Valve is a notorious black box when it comes to basically everything. A recent update to Steam client for VR though suggests the company is still working behind the scenes on what appears to be its long-awaited standalone VR headset.

As revealed by tech analyst and consummate Steam data miner Brad Lynch, a recent update to Steam’s client included a number of VR-specific strings related to batteries, which seems to support the idea that Valve is currently readying the platform for some sort of standalone VR headset.

The update also included mention of new UI elements, icons, and animations added to the Steam Client for VR—something it probably wouldn’t do for a competitor’s headset, like Meta’s soon-to-release Quest 3 standalone.

Meanwhile, South Korean’s National Radio Research Agency (RAA) recently certified a “low-power wireless device” from Valve, also spotted by Lynch. It’s still too early to say whether the device in question is actually a standalone VR headset—the radio certification only mentions it uses 5 GHz wireless—however headsets like Meta Quest 2 are equally as vague when it comes to RAA listings.

Granted, Valve hasn’t come out and said it’s developing a standalone VR headset yet, although with mounting competition from Apple and Meta, 2024 may be the year we finally see the ‘Index of standalone VR’ come to the forefront. Valve Index has widely been regarded as the ‘best fit’ PC VR headset, owing to its excellent quality, performance, and comfort—something we called “the enthusiast’s choice” in our full review of the headset back when it launched in 2019.

But it hasn’t been entirely mum either. In early 2022, Valve chief Gabe Newell called its handheld gaming PC platform Steam Deck “a steppingstone” to standalone VR hardware, nothing that Steam Deck represented “battery-capable, high-performance horsepower that eventually you could use in VR applications as well.”

– – — – –

While a capable, high-end standalone VR headset from Valve is certainly something to salivate over, a few big questions remain: What will happen when Valve opens Steam up to standalone VR content? How would the largely Meta-heavy ecosystem react as Steam becomes a new outlet for VR games? And what if Valve’s headset is instead capable of playing some subsection of standard PC VR content? We don’t know the answer to any of these questions, but with Valve’s continued interest in VR, we’re still pretty hopeful to find out.

Ubisoft announced Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR back in June, staying that we’d get the Quest exclusive sometime this holiday. Now the studio has revealed a first look at gameplay, and announced the official release date.

Coming to Quest on November 16th, the new Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR trailer shows off a few clips of each of the game’s three protagonists: Ezio (Assassin’s Creed II), Connor (Assassin’s Creed 3), and Kassandra (Assassin’s Creed Odyssey).

From the gameplay trailer, it seems there’s going to be a good slice of parkour, melee, and ranged combat too—basically what you’d expect from the long-awaited Assassin’s Creed  VR game. Ubisoft says we should expect to “get caught up in a world of espionage, intrigue and betrayal.”

Locations in the game include Venice, Athens, Colonial Boston “and more,” the studio says in the game’s Quest page, noting that players will have the autonomy to “decide the best way to achieve your objectives” across open map environments. “Meet and interact with civilians and historical figures, all of whom react to your VR actions,” Ubisoft says.

As for combat, Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR melee includes blocking, parrying, and counterattacks, with weapons including bow and arrows, the Hidden Blade, swords, tomahawk, throwing knives, crossbow, and smoke bombs.

You can wishlist Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR for Quest 2 and Quest Pro starting today, with launch coming November 16th. The game is also presumably coming to Quest 3 whenever the headset launches, although Meta hasn’t mentioned yet when Quest 3 is due to release. Whatever the case, we’re sure to learn more next week at Connect 2023, which promises a big info dump on Meta’s latest VR headset.

Fast Travel Games announced it’s partnering with MoonHood, a new game studio founded by the creators of Lost in Random (2021) and VR game Ghost Giant (2019). MoonHood is creating a VR-supported game that aims to replicate the look and feel of claymation.

Based in Gothenburg, Sweden, MoonHood aims to “immerse players in strange worlds handcrafted in actual clay, cardboard and what have you,” studio says on its new website.

MoonHood says it’s hired a team of sculptors and miniature painters to create physical objects as the basis of their first project, which is currently unnamed. The sculptures are then 3D scanned and presumably animated in Blender and other engines. The game is slated to target consoles, PC, and VR headsets—no word on exact platforms for now.

In the partnership announcement seen below, MoonHood says it’s partnering with Fast Travel’s publishing wing, but also a second unnamed partner. The studio says on its website that the project is being funded by “one of the biggest platforms,” which, considering the VR landscape right now, basically means Meta. The studio hasn’t confirmed this, as the video conveniently teases the name as a part of a redaction.

As a publisher, Fast Travel Games has brought a number of VR games to life, including third-party titles Virtuoso, EVERSLAUGHT Invasion, and Ghost Signal: A Stellaris Game. It’s also developed a number of well-recieved VR games including upcoming single-player RPG Vampire: The Masquerade – Justice and asymmetric multiplayer Mannequin.

Varjo, the Finland-based creator of high-end XR headsets, announced their businesses and prosumer-focused SteamVR headset Aero is now permanently 50% off its original $2,000 price tag.

Aero is essentially a pared down version of the company’s strictly enterprise headsets, offering industry-leading fidelity and advanced features such as eye-tracking.

Released in October 2021, Aero was (and still is) the company’s least expensive headset; it’s now priced at $990 (€990), bringing the Helsinki, Finland-based company into a new price segment which its hoping will appeal to at-home simulator fans.

Ther news was revealed at during the company’s hour-long ‘Aeroversity’ livestream celebrating the device’s two years since launch. Besides the price drop reveal, Varjo focused heavily on the headset’s use in both driving and flight sims.

When we reviewed Varjo Aero in late 2021, we called it the “dream headset for VR simmers who aren’t afraid to trade cash for immersion,” as it offered some pretty stunning clarity (35 PPD) that’s beaten only by the company’s more expensive headsets.

Notably, the $990 package doesn’t include SteamVR base stations and motion controllers, making it appeal mostly to users already in the SteamVR tracking ecosystem. What’s in the box: Varjo Aero headset, VR adapter, power supply unit with 6 x power plugs (EURO, UK, US, AUS, KOR, CHN), in-ear headphones with microphone, user guide, cleaning cloth. Check out the specs below:

Creating a VR that truly immerses the user is no easy feat. To pull this off correctly requires a careful blend of graphics, animations, audio, and haptics that work together in deliberate concert to suspend disbelief and engross the user. Fujii is a joyful interactive adventure and a masterclass in rich VR interactions. The President of Funktronic Labs, the studio behind the game, is here to tell us more about his design approach.

Guest Article by Eddie Lee

Eddie Lee is the President and co-founder of Funktronic Labs, an LA-based independent game studio that focuses on delivering high-quality experiences through games, XR, and other interactive media. His experience spans nearly 15 years in the fields of graphics, game design, and computer simulations.

Today, we are thrilled to pull back the curtain and give you an inside look into our thought processing while developing Fujii, a title that has been a labor of love for us at Funktronic Labs. As the landscape of virtual reality continues its dynamic evolution, we saw a golden opportunity not just to adapt, but to breathe new life into Fujii. We’re eager to re-introduce our experience to a burgeoning new community of VR enthusiasts. Stick with us as we delve into the design process that originally brought this magical floral adventure to life.

A Brief Foray into Funktronic Labs

Founded a decade ago at the intersection of art, technology, and design, Funktronic Labs took the plunge into VR development back in 2015, a time when the industry was still in its infancy and precedents were scarce. This compelled us to adopt a ground-up, first-principles approach to game design and VR interactions—an ethos that has become the backbone of all our projects since then—from our pioneering VR venture, Cosmic Trip, to Fujii, and all the way to our latest release, Light Brigade.

Fujii – A Harmonious Blend of Nature and Technology

Fujii first made its debut as an auteur, art-focused launch title for the release of Quest 1 in May 2019. This project holds a special place in our hearts as a resonant blend of artistic vision and interactive design, exploring the wonders of humanity’s connection with nature. Conceived as a soulful sojourn, Fujii interweaves the realms of nature exploration and whimsical gardening, creating an interactive meditative space for players to lose themselves in.

In an industry landscape where unconventional, art-focused projects often struggle to find support, we were extraordinarily fortunate to connect with Meta (at the time known as Oculus). Recognizing the artistic merit and unique potential in our vision, they granted us the exceptional opportunity and support to bring this artsy-fartsy, non-core experience to fruition.

Fujii’s Overall Design Philosophy

During Fujii’s development, we were acutely aware that a substantial portion of our audience would be stepping into the realm of VR for the first time via the Quest 1—the industry’s first major standalone 6DoF headset.

This keen insight significantly sculpted our design approach. We opted for intuitive, physics-driven interactions that mirror the tactile simplicity of the natural world, consciously avoiding complex VR interactions, elaborate interfaces or dense text.

By refraining from controls that demand steep learning curves, we zeroed in on cultivating immediate, natural interactions, thereby offering a warm invitation to VR newcomers of all ages and gameplay experience. Remarkably, this has led to an incredibly diverse player base, attracting everyone from young children to the elderly, many of whom have found Fujii to be an accessible and joyous experience. [Editor’s note: we quite liked the game too].

VR as a New Interaction Paradigm

It’s an oversimplification to regard VR as merely a ‘stereoscopic monitor strapped to your face.’ We see it as much more than just a visual spectacle; VR introduces a groundbreaking paradigm shift in user interaction. With its 6DoF capabilities, VR transcends conventional gaming by enabling intuitive physical actions like grabbing, touching, and gesturing.

This new paradigm unlocks a whole new layer of tactile engagement and immersion, connecting players directly with their virtual surroundings. This stands in contrast to the abstract, button-press or cursor interactions that characterize traditional, non-VR games. In essence, VR offers a far more integrated and visceral form of engagement, elevating the gaming experience to a whole new level.

Physics-based Inventory

In the realm of VR, the addition of physics and animations to objects isn’t just aesthetic; it serves as a vital conduit for player engagement and understanding. The enjoyment derived from physics-based interactions comes from the brain’s innate satisfaction in grasping the object’s physical properties—be it weight, drag, or inertia.

Absent these nuanced physics, interactions feel insubstantial and weightless, breaking the immersive spell. As a guiding principle, consider incorporating physics into every touchpoint, enriching the player’s tactile connection to the game world and making interactions incredibly rewarding.

To illustrate, let’s delve into the inventory system in Fujii. Far from being a mere menu or grid, our inventory system is organically woven into the fabric of the game’s universe. We’ve opted for a physically-driven inventory, where items like seeds find their homes in “natural slots” in the virtual environment, echoing real-world interactions.

This design choice is not only intuitive but negates the need for a separate tutorial. To further enhance this connection, we’ve enriched these interactions with animations and robust physics feedback, providing an additional layer of tangibility that helps players more fully connect with their virtual environment.

Plants and Touch

Another compelling instance of the importance of physics-based design in VR can be found in our intricate interaction model for plants within Fujii. Human interaction with plants is often tactile and visceral; we touch, we feel, we connect. Our aim was to preserve that authentic texture and intimacy in a virtual context. But we went a step further by infusing every plant with musical responsiveness, adding an ethereal layer of magic and wonder to your botanical encounters.

In Fujii, each interaction with plant life is designed to resonate on a meaningful level. Every plant, leaf, and stem adheres to its own tailored set of physics rules. Whether it’s the gentle sway of a leaf in response to your touch or the subtle recoil of a stem, our objective has been to make these virtual interactions indistinguishable from real-life ones.

Achieving this required painstaking attention to detail, coupled with robust physics simulations, ensuring that each touch aligns with natural expectations, thereby deepening your immersion in this magical realm.

Watering

Watering plants in Fujii isn’t just a game mechanic; it’s crafted to be a tactile and immersive VR experience that mimics the soothing and nurturing act of watering real plants. From the way the water cascades to how it nourishes the flora, every detail has been considered. Even the extension of your arms into playful, jiggly water hoses has been designed to offer a sense of whimsy while maintaining an air of naturalism. The water interacts realistically with both the plants and the landscape, underlining the game’s commitment to intuitive, lifelike design.

To infuse an additional layer of enchantment into this seemingly simple act, we’ve introduced a delightful touch: any water droplets that fall onto the ground trigger a temporary, flower-sprouting animation. This whimsical feature serves to amplify the ‘reality’ of the droplets, allowing them to interact with the world in a way that grounds them.

The Symphony of Sound Design

In Fujii, sound design is far from peripheral; it’s an integral facet of the game’s immersive landscape. Sound doesn’t merely serve as an auditory backdrop; it plays a pivotal role in how humans subconsciously interpret the physical makeup of the objects they interact with.

When sound, physics, and visuals synergize, they allow the brain to construct a comprehensive mental model of the object’s material properties. Numerous studies have even demonstrated that superior sound design can elevate players’ perception of the graphics, making them appear more lifelike, despite no actual change in visual quality (see this and this).

Seizing this opportunity, we’ve added a unique aural dimension to Fujii. Instead of sticking strictly to realistic, organic sounds, we’ve imbued interactions with melody, notes, and keys, creating an atmosphere of musical exploration and wonder. It’s as if you’re navigating through a symphonic wonderland, amplifying the sense of enchantment and, ideally, offering players a synesthetic experience that enriches their immersion in this captivating virtual world.

Trust the Design Process

In the course of game development, we’ve learned that it’s often impractical, if not impossible, to map out every component of a game’s design during pre-production. Instead, we’ve increasingly embraced a mindset of ‘discovery’ rather than ‘invention’.

While we adhere to certain design principles, the elusive process of ‘finding the fun’ in a VR experience continues to be a mystifying yet exciting challenge, even with over a decade of experience under our belts. The magic often unfolds when the game seems to take on a life of its own, almost as if it wishes to manifest itself in a particular way.

To best facilitate this organic process, we’ve found that maintaining a high degree of flexibility and adopting an iterative mindset is crucial—especially in VR development, where ideas don’t always translate well into enjoyable VR interactions.

Take, for example, the design of our watering mechanic (from earlier): initial concepts like grabbable watering cans or throwable water orbs seemed engaging on paper but fell flat in practice. It wasn’t until we stumbled upon the random idea of water shooting magically from the player’s hands that everything seemed to click into place. Allowing room for such iterative spontaneity has often led us to unexpected yet delightful game mechanics.

– – — – –

In the development of Fujii, our aim was to establish a meaningful benchmark for what can be achieved through simple yet thoughtful interaction design in VR. As technology marches forward, we anticipate that the fidelity of these virtual experiences will continue to gain depth and realism. Yet, the essence of our objective remains constant: to forge not just visually impressive virtual landscapes, but also highly interactive and emotionally resonant experiences.

We hope this in-depth technical exploration has offered you valuable insights into the thought process that go into shaping a VR experience like Fujii. As we continue on this journey, we invite you to explore and to keep your faith in the limitless possibilities that VR offers. Thank you for sharing this journey with us.

Fujii – A Magical Gardening Adventure is now available at the new low price of $10 on Meta Quest, SteamVR and PSVR 1.

Immersed, the team behind the titular XR productivity and co-working app, announced Visor last month, a slim and light VR headset designed for work. Now the studio has opened “fully refundable” pre-orders for two distinct flavors of the device.

Immersed is offering a 2.5K per-eye Visor model for $500 and a 4K per-eye Visor model for $750. Besides including different resolution OLED microdisplays, functionally both models are the same. The company is also offering a Founder’s Edition Visor 4K for $1,000, which is said to ship six months before the standard Visor 4K.

Immersed says on the website both 2.5K and 4K headsets include:

• Hand & eye tracking

• 6 Degrees of freedom
• 5+ Screens
• 100° Field of view
• Ultra widescreen
• Custom IPD, nose-insert, and light-blocker
• 25% lighter than a smartphone
• HD Color Passthrough
• Stems & strap attachments Included

It’s still early days, it seems. The Visor hardware is said to be “both wired and wireless,” indicating it has onboard processing for mobile VR experiences and a battery, however the company hasn’t released any specs yet on chipset or battery life.

The company says headsets are custom-built for each user however, which includes locking in each user’s interpupillary distance (IPD) and shipping nose inserts and light blockers which are “closest to your face’s shape,” Immersed says in the product’s description.

As for shipment dates, so far Immersed says it’s slated to “commence and continue [shipment] throughout 2024.” What’s more, Immersed says it’s offering those pre-orders as “full refundable reservations.”

Here’s the fine print:

Refund Policy: Preorders are fully refundable reservations. You may cancel your reservation at any time before your Visor is produced and receive a full refund to the original payment method by emailing support@visor.com. Due to the custom-built nature of Visor, fulfillment time will vary and shipment dates are our best estimates. Delays, if any, will be communicated via email.

You can pre-order and find more on the Immersed Visor website.

Leaked documents relating to Microsoft’s business strategy for Xbox show the company eyeing XR technology but continuing to keep it at arm’s length.

While Microsoft has previously taken considerable steps into XR with both HoloLens and the Windows Mixed Reality platform on PC, the company’s flagship gaming division, Xbox, has notably not joined the fray.

Over the years Xbox leadership has repeatedly pushed back on XR interest, saying the tech doesn’t yet have a large enough audience to warrant investment. And while it doesn’t look like we should expect anything relating to XR from Xbox in the near future, the company is at least continuing to eye the tech as a potential opportunity.

Road to VR reviewed the entirety of a trove of documents that leaked this week in connection with an ongoing Federal Trade Commission v. Microsoft court case. The documents, which reveal a significant portion of Microsoft’s long-term plans for the Xbox brand, show the company is still skeptical of XR but not discounting it in the long run.

In a mid-2022 ‘Gaming Strategy Review’ document, Xbox pointed to “AR / VR” as one of a handful of “opportunities” the company was mulling as part of its “early thoughts on [the] next generation of gaming.” In the same section the company pointed to tech like cloud gaming and ML & AI as potential areas of strategic focus.

In another section of the same document the company highlighted Windows Mixed Reality, OpenXR, WebVR, and HoloLens among many platforms and services that Xbox can leverage to build its “next gen platform for immersive apps and games.” Given the context of the document, however, it doesn’t seem that Xbox is specifically referring to XR when using the word “immersive.”

While Xbox has mentioned XR as a future opportunity, the company’s tone is still significantly skeptical that the tech has achieved a meaningful addressable audience.

In another section of the same document which overviewed Xbox’s competitors, the company pointed to Meta’s billions of dollars of investments into XR, but concluded by saying, “we view virtual reality as a niche gaming experience at this time.”

Another document from mid-2022, which overviewed the company’s long-term plans for Xbox all the way through 2030, noted that Microsoft wanted to expand its hardware portfolios to include new hardware categories, but nothing on that long-term roadmap pointed to any XR hardware.

While the leaked documents did focus on long timelines, business is always dynamic and priorities can shift quickly, so it’s important to remember that the documents are just a snapshot of Xbox’s view in mid-2022. With the more recent introduction of devices like Apple Vision Pro, it’s likely that Xbox is looking even more closely at how important XR may be to its future portfolio.

Microsoft’s HoloLens-based headset built on contract for the US Army has passed an important round of field testing by soldiers. The company is now set to fulfill a larger order to be used in more rigorous testing slated to take place in 2025.

Awarded in 2019, Microsoft’s $22 billion defense contract is aiming to supply the US Army with a tactical AR headset for soldiers based on HoloLens 2 technology, or what’s called an Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS),

According to Bloomberg, 20 prototype versions of the newer 1.2 IVAS headsets were field tested by two squads of solders in late August specifically to check for improvements in reliability, low-light performance and ergonomics. It was reported in early 2022 that Microsoft was bracing for negative field testing, citing concerns with low-light performance and nausea.

Taking place at Fort Drum, New York, those tests “demonstrated improvements in reliability, low light sensor performance, and form factor,” a US Army spokesperson told Bloomberg, saying further that “soldier feedback was positive.”

The Army awarded Microsoft another contract on September 5th for the 1.2 IVAS to see if the company could scale production. Its $22 billion contract indicates an upper target, and not the full amount granted to Microsoft at present.

Flat2VR, the modding team known for bringing unofficial VR support to games such as Final Fantasy XIV, Half-Life 2, Jedi Outcast, and Left 4 Dead 2, recently released a mod for Portal 2 which finally brings SteamVR support to the iconic puzzle game.

Portal 2 VR Mod Releasing Today! (Video Of First 20 Minutes)

After a lot of blood, sweat & tears, Gistix has decided to release the initial version of his Portal 2 VR mod today!

The entire game can be played in 6DOF VR with full motion controls! pic.twitter.com/VcvCUsYCBa

— Flat2VR (@Flat2VR) September 16, 2023

The mod is free, and posted to Giovanni ‘Gistix’ Correia’s Github, a contributing member of Flat2VR. If you need help installing, there are instructions on the mod’s Github page, howevrr you can also head over to the Flat2VR Discord (invite link) for help.

Another pretty handy coincidence: Valve has again put both Portal and Portal 2 on sale for just $1 a piece, or in the Portal bundle for just $1.50 total, giving you basically no excuse not to play this mod—provided you have a VR-ready PC and a headset such as a Valve Index or Quest 2 (with Link).

Check out this 20-minute playthrough showcasing just how fluid the VR mod is:

Meta is shutting down three of its exclusive titles next March, including VR shooters Dead and Buried (2016) and Dead and Buried II (2019), and virtual pet simulator Bogo (2019).

Meta announced via email to current game owners that all three titles will no longer be supported come March 15th, 2024. In the meantime, the company has removed the games from store search results, and removed any way to purchase or download them (if not already in your library).

Created as an Oculus Touch launch title for Rift and released in late 2016 by Oculus Studios, Dead and Buried was one of the pioneering multiplayer VR shooters that explored room-scale gameplay, including co-op, PvP, and single-player modes.

Interestingly, the Oculus Touch launch title never came to Quest, although a version was adapted for Oculus Go, the 3DOF standalone released in 2018.

Meta’s internal game development studio back then, Oculus Studios, instead was working on Dead and Buried II, which would release as a launch title for the original Quest in May 2019, but also arrive on Rift with cross-play.

Dead and Buried II departed from the purely room-scale locomotion of the first, and injected some standard stick-driven locomotion to the mix, making for more dynamic shootouts across multiple maps.

Released as a free Oculus Quest launch title in 2019 (and Rift), Bogo lets you raise and care for your own virtual pet. It’s admittedly a short experience without a ton of depth, but it’s getting the axe just the same come March 15th, as it will be removed not only from both Quest and Rift Stores, but also from user libraries.

While both Dead and Buried games heavily feature online gameplay—more understandable victims of platform decay—the decision to shutter the single-player game Bogo suggests Meta isn’t prioritizing legacy support for original Quest games as it moves towards the next generation of Quest headset, or more specifically Quest 3.

Whatever the case, we’re sure to learn more come September 27th during Connect 2023 where the company will very likely release a flurry of news surrounding Quest 3.

Joy Way, the studio behind parkour action-shooter STRIDE (2022), announced that high-flying follow-up STRIDE: Fates is a “full-fledged sequel” to the original game, and it’s coming first to Quest this holiday season.

In addition to throwing out a new gameplay trailer, the studio also released more info on the game’s narrative:

Step into the shoes of a parkour spec-ops officer. Traverse and shoot your way through the rooftops and basements of dystopian Airon City – from slums to affluent skyscrapers. Deal with power shifts in gangs, dirty family feuds, corporate secrets, forbidden tech and other obstacles to understand your past. Enhancing everything players love about STRIDE, the full-fledged sequel ‘Fates’ pushes the parkour action formula even further with new gameplay and a story-driven campaign.

The studio also included a list of promised features:

• Blockbuster-level narrative.
• Climb buildings, vault through windows, and slide down cables with lightning speed.
• Explore open-world locations under the watch of snipers and drones.
• Feel the thrill of close-quarters combat with tactical shooter mechanics.
• Use your gadgets and hacking skills to outwit thugs and corporates.
• Meet a motley cast of characters to shape your Fate.
• Puzzles, collectibles and more cool stuff that will be announced later.

1 of 3

Originally set to be a relatively short story mode offered as free DLC to the base game, STRIDE: Fates is now being pitched as a “full-fledged separate game,” Joy Way tells Road to VR.

“Instead of an hour of gameplay, we made a separate game, better in every aspect, with new content, mechanics and 5-8 hours of story campaign (depending on side quests and time spent in open world locations),” the studio says.

Joy Way maintains the decision to make it a separate game and not free DLC was also based on avoiding technical limitations inherent to the base game. STRIDE: Fates is said to use a new engine, which offers improved graphics and interactivity for standalone VR, enhancing aspects like shooting, enemy AI, and more.

“At some point, after fruitless attempts to upgrade the existing engine, we had to restart the project and basically re-do almost all the code from scratch, and now the new engine is incompatible with the original STRIDE.”

STRIDE: Fates is coming first to Quest, slated to arrive on the Meta Quest Store sometime this holiday season, which could be as soon as November, the studio says. The game is also headed to SteamVR headsets sometime in 2024. Joy Way says it’s also considering a release on PSVR 2 and Pico headsets “later in 2024,” however that’s still being decided.

Unity, makers of the popular game engine, announced earlier this week it’s getting ready to levy some pretty significant fees on developers, causing many to rethink whether it makes more sense to actually go with the main competition, Unreal Engine from Epic Games. It seems Epic isn’t wasting any time to help transition those creating projects for Apple Vision Pro.

According to Victor Lerp, Unreal Engine XR Product Specialist at Epic Games, the company is now “exploring native Unreal Engine support for Apple Vision Pro,” the upcoming mixed reality headset due to launch in early 2024.

Lerp says it’s still early days though, noting that it’s “too early for us to share details on the extent of support or timelines.”

Lerp posted the statement on Unreal Engine’s XR development forum. You can read it in full below, courtesy of Alex Coulombe, CEO of the XR creative studio Agile Lens:

For everyone who keeps asking about #AppleVisionPro support in #UE5: pic.twitter.com/pjc7dmSnnK

— Alex Coulombe #UnrealFest (@iBrews) September 13, 2023

During Vision Pro’s unveiling at WWDC in June, Apple prominently showcased native Unity support in its upcoming XR operating system, visionOS. Unity began offering beta access to its visionOS-supported engine shortly afterwards, making it feel like something of a ‘bait and switch’ for developers already creating new games, or porting existing titles to Vision Pro.

As explained by Axios, Unity’s new plan will require users of its free tier of development services to pay the company $0.20 per installation once their game hits thresholds of both 200,000 downloads and earns $200,000 in revenue. Subscribers to Unity Pro, which costs $2,000 a year, have a different fee structure that scales downwards in proportion to the number of installs. What constitutes an ‘install’ is still fairly nebulous at this point despite follow-up clarifications from Unity. Whatever the case, the change is set to go into effect starting on January 1st, 2024.

In the meantime, the proposed Unity price increase has caused many small to medium-size teams to reflect on whether to make the switch to the admittedly more complicated Unreal Engine, or pursue other game engines entirely. A majority of XR game studios fit into that category, which (among many other scenarios) could hobble teams as they look to replicate free-to-play success stories like Gorilla Tag, which generated over $26 million in revenue when it hit the Quest Store late last year.

Fast Travel Games teased a mysterious VR multiplayer late last month, and now we have the full reveal: Mannequin, an asymmetric multiplayer for up to five players.

The admittedly very slick cinematic reveal trailer shows off a bit of hide-and-seek style gameplay.

Here’s how the studio describes the action:

The world has stopped. Time is frozen. All attempts to make contact with the aliens have failed. Special Agents have been deployed to neutralize the threat once and for all.

Humans call the aliens: Mannequins. Mannequin is an asymmetric multiplayer game for up to 5 players, filled with suspense, social deduction and fast, sudden action. Play as alien Mannequins and set up deadly ambushes by posing as humans frozen in time, or as human Agents and wield high tech gadgets to neutralize the Mannequins from a distance.

The studio tells us that its extraterrestrial Mannequins focus on close combat and can time-freeze humans just by touching them. You’ll have to physically pose your body in order to blend in among the time-frozen humans though, making you think creatively on how best to blend into your surroundings and keeping a pose as you’re surely inspected for any signs of life.

Human Agents specialize in ranged combat with an EMP Gun to neutralize the aliens. An EMF Reader helps you locate threats and EMP Generators for recharge and advantage in combat. On the human team, voice chat lets you communicate and strategize internally without the opponent team eavesdropping on them.

Mannequin is coming first to Meta Quest 2 & 3, PSVR 2, and SteamVR headsets sometime in 2024. We’ll be following along with the Fast Travel Games’ social channels in the meantime.

Meanwhile, the veteran VR studio is also set to launch its single-player RPG Vampire: The Masquerade – Justice soon, having already released a number of VR games including Wraith: The Oblivion – Afterlife, Apex Construct and The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets.

Sleeping in VR is definitely a thing. Just head for any of the so-called ‘sleep worlds’ in VRChat for yourself to see avatars snoozing away whilst curled up on a virtual couch. Now a Steam overlay looks to make it easier for the VR sleepers among us to catch their forty winks.

Called OyasumiVR – VR Sleeping Utilities, the software is designed to detect when you’re asleep and automate various tasks, something its creator ‘Raphii’ says can help make VR sleeping “as comfortable as possible.”

#𝗢𝘆𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗶𝗩𝗥 𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 #𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺!

You can visit the brand new store page over here: https://t.co/pMXFfXVm8q

The release date is planned for 𝘼𝙪𝙜𝙪𝙨𝙩 25𝙩𝙝.
Wishlist it to be notified!

#VR #VRChat #VR睡眠ソフトウェア #SteamVR pic.twitter.com/6RyCwRC0aG

— Raphii (@Raphiiko) August 10, 2023

OyasumiVR can is also said to dim headset brightness, trigger avatar animations based on your sleeping pose, automatically handle invite requests so you’re not disturbed, and automate various SteamVR settings.

There’s actually a pretty extensive array of features beyond those mentioned above, including the ability to create shutdown sequences so you can automatically turn off controllers. base stations, quit SteamVR, or even shut down Windows entirely—just what you need if you’re looking to drift off to asleep in VR, but want to wake up in your own bed.

Originally projected to land on Steam on August 25th, OyasumiVR – VR Sleeping Utilities is available for free starting today on Steam. You check out the full list of features on the linked Steam page to see if it’s right for you.

Apple’s “Wonderlust” product launch event featured the official unveiling of iPhone 15 and both Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2. While XR wasn’t a major focus of the event, Apple confirmed its upcoming mixed reality standalone Vision Pro isn’t seeing any delays to push it off its early 2024 release.

First unveiled at WWDC in June, Apple CEO Tim Cook said last night during the product event that Vision Pro is still “on track for release in early 2024.”

Vision Pro, which comes along with the very ‘pro’ price tag of $3,500, has reportedly been the subject of multiple delays in the past. The MR headset was widely thought to arrive sometime in 2022, although several successive reports maintained it was delayed multiple times since then.

With an “early 2024” launch in site, Apple seems to be making some of the right moves in the background, as the company has already opened up applications for developer units which are undoubtedly already in the hands of studios.

Meanwhile, the Cupertino tech giant also announced it’s prepping iPhone 15 Pro to take stereoscopic video which can be viewed on Vision Pro. It’s an interesting choice, as features on company’s most premium ‘Pro’ phone offerings tend to trickle down in successive generations. Here, the phone’s ultrawide and main cameras work together to create what Apple calls a “three-dimensional video.”

Apple today announced its iPhone 15 lineup of smartphones, including the iPhone 15 Pro which will be the company’s first phone to capture spatial video for immersive viewing on Vision Pro.

While Apple Vision Pro itself works as a spatial camera, allowing users to capture immersive photos and videos, I think we can all agree that wearing a camera on your head isn’t the most convenient way to capture content.

Apple seems to feel the same way. Today during the company’s iPhone 15 announcement, it was revealed that the new iPhone 15 Pro will be capable of capturing spatial video which can be viewed immersively on the company’s upcoming Vision Pro headset. The base versions of the phone, the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus, won’t have the spatial capture capability.

Details on exactly how this function works are slim for the time being.

“We use the ultrawide and main cameras together to create a three-dimensional video,” the company said during its announcement. But it isn’t clear if “three-dimensional” means stereoscopic footage with a fixed viewpoint, or some kind of depth projection with a bit of 6DOF wiggle room.

Given that the iPhone 15 Pro cameras are so close together—not offering enough distance between the two views for straightforward stereo capture—it seems that some kind of depth projection or scene reconstruction will be necessary.

Apple didn’t specifically say whether the phone’s depth-sensor was involved, but considering the phone uses it for other camera functions, we wouldn’t be surprised to find that it has some role to play. Curiously, Apple didn’t mention spatial photo capture, but ostensibly this should be possible as well.

While users will be able to watch their immersive videos on Vision Pro, Apple also said they’ll be able to share the footage with others who can watch on their own headset.

While the new iPhone 15 lineup will launch on September 22nd, Apple says the spatial capture capability won’t be available until “later this year”—which is curious considering the company also said today that Vision Pro is “on track to launch in early 2024.” Perhaps the company plans to allow creators to access the spatial video files for editing and use outside of Apple’s platform?

Roblox has done very well on Quest. When it launched on the standalone VR platform back in July, it managed to break one million downloads in its first five days, essentially making the online game the hottest social VR platform currently available on Quest. Now Roblox has also showered attendees at its annual developer conference this past weekend with free Quest Pros.

Despite being in direct competition with Meta’s Horizon Worlds social VR platform, there doesn’t seem to be any bad blood over the explosive growth of Roblox on Quest.

A message was sent to attendees at RDC23 this past weekend, stating that Meta is footing the bill to provide a heap of free Quest Pros, its $1,000 mixed reality standalone.

“The news is out! We want to give a special thanks to our partner meta. They have offered to provide all RDC23 attendees with Meta Quest Pro headsets to help you create the best Roblox experiences for VR,” the message reads.

Developers didn’t have to wait long, as they collected their free Quest Pros on site at RDC23.

During the RDC 2023 keynote, Baszucki also revealed that Roblox now features “over 50,000 experiences that are ready right now on Meta Quest.”

Roblox is currently available on the Quest platform via App Lab, however the company says it’s set for its “full” release on Quest sometime in September. Baszucki didn’t specify when, although it’s a good bet that the popular social platform will be a launch day title on Quest 3, which could come as early as September 27th during Connect, Meta’s annual developer conference.

The company also announced Roblox is headed to PlayStation in October, however it’s not clear if that will include PSVR or PSVR 2 support as well.

In late July, Meta introduced a hero shooter called ‘Super Rumble’ to Horizon Worlds, aiming to improve user retention on its social VR platform with the promise of higher quality first-party content. Now Meta released its second big anchor minigame on Horizon Worlds, a co-op adventure game called ‘Citadel’.

Citadel is what Meta calls a “rogue-lite action-adventure puzzle platformer FPS,” offering up both solo and co-op play.

Here’s how Meta describes the action:

Combining combat, puzzle-solving, and skillful gameplay, each room in Citadel gives players a new challenge to overcome. With numerous hidden secrets to uncover across 30 rooms, Citadel offers a wealth of content to explore. And after completing the game in Casual mode, those up for an additional challenge can take on Veteran mode for an even greater sense of achievement (and additional bragging rights).

As you infiltrate the citadel, find hidden relics, and eliminate enemy forces, you’ll unlock weapons and rewards and earn credit to buy new armor with unique stats to upgrade your hit points, number of lives, and speed. Mix and match helmets and torso armors at will to fully customize your gameplay experience.

Stocking Horizon Worlds with higher quality content has only been one piece of Meta’s user retention puzzle. Back in April, the company announced it was set to officially open the platform to kids ages 13+. Meta has also recently begun a closed beta for Android users, opening the platform to non-VR devices for the first time.

The company says it’s hoping to open Horizon Worlds to iOS devices and standard web browsers too at some point, which could help the platform gain greater traction amid some already fairly fierce competition. This comes as Meta opened Quest up the online gaming powerhouse Roblox, joining popular social VR platforms Rec Room, VRChat, and Gym Class on the Quest platform.

Instead of taking you right to your library of installed apps, Meta is making yet another perplexing change to the Quest landing page in v57.

Since the earliest days of Meta’s VR platform, the company has been seemingly obsessed with not putting your library of VR apps front-and-center.

Instead the first thing you see when you put on a headset from the company, or launch its companion smartphone app, is some kind of dynamic ‘feed’ with content you weren’t looking for in the first place.

The Ever Changing ‘Explore’ Page

For a long time when putting Quest on your head Meta made you look at ‘Explore’, an algorithmically-curated assortment of disparate content that was not your library of installed apps.

Seemingly forever unhappy that people don’t love the Explore page, Meta has constantly reimagined it over the years, changing the layout what seems like every six months. I swear every time I’m finally used to it, it changes.

And once again, it will change.

In the newest Quest v57 update Meta is replacing the Explore landing page with a new and freshly confusing ‘Horizon Feed’, which is also not your library of installed apps.

Sensibly, you might think the Horizon Feed would contain only content from Horizon Worlds, acting as a sort of portal for you to jump into the company’s miniverse. But no, apparently in Horizon Feed you’ll find all manner of games, apps, and of course, Reels!

Yes, Reels… the company’s short-form 2D video content that’s designed for quick and casual viewing on a smartphone. Certainly when I put on my headset that’s what I want to see—not my library of installed apps.

Below the Fold

Even the headset’s companion smartphone app, the ‘Meta Quest’ app, doesn’t want to make it easy to access your library of installed apps. Instead, the first thing you see when you launch the app is a smattering of algorithmically-curated content—a feed of course—that you weren’t looking for when you put your headset on in the first place.

Did you know that you can actually remotely launch VR apps on Quest right from the smartphone app? It’s incredibly convenient.

Or it could be, but most people don’t even know that’s possible because to even find your library of installed apps you need to launch the smartphone app, click ‘Menu’ (the last option on the toolbar), then scroll down below the fold to finally find ‘My Library’. Counting from the top of the page, it’s the 17th item down the list of Menu items. It has moved progressively further and further down the page down the years.

Literally ‘Parental Supervision’ and ‘Help and Support’ are placed higher on the list than your library of installed apps.

Does Meta really think that Parental Supervision (something which doesn’t even apply to many users), and Help and Support (how often do you think people need help for this product), should be easier to reach than the user’s library of installed apps?

Feed Me

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that Meta has an obsession with algorithmically-curated feeds. It’s the thing that defines the company’s core products (ie: Facebook, Instagram), and small changes to their feed algorithm can have major influence over how long people stay on those platforms and how much they engage.

But here’s the core problem with Meta’s feed obsession. While casual and even mindless scrolling is the norm on smartphones—devices which can be engaged and disengaged with in a matter of seconds—this couldn’t be further from the truth for VR headsets.

Anyone putting on a VR headset already has a damn good reason to bother putting it on in the first place.

They already know what they want to do; getting between them and that thing is just compromising the user experience. If you want to hit them with a feed, do it after they’re done with the thing they intended to do in the first place. And while you’re at it… maybe instead of hiding their library of installed apps—you know, the content they hand-picked and paid for—why not make it easier for the user to launch them in the first place so it’s easier for them to return?

Now of course people at Meta are reading this and saying ‘we’ve got all these stats that show that people really click on the stuff in the feed!’ I’m sure you do… and it’s because that’s the thing you’re constantly putting in front of their face.

Metrics will lead you astray if you aren’t measuring the right things. You’d better believe that friction—the process of putting on the headset and getting to the thing you actually want to do—is and has long been one of VR’s biggest issues. If that’s not what you’re optimizing for (these feeds certainly aren’t) then you’re just crippling the overall user experience.

It’s the people that don’t come back to the headset that you should be most carefully observing, not looking to see if you can steer someone to a different piece of content after they’ve already decided to put the headset on.

Standing in stark contrast to Meta’s approach is Apple Vision Pro. When you put on the headset, what’s the very first thing you see? Your library of installed apps.

There’s a rumor going around that Nintendo is making a VR headset in partnership with Google. The rumor is still unconfirmed, but when the world’s oldest extant gaming company finally thinks it’s time to make a dedicated XR device, you know it’s going to be something special. Having seen how far the technology has come though, it raises a question: why hasn’t Nintendo made a VR headset yet?

Nintendo basically has a singular MO, and it does it well: create broadly accessible hardware to serve as a vehicle for its exclusive swath of family friendly games. Ok, it’s more complicated than that, but it’s a good starting point to understand why Nintendo hasn’t made a proper VR headset yet, and probably won’t for some time yet to come.

Wait. Didn’t Nintendo have that Virtual Boy thing in the ’90s? And what about Labo VR for Switch? Those were VR headsets, right? Yes, and no. Or rather, no and kind of (in that order). I’ll get to those in a bit.

In short, the reason Nintendo hasn’t made a real VR platform like Meta Quest has a lot to do with risk aversion, since the company generally prefers to wait until technologies are more mature and have proven market potential. Over the years, Nintendo has also become increasingly reliant on big singular projects which, while not always exactly cutting-edge, have allowed it to comfortably exist outside of the PlayStation and Xbox binary.

Lateral Thinking with ‘Withered’ Technology

Much of Nintendo’s market strategy can be attributed to Gunpei Yokoi, the prolific Nintendo designer best known for pioneering the company’s handheld segment. Yokoi is credited with designing Nintendo’s first handheld, Game & Watch, which at its 1980 launch made use of the cheap and abundant liquid crystal displays and 4-bit microcontrollers initially conceived for calculators. Among many other accomplishments, Yokoi is credited with designing Gameboy, creating the D-pad, and producing both Metroid and Kid Icarus. His last project before leaving the company in 1996: Virtual Boy. More on that later.

Yokoi’s career at Nintendo spanned 31 years, covering its transformation from the then nearly century-old Japanese playing card company to worldwide video gaming powerhouse. His philosophy, mentioned in his Japan-only book ‘Gunpei Yokoi Game Hall’ (横井軍平ゲーム館), sums up the sort of thinking that vaulted Nintendo to the world stage; Yokoi coined the phrase “lateral thinking with withered technology,” outlining the company’s strategy of using mature technology which is both cheap and well understood, and then finding novel and fun ways of applying it to games. That’s basically been the case from Game & Watch all the way to Switch and Switch Lite.

And it’s not just handhelds though. Nintendo consoles don’t tend to focus on cutting-edge specs either (as any former Wii owners can attest). For Nintendo console owners across the years, it’s more about being able to play games from a host of recognizable franchises such as Mario, Zelda, Smash Bros, Pokémon, Pikmin, and Animal Crossing. Since the success of Wii, it’s also been about creating new types of games centered around novel input schemes, like how the Wiimote lets you bowl in Wii Sports, or how Joy-Cons let you grove on-the-go in Just Dance. In short, Nintendo is really good at serving people with what they’re already used to and baking in novelty that owners can engage with or equally ignore.

Virtual Boy Failure, Labo VR Experiment

When Nintendo sticks to its principles, we usually get a DS, Switch, Gameboy, Wii, Game Boy Advance, 3DS, NES, SNES, Game & Watch, Nintendo 64—10 of the top 20 bestselling video game platforms in history. When they don’t, we get Virtual Boy.

Accounts hold that Yokoi was rushed to finish up work on Virtual Boy so the company could focus on the launch of Nintendo 64, which is partially why it failed. Timed right at the peak of the ’90s craze, Nintendo released what essentially was no more than a 3D version of Gameboy—a 32-bit tabletop standalone console that just so happened to have stereoscopic displays, making it no more a VR headset than Nintendo 3DS. Besides relying on some objectively useless stereoscopy, being shaped like a headset, and having ‘Virtual’ in the name, that’s where the comparisons between it and virtual reality stop.

Note: Every time someone refers to Virtual Boy as a VR headset, or pretends to wear it in a YouTube thumbnail, I scream into an empty paint bucket, hoping the residual fumes will calm my nerves.

There was no head tracking, motion controllers, or even games that wouldn’t have played equally as well on a standard Gameboy. Moreover, its red monochrome displays were criticized for giving players eye strain, nausea, and headaches during gameplay. Its awkward tabletop stand also didn’t articulate enough to adjust to each user’s height, making users strain their necks to play. The nail in the coffin: it was priced at $180 at launch in 1995, just $20 less than Nintendo 64 which arrived one year later and promised to deliver true 3D graphics (something which Virtual Boy couldn’t do, despite supporting stereoscopy!).

Still, I don’t think Nintendo tied Virtual Boy’s failure to the larger failure of VR at the time, but rather recognized what happens when it innovates in the wrong direction and abandons its core principles. Nintendo’s successive handhelds focused on keeping the pocketable form-factor, and typically offered a generation or two of backwards compatibility so consumers could easily upgrade. Gameboys to follow were truly portable, and offered all of the games you wanted to play on the bus, train, plane, wherever.

But what about Nintendo Labo VR for Switch? Well, it was a pretty awesome experiment when it was first released in 2019. The DIY accessory pack made of cardboard actually got Nintendo involved in VR for the first time, and it did it with the same family friendly flair the company seems to bring to everything it does.

It’s a fun little kit that uses Joy-Cons in some unique ways, but with only a few high-quality native VR ‘taster’ experiences to play with, it’s basically a one-and-done deal that Nintendo critically hasn’t iterated on beyond its initial release despite a generally good reception from its target market.

Granted, Nintendo did provide Labo VR support for a number of first-party titles, including Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Super Mario Odyssey, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but this just provides basic 3D viewer support, and doesn’t convert these games into any sort of full VR experience.

To boot, Labo VR actually has Unity support, meaning third-party developers can create games and experiences for it; the fact is the headset and slot-in Switch form-factor just isn’t built for long-term play like a standalone or PC VR headset though. It’s front-heavy, doesn’t have a strap, and just isn’t the basis of a modern VR platform. It’s a toy more than a platform.

Switching It Up with One Big Platform

The big question is: when? When will Nintendo feel like VR is mature enough to enter in full force with something like a standalone headset, replete with a host of beloved Nintendo franchise games? If past performance predicts future outcomes, it’s pretty unlikely we’ll be seeing such a device in the near term.

The company has spent the better part of the last decade recovering from the failure of Wii U, the company’s least successful video game console to date (next to Virtual Boy). Going headfirst into the XR niche soon with a dedicated hardware release doesn’t seem plausible given how focused the company has become on melding both handheld and console product development with Switch.

Fun Labo VR adds-on aside, Nintendo has expressed some skepticism of VR in the past. Speaking to TIME, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto said in 2014 that VR just wasn’t the sort of broadly accessible player experience the company was trying to crack with Wii U:

“When you think about what virtual reality is, which is one person putting on some goggles and playing by themselves kind of over in a corner, or maybe they go into a separate room and they spend all their time alone playing in that virtual reality, that’s in direct contrast with what it is we’re trying to achieve with Wii U. And so I have a little bit of uneasiness with whether or not that’s the best way for people to play.”

Granted, the technology has changed a great deal since 2014, the same year Oculus Rift DK2 came out. With mixed reality passthrough becoming a standard on standalone headsets such as Quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro, Nintendo would be crazy not keep tabs on the technology, albeit with same hesitation it has mostly shown in the past with its adoption of cutting-edge technology.

In fact, the company is actively creating patents around mixed reality systems that focus on cooperative gameplay using players both in and out of a headset. Above is one such patent from 2022 showing a multiplayer game based on some sort of proposed tabletop platformer.

Unlike a lot of the tech companies out there trying to spin up multiple products and maintain large, interconnected platforms, Nintendo’s main MO is to gamble on one big thing that will probably come with additional functions and a few input quirks. Whether that’s some sort of additional headset peripheral or not… you never know. In the end, the more inclusive nature of mixed reality may change some minds over at Nintendo, although you can bet whatever comes next from the Japanese gaming company will be another experiment, or similar add-on that uses mature hardware in a new and different way.

– – — – –

What is certain is Nintendo isn’t in any rush, as both hardware and software sales of traditional games still far outweigh VR games. Still, you can’t help but wonder what a Nintendo headset might look like, and what a full-throated XR release from Nintendo would do for generations of kids (and adults) to come.