in the world around you, hovering in the air or resting on tables and floors.
Snap CTO Bobby Murphy described the intended result to MIT Technology Review as “computing overlaid on the world that enhances our experience of the people in the places that are around us, rather than isolating us or taking us out of that experience.”
In my demo, I was able to stack Lego pieces on a table, smack an AR golf ball into a hole across the room (at least a triple bogey), paint flowers and vines across the ceilings and walls using my hands, and ask questions about the objects I was looking at and receive answers from Snap’s virtual AI chatbot. There was even a little purple virtual doglike creature from Niantic, a Peridot, that followed me around the room and outside onto a balcony.
But look up from the table and you see a normal room. The golf ball is on the floor, not a virtual golf course. The Peridot perches on a real balcony railing. Crucially, this means you can maintain contact—including eye contact—with the people around you in the room.
To accomplish all this, Snap packed a lot of tech into the frames. There are two processors embedded inside, so all the compute happens in the glasses themselves. Cooling chambers in the sides did an effective job of dissipating heat in my demo. Four cameras capture the world around you, as well as the movement of your hands for gesture tracking. The images are displayed via micro-projectors, similar to those found in pico projectors, that do a nice job of presenting those three-dimensional images right in front of your eyes without requiring a lot of initial setup. It creates a tall, deep field of view—Snap claims it is similar to a 100-inch display at 10 feet—in a relatively small, lightweight device (226 grams). What’s more, they automatically darken when you step outside, so they work well not just in your home but out in the world.
You control all this with a combination of voice and hand gestures, most of which came pretty naturally to me. You can pinch to select objects and drag them around, for example. The AI chatbot could respond to questions posed in natural language (“What’s that ship I see in the distance?”). Some of the interactions require a phone, but for the most part Spectacles are a standalone device.
It doesn’t come cheap. Snap isn’t selling the glasses directly to consumers but requires you to agree to at least one year of paying $99 per month for a Spectacles Developer Program account that gives you access to them. I was assured that the company has a very open definition of who can develop for the platform. Snap also announced a new partnership with OpenAI that takes advantage of its multimodal capabilities, which it says will help developers create experiences with real-world context about the things people see or hear (or say).
It me.
Having said that, it all worked together impressively well. The three-dimensional objects maintained a sense of permanence in the spaces where you placed them—meaning you can move around and they stay put. The AI assistant correctly identified everything I asked it to. There were some glitches here and there—Lego bricks collapsing into each other, for example—but for the most part this was a solid little device.
It is not, however, a low-profile one. No one will mistake these for a normal pair of glasses or sunglasses. A colleague described them as beefed-up 3D glasses, which seems about right. They are not the silliest computer I have put on my face, but they didn’t exactly make me feel like a cool guy, either. Here’s a photo of me trying them out. Draw your own conclusions.
There’s no shortage of speculation when it comes to all things Valve. Tyler McVicker, YouTuber and one of the leading voices dedicated to deciphering Valve’s various internal developments, however now reports that not only is the company’s long-awaited standalone VR headset still coming, but it may arrive alongside its own Half-Life game.
Valve’s much hyped standalone, known only as ‘Deckard’, is “still very much in production,” McVicker maintains, saying that according to his sources that Valve “still intend[s] on shipping this piece of hardware.”
Check out his latest latest video, linked below:
While rumors swirl around the next Half-Life game, which may not be a VR-supported title (aka ‘HLX’), McVicker speculates a Half-Life game built specifically to showcase Deckard is likely in the cards, much like how Half-Life: Alyx (2020) showed off the capabilities of Valve Index.
Echoing a previous rumor first reported in 2020, McVicker renews speculation that two Half-Life games could be in development, making for what could be an asymmetric co-op game across PC and Deckard.
The result would be “an asymmetric multiplayer game taking place in the Half-Life universe,” McVicker says, “where one player is in VR and the other on a computer. The computer player would always be Gordon Freeman, while the VR player would be Alyx Vance. The idea was that these two characters would interact, with the VR player experiencing Alyx’s story and the PC player experiencing Gordon’s story, both having cooperative elements between them.”
While that specific claim is still very much a rumor, McVicker does a lot of sleuthing when it comes to code published by Valve across its various first-party titles and services, which can hold some clues as to what’s coming down the pipeline. He admits he’s “nowhere near done” sifting through all code published by Valve in 2024 however, so we may learn more at some point later this year.
UbiSim is the first immersive virtual reality (VR) training platform built specifically for nurses. It is a complete simulation lab that provides nursing trainees with virtual access to a variety of clinical situations and diverse patients in a broad continuum of realistic care settings, helping institutions to overcome limited access to hospitals and other clinical sites for nursing students.
This cool tool allows institutions to create repeatable, real-life scenarios that provide engaging, standardized multi-learner experiences using VR headsets. It combines intuitive interactions, flexible modules, and immediate feedback. These contribute to developing clinical judgment, critical thinking, team interaction, clear communication, and patient engagement skills that enhance safe clinical practice and are essential to improving Next Generation NCLEX test scores.
UbiSim reduces the burden of purchasing and maintaining expensive simulation lab equipment, allowing nursing programs to scale and standardize their simulation activities. Faculty choose from 50-plus existing training scenarios created in collaboration with nursing educators and simulation experts. Educators may also customize content or create original scenarios to fit learning objectives.
Founded in 2016, UbiSim has been a Labster company since 2021. The UbiSim customer roster has grown by 117% since Fall 2022, extending its footprint at universities, community colleges, technical colleges, and medical centers within 9 countries, including 21 American states. UbiSim now partners with 100-plus nursing institutions in North America and Europe to advance the shared mission of addressing the nursing shortage by reducing the cost, time, and logistical challenges of traditional simulation methods and scaling high-quality nursing education. For these reasons and more, UbiSim, a Labster company, is a Cool Tool Award Winner for “Best Virtual Reality / Augmented Reality (AR/VR) Solution” as part of The EdTech Awards 2024 from EdTech Digest. Learn more.
Dungeons of Eternity (2023) is chock-full of skeletons, zombies, slimes and yes… spiders. But now developer Othergate has added an ‘Arachnophobia Mode’ that lets you take on the VR hack-n-slash adventure on Quest without fear of eight-legged creepy crawlies.
The recent update is a game of give and take, it seems. On one hand, the new Arachnophobia Mode replaces the spider monsters with a new enemy type—accessible by enabling the mode in Settings > Visuals > Enable ‘Arachnophobia Mode’.
On the other, the studio is also including a new monster to “balance things out”: Kamikaze exploding spiders.
Image courtesy Othergate
The update also comes with a host of new features and bug fixes, according to the patch notes:
Tier 3 Epic Chest Improvements. Hint: They can sometimes be dangerous but rewarding!
Improved Crossbow head tilt/aiming assist mechanic
Upgraded voice chat SDK and improved reliability of voice chat
Kick feature allows you to kick the same person repeatedly if they rejoin
Increased the AOE damage on bombs again (almost 2X)
The Arachnophobia Mode release follows the game’s most recent ‘Longsword and Traps’ update in May, which brought two-handed longswords, host of new traps and 25+ new chambers to the game.
The game’s roadmap also maintains we’ll be getting a few things later this year, including new a quest mode, single player DLC, and of course more monsters, bosses and weapons. You can find it on the Horizon Store for Quest, priced at $30.
Taking a dance course can be intimidating, not to mention time consuming—but it doesn’t have to be. At least not when you can do it in VR (and MR).
Led by instructors Rodrigo Cortazar and Asya Sonina, The New Salsa Academy launched recently, guiding you through each step of an entire beginner salsa course.
Exclusively available on Quest, The New Salsa Academy comes with a few unique features to get you up and salsa-ing, making for a much more immersive experience than simply following dance tutorials on YouTube.
Boasting a AI-powered virtual dance partner that follows you as you dance, the app is said to analyze your dance performance, adapting the exercises to your skill level. You’ll need to master timing, accuracy, and connection to your partner to get the best grade—whether you’re learning to follow or lead.
While you can dance in the virtual studio, the app also includes a mixed reality mode, letting you practice your moves at home with your virtual partner. You can find The New Salsa Academy on Quest 2/3/Pro on the Horizon Store, priced at $20.
You may recognize The New Salsa Academy developers Dance Reality from their eponymous mobile AR app for Android and iOS, which teaches you to dance by following animated footprints and a virtual dance instructor.
Flat2VR Studios has been accepted into the SPEEDRUN accelerator, not only giving the studio a financial boost on its mission to bring VR support to non-VR games, but a good measure of validation too.
Hosted by A16Z Games, a games-focused investment arm of Andreessen Horowitz, Speedrun is early-stage accelerator for startups that includes $750,000 as well as “a highly curated set of industry coaches, mentors, and a community of ambitious founders,” the VC firm says.
In a post on X, Flat2VR says the accelerator “should help open some doors to porting more of those absolute dream titles officially into VR!”
We’re so honored to have been accepted into the @a16z speed run program which should help open some doors to porting more of those absolute dream titles officially into VR! https://t.co/s5NPJQfy88
— Flat2VR Studios Gamescom (@Flat2VRStudios) August 1, 2024
Flat2VR Studios co-founder Elliot Tate reveals that only 30 of around 4.000 applicants were chosen for the accelerator, putting the studio in the company of Speedrun veterans such as Oculus, Gym Class VR, and Sandbox VR.
Earlier this year, VR publishing and marketing firm Impact Reality founded Flat2VR Studios with the aim of engaging leading developers from the VR modding scene to create officially licensed VR adaptations of popular flatscreen games.
While traditionally the work of hobbyists and distributed modding groups, Flat2VR Studios works directly with developers to create official VR versions of their titles. Among their ranks the studio counts VR porting veterans ‘Cabalistic’ and ‘Raicuparta’, renowned for their VR adaptations of games like Half-Life 2 and Outer Wilds respectively.
The studio is currently working on an official VR port of a still undisclosed game, which is slated to release in late 2024 or early 2025 on major VR platforms. We’re looking forward to learning more at the VR Games Showcase on August 15th to learn more.
Not ready to plonk down your first $100 on Quest games? Thankfully there’s an impressive number of free games, experiences, apps, and social VR platforms to keep you playing before you’re paying—all of them compatible with Quest 2, Quest Pro, and Meta’s latest, Quest 3.
As a Yeep, your belly is full of stuffing used to craft anything from pillows for building to bombs for destruction. Pull items from your vast imagination and toss them into the world. The game’s intuitive block-based building makes it easy to express your creativity at any skill level.
Step on the podium and become a true orchestra conductor in Maestro: The Masterclass. Play hands free or grab a chopstick and master the real hands motions that command the orchestra through an off the rail conducting masterclass that culminates with an epic symphonic concert in a packed opera house. Good luck, Maestro!
Like your primitive ancestors, Gorilla Tag will have you 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.
Riding off the success of cult-like status of ‘The Backrooms’ Internet lore, Noclip VR lets you and online players explore the liminal spaces, solve puzzles, and escape that which lurks within. To move, you’ll need to swing your arms, and always keep in ear-shot of your friends, otherwise they won’t hear you scream. Gameplay is a bit barebones, making it feel more like something you’d find imported on a social platform like VR Chat or Rec Room, although it’s definitely invoking Gorilla Tag vibes.
Population: One is basically VR’s most successful battle royale, letting you climb, fly, shoot, and team-up with whoever dares. The free-to-play game does feature microtransactions, but only for cosmetics, which is nice. It’s more than just a 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.
Gun Raiders serves up a healthy slice of multiplayer shooter action with multiple game modes that let you jetpack through the air, climb 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.
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 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.
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.
No real cash gambling here, but PokerStars’ Vegas Infinite 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.
Since the 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 has changed a lot since launch. It now includes more tools, user-generated content, and some more compelling first-party games 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. Whatever the case, the price of ‘free’ is hard to argue with.
Alien: Rogue Incursion just got its first gameplay trailer, showing off its first real look at the game’s Xenomorph enemies, weapons, setting and more.
When it was revealed back in April, Veteran VR studio Survios said the upcoming action-horror game was set to include an “all-new storyline full of heart-pounding action, exploration, and terrifying Xenomorphs.”
Now, the studio released a first look at gameplay centered on protagonist Zula Hendricks, a fearless ex-Colonial Marine turned ultimate Xenomorph hunter. As the game’s main protagonist, the studio reveals Zula Hendricks is on her way to the uncharted planet Purdan, accompanied by her sentient AI companion, Davis-01.
“Zula must fight her way to the heart of the infested Gemini Exoplanet Solutions black-site facility. There she will need to survive deadly attacks from the most cunning Xenomorphs ever encountered and discover new horrors and threats that once unleashed could spell the end for humankind,” Survios says.
We also get a look at the motion-tracking radar and a number of weapons, including the series’ iconic pulse rifle, revolver, and pump shotgun.
Alien: Rogue Incursion is releasing sometime around Holiday 2024, coming to PSVR 2, Meta Quest 3, and PC VR. Notably, the studio says its Meta release will only include Quest 3, but not Quest 2 or Quest Pro—making it one of the first big titles to drop the older Quest headsets.
Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable is here, officially bringing the hit anime to VR for the first time, albeit in early access. We got an eye-full last month when developer UNIVRS released its first trailer, which admittedly looked pretty rough. While that’s still true for the game in its current state, it actually packs in some fun mechanics, leaving me holding out hope for the AoT VR game that it might become.
In its current state, Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable feels very much like a tech demo, offering up a single mission (aka ‘chapter’), a few unlockable blades, and only a few bits of story to chew on out of the gate, offering up about 30 minutes of content which you can replay as much as you want if you’re looking to move up the scoreboard and unlock more weapons.
Essentially, you’ll get a quick Power Point at the beginning recapping the anime’s premise, and then you’re launched right into the tutorial, which is segmented into discrete mini-missions: i.e. do the thing, fade to black—rinse and repeat until you make it to the first and only mission in the game at present. I’d expect a less disjointed tutorial in the future, but hey, this is early access we’re talking about.
There, you’ll learn how to fight against Titans; you can slice their limbs, although they regrow back after a period, so you’ll need to cut them down for good by slicing at the back of their necks. To do this, you’ll need to lock on and retract your omni-directional mobility gear, which works similar to the grappling hooks from the Windlands series.
How the game differentiates itself from mission to mission is going to be a big factor in whether its most fun bit—swinging around the walled city filled with the series’ iconic red-roofed buildings—really has staying power, and doesn’t just evolve into a bunch of samey swinging and slicing. It will also need to tighten up Titan interactions, as AI pathfinding feels very blocky and artificial, and you can usually clip through Titans upon death, which ruins a bit of the first few ‘wow’ moments when bringing them down for the first time. They could also benefit from a visual overhaul—although I can see what the studio is trying to go for in terms of keeping it grounded in the anime’s visual style.
That said, swinging around using the omni-directional mobility gear and using the blades are undeniable high points, as you lock onto the neck of a Titan, and make big and flashy cuts, red indicating you’re using your full strength.
Despite some pretty frenetic movement, it’s also a really comfortable experience thanks to the constant visual effects that surround you as you flight through the air—the sort of speed lines you regularly see in manga.
There are a few other clear wins here too. The game incorporates diegetic UI as much as it can, giving you a pen to paper to start chapters from your mission log—certainly more interesting than using a laser pointer on a 2D monitor. To start the mission, you even need to leave your John Hancock, which feels like an immersive touch.
Image captured by Road to VR
The team has their work cut out for them. Visuals feel middling, if not downright ugly at points, as the trailer suggests, and it seems to be suffering from stability issues. The game also needs to add in two-player co-op mode, which is slated to launch with its 1.0 release later this year.
That said, it’s too early to tell whether Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable is going to be the sort of VR game you and your AoT-loving friend definitely need to play. There are still a lot of questions about level and enemy variety, and how much of the story will play a part.
The big question though is it worth the $5 entry price to get early access. AoT superfans will probably want to jump in no matter the state of the game. I’m a casual enjoyer of the series, and I’d personally wait for successive chapters to be released to see where the game is actually going first. Still, that $5 entry fee feels like an honest price for what VR veteran developer UNIVRS is planning.
If you’re curious to see for yourself, you can nab Attack on Titan VR:Unbreakable in early access right for Quest 2/3/Pro.
Arken Age, the upcoming single-player sci-fi shooter from Shadow Legend VR (2019) studio VitruviusVR, is almost here.
The team announce it’s completed the first large beta test with SteamVR users, and are currently sending out a second batch of codes, noting that a release date will be revealed in the “next couple weeks.”
With it, the studio also teased a new bit of gameplay, seen below:
Arken Age Update – For the past week we’ve been beta testing with a larger group of players on Steam VR and everything is looking great so far! We’re sending out the second round of keys today and hope to have a release date for you guys in the next couple weeks! #VR#PSVR… pic.twitter.com/MsPu3YaG1e
Slated to arrive on PSVR 2 and PC VR headsets, the single-player VR adventure isn’t just a sci-fi shooter; the studio says it will include fully customizable melee and ranged weapons, physics-based combat, boss fights, over two dozen unique areas, and a 10-15 hour campaign.
Here’s how VitruviusVR describes the story:
Your journey begins in Celestial Custodian’s Tower on the shores of the Bio-Chasm, a terraformed realm created to harvest Arkenite Energy. Its divine founder, the Grand Arborist, has ceased cultivation of your planet and every transmission sent to him has been met with abject silence. Uncover the truth behind the disappearance of the Grand Arborist, forge alliance with the Nara alien race, and take up arms against the usurper Hyperion & his legion of corrupted soldiers.
While we’re still waiting on an official release date, you can wishlist the game over on Steam and PSVR 2. Check out the announce trailer below, which includes a good bit of gameplay:
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
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.
Based on information gathered at SID Display Week and AWE, I have many articles to write based on the thousands of pictures I took and things I learned. I have been organizing and editing the pictures.
As its name implies, Display Week is primarily about display devices. My major takeaway from that conference is that many companies work on full-color MicroLEDs with different approaches, including quantum dot color conversion, stack layers, and single emitter with color shifting based on current or voltage.
AWE moved venues from the Santa Clara Convention Center in Silicon Valley to the larger Long Beach Convention Center south of LA. More than just a venue shift, I sensed a shift in direction. Historically, at AWE, I have seen many optical see-through AR/MR headsets, but there seem to be fewer optical headsets this year. Instead, I saw many companies with software running on VR/Passthrough AR headsets, primarily on the Meta Quest 3 (MQ3)and Apple Vision Pro (AVP).
This article was partly inspired by Hypervision’s white paper discussing whether micro-OLEDs or small LCDs were the best path to 60 pixels per degree (PPD) with a wide FOV combined with the pictures I captured through Hypervision’s HO140 (140° diagonal FOV per eye) optics at AWE 2024. I have taken thousands of pictures through various headsets, and the Hypervision picture stood out in terms of FOV and sharpness. I have followed Hypervision since 2021 (see Appendix: More on Hypervision).
I took my first pictures at AWE through the Sony XR (SXR) Headset optics. At least subjectively, in a short demo, the SXR’s image quality (sharpness and contrast) seemed higher than that of the AVP, but the FOV was smaller. I had on hand (thousands) of pictures I had taken through the Big Screen Beyond (BSB), AVP, Meta Quest Pro (MQP), and Meta Quest 3 (MQ3) optics with the same camera and lens, plus a few of the Hypervision HO140 prototype. So, I decided to make some comparisons between various headsets.
I also want to mention LightPolymers’ new Quarter Waveplate (QWP) and Polarization technologies, which I first learned about from a poster in the Hypervision AWE booth. In April 2024, the two companies announced a joint development grant. They offer an alternative to the plastic film QWP and Polarizers, where 3M dominates today.
Hypervision’s HO140 Display
Based on my history of seeing Hypervision’s 240° prototypes for the last three years, I had, until AWE 2024, largely overlooked their single display 140° models. I had my Canon R5 (45Mp with 405mp ” 3×3 sensor pixel shift mode”) and tripod with me at AWE this year, so I took a few high-resolution pictures through the optics of the HO140. Below are pictures of the 240° (left) and 140° (right) prototypes in the Hypervsion Booth. Hypervision is an optics company and not a headset maker and the demos are meant to show off their optics.
When I got home and looked at the pictures through the HO140, I was impressed by the overall image quality of the HO140, after having taken thousands of pictures through the Apple Vision Pro (with Micro-OLED displays) and Meta’s Quest Pro, Quest 3 (both with mini-LCD displays), the Big Screen Beyond. It usually takes me considerable time and effort, as well as multiple reshoots, to find the “sweet spot” for the other devices, but I got good pictures through the HO140 with minimal effort and only a few pictures, which suggests a very large sweet spot in Hypervision’s optical design. The HO140 is a prototype of unknown cost that I am comparing to production products.I only have this one image to go by and not a test pattern.
The picture below is from my Canon R5, with a 16mm lens netting a FOV of 97.6° horizontal by 73.7° vertical. It was shot at 405mp and then reduced to 45mp to avoid moiré effects due to the “beat frequencies” between the camera sensor and the display devices with their color subpixels. All VR optics pincushion, which causes the pixel sizes to vary across the display and increases the chance of getting moiré in some regions.
The level of sharpness throughout the HO140’s image relative to other VR headsets suggests that it could support a higher-resolution LCD panel with a smaller pixel size if it existed. Some significant chroma aberrations are visible in the outer parts of the image, but these could be largely corrected in software.
Compared to other VR-type headsets I have photographed, I was impressed by how far out into the periphery of the FOV the image maintains sharpness while supporting a significantly larger FOV than any other device I have photographed. What I can’t tell without being able to run other content, such as test patterns, is the contrast of the display and optics combination.
AWE was my first time trying the new Sony XR (SXR) headset. In my CES 2024 coverage, I wrote about the ergonomic features I liked in Sony XR (and others compared to Apple Vision Pro). In particular, I liked the headband approach with the flip-up display, and my brief try with the Sony headset at AWE seemed to confirm the benefits of this design choice (which is very similar to the Lynx R1 headset), at least from the ergonomics perspective relative to the Apple Vision Pro.
Still, the SXR is still pretty big and bulky, much more so than the AVP or Lynx. Having only had a short demo, I can’t say how comfortable it will be in extended use. As was the case for the HO140, I couldn’t control the content.
“Enterprise” Product
Sony has been saying that this headset primarily aims at “enterprise” (= expensive high-end) applications, and they partner with Siemens. It is much more practical than the Apple Vision Pro (AVP). The support on the head is better; it supports users wearing their glasses, and the display/visor flips up so you can see the real world directly. There is air circulation to the face and eyes. The headset also supports adjustment of the distance from the headset to the eyes. The headset allows peripheral vision but does have a light shield for full VR operation. The headset is also supposed to support video passthrough, but that capability was not demonstrated. As noted in my CES article, the SXR headset put the pass-through cameras in a much better position than the AVP.
Display Devices and Image Quality
Both the AVP and SXR use ~4K micro-OLED display devices. While Sony does the OLED Assembly (applying the OLED and packaging) for its headset and the AVP’s display devices, the AVP reportedly uses a custom silicon backplane designed by Apple. The SXR’s display has ~20% smaller 6.3-micron pixels than the AVP’s 7.5-micron. The device size is also smaller. The size factors of the SXR favor higher angular resolution and a smaller FOV, as is seen with the SXR.
The picture below was taken (handheld) with my 45MP Canon R5 camera with a 16mm lens like the HO140, but because I couldn’t use a tripod, I couldn’t get a 405MP picture with the camera’s sensor shifting. I was impressed that I got relatively good images handheld, which suggests the optics have a much larger sweet spot than the AVP, for example. To get good images with the AVP requires my camera lens to be precisely aligned into the relatively small sweep spot of the AVP’s optics (using a 6-degree-of-freedom camera rig on a tripod). I believe the Apple Vision Pro’s small sweet spot and the need for eye-tracking-based lens correction, and not just for foveated rendering, are part of why the AVP has to be uncomfortably clamped against the user’s face.
Given that I was hand-holding both the headset and camera, I was rather surprised that the pictures came out so well (click on the image to see it in higher, 45mp resolution).
At least in my brief demo, the SXR’s optics image quality seems better than the AVP’s. The images seem sharper with lesser chroma (color) aberrations. The AVP seems heavily dependent on eye tracking to correct optics problems with the optics, but it does not always succeed.
Much more Eye Refief (enabling eye glasses) but lower FOV
I was surprised by how much eye relief the SXR optics afforded compared to the AVP and BSB, which also use Micro-OLED microdisplays. Typically, the requirement for high magnification of the micro-OLED pixels compared to LCD pixels inherently makes eye relief more difficult. The SXR magnifies less, resulting in a smaller FOV, but also makes it easier optically for them to support more eye relief. But note, taking advantage of the greater eye relief will further reduce the FOV. The SXR headset has a smaller FOV than any other VR-type headset I have tried recently.
Novel Sony controllers were not a hit
While I will credit Sony for trying something new with the controllers, I didn’t like finger trackpad and ring color are great solutions. I talked with several people who tried them, and no one seemed to like either controller. It is hard to judge control devices in a short demo; you must work with them for a while. Still, they didn’t make a good first impression.
VR Headset “Shootout” between AVP, MQP, Big Screen Beyond, Hypervision, and Sony XR
I have been shooting VR headsets with the Canon R5 with a 16mm lens for some time and built up a large library of pictures. For the AVP, Big Screen Beyond (BSB), and Meta Quest Pro (MQP), I had both the the headset and the camera locked down on tripods so I could center the lens in the sweet spot of the optics. For the Hypervision, while the camera and headset were on tripods, my camera was only on a travel tripod without my 6-degree-of-freedom rig and the time to precisely locate the headset’s optical sweet spot. The SXR picture was taken with my hand holding the headset and the camera.
Below are through-the-optics pictures of the AVP, BSB, MQP, Hypervision HO140, and SXR headsets, all taken with the same camera and lens combination and scaled identically. This is not a perfect comparison as the camera lens does not work identically to the eye (which also rotates), but it is reasonably close. The physically shorter and simpler 16mm prime (non-zoom) lens lets it get inside the eye box of the various headsets for the FOV it can capture.
FOV Comparison (AVP, SXR, BSB, HO140, MQ3/MQP)
While companies will talk about the number of horizontal and vertical pixels of the display device, the periphery of the display’s pixels are cut off by the optics, which tend to be circular. All the VR headset optics have a pincushion distortion, which results in higher resolution in the sweet spot (optical center), which is always toward the nose side and usually above the center for VR headsets.
In the figure below, I have overlaid the FOV of the left eye for the headsets on top of the picture HO140 image. I had to extrapolate somewhat on the image circles on the top and bottom as the headset FOVs exceeded the extent of the camera’s FOV. The HO140 supports up to a 2.9″ diagonal LCD (that does not exist yet), but they currently use a 2.56″ 2160×2160 Octagonal BOE LCD and are so far beyond the FOV of my camera lens that I used their information.
As can be seen, the LCD-based headsets of Hypervision and Meta typically have larger FOV than the micro-OLED-based headsets of AVP, Meta, and Sony. However, as will be discussed, the micro-OLED-based headsets have smaller pixels (angularly and on the physical display device).
Center Pixels (Angular Size in PPD)
Due to handholding the SXR and having pixels smaller than the AVP, I couldn’t get a super-high-resolution (405 mp) image from the center of the FOV and didn’t have the time to use a longer focal length lens to show the pixel boundaries. The SXR has roughly the same number of pixels as the AVP but a smaller FOV, so its pixels are angularly smaller than the AVP’s. I would expect the SXR to be near 60 pixels per degree (PPD) in the center of the FOV. The BSB has about the same FOV as the AVP but has a ~2.5K micro-OLED compared to the AVP’s ~4K; thus, the BSB pixels in the center are about 1.5x bigger (linearly). The Hypervision’s display has a slightly smaller center pixel pitch than the MQP (and MQ3) but with a massively bigger FOV.
The MQP (and the very similar MQ3) rotate the display device. To make it easier to compare the pixel pitches, I included a rotated inset of the MQP pixels to match the alignment of the other devices. Note that the pictures below are all “through the optics” and thus include the headset’s optical magnification. I have given the angular resolution in PPD for each headset. I have indicated the angular resolution (in pixels-per-degree, PPD) for each of the headset’s center pixels. For the center pixels pictures below, I used a 28mm lens to get more magnification to see sub-pixel detail for the AVP, BSB, and MQP. I only took 16mm lens pictures of the HO140 and, therefore, rescaled the image based on the different focal lengths of the lens.
The Micro-OLED base headsets require significantly more optical magnification than the LCD models. For example, the AVP has 3.2x (linearly) smaller display device pixels than the MQP, but after optics, the pixels are ~1.82x smaller. As a specific example, the AVP magnifies the display by ~1.76 more than the MQP.
Outer Pixels
I capture pixels from a similar (very approximately) distance from the optical center of the lens. The AVP’s “foveated rendering” makes it look worse than it is, but you can still see the pixel grid with the others. Of the micro-OLED headsets, the BSB and SXR seem to do the best regarding sharpness in the periphery. The Hypervision HO140 pixels seem much less distorted and blurry than any of the headsets, including the MQP and MP3, which have much smaller FOVs.
Micro-OLED vs. Mini-LCD Challenges
Micro-OLEDs are made by applying OLEDs on top of a CMOS substrate. CMOS transistors provide a high current per unit area, and all the transistors and circuitry are underneath the OLED pixels, so it doesn’t block light. These factors enable relatively small pixels of 6.3 to 10 microns. However, CMOS substrates are much more expensive per unit area, and modern semiconductor FABs limit of CMOS devices is about 1.4-inch diagonal (ignoring expensive and low-yielding “reticle stitched” devices).
A basic issue with OLEDs is that the display device must provide the power/current to drive each OLED. In the case of LCDs, only a small amount of capacitance has to be driven to change the pixel, after which there is virtually no current. The table on the right (which I discussed in 2017) shows the transistor mobility and the process requirements for the transistors for various display backplanes. The current need for an emitting display device like OLEDs and LEDs requires crystalline silicon (e.g., CMOS) or much larger thin-film transistors on glass. There are also issues of the size and resistivity of the wires used to provide the current and heat issues.
The OLED’s requirement for significant current/power limits how small the pixels can get on a given substrate/technology. Thin-film transistors have to be physically big to supply the current. For example, the Apple Watch Ultra Thin Film transistor OLED display has 326 PPI (~78 microns), which is more than 10x larger linearly (100x the area) than the Apple Vision Pro’s pixel, even though both are “OLEDs.”
Another issue caused by trying to support large FOVs with small devices is that the higher magnification reduces eye relief. Most of the “magnification” comes from moving the device closer to the eye. Thus, LCD headsets tend to have more eye relief. Sony’s XR headset is an exception because it has enough eye relief for glasses but does so with a smaller FOV than the other headsets.
Small LCDs used in VR displays have different challenges. They are made on glass substrates, and the transistors and circuitry must be larger. Because they are transmissive, this circuitry in the periphery of each pixel blocks light and causes more of a screen door effect. The cost per unit area is much lower than that of CMOS, and LCD devices can be much larger. Thus, less aggressive optical magnification is required for the same FOV with LCDs.
LCDs face a major challenge in making the pixels smaller to support higher resolution. As the pixels get smaller, the size of the circuitry relative to the pixel size becomes bigger, blocking more light and causing a worse screen door effect. To make the pixels smaller, they must develop higher-performance thin-film transistors and lower resistance interconnection to keep blocking too much light. This subject is discussed in an Innolux Research Paper published by SPIE in October 2023 (free to download). Innolux discusses how to go from today’s typical “small” LCD pixel of 1200 ppi (=~21 microns) to their research device with 2117 ppi (=~12 microns) to achieve a 3840 x 3840 (4K by 4k) display in a 2.56″ diagonal device. Hypervision’s HO140 white paper discusses Innolux’s 2022 research prototype with the same pixel size but with 3240×3240 pixels and a 2.27-inch panel, as well as the current prototype. The current HO140 uses a BOE 2.56″ 2160×2160 panel with 21-micron pixels, as the Innolux panel is not commercially available.
Some micro-OLED and small LCD displays for VR
YouTuber Brad Lynch of SadlyItsBradley, in an X post, listed the PPI of some common VR headset display devices. I have added more entries and the pixel pitch in microns. Many VR panels are not rectangular and may have cut corners on the bottom (and top). The size of the panels given in inches is for the longest diagonal. As you can see, Innolux’s prototypes have significantly smaller pixels, but almost 2x linearly, than the VR LCDs in volume production today:
Apple Vision Pro 1.4″ Micro-OLED,3,660×3,200, 3386 PPI (7.5 microns)
SeeYa 1.03″ Micro-OLED, 2560×2560, 3528 PPI (7.2 microns) – Used in Big Screen Beyond
Sony ~1.3″ Micro-OLED, 3552 x 3840, 4032 PPI (6.3 microns) – Sony XR
BOE 1.35″ Micro-OLED 3552×3840, 4032 PPI (6.3 microns) – Demoed at Display Week 2024
In 2017, I wrote Near Eye Displays (NEDs): Gaps In Pixel Sizes (table from that article on the right) talks about what I call the pixel size gap between microdisplays (on Silicon) and small LCDs (on glass). While the pixel sizes have gotten smaller for both micro-OLED and LCDs for VR in the last ~7 years, there remains a sizable gap.
Contrast – Factoring the Display and Pancake Optics
Micro-OLEDs at the display level certainly have a better inherent black level and can turn pixels completely off. LCDs work by blocking light using cross-polarization, which results in imperfect blacks. Thus, with micro-OLEDs, a large area of black will look black, whereas with LCDs, it will be dark gray.
However, we are not looking at the displays directly but through optics, specifically pancake optics, which dominate new VR designs today. Pancake optics, which use polarized light and QWP to recirculate the image twice through parts of the optics, are prone to internal reflections that cause “ghosts” (somewhat out-of-focus reflections) and contrast loss.
Using smaller micro-OLEDs requires more “aggressive” optical designs that support higher magnification to support a wide FOV. These more aggressive optical designs can be more prone to being more expensive, less sharp, and loss of polarization. Any loss of polarization in pancake optics will cause a loss of contrast and ghosting. There seems to be a tendency with pancake optics for the stray light to bounce around and end up in the periphery of the image, causing a glow if the periphery of the image is supposed to be black.
For example, the AVP is known to have an outer “glow” when watching movie content on a black background. Most VR headsets default to a “movie or home theater” rather than a background. While it may be for aesthetics, the engineer in me thinks it might help hide the glow. People online suggest turning on some background with the AVP for people bothered by the glow on a black background.
The complaints of outer glow when watching movies seem more prevalent when using headsets micro-OLEDs, but this is hardly scientific. It could be just that the micro-OLEDs have a better black level and make the glow more noticeable, but it might also be caused by their more aggressive optical magnification (something that might be or has been (?) studied). My key point is that it is not as simple as considering the display’s inherent contrast, you have to consider the whole optical system.
LightPolymers’ Alternative to Plastic Films for QWP & Polarizers
LightPolymers has a Lyotropic (water-based) Liquid Crystal (LC) material that can make optical surfaces like QWP and polarizers. Silicon Optix, which the blog broke the news of Meta buying them in December 2021 (Exclusive: Imagine Optix Bought By Meta), was also developing LC-based polarized light control films.
Like Silicon Optix, Light Polymers has been coating plastic films with LCs, but LightPolymers is developing the ability to directly apply their films to flat and curved lenses, which is a potential game changer. In April 2024, LightPolymers and Hypervision announced the joint development of this lens-coating technology and had a poster in their Hypervision’s booth showing it (right)
3M Dominates Polarized Light Plastic Films for Pancake Optics
3M is today the dominant player in polarized light-control plastic films and is even more dominant in these films for pancake optics. At 3M’s SID Display Week booth in June 2024, they showed the ByteDance PICO4, MQP, and MQ3 pancake optics using 3M polarization films. Their films are also used in the Fresnel lens-based Quest 2. It is an open secret (but 3M would not confirm or deny) that the Apple Vision Pro also uses 3M polarization films.
“3M did not invent the optical architecture of pancake lenses. However, 3M was the first company to successfully demonstrate the viability of pancake lenses in VR headsets by combining it with its patented reflective polarizer technology.“
That same article supports Kopin’s (now spun out to Lightning Silicon) claims to have been the first to develop pancake optics. Kopin has been demonstrating pancake optics combined with their Micro-OLEDs for years, which are used in Panasonic-ShiftAll headsets.
3M’s 2017 SPIE Paper Folded Optics with Birefringent Reflective Polarizers discusses the use of their films (and also mentions Kopin developments) in cemented (e.g., AVP) and air gap (e.g., MQP and MP3) pancake optics. The paper also discusses how their polarization films can be made (with heat softening) to conform to curved optics such as the AVP.
LightPolymers’ Potential Advantage over Plastic Films
The most obvious drawbacks of plastic films are that they are relatively thick (on the order of 70+ microns per film, and there are typically multiple films per lens) and are usually attached using adhesive coatings. The thickness, particularly when trying to conform to a curved surface, can cause issues with polarized light. The adhesives introduce some scatter, resulting in some loss of polarization.
By applying their LCs directly to the lens, LightPolymer claims they could reduce the thickness of the polarization control (QWP and Polarizers) by as much as 10x and would eliminate the use of adhesives.
In the photos below (taken with a 5x macro lens), I used a knife to slightly separate the edges of the films from the Meta Quest 3’s eye-side and display-side lenses to show them. On the eye-side lens, there are three films, which are thought to be a QWP, absorptive polarizer, and reflective polarizer. On the display-side lens, there are two films, one of which is a QWP, and the other may be just a protective film. In the eye-side lens photo, you can see where the adhesive has bubbled up after separation. The diagram on the right shows the films and paths for light with the MQ3/MQP pancake optics.
Because LighPolymers’ LC coating is applied to each lens, it could also be applied/patterned to improve or compensate for other issues in the optics.
Current State of LightPolymer’s Technology
LightPolymers is already applying its LC to plastic films and flat glass. Their joint agreement with Hypervision involves developing manufacturable methods for directly applying the LC coatings to curved lens surfaces. This technology will take time to develop. LightPolymer business of making the LC materials and then works with partners such as Hypervision to apply the LC to their lenses. They say the equipment necessary to apply the LCs is readily available and low-cost (for manufacturing equipment).
Conclusion
Hypervision has demonstrated the ability to design very wide FOV pancake optics with a large optical sweet spot and maintains a larger area of sharpness than any other design I have seen.
Based on my experience in both Semiconductors and Optics, I think Hypervision makes a good case in their white paper 60PPD: by fast LCD but not by micro OLED, getting to a wide FOV while approaching “retinal” 60PPD is more likely to happen using LCD technology than micro-OLEDs.
Fundamentally, micro-OLEDs are unlikely to get much bigger than 1.4″ diagonally, at least commercially, for many years, if not more than a decade. While they could make the pixels smaller, today’s pancake optics struggle to resolve ~7.5-micron pixels, no less small ones.
On the other hand, several companies, including Innoulux and BOE, have shown research prototypes of 12-micron LCD pixels, or half the (linear) size of today’s LCDs used in VR headsets in high volume. If BOE or Innolux went into production with these displays, it would enable Hypervision’s HO140 to reach about 48 PPD in the center with a roughly 140-degree FOV, and only small incremental changes would get them to 60 PPD with the same FOV.
I first encountered Hypervision at AWE 2021 with their blended Fresnel lens 240-degree design, but as this blog primarily covered optical AR, it slipped under my radar. Since then, I have been covering Optical and Pass-Through mixed reality, particularly pass-through MR using Pancake Optics. By AR/VR/MR 2023, Hypervsion demonstrated a single lens (per eye) 140-degree and a blended dual lens and display 240-degree FOV (diagonal) Pancake Optics designs.
These were vastly better than their older Fresnel designs and demonstrated Hypervision’s optical design capability. In May 2023, passthrough MR startup Lynx and Hypervision announced they were collaborating. For some more background on my encounters with Hypervision, see Hypervision Background.
Windlands 2 (2018), the co-op platforming adventure from Psytec Games, is finally making its way to PSVR 2 next week.
Both the original Windlands(2016) and Windlands 2 have been available on the original PSVR for years now, but come July 25th, PSVR 2 players are going to get a chance to step into the high-flying combat platformer.
In addition to its new 90hz native refresh rate, adaptive triggers, and headset haptics, the game is coming as a free upgrade to owners of the PSVR version. Of course, this also includes cross-play with SteamVR, Rift and Meta Quest players.
You might notice that the original Windlands isn’t available on PSVR 2, however we noted in our spoiler-free review that it was “the true starting point” for the series, as it teases out the franchise’s unique grappling hook locomotion into a vibrant, story-centric combat platformer that filled with quests and boss fights.
Still, we’d love to see a similar update come to the original Windlands, although the studio says it has “[n]o plans right now I’m afraid, we’re all hands on deck working on our next game!”
Netflix has pulled its video streaming app from the Quest content store.
As first reported by UploadVR, the long-neglected Netflix app for Quest is now gone from the store. If you already downloaded the app before then, you’ll find it no longer works.
That doesn’t mean you can’t watch Netflix on Quest though. The streaming giant recently bumped streaming quality in the Quest Browser to 1080p, which comes in stark contrast to the app’s 480p capped resolution, which notably didn’t support mixed reality passthrough or downloads.
Originally released in 2015 for Samsung Gear VR and developed by former Meta CTO John Carmack, the app experienced very few updates over the years, with the latest arriving in 2019 alongside the launch of the original Quest.
Why not simply develop a new official app? Netflix requires devices to be certified in order to push streaming beyond that 480p cap, which requires meeting technical requirements, submitting the device for testing, and even possibly negotiating a licensing agreement, which are all things Meta would have to initiate.
Notably, Quest has native apps for Amazon Prime Video, Pluto TV, MLB, in addition to its own Meta TV app. It lacks Disney+, Hulu, Paramount+, and HBO Max.
Google announced that Blocks, the 3D asset creation tool released for VR in 2017, is following in the footsteps of Tilt Brush by going open source.
Google announced the news in a blogpost, noting that development of Open Blocks is following the example put forth by Open Brush, a version of Google’s Tilt Brush XR creation tool which was open sourced in 2021.
“We now wish to share the code behind Google Blocks, allowing for novel and rich experiences to emerge from the creativity and passion of open source contributors such as the Icosa Foundation,” Google says.
The Icosa Foundation is also known for developing Open Brush and Google Polygon replacement Icosa Gallery.
“Over the coming months, we’ll be working hard to bring the Open Blocks codebase up to modern standards,” Icosa Foundation says in a blogpost. “First up, we’ll be switching to use the OpenXR framework and new input system within Unity, enabling us to target Open Blocks for a much wider range of XR devices. At that point, we will be aiming to create a standalone XR port, and bring Open Blocks to the Quest and Pico platforms. Along the way, there will be plenty of opportunity to add immersive XR features such as MR passthrough.”
The team maintains its long-term roadmap will “transform Open Blocks into a full modelling suite, giving you more control over materials, adding texturing support, and enabling more powerful tools from traditional CSG pipelines.”
The open source archive of the Blocks code can be found on github. Additionally, versions of Google Blocks will remain available on both Steam and the Meta PC Store, although you should not the last time these have received an update was in 2018.
Ramen VR, the studio behind Zenith: The Last City, announced last month it would cease development on the VR MMORPG, citing a struggle to retain players. Now the game has received its final content update along with a bittersweet farewell to new players: a lower price.
Update (August 29th, 2024): Ramen VR has pushed its final content drop to Zenith. Detailed in a blog post, the last content update Season 4: Golden Isles has been the result of player requests sourced from community members in the Zenith Discord and customer feedback portal Feedbear.
The last season brings a smattering of new content to the free-to-play section Infinite Realms, as well as bug fixes for the top issues across both Infinite Realms and Zenith: The Last City paid DLC. Some of this includes new layouts in Infinite Realms, and new cosmetics, return of original Fast Fly, and a doubling of the limit for daily raids in The Last City.
As a farewell, Zenith: The Last City paid DLC has now dropped from its regular price of $30 to $10, available across all major VR headsets.
“We’re grateful to all the Zenitheans who have been here since the beginning, as well as anyone who chooses to pick up the game in the future. Your passion is what brings Zenith to life, and we hope you continue to make new friends and cherished memories in Zenith for the foreseeable future,” the team says,
The game will also host “nostalgic community events” following the release of Season 4, which will take place September 6th-8th. The original article detailing the development shutdown follows below:
Original Article (July 15th, 2024): The studio announced the news in a video, linked below, which describes some of the reasons behind the decision:
“Zenith has struggled with retaining players since very early on. Even though we’ve had hundreds of thousands of players, the vast majority of them stopped playing Zenith after about a month,” the company says in an FAQ.
Initially the result of a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2019, the Steam Early Access title went on to secure $10 million Series A funding round, later landing a $35 million Series B in March 2022. Just two months before securing its Series B, the studio released Zenith on PSVR and Quest 2, putting it in the best possible position to capitalize on its ability to play cross-platform.
In early 2024, Ramen VR revealed Zenith was running at a loss on a month-to-month basis “for the better part of a year,” which prompted the studio to release Infinite Realms, a free-to-play model, in hopes of attracting paid users.
“Despite our best efforts over the 5.5 years of development (and well before Infinite Realms launched), we weren’t able to improve retaining players. Zenith started losing money and it isn’t feasible to continue running it at a loss,” the FAQ continues.
While the studio is shutting down development, it’s not killing off the game entirely. Shards for both its paid Zenith: The Last City game and free-to-play Zenith: Infinite Realms version will be running “for the foreseeable future,” Ramen VR says. “The community will be the first to know far in advance if that changes.”
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney confirmed the hit battle royale shooter Fortnite has “no plans currently” to come to Quest, although he hasn’t ruled it out entirely.
Here’s what Sweeney said in response to X user ‘TheoryDecrypt’:
No plans currently. For it to be successful we’d need a lot of players across all platforms spending a lot of their time on islands whose locomotion mechanics wouldn’t have VR players barfing. We’ve gone from 0 to 1 such popular mechanics but it’s not a critical mass yet.
It’s pretty clear by now Sweeney doesn’t think VR would work well with Fortnite, as he’s basically echoing a statement he made in 2022 in an interview with The Verge.
“Epic has no plans to build a VR version of Fortnite. Not out of any grand business strategy, but just because the thing that we do in Fortnite every day as gamers is run through an environment rapidly, and it’s the kind of experience that involves intense motion and doesn’t work as well in VR,” Sweeney told The Verge. “And so if we were to ever do anything in VR, it would have to be something that’s really custom tailored for the experience. And it’s not that we have any negative view of that. We just have 101 things to do.”
The whole ‘barfing’ part of his latest statement though feels a little outdated in 2024, making it seem like Sweeney really hasn’t checked back into VR recently. In contrast to the early days of VR, modern games tend to include a number of comfort options as standard, such as variable snap-turn, FOV vignettes, ‘comfort’ cages, and the full gamut of locomotion options. Notably, any of these can be used to render “intense motion” into something stomachable for all, like Meta-owned studio BigBox VR does in its hit battle royale POPULATION: ONE.
Still, Sweeney may be right about VR not being a right fit for Fortnite, and it may be less about nerfing the game’s “intense” locomotion to level the playing field, and more about how VR gameplay is so different from flatscreen in the advantages and disadvantages it brings to the table.
For a VR player, it may be more difficult to rapidly build yourself out of a sticky situation like on flatscreen, but easier to do a host of other actions, like ducking and shooting around corners, going prone behind cover, and doing complex actions flatscreen users simply can’t, like physically catching an extra magazine your teammate throws you.
Whatever the case, we’re hoping Sweeney changes his tune on VR comfort, maybe by reading our handy VR comfort checklist which we use for game reviews.
Japanese studio UNIVRS announced Attack on Titan VR:Unbreakable in late 2022, making for the hit anime’s first official VR game. Now the studio says it’s releasing the game in early access on Quest next month, giving us our first look at gameplay. And it looks pretty rough.
The studio today announced that Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable is releasing on Quest in early access on July 23rd, priced at just $5.
While it’s difficult to argue with such an honest price tag, the new gameplay video is a pretty stark departure from the concept trailer released in June 2023, which admittedly features pre-rendered animations.
Of course, we’ll be reserving judgement until we actually get a chance to go hands-on with the game, although it’s undoubtedly not the strongest start.
As the first official Attack on Titan VR game, Unbreakable lets players enter the world of the hit anime to become a member of the Scout Regiment and fight against the Titans for the survival of mankind. That means plenty of swinging through the city with your omni-directional mobility gear, and bringing down hulking Titans with your trusty blades.
The early access version is set to include the first two chapters of the game, each offering 2-3 hours of action, the studio says. It’s also set offer both single and two-player co-op, however the studio notes co-op mode will be under development until the full 1.0 release, which is slated to arrive in Late 2024.
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