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.
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
Indie VR studio REZZIL today announced it’s bringing REZZIL PLAYER, the VR sports training game, to PSVR 2 soon.
Initially launched on Quest in 2021 and later brought to SteamVR headsets in 2022, Rezzil Player offers up a growing collection of sports training games that aim to improve performance and reaction times across sports like football, soccer, and basketball. The immersive training game now boasts over 160 levels and 40 items of sports kit for avatars.
The studio announced Rezzil Player is officially coming to PSVR 2 during its launch window, which PlayStation says extends into March.
The studio says the PSVR 2 version is slated to use the next-gen headset’s advanced features, including haptic feedback to feel the impact of a ball on their head, and eye-tracking for foveated rendering.
“We are thrilled to announce the release of REZZIL PLAYER on PlayStation VR 2,” said Gareth Thatcher, Director at Rezzil. “Combining our virtual and physical sports training games with the power of PlayStation 5 is something we are proud of and excited to bring to a new audience.”
Rezzil Player is set to launch on PSVR 2 for $10 “within the official launch window,” the studio says, which PlayStation has defined as starting at the headset’s launch on February 22nd leading into March.
We’ll keep our eyes peeled for a more precise launch date and PlayStation Store links in the coming weeks.
Firewall Ultra, the team shooter exclusive to PSVR 2, doesn’t have a release date yet, however developers First Contact Entertainment confirmed with Road to VR it’s indeed releasing sometime this year. In the meantime, the studio has revealed a new character to its lineup of Contractors.
Firewall Ultra is the upcoming sequel to the well-recieved squad-based shooter Firewall Zero Hour, which launched on the original PSVR in 2018. While we were hoping to hear news of the sequel’s actual release date, it appears we’ll have to wait a little longer, as the studio announced it’s confirmed for 2023 release.
We didn’t know when it was going to launch when it was initially announced back in September. At the time we speculated it may even be a launch day title, but now given the indefinite ‘2023’ launch window, it seems we’ll be left waiting.
PSVR 2 is set to launch on February 22nd, and to keep the hype for what could become the platform’s most prominent team shooter, the studio also revealed a new character to the lineup. Here’s what First Contact says about the new character, Havoc:
Havoc joins the fray in Firewall Ultra as a brand-new Contractor. With a background as a decorated former elite military operative, he is well-trained, well-conditioned, and well-equipped to get the job done—despite his cocky attitude. He was kicked out of the program after a big disagreement with a superior and is now looking to make a name for himself in the world of private contracting.
In Firewall Ultra, his Conditioned skill increases his resistance to bullet damage and deploys a mine once he’s eliminated from battle.
In the meantime, you can wishlist the PSVR 2 exclusive game here.
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
Sega’s futuristic block-breaker, which you might remember from its launch on Dreamcast in 2001 or in arcades throughout Europe and Japan, is being reimagined for PSVR 2 with C-Smash VRS.
The game is bringing an immersive twist to Cosmic Smash’slow gravity squash-meets-blockbreaker gameplay, including single player, co-op, and 1v1 multiplayer modes—that’s what the ‘VRS’ stands for, both virtual reality and versus.
Besides bringing the futuristic racket sport to VR, C-Smash VRS is also set to rekindle some long dormant memories with its thumping OST, which seems to be inspired by the original’s ambient techno score; new tracks are being composed by DJ Ken Ishii (Rez Infinite) and Danalogue (The Comet is Coming, Soccer 96).
The game is currently under development by indie studio RapidEyeMovers, with the IP licensed from Sega. The studio says it’s working with VR veterans Wolf & Wood (The Last Worker, The Exorcist: Legion VR), and designers Cory Schmitz (Rez Infinite, Sound Shapes) and Arkotype (Polytron) to bring it to PSVR 2 later this year.
While we don’t have a launch date yet, a free demo of C-Smash VRS for PSVR 2 is coming to the PlayStation Store on March 23rd. In the meantime, you can wishlist the game here.
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:
Half-Life 2: Episode One is getting VR support soon, brought to you by the same team behind the recently released SteamVR fan mod for Half-Life 2.
Released in 2006, Half-Life 2: Episode One is the first in a series of games to reveal the aftermath of Half-Life 2 and launch a journey beyond City 17.
The standalone title is finally getting VR support on March 17th, courtesy of the SourceVR Mod Team, a group of VR enthusiasts who are unaffiliated with Valve.
Like the team’s Half-Life 2VR Mod, which released for free on SteamVR headsets in September 2022, the VR mod brings the same possibility of playing Episode One in full room-scale VR with tracked motion controllers, allowing you to physically walk around, shoot weapons, pick up objects, climb ladders, etc.
And as you’d imagine, the Episode One mod is including the rash of VR-specific interactions first released in the HL2 VR, such as intuitive and realistic weapon handling, quick and easy weapon switching via a radial menu, over-the-shoulder ammo inventory, functional iron sights, two-handed weapons, and manual reloading. Like HL2 VR, there’s also set to be optional laser sights and an arcade style ‘quick reload’ option if realism isn’t your thing.
SourceVR Mod Team says on their website that creating mods for both Episode One and Two required a separate build from the one used in the original HL2VR mod due to “a few major issues that need to be resolved,” the group said in September. Ostensibly, the team has now solved those issues, rendering Episode One fully playable in VR.
In addition to downloading the VR mod on Steam for free, you’ll need to own copy of Half-Life 2: Episode One to play. You’ll be able to find it in a variety of cost-effective bundles on Steam. While you’re at it, make sure to nab Episode Two to get a jumpstart on things before the team releases VR support in the near future.
If you’re like us, you’ve probably been hotly awaiting the release of Vertigo 2 for a few years now. And as we approach the March launch date of the Half-Life-inspired PC VR adventure, Zulubo Productions has tossed out a new behind-the-scenes video showing off more of its branching narrative and gameplay, in addition to a ton of new screenshots to whet your appetite.
With less than two months to go until its March 30th release on SteamVR headsets, developer Zach Tsiakalis-Brown has released a new explainer video that delves into gameplay mechanics of their upcoming Half-Life-like (aka ‘Half-Like’) adventure.
You can catch the latest trailer, hosted by Vertigo 2 voice actor Gianni Matragrano, above and below this article. In it, we get a good look at a number of never-before-seen areas and bosses, in addition to some behind-the-scenes stuff.
Zulubo tossed out a ton of new images too, which you can see below:
Vertigo 2 has been hotly anticipated since the release of the original Vertigo in 2016, although many may better recognize the game from its refinement Vertigo Remastered, which came out in 2020.
In case you haven’t watched the explainer video (above and below), or played the free demo on Steam, here’s the setup: Vertigo 2 returns you to an underground facility that’s teeming with aliens and security robots. Deep in the reaches of Quantum Reactor VII, you make your way towards the center of the reactor, along the way trying to determine which faction will be an ally, and which will be your foe.
Featuring a branching story, developer Zach Tsiakalis-Brown says we can expect a pretty substantial campaign, including 18 chapters, or what Tsiakalis-Brown calles “many times as much content as Vertigo 1.”
“This kind of [Half-Like] game is marked by building a believable, interactive world telling a story through a continuous first-person viewpoint and indulging in plenty of spectacular set pieces,” Matragrano says in the video. “The setting will be familiar, primarily taking place in an underground science facility with a chronic case of loose inter-universal aliens.”
Matragrano says a third of the game takes place in “more exotic environments, including the open ocean, flora-filled caverns, and an entire underground city.”
You can wishlist the game on Steam here. Vertigo 2 is launching on SteamVR headsets on March 30th, which includes PC VR headsets like Valve Index and Rift S, as well as PC-linked standalones such as Quest 2, Vive XR Elite, and Pico 4.
Meta-owned developer Downpour Interactive announced it’s pulling Quest 1 support for Onward, the hit team-based mil-sim shooter.
First launched on PC VR headsets in Early Access back in 2016, Onward managed to garner a hardcore following over the years thanks to its realistic squad-based gameplay and unrelentingly faithful reproduction of real-world weaponry.
In mid-2020, Downpour decidedly slimmed down Onward across the board with its Early Access launch on Quest—just a few months before Meta launched the more powerful Quest 2. Its launch on the original Quest was met with some pretty intense backlash from the PC VR-playing community at the time, as Downpour significantly reduced the Onward’s graphics in addition to limiting community-generated content.
Now the developer, which was acquired by Meta in 2021, says it’s slated to drop support for Quest 1 on July 31st, 2023. In the studio’s FAQ, Downpour says Onward will no longer be playable on Quest 1 in any capacity after the July cut-off date.
The studio isn’t offering any special refund scheme outside of Meta’s standard policy, which allows you to return a game with less than two hours of gameplay time, and within 14 days after purchase.
Onward however benefits from cross-buy, so owners can continue playing on Quest 1 through the Meta Store version, which requires a VR-ready PC to play, or on the still natively supported Quest 2 and Quest Pro headsets.
In comes as no real surprise that some developers are pulling the plug on Quest 1 support only three years after the headset’s launch. Meta announced earlier this month it was set to deprecate first-party social features on the original 2019 Quest in March, which includes access to Parties and Meta Horizon Home. From now until 2024, Meta will only push critical bug fixes and security patches.
Meta and its child-studio Ready at Dawn today announced plans to shut down the popular free-to-play multiplayer game Echo VR, with plans to turn off severs come August 1st.
Echo VR has had a storied journey, having originally launched as an Oculus Rift exclusive title all the way back in 2017. In 2020 the game made the leap to Quest, allowing cross-play multiplayer between Rift and Quest players. Shortly thereafter, Meta announced that it had acquired the game’s developer, Ready at Dawn.
Although not mentioned specifically, it’s hard to imagine that the broader layoffs at Meta (and other major tech companies) has nothing to do with the announcement. Especially considering that Ready at Dawn released its last game, Lone Echo II, more than a year ago; ostensibly the studio has been well at work on its “next project” for quite some time now.
In addition to being one of the platform’s most popular free multiplayer games, Echo VR also had one of the most robust in-app purchase offerings of any VR title so far, with a battlepass-style system that allowed players to pay for the chance to unlock cosmetic rewards over the course of seven seasons. Unfortunately the studio has confirmed that refunds for in-game content will not be offered.
Image courtesy Ready at Dawn, Oculus
As a parting gift, at least, the studio says players who play the game between now and when it shuts down will receive a heap of premium cosmetic items for free:
From now until August 1, 2023, play just one match of either Echo Combat or Arena to unlock:
All Epic + Superb rarity chassis/booster/bracer sets from Echo Pass seasons 1–6 Season 7 rewards to be released at a later date
All Chassis Variants
All non-3D rewards from Echo Pass seasons 1–6 Season 7 rewards to be released at a later date
All Echo Shop items Including Starter Bundle
All previous event rewards
Some previously unreleased rewards
The following rewards will NOT be included in the event
VRML rewards
LE2 Chassis
Legendary rarity chassis/booster/bracer sets from the previous 7 seasons
Leveling Track Rewards
Leveling Track
We will now be granting all leveling track items at lvl 1 so everyone gains access to these rewards without impacting matchmaking quality.
Echo Shop
We will place all legendary chassis/booster/bracer sets for sale on the Echo Shop at reduced prices until the game shuts down.
And last but not least, Ready at Dawn confirmed that Echo Combat, the lesser-played FPS variant of the game (which never made the leap to Quest) will also be shutting down as of August 1st, and is already no longer available for purchase.
Didn’t get a Quest 2 this holiday season, which includes a free copy of Beat Saber and Resident Evil 4? Although the beat-slashing rhythm game and zombie-slaying classic aren’t part of the deal anymore, for a limited time new Quest 2 owners can nab both GOLF+ and Space Pirate Trainer DX.
Meta is including the two games as a bonus when you buy a new Meta Quest 2 between February 5th and June 3rd, 2023. New Quest 2 owners must activate their headsets by June 17th, 2023 and the offer must be redeemed within 14 days of device activation.
The deal represents $50 in content, which you can get either by buying a 156 or 256 version of Quest 2, priced at $400 and $500 direct from Meta.
GOLF+ ($30 value)
Rated by users as the most popular paid Quest 2 game in January by review count, GOLF+ offers up some serious driving and putting, letting you join friends for a round at both free courses and paid DLC premium courses, including Pebble Beach, Pinehurst No. 2, The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, and more.
Realism is the main focus: you can customize the contents of your golf bag with a ton of different irons as you take on the game’s many courses, either solo in online multiplayer. As the PGA Tour’s official VR golf game, more courses are also coming down the pipeline in February, including THE PLAYERS Championship and the WM Phoenix Open.
Space Pirate Trainer DX has been the go-to wave shooter since the early days of VR, but don’t let its age fool you: it’s still one of the slickest sci-fi shooting games around, feeling like a mix of Space Invaders and some sort of Mandalorian combat simulator from a galaxy far far away.
While primarily a single-player game, if you have the physical space and a Quest 2-owning friend, you can also play Space Pirate Arena, which basically gives you a 1v1 all-out battle similar to how you might play paintball or airsoft, but in VR.
There’s a ton of free stuff out there on the Quest Store, which we rounded up in our top 25 free games and experiences to download first. You’re sure to spend tens of hours swimming through all of the free stuff on the Store, although once you’re ready for some paid games, make sure to check out how to spend your first $100 on Quest content to keep the ball rolling.
