Chinese tech giant Tencent is reportedly shuttering its XR development team, ostensibly putting a hold on its home-grown VR ambitions. That may not mean Tencent is hanging up the XR towel for good though.
As reported by Chinese language publication 36Kr, WeChat developer Tencent is set to promote Meta Quest 2 in mainland China. At the time of this writing, Meta officially supports the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and most countries in Europe.
Using headsets from Meta would provide Tencent with a ready-made hardware platform so it could focus on creating a game library and its own software, but more importantly it could soon counter ByteDance’s Pico Interactive, the VR headset creator most recently known for its Quest 2 competitor, Pico 4.
ByteDance allegedly won a fierce bidding war against Tencent in early 2021 to acquire Pico, which then went on to release Pico 4 to consumers in Europe and Asia. It also looked like Pico was eyeing the US as well, as it opened a headquarters on Meta’s home turf in June 2022, however it was reported late last week that ByteDance, parent company of TikTok, is actually laying off hundreds at Pico Interactive.
This isn’t the first time Meta hardware has found its way into mainland China. Meta (then Facebook) released the 3DOF standalone Oculus Go in 2018 in China thanks to a manufacturing partnership with Xiaomi, branding the headset as the ‘Mi VR Standalone’.
As 36Kr points out, Tencent partnered with Nintendo in 2019 to sell a version of Switch, which provides access to localized games and online services. The report maintains the partnership with Meta will also follow a similar distribution model.
If you’re in Japan right now, you could be the first to play the new, officially licensed Street Fighter VR arcade experience, which pits you against some of the universe’s most iconic warriors.
Capcom released a trailer this week for the single-player arcade game, called Street Fighter VR Shadaloo Enhancement Plan (ストリートファイターVR シャドルー強化計画). It isn’t just a brand engagement vehicle that’s flavored like Street Fighter; hands-on reports suggest it’s actually a pretty solid basis for what might be an honest-to-goodness VR game one day if Capcom really wanted to put the effort in.
According to a hands-on by GAME Watch (Japanese language), Street Fighter VR recruits you as a junior soldier of the evil secret society ‘Shadaloo’, led by M Bison. Matched up against the warriors of Street Fighter V, you battle up the ranks to become the strongest.
The game, which plays on HTC Vive Pro 2, is said to first offer a basic training mode stage which was ostensibly ported directly from Street Fighter V. Although the number of attacks you can do are limited to punches and fist-focused moves like Hadouken and Shoryuken, the rules of the VR game are the same as the original, GAME Watch reports.
Opponents include Ryu, Zangief and M Bison (known as ‘Vega’ in Japan), although another opponent was seen in Capcom’s official art, including what appears to be the shadowy silhouette of Blanka at the end of the trailer. So maybe more yet to come? As it is, if you don’t win a single match, there are actually eight different endings depending on what you play—sounds like a fair amount of replayability.
“To be honest, before playing it, I thought it was just a VR game with a Street Fighter motif,” Hiroyuki Endo of GAME Watch writes, “but when I actually touched it, there were fighting game elements everywhere, and I was surprised that I was able to enjoy a full-fledged Street Fighter in a VR game from a first-person perspective.”
Street Fighter VR kicked off on February 17th at the Plaza Capcom Store in Hiroshima, Japan, priced at ¥1,200 (~$9 USD) per gameplay session. It’s also set to expand on April 17th to Miraino Aeon Mall in Toyokawa, Japan.
There’s really no indication whether we’ll see a release outside of Japan, although we’ve seen similar projects make it across thanks to sustained popular demand, such as the once Japan-only Mario Kart VR racer—so it doesn’t seem too farfetched if Street Fighter fans are vocal enough.
Note: We’ve corrected the name ‘Shadroo’ to ‘Shadaloo’. Thanks go to our reader ‘IIDX’!
Don’t blink, because PSVR 2’s eye-tracking may get you more than you bargained for in the headset’s upcoming on-rails horror shooter The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR, which aims to toss some extra scares your way when you least suspect it.
PSVR 2 is releasing on February 22nd, and in its 100+ game content lineup is a unique horror game from the makers of Until Dawn: Rush of Blood which tosses you back into another rollercoaster thrill ride that arms you with plenty of guns to fend off what bumps in the night.
Besides bringing high-quality VR to PS5, Sony’s next-gen headset also packs in eye-tracking, which is many games are using for easier UI selection and foveated rendering—useful, but not terribly exciting stuff.
Some developers though, including Supermassive Games, are integrating the feature into their core gameplay loop, which in Switchback’s case allows enemies to move around specifically when your eyes are closed.
In a new gameplay video, Supermassive shows off the feature as it plays out beyond the big ‘DON’T BLINK’ doors, revealing a room full of grotesque mannequins which only move when you blink—and they’re entirely focused on attacking you if they can.
Alejandro Arque Gallardo, Game Director at Supermassive, says there’s also set to be another mannequin type that works with eye-tracking, but cryptically will work in “a completely different way.”
We’ve linked to the timestamp (above) where Arque Gallardo discusses Switchback’s eye-tracking mechanic. The full video also delves into haptics, adaptive triggers, spatial audio, and the multiple areas you can encounter in the game.
The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR is launching on March 16th, priced at $40. You can pre-order the game here. In the meantime, make sure to check out our growing list of all confirmed games coming to PSVR 2.
Indie VR studio Mighty Coconut announced its smash success VR mini-golfing game Walkabout Mini Golf is making its way to PSVR 2.
Arguably one of VR’s most favorite social gaming experiences, Walkabout Mini Golf is said to arrive on PSVR 2 “soon”, which is set to include cross-play with all supported versions of the game; this includes versions available through Steam, Meta Quest Store, Viveport, and Pico’s European-facing digital store.
Ranking consistently as one of the most highly-rated games on the Quest Store, Walkabout Mini Golf supports both single-player and up to four-player multiplayer, offering up a wide selection of mini-golfing courses.
We don’t know precisely when the hit mini-golfing game is coming to PSVR 2, although Mighty Coconut says it’s set to bring all of the main content at launch, including eight easy and eight hard mode courses, and paid access to all DLC courses and bundles.
We’ll be keeping our eyes out for a more precise launch date in the coming weeks, as Sony’s next-gen VR headset is launching on February 22nd. PlayStation VR 2’s so-called “launch window” content extends into March, so we’ll be keeping our fingers crossed that we’ll see it on PSVR 2 sooner rather than later.
TikTok parent company ByteDance is reportedly laying off what South China Morning Post maintains will be “hundreds of employees” working at its VR headset manufacturing subsidiary, Pico Interactive. A separate report from Reuters also maintains Chinese tech giant Tencent is scrapping its plans to release a VR headset.
According to two people with knowledge of the Pico layoffs, a substantial portion of the VR headset maker is expected to be affected. The report maintains that some teams will see as much as a 30 percent reduction, while some higher-level positions are also expected to be affected.
After being acquired by ByteDance in August 2021, Pico job postings revealed the company was making a sizable expansion into the US to presumably better compete with Meta on its home turf.
Shortly afterwards, the China-based company then released its latest standalone headset, Pico 4, in Europe and Asia to consumers. Seen a direct competitor to Meta Quest 2, Pico 4 still isn’t officially sold in the US; the headset is currently only available across Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, and most countries in Europe.
It was also reported by Chinese tech outlet 36Kr that Tencent, the massive Chinese multinational, was disbanding it 300-person strong XR unit. The company has since refuted this claim with Reuters, stating instead it will be making adjustments to some business teams as development plans for XR hardware had changed.
Citing sources familiar with the restructuring, Reuters reports that Tencent is abandoning plans to release a VR headset due to a sobering economic outlook.
This follows a widening trend of layoffs which have affected nearly every big name in tech, including Google, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft. Microsoft recently announced it was shuttering its social VR platform AltspaceVR in addition to its XR interface framework, Mixed Reality Toolkit. Meanwhile, Microsoft has also had trouble fulfilling its end of a US defense contract which uses its HoloLens AR headset as the basis of a tactical AR headset.
It was also revealed late last year that Meta was planning to cut discretionary spending and extend its hiring freeze through the first quarter, alongside a layoff which affected nearly 11,000 employees, or around 13 percent of its overall workforce.
More than six years after its VR debut, Sony is ready to bring next-gen VR to PS5 with PSVR 2. Does PlayStation VR 2 make a substantial improvement over its predecessor? And how does it stack up to other VR headsets on the market? Read on to find out.
With PSVR 2, Sony is not just improving on the prior headset, it’s also raising some bars for consumer headsets overall as the first device in its class to bring eye-tracking, HDR, and new haptic capabilities to the market. Let’s start out with a look at PSVR 2’s specs and how they compare to the original PSVR:
PSVR 2 vs. PSVR Specs
PSVR 2
PSVR
Resolution
2,000 x 2,040 (4.1MP) per-eye, OLED, HDR
960 x 1,080 (1.0MP) per-eye, RGB OLED
Refresh Rate
90Hz, 120Hz
90Hz, 120Hz
Lenses
Fresnel
Single element non-Fresnel
Field-of-view (claimed)
110° (diagonal presumed)
100° (diagonal presumed)
Optical Adjustments
IPD, eye-relief
Eye-relief
Connectors
USB-C (no breakout box)
USB, HDMI (breakout box)
Cable Length
4.5m
4.4m
Tracking
Inside-out (no external beacons)
Outside-in (external camera)
On-board cameras
4x IR (external), 2x IR (internal)
None
Pass-through View
Yes
No
Input
PSVR 2 Sense controllers (rechargable), DualShock 5 (rechargable) eye-tracking
One of the most important parts of a VR headset is how things look when you peer through the lenses, so that’s where we’re going to start.
Clarity
Photo by Road to VR
How good things look inside of a VR headset depends on much more than just resolution, so we like to boil things down to the point of talking about ‘clarity’, ie: how clear does the virtual world look inside the headset.
PSVR 2 gets a big jump in clarity over its predecessor thanks first and foremost to a big leap in resolution (from 1.0MP per-eye to 4.1MP per-eye). From a resolution standpoint, that puts PSVR 2 on par with other headsets on the market like Quest 2.
While the image through PSVR 2’s lenses certainly looks much better than the original PSVR, it’s hampered a bit by two notable issues: sweet spot and motion blur.
PSVR 2’s Fresnel lenses actually have fairly good edge-to-edge clarity, but only if you can get your eyes in the headset’s rather small eye-box (AKA sweet spot). Unfortunately not everyone will be able to get their eyes into the ideal position because the sweet spot seems to be designed at a distance that makes it so you’d have to cram the headset uncomfortably against your face in order to keep the lenses in the perfect spot. Thanks to an eye-relief adjustment it’s easy to move the lenses far enough away that they aren’t crushing your nose, but for every little bit that you do you give up some sharpness on the edges and some field-of-view.
The small eye-box also means that if you don’t dial the headsets ergonomic adjustments in just right you’ll see things like chromatic aberration and more blur around the edges than you would otherwise.
Thankfully Sony has included a guided calibration step (which makes use of the headset’s eye-tracking) and helps users find that ideal spot by guiding them toward the correct IPD and lens alignment. This definitely helps reduce the issue of having a small sweet spot, and I find myself running calibration every few times that I pick up the headset just to be sure things haven’t jostled out of place. Luckily Sony has made it easy to run the calibration step at any point—even in the middle of a game.
I also mentioned motion blur as something that’s holding back the clarity on PSVR 2. I still don’t know exactly why I’m seeing a fair bit of motion blur on PSVR 2—whether its persistence blur, ghosting, reprojection, or something else—but it somwhat reduces the sharpness of the image whenever your head is in motion (which in VR is most of the time). It’s a shame because you can see just how sharp everything is when you head is still, and then as soon as you go to look at something else, the world around you becomes a bit more blurry.
And unfortunately PSVR 2’s Fresnel lenses aren’t an exception to the rule: its still easy to spot god rays and some glare in high contrast scenes.
Displays & HDR
Photo by Road to VR
Sweet spot issues aside, PSVR 2 is packing a pair of impressive OLED displays that make colors feel more rich and saturated while allowing dark parts of the scene to get truly dark instead of just dark grey.
This makes a big difference when it comes to content like Horizon Call of the Mountain which aims to immerse players in a world full of lush scenery.
While it’s great to have OLED black levels on a modern headset, PSVR 2’s displays do suffer from more mura than seen on its contemporaries, which manifests as a bit of speckling on the screen that’s more visible when seen against certain colors.
But that’s the price you pay for those deep blacks and purported ‘HDR’ capabilities, though I’ve yet to hear Sony confirm key parts of that capability, like peak brightness.
In my experience with the headset I can’t say I’ve felt like its showing significantly more peak brightness than other headsets, but it feels like the HDR is paying off more in the mid and lower tones.
Field-of-view
Photo by Road to VR
Similar to the small sweet spot, PSVR 2’s field-of-view is technically quite large—at times feeling like it meets even Valve’s Index—but that’s only if you can push the lenses exceptionally (and for me, uncomfortably) close to your eyes; so close that the lenses are putting a lot of pressure on your nose. Between where it’s actually comfortable for me to have the lenses sit and where I would get the maximum field-of-view, it feels like I’m leaving a non-trivial amount of FoV on the table. That said, even the comfortable position leaves me with a fairly sizable field-of-view that exceeds something like Quest 2.
IPD & Eye-tracking
Photo by Road to VR
PSVR 2 is the first consumer VR headset to ship with eye-tracking. While this has the potential to be very useful across a range of applications, I’ve yet to see any game that’s putting it to seriously good use. So far the closest any game has come is Horizon Call of the Mountain which uses eye-tracking to improve the accuracy of the game’s subtle auto-aim.
For its part, Sony is making use of the eye-tracking to help users set their correct IPD (which is very useful, especially considering the headset’s small sweet spot), and even adjust the tilt of the headset on the user’s head.
While I appreciate that smart touch, I wish the calibration step would actually provide a number to accompany the IPD setting; that way you could simply remember your number and dial it in every time. Instead, the guided calibration just shows a visual indicator of how close your eyes are to the center of the lenses. It works well, but without a number to go by you need to dial things in visually every time.
With Horizon Call of the Mountain, Sony is hoping to have an exclusive big-budget VR game to entice players to the new PSVR 2. Does the title succeed? Read on to find out.
Horizon Call of the Mountain Details:
Available On: PSVR 2 Release Date: February 22nd, 2023 Price: $60 Developer: Geurilla Games & Firesprite Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Editor’s Note: The clips in this review that were captured from PSVR 2 do not look correctly saturated due to incorrect HDR downmixing on our part. Rest assured, the world of Horizon Call of the Mountain is quite vibrant!
Gameplay
The first thing you should know about Horizon Call of the Mountain is that at its core, it’s a VR climbing game. While it’s obvious from the name that climbing would be part of the experience, I can’t say I realized that it would make up about 50-60% of the gameplay. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing; climbing in Call of the Mountain is well executed and creates perfect situations to showcase the game’s stunning environmental art.
The second thing you should know about Call of the Mountain is that it really is a full game and not just a collection of mini-games or one-off experiences. That includes a cast of characters with performances that developers Guerrilla and Firesprite clearly spent a lot of time on, with results that challenge the groundbreaking portrayal of virtual humans in Blood & Truth (2019).
Climbing is the central pillar of gameplay in Call of the Mountain; at first you’ll be using just your hands, but later you’ll find new tools that do a good job of mixing up the climbing gameplay just enough that it doesn’t overstay its welcome, though I wish the later equipment felt less redundant.
While the climbing systems work very well throughout, I found a near complete lack of challenge in the climbing gameplay; I don’t think I fell to my death a single time during the game. The only ‘challenge’ is occasionally needing to look around to find out where to make your next move, but there’s barely any real ‘threat’ during climbing segments, which would have served well to emphasize the game’s otherwise daring climbs.
The climbing may not throw any real challenges your way, but it certainly creates effective opportunities to see the beautiful world of Call of the Mountain. The environmental art and lighting direction in the game is seriously top notch and of a quality scarcely seen anywhere else in VR. You’ll come across vista after epic vista as you climb to new heights, and it always felt worth it to me to take a minute to soak in the views. From most vantage points you can make out other major landmarks in the game which helps make the whole thing feel like a cohesive world.
While climbing is a huge part of the game, you’ll also be doing a lot of bow shooting, which is also well executed in function and feeling. To that end, the combat is where the game really challenges players, and I was actually surprised just how difficult it can be. While I only died from a single encounter in the game, the combat definitely put my skills to the test in a way that I expect would be fairly difficult for inexperienced VR players. While there’s options to tweak the difficulty, unfortunately they’re somewhat hidden in the Accessibility menu which means some players might not find them given that they may be looking for a more common ‘difficulty selector’ as some games provide.
Instead of throwing enemy after enemy at you, combat in Call of the Mountain most often consists of very specific encounters with a set number and type of enemies. The game also takes on a totally unique form of locomotion when these fights start, where the player can swing their arms to quickly rotate around the outer edge of the combat space as they avoid attacks and look for new angles to attack from. While it might look strange from the outside, the overall concept works well, especially when you’re fighting some of the game’s biggest and baddest beasts.
Granted, I found it difficult to read and time the enemies’ melee attacks, and I didn’t feel like the ‘dodge’ mechanic (where you swing both your controllers to one side to do a quick strafe) worked particularly well. While I applaud the developers for building a unique and thoughtful combat system that’s specific to VR (and impressively comfortable, I should add), it could use a bit more refinement to really shine.
The same goes for the combat overall. While it’s definitely fun to fight the fascinating machine creatures from the world of Horizon—thanks to their excellent looks and sounds—combat never felt particularly strategic to me. For the most part you just need to keep lobbing arrows down range. That’s especially strange considering the game allows you to craft several different arrow types (like fire and ice), but all of them essentially just felt like extra damage rather than a strategic choice. That’s compounded by the fact that the game provides the player with more than enough resources to usually have their special arrows maxed out—which further meant that actually finding those resources didn’t feel very exciting.
While Call of the Mountain is a linear adventure, you’ll return to a hub area between missions where you’ll get to talk to the game’s small cast of characters. Although there’s unfortunately minimal character development and intrigue, the characters themselves are impressively rendered across the board, from the way they look to the way they move to the way they sound. It’s a shame they aren’t more involved in the game because they’re so technically compelling.
When you’re on the trail but not actively climbing or fighting, there’s usually loot to scavenge for. The game does a good job of leaving extra bits of loot for those that go looking, but since the only gameplay reward is ingredients for different arrows (which as we established, don’t really make the combat more unique) or a small upgrade to your health it can be a bit of a let down to keep finding the same stuff that you’ve already got plenty of.
Even if you’re full on arrows though, the game still peppers its pathways with little collectibles to find for those who are looking more closely at the world around them, as well as hidden targets for you to shoot (which I appreciate because this gives players another good reason to take in the environment at large). Some of the game’s levels also have optional (and sometimes hidden) ‘Legendary Climbs’, which are longer climbing segments that usually lead you to another awesome view, and these feel like a good reason to replay a level if you didn’t find them the first time around.
Call of the Mountain is a fun adventure with tons of VR native gameplay taking place inside one of the best looking virtual worlds seen in VR to date. I can’t say the story really grasped me—I completely missed why the protagonist and his brother are at odds with one another—but at least it’s all well delivered and ties the gameplay together. It took me about 7 hours and 30 minutes to complete the main campaign while finding roughly 60% of the extras like trophies, collectables, and Legendary Climbs.
While it isn’t particularly comprehensive, the game also has a small challenge area where you can test your bow and climbing skills with some timed challenges. And last but not least, there’s also the ‘Machine Safari’, which is an extended version of the opening sequence which shows off the game’s great looking creatures and animations in a non-interactive way (great as a short demo to show friends who aren’t gamers).
Immersion
Image courtesy PlayStation
Call of the Mountain is definitely easy to get lost in thanks to its beautiful visuals and solid-feeling world. Yes, you’ll come across a bunch of epic vistas to soak in, but the game also does a great job with the smaller details too. You’ll see nice touches like moss growing between rocks, glints of crystal flecks in some of the rock faces, and a ton of foliage and environmental decoration, all backed up by great lighting and art direction.
While it was a bummer to find that only some of the foliage was interactive, it did make me smile when I could naturally use my hand to push a vine away from my face, see fuzzy moss bend under my hands, and watch leaves move realistically as I grazed them while looking for my next hand-hold.
Overall, Call of the Mountain might have the best visuals of any VR game I’ve seen to date. Though I’d say Half-Life: Alyx still has the more technically proficient graphics, those graphics are largely in service of realizing a dirty, broken, dystopic city. Call of the Mountain, on the other hand, offers up a rich world full of natural beauty that’s a delight to see.
Beyond the interactive foliage, the developers also scattered lots of interactive props throughout the environment. While they have nothing to do with gameplay, they’re certainly tempting to play with. Though I can’t even recall the name of the game’s main antagonist, I do recall playing a tambourine, drums, a pan flute, finding various hand-made dolls, smashing a table full of pots with a hammer, ringing huge gongs with a mallet, throwing snowballs, and shooting vases off a steep ledge with my bow. All of these various props are detailed with their own sound effects, physics, and generally tight hit-boxes.
While it was great to see that all of these items were physically interactive and could be pushed appropriately with your hands, the physics would sometimes freak out when items interacted with each other (ie: putting a stick in a mug).
Also relating to item interactions, I was a little disappointed to see that Call of the Mountain lacks a proficient force-grab system (which is essentially standard in VR games today). While you technically can grab things with a bit of range, it was really hard to see exactly which item you are targeting, which would sometimes mean grabbing something other than what you had intended. And then there’s the fact that when grabbing distant items, your floating hand in many cases would fly away to meet the object, which certainly doesn’t look right. And all of this sometimes makes picking things up from the ground an annoyance.
A more thoughtful force-grab system would have been welcomed; it’s easy to imagine emulating the gravity glove system from Half-Life: Alyx, and either explain it away by saying it’s advanced technology from the Old Ones (the futuristic lost civilization of the game), or by creating an (admittedly contrived) version of the gloves using string and pulleys. I also would have liked to put items over my shoulder to stash them in my inventory instead of having them magically teleport there after touching them once.
One place where Call of the Mountain really went above and beyond in the immersion department is with its characters. Yes, they look great, they’re well voiced, and the facial capture is very expressive, etc., but the thing that really impressed me is the way the developers dealt with players reaching out and touching the characters.
In many games if you reach out to touch a character nothing happens (maybe your hand even clips through them), which breaks immersion. Other games will just keep the characters 10 feet away from you, but that can also kill immersion because they’re outside of your ‘personal space’ (making you feel less connected with them).
Call of the Mountain keeps the characters in that personal space, but if you reach out to touch them they will lean away from your hand while sneering at you in a way that feels really natural. And when I say natural, I mean the expression on their face—and the way they first look at your hand and then back at you—very effectively conveys a sense of ‘what the hell is wrong with you, why are you touching me’ without using any words at all. It’s such a minor detail but it’s incredibly well done, especially considering that this system is fully dynamic so it can happen regardless of how they’re gesturing, looking, or speaking. Whoever worked on this system and the accompanying body language and animations, bravo, you’ve set a new bar for the ‘players touching characters in VR’ problem.
Comfort
Though there’s plenty of motion in Call of the Mountain, the game is clearly designed to take comfort into consideration.
First and foremost, the game has a solid ‘arm swinger’ locomotion option which is the default for two of the three pre-configured comfort profiles. I found that it kept me more comfortable and felt more immersive than using pure stick movement—though it was just a little bit annoying that it slows you down so much when you come within a few feet of stationary objects like walls or rocks.
In addition to the arm swinger movement, the game has a dynamic blinder system that kicks in when there’s lots of motion, like when you’re jumping, climbing, ziplining, or falling, and I found that it did a great job of keeping me comfortable.
In addition to offering up three pre-configured comfort profiles ranging from lots of comfort accommodations to fewer accommodations, you can also go into the menu and fine-tune the settings to taste. The game also thoughtfully includes an ‘Arm Reach Multiplier’ option for anyone that needs it, either because you don’t feel like reaching as far, or because there’s a physical reason you’re unable to.
As with any VR game involving climbing, when you clasp a handhold you can effectively shake your own body around by waggling your arm; some of the very sensitive folks are likely to find this movement inherently uncomfortable, regardless of blinders. So if you are particularly sensitive to motion in VR, you might want to give this game a shot but be ready to take advantage of Sony’s PlayStation Store refund policy if you can’t handle the motion comfortably.
Below you can find the full list of comfort options in Horizon Call of the Mountain.
Horizon Call of the Mountain’ Comfort Settings – February 16th, 2023
The Light Brigade is a roguelike shooter that I would mostly describe as a spiritual successor to In Death: Unchained, the critically acclaimed bowshooter from Sólfar Studios and Superbright. While at times a little less visually polished than In Death, the game’s variety of upgrades and array of WWII-era weaponry gives it a definite Wolfenstein bend that fans of the shooter genre will instantly be able to click into.
Available On: SteamVR, PSVR 2 & PSVR, Quest 2 Release Date: February 22nd, 2023 Price: $25 Developer: Funktronic Labs Reviewed On: Quest 2 (native), Quest 2 via PC Link
Gameplay
There’s a definite story in The Light Brigade, although past the opening scene I really couldn’t remember what was actually at stake up until I completed my first full run. The game doesn’t chock too much story your way (or over tutorialize either), leaving you to just fight the bad guys while you save the culty good guys. Really, all you need to know is the demon-eyed, Nazi-adjacent baddies aren’t friendly, and the hellish fantasy-scape composed of discrete and sequentially connected levels must be cleared out and scoured methodically for loot.
It’s just pure action-adventure fun, as the meat of the game presents plenty of interesting upgrade paths which not only prolong your current run, but importantly give you enough reason to come back for more upon your inevitable death.
The Light Brigade feels forgiving enough to really keep you grinding for that next gun mod or class upgrade too, which gives you access to cooler-looking and more powerful versions of each weapon. Meanwhile, the game is busy serving up a good difficulty ramp that means your next run may not be necessarily easier despite progressively wider access to guns, magic, and upgrades.
That’s all well and good, but what about the guns? Thankfully, The Light Brigade really gets its WWII weaponry right, providing physics-based rifles and pistols which each come with their own immersive reloading mechanics. Loading and shooting the M3 submachine gun requires you to grab its stick-style magazine and chunk back the charging handle to chamber the first round, while shooting a K98 rifle is totally different, making you jam down stripper clips to feed the bolt-action rifle.
Practically speaking, sticking to a single class isn’t a terrible strategy as you get your grips with the game, as you’re probably looking to maximize your rank and unlock permanent upgrades since they don’t sync across classes.
In practice though, you’ll probably do a fair amount of class hopping once you progressively unlock the next available class, taking you from the starter Rifleman class with its semi-automatic Gewehr 43 rifle all the way through the other iconic WWII weapon-wielding classes the game has to offer, including the Sturmgewehr 44 submachine gun, the M3 submachine gun (aka ‘Grease Gun’), the powerful K98 battle rifle, and even a class that has dualie Colt 1911s for some John Wick-style madness.
As for enemies, the world’s baddies come in a pretty standard range, starting with your standard goons, which include shooters and archers. You’ll eventually come across shielded goons, tanks, and versions that fly, snipe, and lob bombs too. There always seems to be a new type added to the mix after each attempt though, so there may be more I don’t know about.
By this point, I’ve already made it through one full run, although that was after many (many) failed attempts spanning over about eight hours of gameplay—another thing that makes The Light Brigade a little more generous than In Death, which is probably there to keep it a little more of a fast-paced experience.
Levels are fairly linear, although there’s plenty of cover to hide behind as you make your forward march. That also means finding the remaining enemies can sometimes be tough, but thankfully prayer actually works in this universe, helping you to locate remaining loot and baddies. Enemies are revealed by showing you small red dots while chests are yellow.
And once you’ve finally cleared out the level’s baddies—you get a big ‘LEVEL CLEAR’ popup—then it’s time to scour for loot, oftentimes hidden in breakable vases and chests.
Here, you can find gold to buy consumables, weapon upgrades like scopes and magical trinkets, souls which increase your rank level, and the occasional key, which can open locked chests.
Mostly though, you’re looking for souls, the whispy white things that you’ll earn after killing enemies or finding soul containers. There’s also cards that give each run a unique set of possible upgrades. Choose one of three presented to you, and you might just significantly increase the damage you can deal, injecting a bit of luck into each run’s loot haul.
It’s not all WWII guns and demon Nazis though. The world is also magic-based, giving you upgradeable magic wands that can do things like provide shields, shoot fireballs, etc.
All of this effectively combines to offer a good selection of gameplay styles, letting you attack the world as you want.
Still, I have my gripes with The Light Brigade, the worst offender being its inventory holters attached to your belt. In practice, this makes reloading quickly and consistently an absolute pain. Instead of having a fixed area where you can reliably train muscle memory, shifting your body around physically or virtually with any of the artificial locomotion schemes has a funny way of shifting the belt holster around your waist in weird an unpredictable ways.
I get it: you should be covering and assessing your ammo situation at all times so you don’t run dry during critical moments, but having to crane your neck down every few seconds to make sure your hand is actually hovering over the right area is decidedly a dull spot on an otherwise shining example of great VR gaming.
I’m still working on getting the last remaining achievements and consistently beating the first boss as I attempt my successive runs. Considering the array of gun upgrades and magical weapons to explore, it’s safe to say I’m nowhere personally finished with this well-crafted roguelike. I won’t talk too much about bosses, although they are hard, and offer up unique bossy ways of dealing out damage—pretty much what’d you expect from a fantasy shooter, i.e., they can shield, do magic, and surprise you throughout the encounter, so they aren’t just glorified bullet sponges.
Immersion
I get it: The Light Brigade is all about bringing light back to a dark and corrupted world, but it is very dark. At times, I felt it offered less visual contrast than Quest 2’s LCD displays can rightly handle, making some levels appear more muddy and generally more difficult to resolve visually.
Road to VR has a PSVR 2 in hand, although I don’t personally. I have had a chance to preview the headset though, and its OLED displays with HDR will undoubtedly be more capable of serving up better visual contrast. Still, if you’re playing on Quest 2 natively, or any number of PC VR headset running the Steam version, you may find later bits of the game very difficult to resolve visually.
Image courtesy Funktronic Labs
Were it not for the beady red eyes that shine in the darkness, enemies would be maybe too difficult to make out in the ever-present fog of war. Still, it’s a fairly muddy palette any way you slice it; level design and variety as you move forward are always interesting at least.
The star of the show though is inevitably the game’s weapons, which provide subtle articulations that really make it feel more of a realistic experience. For example, you can cycle a magazine’s worth of cartridges just because you mechanically can. You don’t need to, but the fact that The Light Brigade’s guns functionally work like real guns means the player should be able to if they want to. See my magazine empty as I eject unfired bullets:
Another immersive touch is the gun’s physical weight, which affects how you hold and steady it. A pistol requires a steadier hand because it’s lighter and easier to swing around, while a rifle is more forgiving with movement since the game registers as it being substantially heavier in the player’s hand. Suitably, some guns let you steady with your non-dominant hand, providing discrete attach points to do so.
I was hoping for some amount of melee, although there’s none present to speak of, meaning if your gun runs dry, you better find cover and reload, or pull out your trusty sidearm.
A note one positional audio: enemies provide good spatial audio cues for their relative locations—something important once levels start getting more claustrophobic, like in the sewers.
Comfort
The Light Brigade has a good swath of standard comfort options which, include optional smooth or snap-turn, and smooth locomotion or teleport.
Playing seated is possible, and the game comes with a seated mode, although it’s not advisable since your belt holster may be awkwardly positioned at any time, making standing play the least encumbering way to interface.
The Light Brigade’ Comfort Settings – February 15th, 2023
Turning
Artificial turning
✔
Snap-turn
✔
Quick-turn
✖
Smooth-turn
✔
Movement
Artificial movement
✔
Teleport-move
✔
Dash-move
✖
Smooth-move
✔
Blinders
✔
Head-based
✔
Controller-based
✔
Swappable movement hand
✖
Posture
Standing mode
✔
Seated mode
✔
Artificial crouch
✖
Real crouch
✔
Accessibility
Subtitles
✔
Languages
English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, German, French, Russian, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional) , Korean, Japanese
One of the most powerful recent breakthroughs in graphics and rendering is coming to mobile AR thanks to a recent update to Snap’s Lens Studio. We’re talking about ray tracing.
What Is Ray Tracing?
Ray tracing is a rendering technique that helps to bring digital assets to life in the environment around them – whether that environment is digital or viewed in augmented reality. Recent examples in gaming include convincingly reflective surfaces like water, believable dynamic shadows, and improved light effects.
The technique can be fairly computing-heavy, which can be a problem depending on the program and how it is accessed. For example, when some existing games are updated to use ray tracing, users accessing that game on an older or less fully-featured computer or console may have to turn the feature off to avoid problematic latency.
Fortunately, ray tracing is being developed at the same time as new computing and connectivity methods like cloud and edge computing. These advancements allow the heavy lifting of advanced computing techniques to take place off of the device, allowing older or less fully-featured devices to run more high-level experiences smoothly.
While Snap releases detailing the update didn’t mention Lens Cloud, it’s likely that that feature is behind the update. Announced at the 2022 Snap Partner Summit, which also announced ray tracing for the first time, Lens Cloud provides improved off-device storage and compute, among other advancements.
The Road to Lens Studio
If you closely follow Snap, you’ve known for almost a year that this was coming. Snap also discussed ray tracing at the fifth annual Lens Fest in December. There we learned that the update has been in the hands of select developers for a while now, and they’ve been working with Snap partners to create experiences pioneering the software.
The news announced yesterday is that the feature is now in Lens Studio, meaning that any Lens creator can use it. We also have a new demonstration of the technology: a Lens created with Snap partner Tiffany & Co.
The company has likely been so involved in the development and showcasing of Snap’s ray tracing at least in part because the jewelry that the company is known for provides both a great challenge for and an excellent demonstration of the technology. However, Snap is already looking forward to the feature finding other use cases.
“Now, Lenses that feature AR diamond jewelry, clothing and so much more can reach ultra-realistic quality,” Snap said in the announcement.
The principal use case presented by Snap in the announcement is virtual try-on for clothing retail, like the Tiffany & Co. Lens. However, it is likely only a matter of time before the new feature finds its way into other kinds of AR experiences as well.
What’s Next?
Ray tracing is likely to be a topic yet again at the upcoming Snap Partner Summit in April, and ARPost will be there to hear about it. The online event doesn’t have the same energy as Lens Fest but as we saw here, the Partner Summit is often the first look at Snap’s developing software offerings. We always look forward to seeing what they’ll roll out next.
The team behind social VR viewing app Bigscreen today unveiled a thin and light PC VR headset that not only promises a few intriguing enthusiast-grade specs, but also a custom-made fit based on a 3D scan of your face. In short, it’s a big first for the VR veterans, who are responsible for one of the most beloved VR content viewing platforms.
Called Bigscreen Beyond, the $999 headset presents an interesting set of features which are squarely aimed at PC VR enthusiasts: dual OLED microdisplays offering 2,560 × 2,560 per-eye resolution, pancake optics, and 6DOF SteamVR tracking support.
The company is billing the tethered PC VR headset as the smallest and lightest of its kind, weighing in at just 127 grams and measuring less than 1-inch at its thinnest point.
Image courtesy Bigscreen
Bigscreen Beyond starts pre-orders today, priced at $999. Ostensibly, Beyond is targeting PC VR users who likely already in the SteamVR ecosystem but want something thinner and lighter than the last generation of headsets, such as Valve Index. Notably, the headset doesn’t include the requiste SteamVR tracking base stations or SteamVR-compatible controllers like the Valve Index controller or HTC Vive wand—you’ll have to purchase those separately.
The reasoning: Bigscreen founder and CEO Darshan Shankar says the VR software studio wanted to build “the VR headset we wanted for ourselves.”
“Today’s leading VR headsets have doubled in weight compared to headsets from 2016. We built Beyond because we felt VR was too heavy, bulky, and uncomfortable,” Shankar says. “We invented new technologies to increase comfort, and developed ultra-high-end components like OLED microdisplays and pancake optics to increase immersion. To deliver the best software experience for watching movies in Bigscreen, we also had to build the best hardware with Bigscreen Beyond.”
Image courtesy Bigscreen
Like many forthcoming VR headsets, Beyond is able to slim down thanks to the inclusion of pancake lenses, which Bigscreen says are a three-element optical design composed of glass, plastic polymers, films, and coatings.
Paired with two OLED microdisplays, each with a resolution of 2,560 × 2,560 pixels, Beyond boasts a high fill-factor with its 7.2-μm wide pixels and RGB stripe subpixels, resulting in what the company says eliminates the screen door effect—when the non-illuminated spaces between pixels make it seem like you’re viewing VR content through a screen door.
Resolution alone doesn’t tell the whole story, although for reference Valve Index is 1,440 × 1,600 per-eye, Meta Quest Pro is 1,920 × 1,800 pixels per-eye, and Pico 4 is 2,160 × 2,160 pixels per-eye.
Another one of Beyond’s big enthusiast-grade features is owed to Bigscreen’s ability to customize the fit of the headset to each user, which will be done by doing a one-time scan of the user’s face using an iPhone XR or more recent Apple mobile device. The dedicated Bigscreen scanning app is said to measure the shape of the user’s face and the position of their eyes, which allows the company to form a facial interface a unique to the individual and determine interpupillar distance.
The hand-washable facial interface is said to provide “even weight distribution, zero light leakage, and aligns the eyes and optics correctly.” Additionally, glasses wearers will have to spring for custom prescription lenses that magnetically fit into Beyond, as glasses do not fit inside the small form factor.
Although it ships with a soft strap, users can also spring for the optional audiostrap. We haven’t confirmed pricing for that yet, however we’ll update once we do.
Image courtesy Bigscreen
Granted, some things we’d consider ‘nex-gen’ are notably missing from Beyond, such as eye-tracking, face-tracking, optical 6DOF tracking, and the ability to use it wirelessly. As the first VR headset from a long-time VR veteran though, Beyond does check a lot of boxes for users such as simulator fans, and anyone looking for a better long-term VR media viewer.
Bigscreen Beyond is slate to ship in waves based on region. Preorders, which are fully cancellable and refundable up until shipping, are set to ship in the United States sometime in Q3 2023.
Second wave shipments will begin in Q4 2023 in Canada and Europe including the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Netherlands, Italy, and Belgium. A third wave of will come sometime in late 2023, including Japan, Australia, New Zealand. The company says Beyond will be available in more countries and regions in 2024.
Check out the spec sheet below:
Bigscreen Beyond Specs
Display Resolution
5120 x 2560 pixels (2560 x 2560 per eye) cloed at max 90Hz
Field Of View (FOV)
93° HFOV x 90° VFOV
Pixels Per Degree (PPD)
28°
Interpupillary Distance (IPD)
56mm-74mm accommodated (fixed IPD per device, 58mm-72mm)
Optics Type
Custom Pancake Optics
6DOF Tracking
SteamVR Tracking (aka Lighthouse)
Version
V1.0 or V2.0 Base Stations. Not included.
Controllers
SteamVR controllers (ex. Valve Index, HTC Vive). Not included.
Full-Body Tracking
SteamVR trackers (ex. HTC Vive Tracker, Tundra Tracker). Not included.
Audio
Not built-in (USB C port for Audio), or optional Audio Strap
Ports
USB-C accessory port (USB 2.0)
Microphone Input
Stereo microphones
PC Connection
DisplayPort 1.4 (video) and dual USB 3.0 ports (power, data)
Accessory ports
USB-C (USB 2.0 speed)
Cable
5-meter custom fiber optic cable and Link Box
PC Requirements
CPU
Quad Core Intel or AMD
GPU
Nvidia RTX 2070 or AMD RX 5700 XT or newer (DisplayPort 1.4 and DSC required)
Ahead of the launch of PSVR 2, we’ve got a close-up look at the finished version of the headset and what you can expect to find when you crack open the box.
It’s just two weeks until Sony’s newest VR headset hits the streets, and while we’re not yet allowed to go into detail, today we’ve got a close-up look at the production hardware and Sony’s official controller dock. Stay tuned for our full PSVR 2 review.
Photo by Road to VR
The very first thing to notice about PSVR 2 compared to the original is the simplicity of setup… this is everything you’ll see in the box.
PSVR 2 | Photo by Road to VR
Compare that to the original PSVR which had a breakout box requiring extra cables and its own power adapter—not to mention the PS Eye camera that was required for the headset (and the photo below doesn’t even include the Move controllers).
PSVR 1 | Photo by Road to VR
Compared to the original, PSVR 2’s single-cable operation and inside-out tracking makes it so much easier to use.
Getting closer to the headset itself, we get a good look at its range of adjustments. On the top there’s an IPD dial for dialing in the distance between the lenses. Also on top is a button to adjust eye-relief (the range of which is pretty impressive). And on the back is the crank to tighten the headstrap, with the center of the crank acting as a button which releases the springy tension.
As we learned in our early preview of PSVR 2, the headset has an assisted calibration step which helps the user hone in their individual headset orientation and IPD settings, thanks to the in-built eye-tracking.
On the bottom of the headset is the power button and a button to activate PSVR 2’s passthrough view. Alongside those is the built-in microphone.
Photo by Road to VR
While PSVR 2 doesn’t have directly integrated audio, it comes with a pair of custom earbuds which attached to the underside of the rear headstrap and stow in little holes at the sides of the headset. You can use your own 3.5mm headphones instead if you’d like to.
And then there’s the PSVR 2 ‘Sense’ controllers, which have a particularly interesting shape to them. Inside the circular strut is hidden infrared LEDs which can be seen by the headset to track the controllers.
Compared to something like Quest 2, the unique shape and placement of the ring does a good job of reducing the likelihood that you’ll bump the controllers into each other during hand-to-hand interactions. However, the design has a somewhat off-kilter balance to it.
The wrist-straps are mounted on the inside of the tracking ring and can be removed if desired.
The PSVR 2 controllers are rechargeable via USB-C, but Sony is also selling a purpose-built PSVR 2 controller charging dock to make it easy to charge your controllers without fiddling with cables. While its existence is appreciated, and it generally gets the job done, it’s a bit funky to sit the controllers in just the right spot to initiate the charge. Still, I’d rather this than plugging in two cables every time I’m done playing.
We’re looking forward to sharing our full PSVR 2 review in the near future—if you’ve got questions for us, drop them in the comments below!
Slated to arrive on all major VR headsets later this month, The Light Brigade is well positioned to make a name among the top VR roguelikes, as it follows most visibly in the footsteps of bowshooter In Death (2018) in all the right ways. In our hands-on, we got to see just how Light Brigade is setting itself apart though with a strong focus on an array of realistic WWII-era weapons and magical upgrades galore.
Coming February 22nd, The Light Brigade is the latest VR title from Funktronic Labs, the team behind Fujii (2019) and Cosmic Trip (2017). With a few hours of Quest 2 gameplay under my belt, I can say that The Light Brigade is certainly something to watch out for when it lands on PSVR 2, PSVR, Quest 2, and SteamVR headsets in the next two weeks.
Although The Light Brigade isn’t related to the award-winning roguelike bowshooter—In Death was developed by Sólfar Studios and Superbright—there are more than a few comparisons here to make. The Light Brigade similarly features a high degree of visual polish, well-realized enemy classes, and a fun array of weapons that make you really second guess stepping out from behind cover.
It’s also culty as all hell, as you battle it out as an acolyte warrior of light on a quest to pry the world from the grasps of the (totally not Nazi-inspired) Obsidian Forces.
What the hell does that all mean? I can’t say just yet, but it all ends up feeling like a cool mix of World War-inspired trench warfare mixed in with a heaping dose of medieval-style religious quackery and magic.
The Light Brigade tosses a smorgasbord of realistic weapons your way, all of which require a deft hand at manually reloading in the middle of a firefight. You’ll get your hands on rifles and pistols, all of which are upgradeable. Besides the Mauser C96 (aka ‘Broomhandle Mauser’), most everything is what you’d consider WWII standard stuff, including Gewehr 43, Sturmgewehr 44, Colt 1911, M3 submachine gun (aka ‘grease gun’), and Nambu Pistol Model 14. Guns have a virtual weight to them too, so you won’t be waggling around a 10-pound rifle or running too fast either when you’re supporting the gun with your non-dominant hand.
Each gun has three upgradeable power levels, which also let you tack on things like red dot scopes and powerful trinkets that allow you to charge and execute special shots. There are also so mini potato masher-style grenades, health kits, and interesting tools like deployable decoys which draw enemy fire away from you.
You’ll have to grind it out to level up each gun, which usually means sticking with the corresponding class long enough to generate points to sink into upgrades. The game’s actual difficulty seems to scale relative to your weapon’s current upgrade level, giving you more and different baddies to encounter as you head back in after your inevitable death—although that’s a bit of speculation on my side. There are two user-selectable difficulty levels though should things get too tough, ‘Arcade’ and ‘Realistic’.
Levels start out fairly small in size, although all of them encourage exploration thanks to the important items that can be found around every corner, such as the game’s tarot card upgrades that you’ll find in glittering chests. These buffs stay in effect for your entire run, and are automatically applied when you choose one of the three presented to you from each chest.
Image courtesy Funktronic Labs
My typical level run goes more or less like this: kill every enemy in the level, comb the entire level again for lootable chests and other goodies, and then summarily step into a trap, like the sort of couter-weighted log traps Arnold Schwarzenegger tangoed with in the original Predator (1987), or even a simple bear trap.
Once I’ve dusted off my stupidity, it’s time to head to the level gate, which requires you to bring your hands together in prayer to activate—a really cool and immersive touch. There are level bosses, although I only ever made it to the first, which I won’t spoil for your here.
Image courtesy Funktronic Labs
Meanwhile, I’ll be playing a lot more of The Light Brigade’s and reserving my thoughts on game mechanics and immersion for the full review later this month. Still, it’s safe to say I really enjoyed the entire vibe.
One thing to note is that Funktronic Labs included a good number of comfort modes, including smooth turn, variable snap-turn, smooth locomotion, and teleportation. Currently, the game’s inventory system includes a hip-mounted holster, which can be difficult to access whilst seated, making standing gameplay recommended at the time of this writing. We’ll have more info in our deep dive review when the game launches on February 22nd.
In the meantime, you can wishlist the game on Steam (PC VR), pre-order on PSVR 2 and PSVR, and pre-order on Quest 2—priced at $25. Also, in case you missed out on the announce trailer, take a gander below:
