Vertigo Games and VR indie Agera Games announced a new platformer that looks to test your agility, timing, and ability to grab bananas as you swing atop a maze of monkey bars high above the clouds.
Called TOSS!, you propel yourself through a cloudscape jungle-gym playground as you strive to repair your damaged spaceship and make your way back home.
In addition to searching out replacement parts for your ship, you’ll also be able to play with a number of modes, such as racing against the clock in Time Attack mode, collecting every last banana in sight, and honing your swinging expertise by minimizing grabs. The game is said to include 75+ levels spread across nine cloudscape biomes.
While TOSS! is set to be single-player, you’ll be able to challenge friends to asynchronous races, represented with a ghostly trail to follow (or beat).
Developed by Agera Games, TOSS! is being published by VR veteran studio Vertigo Games, which is known for a host of VR games such as After the Fall and the Arizona Sunshine series.
The high-flying platformer is set to launch on Meta Quest, SteamVR, and PSVR 2 on September 7th, 2023.
Retropolis 2: Never Say Goodbye is the next in the Retropolis miniseries, offering up more extendo-arm puzzling and neo-noir narrative goodness. The first episode is now available in early access on Quest and Oculus PC.
Much like the original The Secret of Retropolis (2021),Retropolis 2 is said to combine classic point-and-click adventuring with immersive cinematography.
Like the first, players use Philip Log’s patented extendo-arms to collect items from afar and overcome obstacles. This time around though you’ll do have more to contend with, including logic puzzles, rotation mechanics, and movement between different environments. Developer Peanut Button says the new entry in the series will offer “a more challenging adventure with a substantially longer playtime.”
Here’s how the studio describes the game:
Retropolis 2: Never Say Goodbye is set a year after the events depicted in The Secret of Retropolis, and continues the story of Philip Log, the hard-boiled robo-detective, and Jenny Montage, the automated femme fatale that just can’t keep herself out of trouble. Nonetheless, Retropolis 2: Never Say Goodbye welcomes new visitors to the city of robots, and can be experienced as its own miniseries.
The first episode is now live on Quest and Oculus PC, which will include a season pass to all four episodes releasing later this year. You can also wishlist the game on Steam here.
The Burst is an upcoming high-speed shooter that seems to pack in a ton of our favorite VR-native stuff: Spider-Man-style swinging, fast-paced movement, and weapon juggling galore.
Under development by GoRapid Studio, The Burst is a single-player shooter that looks to combine stuff like wall-running and rail-surfing as you swing around the game’s enemy-filled, interactive environments. Basically, a ton of opportunities for parkour.
As we see in the reveal trailer below, The Burst is set to include both a force grab and force pull ability so you can snag a new weapon right from the hands of your foe, not only giving you a fresh pipe gun, but also plenty of things like empty mags, random junk, heavy crates and more to use as thrown weapons.
Set in a once prosperous colonized planet, the only thing the remains now is a scorched radioactive penal colony, which GoRapid says is full of prisoner camps and settlements as well as ruins left after an ominous disaster simply called ‘The Burst’.
There’s still plenty to learn about The Burst, which is set to launch on Quest platform and SteamVR headsets some point this year; no info on a PSVR 2 release for now. In the meantime, you can wishlist the game on Steam here.
Just a month after PlayStation’s big gaming showcase, the company announced it’s bringing four more titles to PSVR 2’s library of games, which includes an upgraded port, a remake, and two brand new titles.
Now PlayStation says we can add four more to the list: Pixel Ripped 1995, Tiger Blade, The 7th Guest VR, and Wanderer: The Fragments of Fate.
Pixel Ripped 1995
With the release of Pixel Ripped 1978 on all major VR headsets this month, you probably want to know when you’ll get a chance to play the previous game, Pixel Ripped 1995. Now developers ARVORE is bringing ’90s classic gaming experience-meets-VR immersion at 120 fps, including both PSVR 2 Sense controller adaptive triggers and headset feedback. The studio says Pixel Ripped 1995 is coming to PSVR 2 in the “near future.”
Tiger Blade
Tiger Blade is a newly announced Korean neo-noir action game, ostensibly coming to PSVR 2 as an exclusive from French studio Ikimasho Games. Step into the role of a deadly assassin from the Horangi chapter of the Tiger Clans, where your mission is to steal a rare tiger cub coveted by rival gangs. It’s slated to arrive on PSVR 2 in late 2023.
The 7th Guest
Announced for the Quest platform, it seems PSVR 2 owners will also be able to get in on the classic adventure, which is based off the ’90s CD-ROM game. Like the original, you’ll be tossed into a haunted mansion for puzzles and full-motion video (FMV) characters spirits who bring the early adventure game to life. The 7th Guest is coming to PSVR 2 “later this year,” developers Vertigo Games say.
Wanderer – The Fragments of Fate
This is a remake of the original Wanderer, which launched on major VR headsets in 2022. The developers Mighty Eyes call it “completely reimagined for the next generation of VR,” letting you swim, jump, crouch, climb, zipline and swing, the studio says. We’re supposed to get Wanderer – The Fragments of Fate in the “very near future.”
Caveman Studios, the team behind the tactical VR shooter Contractors (2018), announced a new competitive battle royale called Contractors Showdown.
As first shared during UploadVR’s Summer Showcase, the game is set to launch on all major VR platforms in 2024, which is also slated to include crossplay.
Here’s how Caveman Studios describes the action:
Explore the uninhabited, rugged land that has remained ungoverned for decades. Survive, loot, upgrade, engage, and use your tactics against relentless enemies and dangers on the desolate island. Enter the combat solo or engage with allies to fight against all odds as a team.
The game’s map is said to span a 4km x 4km area, which you’ll tackle with your tactical PDA in hand for both a map and ability to call in support. Contractors Showdown also promises weapon customization, gear upgrades, damage indicators, and more. It’s not certain how many players will be able to jump in, however the studio calls it “a large number of teams of contractors.”
Long-requested features, such as progression, matchmaking, and daily quests, will also be included, the studio says. Unlike the original tactical shooter, Contractors Showdown won’t be supporting mods at release, however the studio says they will prioritize crossplay.
In the meantime, the studio says it will continuously update the original Contractors to version 1.0 as promised.
INVERSE, a multiplayer survival horror unveiled by MassVR, has launched into early access on Quest. Be the monster, or the agents working together to restore power to the facility.
In this 4v1 asymmetric game, players can choose to be the Agents, working together to restore control terminals, or take on the role of the Nul monster, seeking to corrupt and disable unsuspecting victims—so basically Dead by Daylight, but for VR.
During its early access period on Quest, which is now available for free through Quest App Lab, there are currently two multiplayer maps and one single player challenge map available, which includes the ability to play as one of the ‘Reaper’ monsters.
The studio says at the game’s full release, which is slated to come in Fall 2023, INVERSE will up the player count to five Agents and two playable monsters, with more content promised in the future.
Early Access is free, although the studio says the price will increase at full release. Check out the announcement trailer below, which was released during UploadVR’s Summer Showcase.
Being able to get your non-VR friends in on the VR fun is often a challenge, especially if you’re trying to play with them remotely. Luckily VR Giants brings another rare opportunity to do so, offering up a fresh dose of asymmetric ‘VR + PC’ co-op gameplay that works just as well online as it does with local play.
We love a good asymmetric VR game that gives a VR player and a non-VR player two totally different roles. Unfortunately these games are a rare breed, surely not helped by the fact that they require both the VR player and the non-VR player to be in the same place to play on the same PC.
Luckily, back in 2019 Steam released a feature called Remote Play Together which allows local multiplayer games to be played with your online friends, no matter where they are.
That’s a perfect fit for VR Giants, an asymmetric co-op game just launched in Early Access. It has one player in a VR headset as a giant stone elemental, while another player on the same PC plays a tiny character that relies on the giant’s help to complete platforming challenges.
Thanks to Remote Play Together, you can have the same fun with any friend from afar. The feature basically tricks the game into thinking your friend is playing locally with you, even though they’re remotely controlling the game from afar. And because it works this way, only one of you needs to own the game!
Developer Risa Interactive tells us they know for sure the game works well with Steam Remote Play Together because all of its development was done remotely and tested with the Steam feature and Parsec (another popular app for remote-play gaming).
VR Giants is available on Steam in Early Access, currently with a 10% launch discount. The developer says the studio plans to add more levels before the game reaches its full launch, at which point the price will increase.
STRIDE: Fates, the upcoming story mode to the high-flying parkour game, was supposed to arrive late last year, although developer Joy Way delayed it in favor of fleshing out what promises to be a full-featured campaign.
Originally slated to launch in December 2022, STRIDE: Fates is set to introduce new parkour mechanics, new physics, and a narrative told from the life of a chaser in what at the time was said to be a 5+ hours solo adventure.
During the UploadVR Summer Showcase, the studio revealed new gameplay footage showing off the upcoming ‘Slums’ area, something slated to be a large open-world location that will take “about 15 minutes just to traverse from one end of the location to the other,” the studio says.
Notably, the Slums area is only “one of the many places you will parkour through as a chaser,” the studio says.
Joy Way says it will be revealing a launch date, target platforms, and all other details later this summer. The base game is already available on Quest 2, SteamVR and the original PSVR.
While release info is still thin on the ground, in the meantime we’ll be sticking to the game’s Twitter for all the latest updates.
Skydance Interactive announced during UploadVR’s Summer Showcase that the award-winning stealth-action VR game Arashi: Castles of Sin (2021) is finally making its way to major VR headsets this fall.
Developer by Endeavor One, Arashi: Castles of Sin is slated to bring its visceral melee combat to Quest 2, Quest 3, PSVR 2, and PC VR headsets for the first time.
Initially released exclusively on PSVR back in 2021, the studios say we can expect from the new ‘Final Cut’ version “improved visuals, updated enemy and boss behavior, revamped controls, and tons of additional quality-of-life features.”
Here’s how Endeavor One describes the action:
In Arashi: Castles of Sin – Final Cut, you’ll step into the shoes of deadly shinobi assassin Kenshiro and embark on a quest for justice, becoming one with the shadows as the last surviving member of House Arashi. This is your chance to experience feudal Japan in an era where the country is in chaos as the Six Oni of Iga have seized castles across the country, carving a bloody path of terror in their wake.
The game features a pretty wide assortment of weapons, tools, and techniques, all of which help you infiltrate conquered castles and outwit your enemies as you hunt down each Oni, the studio says.
Arashi: Castles of Sin – Final Cut is slated to arrive on the PSVR 2, PC VR and Quest platform sometime this fall. We’ll be keeping our eyes on the game’s new Twitter profile for more updates as they arrive.
Capricia Productions and Beyond Frames Entertainment unveiled a new VR platformer during UploadVR’s Summer Showcase that looks to take Gorilla Tag’s knuckle-dragging locomotion scheme and crank it to eleven for some fast-paced first-person platforming action.
Called Outta Hand, the game lets you embody one of the Hand-People, which developer Capricia calls “wide-eyed, hop-happy lab experiments with the power to jump great heights, leap impossible lengths, and shake hands from… really, really far away.”
Here’s how the studio describes the setup:
Due to not being dumb enough, loveable as you are, Dr. Vendelvom has selected you for immediate termination. Not like fired gone, more like dead gone.
To save yourself and your brethren, you must platform, jump, bounce, and punch your way through the bad doctor’s laboratory with your… uh… very long arms, to take down him and all his baddies. With multiple levels and boss fights along with an endless mode, things might get, shall we say, a little bit “out of hand?” Get it?! No? Fine…
Outta Hand is slated to arrive on Quest at some point this fall. Capricia hasn’t mentioned other VR platforms at this time, although we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled on the game’s new Twitter profile for more info as we approach the fall launch window.
This will be Capricia’s first VR game, following the release of Of Bird and Cage (2021) for traditional monitors. Publisher Beyond Frames Entertainment is known for a number of VR titles, including Ghosts of Tabor, ARK and ADE, Mixture, Down the Rabbit Hole, and Silhouette.
Espire 2: Stealth Operative (2022), the stealth action game from Digital Lode, is getting a free mixed reality mode for Quest 2, Quest Pro and Quest 3 later this year.
Digital Lode revealed footage of the mixed reality update during the UploadVR Summer Showcase, promising a series of stealth missions that “grow and adapt to the player’s personal playspace.”
“Missions are deliberately focused and optimized for all environments ranging from small areas to multiple rooms,” the studio says. “Play as Tempest, an agent who must pass a series of Mixed Reality Missions to earn their stripes and be cleared to pilot an Espire Frame.”
Each mission is said to offer a variety of objectives, and will also include enemy soldiers, bipedal mechs, electronic threats, and “more that emerge to prevent you from completing your objective.”
Espire 2’s mixed reality mode is slated to arrive for free on Quest headsets sometime later this year.
Meta Quest 3, the company’s next mixed reality standalone, is set to arrive sometime this fall, priced at $500. Besides being thinner and more powerful than Quest 2, Quest 3 promises the same color passthrough function as the company’s $1,000 Quest Pro, which could usher in a new influx of similar mixed reality modes in the coming months.
Virtual reality’s favorite nostalgia-fueled game-within-a-game is back, this time throwing you into a handful of reimagined Atari 2600 titles from the early ’80s. It’s another solid entry into the series, and as its casual approach to serving up a rash of classic gaming tropes are fairly tried and true at this point. While its first-person RPG focus this time around doesn’t really feel like the sort of substantial evolution that it could be, 1978’s smorgasbord of novelty and undoubtably heartfelt love of classic games does a lot to smooth over many of its rougher spots.
Pixel Ripped 1978 Details:
Available On: SteamVR, Quest, PSVR 2 Release Date: June 15th, 2023 Price: $25 Developer: ARVORE Publisher: Atari Reviewed On: Quest 2
Gameplay
Pixel Ripped returns with our digital hero Dot, this time taking us to the dawn of home video game consoles of the late ’70s and early ’80s. You do visit 1978, although you’ll spend a good amount of time in the pre-NES days of the early ’80s too. If you haven’t brushed up on your gaming history, that means stuff like Frogger, Donkey Kong,Pac-Man, Space Invaders, etc. Okay, not those games specifically, but more on that in a bit.
If you’ve played the previous two standalone games, Pixel Ripped 1989 (2018) and Pixel Ripped 1995(2020), you probably know the score: the series mixes in classic gameplay on CRT monitors with more immersive 3D action when you jump into the game. The new entry into the series follows this pattern, so if you’re looking for more of the same Cyblin Lord-beating action, you’re in the right place. Now your overworld character is Barbara ‘Bug’ Rivers, a fictionalized Atari developerwho must help Dot stop Cyblin Lord from going back in time and completely changing the fundamental nature of the Pixel Ripped console game Bug is working on.
Image captured by Road to VR
Having Atari as an actual publisher comes with a few new perks for the series. For the first time Pixel Ripped 1978 has done away with its ‘near-beer’ approach to game references, which relied on its own litigation-free versions of popular console games to complete the nostalgic feel. Granted, the name brands you jump into, both as Dot and the overworld character Bug, aren’t the most iconic Atari has on offer: Crystal Castles, Fast Freddie, and Yars’ Revenge. In the game, they’re called Bentely’s Quest, Groovin’ Freddie, and Grave Yar, although the characters are all there.
Still, you’ll find some easter eggs as well as mini-games related to the system’s best-known titles, such as Frogger, Breakout, and Space Invaders to name a few, making it a true love letter to the second generation of console gaming.
Image captured by Road to VR
While late ’70s and early ’80s nostalgia is on full display—there’s an actual Atari 2600 console, game cartridges galore, and Atari 400 home computer—thankfully you won’t just be limited to the system’s eight-drectional joystick and single button when playing on your office CRT. As the game progresses, you’re handed more buttons which give those games significantly more depth and modern playability when played in 2D.
When playing inside the game, which is more consistently focused on first-person RPG gameplay, you’re again treated to a bright and blocky world that puts you head-first in reimagined 3D versions of each title, albeit infected by Cyblin Lord’s disruptive rips in space. The objective of each cartridge is to collect a crystal that will close each rip, leading you to an end-stage boss encounter.
Image courtesy ARVORE, ATARI
The RPG part of the game equips you with a few things: on the left hand is a wrist-worn device that can shoot out bug repairs, making up the bulk of the game’s casual puzzle-solving. On the right is a blaster which… blasts. And over your right shoulder is a random melee weapon, which is more comical than effective, offering stuff like an oversized tennis racket, a fish, or large ‘chancla’ slipper.
On first blush some things seem to be clear detractors in these first-person bits of the game, including repetitive shooting and melee combat, and some fairly lackluster upgrades. Enemy variation is also fairly low, offering up a pretty middling handful of flying and ground types, all of which feel like bullet sponges with their own unseen health bars.
Still, the game’s rhythmic drips of novelty do a lot to smooth over some of these momentary rough patches. Since there’s always something new around the corner and unique boss battle ahead of you, you might even think of those parts less as flaws and more like the sort of gameplay bottlenecks that were part and parcel of an era of gaming that was simplistic by necessity. Granted, Pixel Ripped 1978 is significantly more complex, but maybe it should be forgiven somewhat given the neurons it’s attempting to spark.
Immersion
Pixel Ripped 1978’s focus on first-person RPGs stuff gives a new latitude to move around and explore the world than previous titles, which were nearly entirely seated. Here, level design feels mostly logical and consistent, although at times I was left scratching my head as what to do next, which led to some unintentional backtracking through levels. Upon death, all enemies reset, which is basically on-brand for any classic game out there. Thankfully the game autosaves, which is a merciful break in immersion from the titles of the early ’80s.
While Pixel Ripped 1978’s first-person RPG focus isn’t the homerun I was hoping for, its higher fidelity connection to the nostalgia certain ups the overall immersion factor. There’s something about seeing a real Atari 2600, handling the cartridges, and hitting play on a small CRT that just clicks a few neurons in my brain way more than a ‘Game Girl’ or ‘Turbo Drive’ playing ‘Rad Racoon’ ever could.
Image captured by Road to VR
Characters inside the 3D-ified Atari games are suitably blocky and colorful, while the art style in the overworld feels decidedly more Pixar-ish than previous titles. Character design and voice acting is effective here, although some of the mouth movements seem to be a little less refined than they ought to. Object interaction is also something that feels like could need more refinement, as found items only have a single attach point which can make selecting through multiple items a more difficult task than it should be.
Image courtesy ARVORE, ATARI
Overall, Pixel Ripped 1978 is a little rough around the edges when it comes to physical immersion, although it’s difficult to be too wrapped up in its sore spots when it’s so charming and heartfelt. It doesn’t feel like the result of a developer who’s just going through the motions and trying to pump video game references in your face for the sake of hitting some sort of nostalgia quota; Arvore’s love for classic gaming definitely shines through.
Comfort
Dot’s helmet HUD does a lot to help mitigate some of the woes of free locomotion, so you can glide in all directions with minimal discomfort. There’s also teleportation and variable snap-turn available, which should keep basically everyone comfortable. The entire game is played on a single plane, so there isn’t any first-person platforming to speak of or vehicles that might cause user discomfort. Notably, like its other titles the studio designed Pixel Ripped 1978 to be played seated. Check out the full comfort checklist below:
‘Pixel Ripped 1978’ Comfort Settings – June 14th, 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
Dialogue audio
✔
Languages
English
Adjustable difficulty
✖
Two hands required
✔
Real crouch required
✖
Hearing required
✖
Adjustable player height
✖
Full disclosure: The game features a number of voice-over cameos from people in the XR industry, most of which are found in a ringing telephone back at Bug’s office. I was offered a small, unpaid cameo here as well.
