Polyarc, the studio behind the Moss franchise, announced a new competitive multiplayer VR game currently in development.

Polyarc isn’t saying much beyond that—we still don’t even know it’s name—however a look at the game’s concept art shows a definite influence from Moss‘ style and characters, including the Reader and a number of plucky mice heroes.

Although we can’t read too much into it, retrofitting Moss’ third-person platforming view into a multiplayer battle game may mean the studio is pursuing something very similar in feel to Moss, albeit with multiple classes and weapons. In the concept art we see a gilded Reader and a number of different mousey classes: a tank, archer, knight, wizard, and even some evil leafy dudes.

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“It’s apparent observing the community of players out there and receiving some of our own feedback that there are a lot of gamers in VR who are looking for and want to play more competitive multiplayer games,” said Tam Armstrong, co-founder and CEO, Polyarc. “We are excited about this opportunity, as VR offers interesting considerations for multiplayer games. The ability to read the other player’s focus and intention as they move their head and hands are some of the elements that make playing games in person so compelling. We are looking forward to sharing what we’ve been working on and the fun we’ve been having playing it.”

Coming off the success of Moss and Moss: Book II, Polyarc says a competitive multiplayer is “something the team has been excited to develop since the studio’s inception in 2015, but first the player base needed to grow large enough to support multiplayer games of this nature.”

The game, which is still unnamed at the time of this writing, is set to run closed playtesting on the weekend of April 14th-16th. Here’s how Polyarc describes the first round of closed beta testing:

We’re working on lots of cool, new stuff and want to see what happens when we get it in the hands of real players. Each playtest will focus on a different aspect of an in-development game and your feedback will be important to help us make the best final product(s) possible. And we’re here to test the game; we’re not testing you as the playtesters. So please don’t feel like you have to do anything besides play the game. If you are having fun, we want to know! If you aren’t having fun, then we also want to know. And we will ask you all about every juicy detail in a survey at the end.

The studio hasn’t announced target platforms yet, however playtesters will require a Quest 2 to participate. If you’re interested in joining, signups are available starting today.

Virtuix, the company behind the Omni VR treadmill, launched a crowd-based investment campaign in 2020 to fund Virtuix Omni One, an at-home VR locomotion device targeted at consumers. Now the studio has revealed the final version, pricing, and the news that it’s  now shipping out to early investors.

Omni One units are now headed out to early investors (re: not backers) prior to the device’s planned consumer launch, which is said to arrive at some point later this year.

The company says its currently has a waitlist for Omni One of “more than 35,000 subscribers.”

Here’s a look at what Virtuix says is the final version of the hardware:

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Virtuix says 900 of its equity crowdfunding investors have applied to buy Omni One beta units, which will be extended to late 2023, however unit quantities will “start small and gradually increase as the program proceeds.”

Similar to other parabolic VR ‘treadmills’, Omni One requires you to wear special low-friction shoes and strap into a harness system which keeps you in the center of the base’s parabola.

And although marketed as a consumer-targeted device, Omni One’s introductory price will be $2,595 plus shipping, which also includes the Pico Neo 3 Pro standalone headset. The company is however also offering a financing plan that could bring it to as low as $65 per month.

Over its lifetime, Virtuix has raised $35 million. The company says it’s now shipped over $16 million worth of products, which includes over 4,000 Omni Pro systems across 45 countries, and than 70 Omni Arena systems to US venues such as Dave & Buster’s.

HTC today announced a new Vive Tracker accessory which is the first in the industry to use inside-out tracking, meaning it doesn’t require any external beacons. The device can be attached to props to bring them into VR or to the user’s body for enhanced body tracking.

HTC’s existing Vive Trackers are a popular accessory for anyone interested in VR full-body tracking, but they use SteamVR Tracking technology which requires external beacons for use.

Now the company has announced a new Vive Tracker, and while it doesn’t yet have a name, HTC confirms it is their first standalone tracker based on inside-out tracking which uses on-board cameras to track its own position in space. That means no external beacons or cameras need to be set up for use.

HTC says that up to five of the new standalone Vive Trackers can be used at once, which could be used for body tracking in VR by attaching two trackers to the elbows, two to the feet, and one to the hips. Combined with the user’s head and hands (which are already tracked by the headset and controllers), the trackers can be used to represent the user’s movements more fully—which allows people to do some pretty incredible things in VR.

Details are slim right now; HTC hasn’t announced the price or battery life, and the release date is far off in Q3 2023. Though the company says the device will support standalone Vive headsets, PC VR, and a fully self-contained mode for those wanting to use the trackers for non-VR uses such as object tracking. The tracker is also based on OpenXR, and HTC says this will make it possible to use the tracker with other headsets from other vendors.

The base of the tracker has a quick-release system for removing it from its mount, as well as a standard camera tripod thread for connecting various standardized mounts and holders. The units are small too, with HTC saying they come in at just half the height of the latest Vive Tracker 3.0.

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Developers interested in experimenting with the new tracker can contact HTC here to register their interest.

Although the device will support PC VR, HTC says it recommends that anyone already using SteamVR Tracking should stick with the existing Vive Tracker 3.0 for its precision and compatibility.

– – — – –

While this is the first dedicated inside-out tracker to be release by a major VR vendor, the device is fundamentally similar to the Quest Pro and Magic Leap 2 controllers which also use on-board cameras to track their position.

Assuming HTC’s new inside-out tracker works well, the company may not be far off from releasing its own inside-out tracked controller.

Not For Broadcast VR isn’t just about live-mixing camera feeds and making sure the National Nightly News airs without a hitch—that’s the gamey bit you’ll have to contend with if you want to keep ratings up and make sure the audience isn’t switching channels. It’s also a dark and brilliantly satirical take on modern politics and how broadcast media has become intertwined with entertainment. And it’s no surprise the propaganda simulator’s big buttons and full motion video (FMV) action translate pretty well to VR too.

Not For Broadcast VR Details:

Available On: SteamVR, Quest 2
Release Date: March 23rd, 2023
Price: $TBD
Developer: NotGames, Babaroga
Publisher: tinyBuild
Reviewed On: Quest 2 via PC Link

Gameplay

Not For Broadcast VR is exactly what is says on the tin: it’s basically the VR-ified (re: separate) version of Not For Broadcast, which indie studio NotGames released in 1.0 early last year on PC.

Here’s the basic setup: you’ve stepped up from your janitorial duties to run the production control room of a national TV station in an alternate timeline in 1980s Britain. The far-left Advance party has won the big election by a landslide and is bent on making sweeping changes with an authoritarian flair.

In your live-mixing booth you expertly sync in commercial breaks, cut between four camera feeds, and keep the ratings high by combatting frequency disturbances. Although outwardly you’re nothing but a cog in the propaganda machine, you can intentionally affect outcomes in the game which lead to multiple endings. With your ability to sway public perception, you can either shame or exalt celebrities and politicians, and even decide who lives and dies in some of the more gripping chapters by focusing or omitting certain shots. Please or anger your Advance party overlords, and find out how life changes.

And as you’d imagine, the game is intentionally overwhelming, offering up a series of contemporaneous stuff that will drive you to mechanically execute tasks as you struggle to actively listen to some of the most asinine things to come on screen.

Things to keep the ratings up include interesting editing, getting reaction shots and people talking right, censoring foul language properly, and making sure the signal is clear of interference. Alternatively, you lose ratings by messing all of those things up.

You’ll probably want to pay attention and watch the bizzarro world in disbelief, but really you can’t. The show must go on and the eternal plate-spinning is the only way to make it continue, lest you lose watchers and eventually draw the ire of your employer and the channel’s large and influential sponsors. The conflict of interest is writ large at the end of each broadcast session too. You are directly funded by the ruling party.

Mess up too much and you’ll make less money, which makes replacing key bits of kit and buying luxury gadgets, like automatic censor buttons, much more difficult.

It’s not all about ratings though. Non-broadcast days are interspersed with text-based interludes that test your decision-making skills—essentially morality vibe checks. Do you help a family member flee the country, which may put your job at risk? How do you deal with mounting bills and family tragedy when your day job is to act as a party mouthpiece? You are a team player, aren’t you?

Confession: I’ve already played the flatscreen version, and my love for the underlying game is undeniable. Thankfully there is very little material change between the two, and despite a frequency toggle that doesn’t work terribly well in VR, most everything is well translated thanks to the game’s user-friendly interface which make for good physical interaction models, including stuff like VHS tapes, switches, nobs and big red buttons. More about that in Immersion.

Having the ability to keep an eye on everything more naturally is also a big help, as the flatscreen version forces you to switch views manually to keep an eye on all three main terminal areas.

That said, the game is best taken in bitesize pieces since the main story can take anywhere from 8 to 10 hours, with broadcasts typically lasting 20-30 minutes a piece. Considering the game packs in nearly 43 hours of FMV though, you may find yourself replaying broadcasts just to see where you went wrong, and how outcomes might change as difficult situations come your way.

Variable difficulty is available, but only on the start of a new game. Thankfully the difficulty levels are spelled out plainly before you start, letting you pick between five levels. The lowest level is for more narrative enjoyment, while the highest level is super unforgiving when it comes to editing efficiency and signal clarity.

Immersion

Whenever I play a flatscreen-to-VR port, I always ask myself this question: does it need to be in VR? And to be honest, Not For Broadcast feels only marginally more at home in VR than on flatscreen, kind of like how Friday Night at Freddy’s is amped up in-headset versus on a flatscreen thanks to impending doom.

Still, like FNaF, all game UI is a direct translation from the original flatscreen game, which isn’t bad, but not nearly as ‘VR-native’ as it could be were it designed specifically for VR headsets and motion controllers first. Hitting a button or manipulating toggle are plain binary actions which don’t really engage you to the fullest potential like you might see in games built for VR headsets from the ground-up, like I Expect You to Die. Still, there’s no denying the underlying game is provocative, fun, and more disturbing in VR than flatscreen.

Not For Broadcast’s full motion video (the star of the show) works particularly well in drawing you deeper into the game’s lore too.

Acting is surprisingly good for such a bootstrapped project; it’s suitably hammy, but tight and witty enough to peel your attention away from your mounting list of tasks.

Granted, if you do miss something, you can review your finished product after each broadcast, including the raw signals for candid dialogue and full adverts so you don’t have to worry about missing any narrative flavor after the fact.

Comfort

The game can be played standing or seated, although either way you should make sure you have at least a meter of space in your periphery, so you don’t smash your coffee table, monitor, small child, whatever. Otherwise, there is no artificial locomotion to speak of, making it perfect for first-timers or sensitive users. You should note the game features strong language and violent themes, so plan accordingly.

Not For Broadcast VR’ Comfort Settings – March 20th, 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, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese (Simplified), Russian
Dialogue audio
Languages	English
Adjustable difficulty
Two hands required
Real crouch required
Hearing required
Adjustable player height

While Oculus doesn’t offer much publicly in the way of understanding how well individual games & apps are performing across its Quest 2 storefront, it’s possible to glean some insight by looking at apps relative to each other. Here’s a snapshot of the 20 best rated Oculus Quest games and apps as of March 2023.

Some quick qualifications before we get to the data:

• Paid and free apps are separated
• Only apps with more than 100 reviews are represented
• App Lab apps are not represented (see our latest Quest App Lab report)
• Rounded ratings may appear to show ‘ties’ in ratings for some applications, but the ranked order remains correct

Best Rated Oculus Quest 2 Games & Apps – Paid

The rating of each application is an aggregate of user reviews and a useful way to understand the general reception of each title by customers.

Rank change & stats compared to February 2023

Dropouts:
YUKI

• Among the 20 best rated Quest apps
  • Average rating (mean): 4.8 out of 5 (±0)
  • Average price (mean): $23 (±$0)
  • Most common price (mode): $30 (±$0)

• Among all paid Quest apps
  • Average rating (mean): 4.2 out of 5 (±0)
  • Average price (mean): $20 (±$0)
  • Most common price (mode): $20 (±$0)

Continue on Page 2: Most Popular Paid Oculus Quest Apps »

Triangle Factory, the studio behind Hyper Dash (2021), announced its squad-based shooter Breachers is set to launch next month on Quest 2 and SteamVR headsets.

The Rainbow Six Siege-inspired shooter has seen over 60,000 players play since the studio launched the open alpha late last year. Now the studio says Breachers will officially launch on April 13th.

Like Rainbow Six Siege, one team (Enforcers) is tasked with wiping out the enemy squad and disarm their bombs with an EMP. You’ll be able to rappel and breach through walls, swing through windows and catch your opponents by surprise with gadgetry like drones, cloaking devices, flashbangs and breaching foam.

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As the opposing team (Revolter), your squad has to protect your bombs with force and gadgets such as door-blockers, trip mines, static field emitters and proximity sensors.

If you’re curious to try your hand at the Breachers, the studio is actually still running the open alpha until March 24th. You can join the open alpha over at SideQuest for Quest 2 and Quest Pro, and over at Github for PC VR headsets. If you need any help through the install process, make sure to jump over to the game’s Discord (invite link).

While a VR-only game, Triangle Factory is also packaging in a spectator mode that can be viewed without VR hardware, promising some ready access for streamers looking to commentate on the game’s 5v5 competitive matches.

Priced at $30, players who pre-order on Quest can also get an Elite gun skin for ‘The Jesper’, the standard sidearm players spawn with at the start of each round. You can also wishlist on Steam. The studio hasn’t mentioned PSVR 2 support yet.

Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2, the company’s work-focused version of its iconic but once maligned smartglasses, is being discontinued.

Google says in a device support FAQ that, starting March 15th, it will no longer sell Glass Enterprise 2, adding that it will only support the device until September 15th, 2023.

While the company says it’s not pushing out any more software for Glass Enterprise Edition after that date, however its most recent system images will remain publicly available until at least April 1st, 2024.

Launched in 2017, Google Glass for enterprise was a revival of sorts, as the company had ceased production of the storied device in 2015.

Starting in 2012, the company was hoping to seed the device among prosumers with its Glass Explorer Editions, although public backlash spawned the term “glasshole,” putting a severe dent in Google’s ambitions to launch a more consumer-focused version of the device.

Google hasn’t explained why it’s killing off Glass for enterprise. In response to PC Mag, a Google spokesperson left this comment:

“For years, we’ve been building AR into many Google products and we’ll continue to look at ways to bring new, innovative AR experiences across our product portfolio.”

To be fair, Google probably has bigger fish to fry, and the aging smartglasses platform may well be replaced sooner rather than later. Google said last summer it would be conducting real world tests of its early AR prototypes, emphasizing things like real-time translation and AR turn-by-turn navigation.

There’s also the issue of emerging competition. Apple’s upcoming mixed reality (MR) headset is rumored to arrive sometime in mid-2023, while Meta is prepping multiple generations of its MR Quest headsets.

Granted, these MR headsets probably won’t be the model workhorses, although many companies see MR headsets as a steppingstone in preparation for the sort of all-day AR glasses industry is hoping to commercialize in the near future.

– – — – –

To be clear, Google Glass is a style of smartglass(es) and not an AR device as such; Glass provides a single heads-up display (HUD) that doesn’t place digital imagery naturally in the user’s perceived environment, like with HoloLens 2 or Magic Leap 2, but rather flatly projects the sort of useful information you might also see on a smartwatch. You can learn more about the differences between AR headsets and smartglasses here.

Meta is transitioning its support from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5.1 for apps built for the Quest platform. Two of the engine’s headlining features aren’t designed for mobile though, so it’s doubtful we we’ll ever see them on Quest.

In a dev blog post announcing the news, Meta says developers who choose to work with Epic’s game engine should start thinking about using UE5 for their Quest apps. The company isn’t advising devs to upgrade to UE5 if in the middle of a project though; apps based on UE4 can still be distributed to the Meta Quest Store or App Lab.

Still, the clock is ticking. Meta will support critical bug fixes for UE4 until the end of 2023, although devs can access UE4 resources and documentation on Meta’s GitHub repository even after the support is scaled back.

As you’d imagine, Meta says the original 2019 Quest won’t be supported—it’s unceremoniously getting pushed off into the sea—however the company is slated to provide separate binaries for each device soon, which will allow developers targeting Quest 1 an upgrade path. Notably, OpenXR is the only VR API supported by Meta in UE5.

No Nanite or Lumen

Unfortunately, two of the biggest features of Epic’s latest and greatest aren’t coming to the company’s standalone headsets. Released in April 2022, UE5 packs in two new tools called Nanite and Lumen.

Nanite is a virtualized geometry system which uses a new internal mesh format and rendering technology to render pixel scale detail and high object counts.

It essentially works like a continuous Level of Detail (LOD) system that draws detail from the original ‘master’ 3D model. In its developer documentation, Epic Games says Nanite can increase an app’s geometry complexity, higher triangle and objects counts by “multiple orders of magnitude.”

Here’s a look at what Nanite can do for VR games, courtesy of YouTube channel ‘Smart Poly’:

Lumen, the engine’s new dynamic global lighting system, also makes virtual environments look better, as it can use both software and hardware ray tracing for more realistic lighting.

And why not on Quest 2 or Quest Pro? Nanite and Lumen simply aren’t built to work on mobile processors, and don’t support Android at all.

Nanite is currently supported on a host of devices, including PS5, Xbox Series S|X, and PCs with even the most-humble of Maxwell-generation graphics cards. PS4 and Xbox One also support Nanite, albeit experimentally.

Lumen on the other hand is developed for PS5 and Xbox Series S|X, and high-end PCs. Software ray tracing can be done on NVIDIA GeForce GTX-1070 or higher cards, while hardware ray tracing must be on NVIDIA RTX-2000 series or higher, or AMD RX-6000 series or higher. Not even PS4 or Xbox One.

Moreover, Epic says in Lumen’s documentation that there are “no plans to develop a dynamic global illumination system for the mobile renderer. Games using dynamic lighting need to use unshadowed Sky Light on mobile.”

Without direct support from Epic, Meta has little other choice. Granted, many VR creators opt to develop in Unity thanks to its relative simplicity for smaller teams and greater overall market share, meaning more assets and general know-how to go around.

PlayStation VR 2 launched late last month alongside more than 40 titles, which included games entirely new to the platform as well existing games from other platforms and upgraded PSVR titles. The headset’s first monthly top download chart has revealed a big shift in which games are taking an early lead in the headset’s growing library.

Taking the top spot across the US & Canada, the EU and Japan is Kayak VR: Mirage, a kayak racing sim initially released on SteamVR headsets in 2022 by Amsterdam-based indie studio Better Than Life.

In it, players race across lush, photorealistic environments including ice caves in Antarctica, tropical locales in Costa Rica, storm waters in Norway, and the stark canyons of Australia. The paddling movement mechanic is also something that works really well in VR too, which we hope more games will make use of thanks to just how immersive it can be.

Horizon Call of the Mountain, undoubtedly a product of sizable investment by Sony, only managed to eke out third place in the US/Canada and the EU, taking second place in Japan, which is probably more than a tad disappointing to the Sony-owned developers Guerilla Games and Firesprite.

Horizon Call of the Mountain is a single-player adventure that showcases some of the best graphics you’ll find anywhere in VR. Combat could be a bit more fluid and climbing could have more interesting challenges, although it certainly stacks up to Half-Life: Alyx in terms of immersion. Check out why we game it a respectable [8.5/10] in our review.

Granted, Horizon Call of the Mountain comes with a premium price tag of $60, which may explain why it underperforms in unit sales in comparison to the cheap and cheerful $25 team shooter Pavlov and $23 Kayak VR: Mirage.

What’s more, it seems the era of Job Simulator (2016) ruling the PSVR top download charts has come to a definite end—despite it and sequel Vacation Simulator both offering PSVR 2 versions. Job Simulator has ruled the download charts nearly every month without fail since it launched on the original PSVR.

Take note: the February download chart only accounts for the headset’s first week in existence (Feb 22-28). March’s chart should be another fairly interesting read, as we see whether these top spots remain, or falter as more users pick up PSVR 2 headsets. Check out the chart below:

PSVR 2 Games

ZEISS, the German optical systems manufacturer, announced it’s acquired majority share of the joint venture Tooz Technologies, an AR/VR optics creator founded by Zeiss and Deutsche Telekom in 2018.

Zeiss and Deutsche Telekom previously had an even 50% stake in Tooz, which has functioned as a sort of AR optics skunkworks for the companies. Zeiss is now sole owner of the startup.

Zeiss says Tooz will continue to exist independently as it focuses on serial production and visual correction in its imaging systems, further calling Tooz its “AR/VR competence center.”

Today, Tooz principally creates smart lenses that integrate curved, reflective waveguides and “invisible” combiners that can also be sandwiched into a vision correction layer.

“In the future, tooz will also equip optical systems from other manufacturers of AR/VR optics with prescription lenses to place products with an integrated prescription on the global markets,” the company say in a press statement.

“tooz covers specific competencies and technologies for design, engineering and manufacturing processes, which complement the existing capabilities at ZEISS quite well,” says Gerrit Schulte, Head of Zeiss Ventures. “tooz will benefit in particular from production and process know-how and the significant experience in the approval of medical optics, and is slated to be better positioned on the international market in the future.”

While Zeiss isn’t a household name is VR or AR headsets, the Oberkochen, Germany-based company has produced a number of head-mounted devices in the past, including its Zeiss VR One Plus created in the vein of Samsung Gear VR and Carl Zeiss Cinemizer multimedia glasses. Zeiss also creates aftermarket VR prescription lenses, sold through VR Optician.

Apple’s upcoming mixed reality headset has been the subject of many reports and rumors over the past few years—that’s just the nature of the Cupertino-based black box. Now a new report from the Financial Times alleges we may see the company’s first XR device unveiled this summer.

The headset, which is still unnamed, is allegedly nearing its big unveiling, which is said to take place in June 2023, or around when the company traditionally holds its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).

The report maintains Apple CEO Tim Cook is the principal force pushing the device’s launch forward this year, which has apparently been a source of tension since as far back as early 2016.

The company’s operations team reportedly found itself at odds with the industrial design team, the former wanting to push out an early version of the headset while the latter hoped to delay in order to slim down the device.

Cook is ostensibly backing the operations team, as he allegedly hopes to push out the first version of the company’s XR headset, which is said to be targeting enthusiasts at an eye-watering $3,000 price point.

Citing sources familiar with Apple’s plans, the company is expected to only sell around one million units of the XR headset over the course of 12 months.

Relatively low sales targets notwithstanding—Apple sells 200 million iPhones per year—the company is expected to go in for a “marketing blitz” to attract prospective users.

According to a Bloomberg report earlier this year, Apple may be putting its plans to release a full AR headset on hold, as the company is allegedly planning what is described as a “lower-cost version” of its MR headset first. That cheaper version is said to target a 2024 or early 2025 launch window.

Note: This list of the headset’s prospective features and specs have been gathered from a few disparate reports. None of the below has been confirmed by Apple, so please take anything you read here with a large grain of salt:

Reported Apple MR Specs

• Resolution: Dual Micro OLED displays at 4K resolution (per eye)
• FOV: 120-degrees, similar to Valve Index
• Chipset: Two 5nm chips. Includes a main SoC (CPU, GPU, and memory) and a dedicated image signal processor (ISP). Chips communicate via a custom streaming codec to combat latency.
• Battery: Waist-mounted battery, connected via MagSafe-like power cable to the headset’s headband. Two-hour max battery life, although hotswappable for longer sessions.
• Passthrough: ISP chip contains custom high-bandwidth memory made by SK Hynix, providing low latency color passthrough
• Audio: H2 chip, providing ultra-low latency connection with the second-generation AirPods Pro and future AirPods models. No 3.5mm and possible no support for non-AirPod BT headphones.
• Controller: Apple is said to favor hand-tracking and voice recognition to control the headset, but it has tested a “wand” and a “finger thimble” as alternative control input methods.
• Prescription Lenses: Magnetically attachable custom prescription lenses for glasses-wearers.
• IPD Adjustment: Automatic, motorized adjustment to match the wearer’s interpupillary distance.
• Eye Tracking: At least one camera per-eye for things like avatar presence and foveated rendering
• Face & Body Tracking: More than a dozen cameras and sensors capture both facial expressions and body movements, including the user’s legs.
• Room Tracking: Both short- and long-range LiDAR scanners to map surfaces and distances in three dimensions.
• App Compatibility: Said to have the ability to run existing iOS apps in 2D.

Design Rumors

• Outer Shell: Aluminum, glass, and carbon fiber to reduce its size and weight. Cameras are largely concealed for aesthetic reasons.
• Presence Displays: Outward-facing display can show user’s facial expressions and also presumably eye movements. Said to be an always-on display similar in latency and power draw of Apple Watch or iPhone 14 Pro.
• Dedicated Passthrough Switch: Digital Crown-like dial on its right side to switch between VR and passthrough.
• Headstrap: Various available, including consumer-focused headstrap similar in material to Apple Watch sport bands with built-in speakers. Unspecified, but different headstrap targeted at developers.

Besides making one of the most influential VR games to date, Valve also made sure Half-Life: Alyx was just as moddable as its other iconic titles. And thankfully there’s no shortage of talented modders out there who have built extended campaigns and new levels for the PC VR shooter.

One such HLA modder is Nate ‘Polygrove’ Grove, an Environment Artist and Designer at game publisher Annapurna Interactive, which is known for titles such as Outer Wilds, Stray, and What Remains of Edith Finch.

Last Friday Grove released their first solo HLA mod project, called ‘Re-Education’, something the environment artist calls a “medium-length campaign (30 minutes to an hour) featuring standard Half-Life Alyx style gameplay with a focus on slower pacing and environmental storytelling.”

You can check out the trailer below:

In Re-Education, the idea is to scavenge, explore, and make the dangerous journey while en route to a safehouse on the outskirts of City 17. There, Alyx finds her commandeered train has been halted by a Combine barricade.

“She must make her way through a long-abandoned school to access the switch that unblocks the tracks, but the task may prove more difficult than expected,” the DLC’s description reads.

The free DLC can be downloaded though Steam Workshops, which of course means you’ll need the base game to play.

This isn’t Grove’s first HLA mod either. You may also recognize the developer’s ‘Polygrove’ handle from the credits in the Half-Life: Incursion mod as well, which included the talents of Maarten Frooninckx (Hammer scripting), Ross Joseph Gardner (script writing), and Joey Bracken (voice over).

There’s a host of great content to explore outside of Re-Education and Incursion too, with one of our top picks being the Half-Life: Alyx ‘Levitation’ mod, which brings around 3-4 hours of Combine-ganking fun in an unofficial chapter that you’d swear is direct from Valve.

IRIS VR, the studio behind TECHNOLUST (2016), announced that its long-awaited open world cyberpunk adventure LOW-FI is slated to launch sometime this year on PlayStation 5, PSVR 2, and PC VR headsets via Steam and the Meta PC platform.

Update (March 10th, 2023): It’s been nearly two years since IRIS VR announced a PS5 version was coming, which initially was set to arrive sometime in 2021. Now studio head Blair Renaud says in a tweet that LOW-FI is officially coming to PS5 and PSVR 2 this year. You can wishlist it on the PlayStation Store here.

The still in-development game has been available for purchase on PC and PC VR headsets for some time via the game’s itch.io, however Renaud also says we should expect to see it on Steam and the Meta PC platform in 2023 as well. You can wishlist it on Steam here.

If you haven’t followed along with the project, here’s a description courtesy of IRIS VR:

As the player, you are “low-fi”, the street name given to those who cannot merge with the platform, a ubiquitous virtual reality simulation where most of the population now live their lives. You are a police officer and have been transferred to a particularly crime ridden section of city-block 303. The only inhabitants of note in your jurisdiction are other low-fi, and the human intelligence (or lower) artificial life forms who have remained among the citizens after the AI singularity.

The original article announcing LOW-FI’s PS5 availability follows below. We’ve also included the latest trailer below this update:

Original Article (June 12th, 2020): A successful Kickstarter campaign late last year helped get LOW-FI off the ground, having garnered IRIS VR over $80,000 USD. At the time, it was pitched as a VR-native game intentionally built from the ground-up for PC VR headsets and “next-gen PSVR.”

The game’s developer, Blair Renaud, says that anyone can pre-order the PC version now, which gives you early access on SteamVR headsets. At the time of this writing the pre-release PC VR version costs $35 USD.

And it’s certainly an ambitious undertaking, boasting a massive, non-linear open world, “hundreds” of crimes and stories to solve and explore, branching narratives, and dialogue from what the studio says will be “photo-realistic NPCs.”

While the game’s creator seems fairly certain of LOW-FI’s 2021 launch window (see update), Sony hasn’t actually released word on when a next-gen follow-up to the PSVR is set to arrive.

We do however know that the current PSVR will be compatible with PS5 when the console launches holiday 2020, so upcoming VR releases for PS5 don’t necessarily indicate any implied time frame for a prospective PSVR 2.

Virtual production suite Flipside Studio is now available on Quest 2 and Meta PC, targeting podcasters, vloggers, and anyone looking for a VR studio to produce their own video content.

Created by Winnipeg, Canada-based Flipside XR, the Flipside Studio app is packed with production tools and assets that let you to create your own virtual content, which can be livestreamed or recorded, edited and shared anywhere you might standard video, such as YouTube, TikTok, or Facebook.

Now available for free on Quest 2 and Meta PC platform, Flipside Studio lets you create solo projects or team-based content, which includes virtual sets, avatars, configurable environments, props, lighting, and a host of controllable cameras to capture the show.

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Here’s a list of features, courtesy Flipside XR:

• Custom Characters – Users can choose from multiple in-app pre-loaded characters or customize their own avatars through the Ready Player Me integration.
• Sets and props – Creators can choose from a variety of sets and hundreds of props available in-app.
• Multiple Cameras and Angles – Multiple virtual cameras can be positioned, placed and moved as users like, allowing for dynamic camera angles and even camera movement speeds.
• Professional Production Tools – Virtual cameras, teleprompters, lights, and 1080p output with casting to the Flipside Broadcaster app are just a few of the tools available to creators.
• Single or Multi-User Productions – Creators can collaborate in the same sets simultaneously from one or multiple locations – or even create a solo production with multiple characters by layering motion recordings together in-app.
• Flipside Creator Tools – More advanced features can be found through the app’s free Unity plug-in that gives experienced creative teams the ability to upload fully customized environments, characters and props.

Flipside Studio was initially released in alpha on PC VR headsets in 2018 and then returned to closed testing after some time on Steam. If you played during that time, you’ll see some notable differences, as the studio says it’s undergone extensive testing and feedback from thousands of content creators and technologists who have been using a free early access version since 2020.

The studio says it’s working on a Steam version of the app, however there’s no information on when to expect its launch. In the meantime, users on Quest 2 and Meta PC can download and use Flipside Studio for free.

Once the focus of a fateful redemption story, Microsoft is getting set to shut down its adoptive VR app AltspaceVR, finally putting an end to one of the earliest social VR platforms. 

Update (March 9th, 2023): Launched in May 2015, AltspaceVR is officially headed for the long sleep tomorrow, March 10th.

If you’re looking to bid AltspaceVR goodbye, there’s actually a ton of events going on right now, which will take users all the way up to when server shutdown tomorrow. It’s uncertain exactly when servers are set to switch off, however Microsoft suggests downloading all relevant data “before” March 10th.

The original article announcing the planned shutdown of AltspaceVR and Microsoft’s Mixed Reality Toolkit follows below:

Original Article (January 23rd, 2023): We’ve written about the death of AltspaceVR once before. In the summer of 2017, the company announced it was shuttering the social VR platform due to lack of funds. In a Hail Mary that few expected, Microsoft turned around and snapped up the ailing platform only two months after the planned shut-down date. It seemed, at least for then, that AltspaceVR would live on to compete in the rapidly diversifying social VR landscape, existing alongside VR Chat, Rec Room, and Horizon Worlds.

Microsoft says it’s shutting down AltspaceVR on March 10th, 2023, and shifting its focus “to support immersive experiences powered by Microsoft Mesh,” the company says in a statement.

Mesh is the company’s software foundation for building multi-user XR applications. Announced in 2021, the tool gives developers a framework for connecting users into shared instances which support spatial voice communication, cloud-based asset management, persistent scenes, and a common avatar system.

“The decision has not been an easy one as this is a platform many have come to love, providing a place for people to explore their identities, express themselves, and find community,” the AltspaceVR team writes. “It has been a privilege to help unlock passions among users, from educational opportunities for personal growth to the development of unique and wonderful events, groundbreaking art, and immersive experiences — enabling this community to achieve more. With Mesh, we aspire to build a platform that offers the widest opportunity to all involved, including creators, partners and customers.”

Also seeing an abrupt shutdown is the company’s Mixed Reality Toolkit (MRTK). Team member Finn Sinclair shared the news via Twitter on Friday, saying the entire team was eliminated from the company. MRTK was a Microsoft-driven project that provided a set of components and features, used to accelerate cross-platform XR app development in the Unity game engine. Sinclair says the project is remaining open source.

Microsoft’s most recent round of layoffs are said to affect around 5% of its overall workforce. In a letter to employees, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella notes “changes to our hardware portfolio”; reports from Bloomberg maintain the company’s Xbox games teams are also affected, including Bethesda Game Studios (‘The Elder Scrolls’ series) and 343 Industries (Halo).

Gaijin Entertainment, the studio behind combat simulator War Thunder, announced a new flight sim coming to PSVR 2 called Aces of Thunder.

The online game is said to focus on World War II planes, such as the American fighter P-51 Mustang and British Spitfire, however future add-ons are planned to bring combat aircraft from other eras, Gaijin says.

It’s said to feature competitive online battles including modes like team versus team, single duels, and modes with custom settings.

The game is also set to include “[p]hysically accurate flight and damage models, derived from the leading War Thunder military action simulation game, [to] further enhance the believability of Aces of Thunder,” the studio says in a press statement.

Quite unlike the free-to-play War Thunder, the studio’s upcoming VR aerial dogfighter is set be distributed on a paid model.

“All aircraft that would be a part of this game or its future add-ons will be available immediately upon purchase, and the players will be able to apply cosmetic items to customize their planes,” the studio says in a press statement.

The VR game is said to be made “specifically with capabilities of PlayStation VR2 in mind.” While Gaijin hasn’t mentioned other platforms, it’s only advertising PSVR 2 support on the game’s website.

Gaijin is developing Aces of Thunder with a new in-house team whose members have experience working on War Thunder, the studio says.

There’s no release date yet, so we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled on the game’s website and social in the meantime.

Rec Room, the popular social VR platform, is putting on its first in-game music festival this weekend, suitably dubbed ‘Rec Rocks’.

The immersive concert experience is set to take place this weekend, March 11th & 12th, and feature headliners Tokyo Machine (EDM) and pianist/singer/songwriter Ethan Bortnick.

Check out the full list of artists below:

• Tokyo Machine – EDM
• Ethan Bortnick – Alt-Pop
• Haven – Pop
• Charlie Curtis Beard -Rap
• Suzy Shinn – Rock
• The Royal Foundry – Alt
• Akintoye – Rap
• Clinton Kane – Pop

Rec Room says its free two-day music festival will let you explore virtual stages set in the environment of an open canyon, with Tokyo Machine kicking things off on the mainstage on March 11th with his electrifying beat, which will also include some new tracks too.

“The first time I played Rec Room 6 years ago I was blown away by how immersive the games like laser tag and ping-pong could be”, said Tokyo Machine. “I’m super pumped to be a part of Rec Rocks and will be premiering a whole set of unreleased songs with a performance that will be unlike what my fans have seen before!”

Ethan Bortnick will take the main stage on March 12th where he will perform fan-favorite tracks. Bortnick previously hosted an in-game prom for the Rec Room community last spring after he missed out on his in-real-life prom due to COVID-19.

“Rec Room will be the first stop on my 2023 tour,” said Bortnick. “As the technology in Rec Room continues to advance, that allows for even more elaborate lighting, staging and the entire set is crazier and showcases everything I can’t do in a real live setting”, Bortnick said.

The free music festival is set to include exclusive artist merch, and Community Creator Booths where festival-goers can buy in-game inventions and merch from the creator community.

Check out the full schedule of the music festival here to see when performances are set to kick off. To attend Rec Rocks, make sure to download and setup your Rec Room account across your chosen device, which includes iOS, Android, Steam (flstacreen), SteamVR headsets, Meta Quest, Meta PC VR, PlayStation 4/5, PSVR, and Xbox.

Users of Pimax’s wide field-of-view (FOV) PC VR headsets have always relied upon third-party stores like Steam for VR content. Now the company is looking to incentivize VR developers to publish their games on the new Pimax Store.

Pimax quietly launched its PC VR content store in September 2022, ostensibly in preparation for the yet-to-release “Reality 12K QLED” headset, and standalones Pimax Cystal and Pimax Portal hybrid.

At the time, the company kicked off its store by advertising a program that would award its top 50 indie developers with cash incentives, along with a “choose your own” approach to revenue split for those top 50, which would let those developers “determine how much you would like to contribute to the store’s success and what proportion you need for your own success.”

Following a $30 million Series C1 funding round announced earlier this month, the Beijing-based VR headset company has upped the ante by announcing a 100% developer revenue split of Pimax Store content.

For contrast, Valve takes a 30% revenue cut from Steam, while Meta takes 30% from the Quest Store, and 47.5% from content published through its online Horizon Worlds platform.

The company also announced it’s earmarked a $100K fund for the stimulation of VR games, and is giving away 1,000 Pimax Portal dev kits, a standalone hybrid headset which can convert between a Nintendo Switch-style handheld and a 6DOF VR headset.

“We’re a hardware manufacturer in the first place, which you could argue Steam and Meta aren’t, so this makes it easier for us to accept a lower margin, but we also want to promote the whole VR market, as technology is advancing fast,” said Pimax’s Carol Yuan. “There should also be more high-quality VR content available. Not only do we think that, but also many users online think this is holding back VR.”

Pimax says its app store caters exclusively to the company’s fleet of headsets, making sure that games support higher FOV and displays resolutions. The Pimax Store also bakes in customization settings for hardware, effectively replacing the company’s Pi Tool.

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We’ve reached out to Pimax to find out the duration of the revenue split and, provided it has a definite end point, what its default percentage is. We’ll update this article when/if the company responds.

Samsung announced last month it was partnering with Google and Qualcomm to develop an XR device, something the company said at the time was “not too far away.” While we’re still left guessing as to what sort of headset the Korean tech giant has in store, a new trademark filing has come to light which may suggest the headset’s naming scheme.

As reported by 9to5Google, Samsung filed a trademark request with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on February 27th for the name ‘Galaxy Glasses’.

In its description, the trademark registration is said to cover the categories of “virtual reality headsets; Augmented reality headsets; Headphones; Smartphones; Smart glasses.”

According to a recent Washington Post interview with TM Roh, the president and head of Samsung’s mobile experience business, an upcoming Samsung XR device is “getting there, but we’re not too far away.”

Roh told WaPo that the XR headset’s chipset is going to be “a strategic collaboration with Qualcomm.” Google is building the software, while Samsung builds the hardware.

Provided the trademark isn’t just a defensive measure, and will actually be applied to a real product, Samsung would be pitching the proposed device as a part of its Galaxy line, which includes its smartphones, tablets, notebooks, smartwatches, and earbuds.

Notably, the company has never positioned its VR devices directly under its Galaxy branding, with Samsung Gear VR and its PC VR headset HMD Odyssey marketed separately from the Samsung mothership of mobile devices.

It shouldn’t come as any real surprise the Korean tech giant is prepping XR hardware now. In 2021, two leaked videos surfaced featuring Samsung AR concept devices, although we haven’t heard anything since about the company’s XR ambitions until Samsung announced it was throwing its hat back in the game with Google and Qualcomm by its side.

Meanwhile, Apple’s rumored mixed reality headset is reportedly set to arrive sometime this year at around $3,000, with a lower-cost version of Apple’s mixed reality headset reportedly set to follow sometime in 2024 or early 2025.

And although Apple is largely seen as the most present threat, Meta recently released word it is not only prepping an enthusiast-targeted Quest 3 headset for release this year, and a “more accessible” consumer version in 2024, but possibly another ‘Pro’ branded Quest headset “way out in the future,” Mark Rabki, Meta’s VP of VR, allegedly told thousands of employees in a memo last week.

Meta today announced it’s lowering the price of the 256GB version of Quest 2 as well as its more recent enthusiast-grade standalone, Meta Quest Pro.

Meta initially launched a 64GB and 256GB variants of Quest 2 in late 2020 for $300 and $400 respectively. A 128GB version was introduced in 2021, which replaced the 64GB version. To stave off rising costs, the company announced in July 2022 that it was raising the price of Quest 2 128GB and 256GB variants to $400 and $500 respectively.

Starting March 5th, Meta is now again restructuring its Quest 2 pricing by bringing the 256GB Meta Quest 2 from its current price of $500 to $430. Notably, the 128GB version of Quest 2 is staying at the same $400 price point.

Meta Quest Pro is also seeing a price reduction on March 5th, bringing it from its $1,500 launch price to $1,000.

Meta says in a blogpost that pricing changes to Meta Quest 2 (256GB) will also update across Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the UK.

Quest Pro’s price will take effect US and Canada on March 5th, and March 15th in all of the other countries mentioned above.

The news of the Quest 2 and Quest Pro price change comes days after a report dropped from The Verge citing an internal memo on the company’s future roadmap.

Meta is said to have several headsets slated to release in the coming years, including a Quest 3 priced slightly above the current model, set for release in 2023, and a cheaper headset targeted at consumers in 2024, codenamed ‘Ventura’.

A Quest Pro successor is also planned, but may come “way out in the future” after Ventura is released in 2024, the report maintained. Meanwhile, the company has sold 20 million Quest 2 headsets, however user retention has been a battle.

Provided the report is true, it seems the company is shaking up its pricing tiers to better entice Quest 2-owning enthusiasts into Quest Pro before it drops the more powerful Quest 3 later this year. Making the Quest 2 more accessible now will also make the “slightly more expensive” Quest 3 appear more attractive to users looking to upgrade then, and not now to the Quest Pro.

What are your thoughts on the new pricing strategy? Let us know in the comments below!