Echo VR’s days are numbered, as Meta announced earlier this year it would soon be pulling the plug on one of its most successful games on Quest. But hardcore players of zero-G sports game Echo VR and its shooter variant Echo Combat aren’t going down without a fight.
Organizers behind a protest group called ‘The Fight For Echo’ are looking to keep their favorite game alive, and they’re apparently ready to take drastic measures.
On Wednesday, March 1st, the group commissioned an airplane-towed message to fly over Meta’s HQ in Menlo Park, California, which then circled the heart of Silicon Valley for over three hours for all to see. The message was directed at Meta founder & CEO Mark ‘Zuck’ Zuckerberg, stating: “ZUCK, DON’T KILL VR ESPORTS FIGHTFORECHO.COM”
You can see the plane in action, courtesy of a YouTube livestream by ‘rev2600’, one such dedicated Echo VR player:
While we are extremely passionate about these games and are very supportive of the team at Ready at Dawn and the Echo Games franchise on the whole, we think we can still help Meta and Ready at Dawn by continuing to be the testing ground and supportive community we always have been and provide a place where larger ideas for other VR games can be tested.
We cannot do that however without some kind of game server being provided to the community to host ourselves, or minimal infrastructure to play on and the permission to work with the people required to do it.
We understand that there is a future direction being taken; and that it is tied to regulations and compliance, and our intention is not to hold anything back. We only wish to continue to do what we’ve always done and be the ambassadors of VR that you want us to be.
At the time, the studio said the decision to shut down the game “was made for many good reasons and chief among them is the studio coming together to focus on our next project.”
Undeterred by the airplane-towed plea, Meta sent out the following message to Echo VR players last night:
We are reaching out to let you know that Echo VR servers will shut down on August 1st, 2023 – 10: 30 AM Pacific. On this date, both Echo VR and Echo Combat will no longer be playable.
Add-ons are no longer available for purchase in the Quest store. Echo Points are no longer available for purchase in the Echo Shop. Any Echo Points currently in your account can be used until August 1st, 2023 – 10: 30 AM Pacific, with items heavily discounted in the Echo Shop.
While a reversal of the shutdown seems less likely now that Ready at Dawn has completely neutered the free-to-play game’s in-game currency, the founders behind ‘The Fight For Echo’ initiative have setup a change.org petition so others can show their support. At the time of this writing over 25,000 people have signed.
Evolving views on food are challenging traditional diets — and not just for humans. Innovative dining options are also being added to the menus of our pets.
Startups have proposed numerous new ways to satiate their appetites. The UK’s Bella and Duke, for instance, caters to animals on raw diets, while Sweden’s Buddy Pet Foods serves natural dry food, and Portugal’s Barkyn personalises their grub.
If none of those excites their palates, our furry friends could try a more avant-garde delicacy: insects.
That’s what’s cooking in the kitchen of FlyFeed, an Estonia-based startup. The company has developed an automated farming system that turns fly larvae into animal feed.
“It’s challenging for humans, but a no-brainer for animals.
Arseniy Olkhovskiy, who founded FlyFeed in 2021, said the concept emerged from research into malnutrition. He concluded that insect farming can provide an affordable and sustainable solution to protein shortages. But he plans to feed animals before approaching humans.
“It’s challenging in human food right now, because people don’t really want to eat something connected to insects — but it’s a no-brainer in animal feed,” Olkhovskiy told TNW.
The 24-year-old rattles through a lengthy list of benefits of farming insects: they’re fed reprocessed waste that would otherwise rot in dumps; they grow up to 100 times faster than conventional animal food sources; they’re rich in high-quality nutrients; their production costs are minimal; and they require far fewer environmental resources than traditional agriculture.
Olkhovskiy promises they’re also highly palatable for pets. He says that his own cat is a fan of the flavours.
Olkhovskiy studied over 40 alternative food production technologies before focusing on insect farming. Credit: FlyFeed
FlyFeed is not the first startup to turn insects into pet food. Ÿnsect in France has spent over a decade producing ingredients from mealworms, while Jiminy’s in the USA processes protein from crickets. FlyFeed uses another insect: black soldier flies.
This species has several attractions. The larvae can convert organic waste into edible protein for animal consumption and fertiliser. They’re also suitable for wet food, high in various nutrients, don’t transfer diseases, and have a fast growth rate.
The insects will be reared on agricultural leftovers in vertically-stack crates, which reportedly require 100 times less space than soybean or livestock farming. The facility will also harness data-driven climate control to optimise conditions, and computer vision to monitor the larvae development.
Vertical farming was chosen for its scalability. Credit: FlyFeed
Protein from the farm will be incorporated into comestibles. FlyFeed plans to deliver the first commercial batch of the product next year. Annually, the company aims to convert 40,000 tonnes of waste into 17,500 tonnes of insect products. The output will be split between proteins, fats, and fertilisers.
If all goes well, the early produce will provide a stepping stone to human consumption.
“First, we need to scale it,” said Olkhovskiy. “We need to make it cheaper, we need to make it of standardised quality, and we need to also bring it to markets where people actually need it.”
Artist’s impression of the factory. Credit:FlyFeed
According to Olkhovskiy, other insect farming startups have struggled to market their food to humans. He’s chosen to instead focus on the operational and technological challenges. Once they’ve been overcome, Olkhovskiy plans to distribute the produce in countries where malnutrition is most critical. He expects to drive adoption through a low price point. While a kilo of protein from cheap chicken broilers goes for 4$, he says, a kilo of FlyFeed protein costs under 2$.
In Europe, however, the low prices are yet to create demand. According to a 2020 EU report, only 10% of Europeans are willing to swap meat for insects.
There are, however, signs that attitudes could change. A study published last December found people were more open to eating insects after learning about the environmental benefits.
Regulators are also starting to embrace the possibilities. In January, the EU approved the sale of house crickets and larvae for human consumption.
Still, it seems unlikely that we’ll all be eating flies in the near future. But perhaps our pets can convince us to give them a try.
For a long time, the concept of work-life balance felt like an unattainable myth; all it took was a global pandemic and the ensuing government-enforced lockdowns to show employers that their staff could work remotely and still get the job done.
In fact, studies show that remote employees work more hours overall than those based in an office for part or all of the week—remote workers put in an extra 8.7 hours per week on average compared to their office-based colleagues who average 6.5 extra hours.
Post-pandemic a vast number of organisations have come around to the idea that flexible working conditions should be a permanent fixture.
And research shows that adopting a more flexible approach to where we work has not only improved work-life balance, but our mental and physical wellbeing too.
However, for some remote workers, real flexibility doesn’t pertain to physical location only. There’s an increasing shift towards non-linear or asynchronous working styles, which essentially allow remote workers to work on their own schedule, instead of following the traditional 9-5 model.
What is a non-linear work day?
The premise of a non-linear workflow is simple: remote employees focus on outcomes rather than the tasks they must complete by a certain date or time, for example hitting weekly or even monthly targets, or driving revenue per quarter instead of focussing on projects or a daily workflow.
Why are some employees seeking it?
From the parents who wish they had more time to spend with their children during the day to the marathon runner who needs to train for up to three hours, non-linear work allows employees to segment their days, manage their own schedules, and fit work in around the things that matter to them.
Neurodiverse workers may also benefit; those with ADHD often find they are most productive at night, and therefore sleep later in the morning.
What are the pros and cons and which companies are open to change?
The benefits of non-linear work are manifold: not only does it empower employees to work when they’re most productive, it gives team members the autonomy to do so. And while some employers might baulk at the idea of giving their staff free rein, non-linear work can make teams more efficient, allow employees to thrive and frequently show more dedication and discipline towards their work.
However, there are some challenges that can’t be overlooked. Non-linear work requires organisation and communication, especially if teams need one member to complete a task before another can start their piece of the work. There’s also the danger of disengagement, something that all remote workers can struggle with when they don’t see team members face-to-face on a regular basis or by having regular check-ins.
The good news is that many organisations are already leaning in to the idea of non-linear work and for good reason: according to a recent study, 37% of European employees are prepared to decline a job if flexible hours are not offered, and just over two thirds (69%) would accept a pay cut in exchange for flexible hours.
Looking for true flexibility when it comes to work-life balance? Discover three jobs below that offer flexible hours.
Database DevOps Engineer, Salesforce, Dublin
Salesforce is the global leader in customer relationship management (CRM) software and has pioneered the shift to cloud computing. It also offers its employees flexible working locations stating on the company website that in our “always-connected world, it no longer makes sense to expect employees to work an eight-hour shift and do their jobs successfully.”
Salesforce Dublin is hiring a Database DevOps Engineer with a strong database background and public cloud background to work with a team that is responsible for the architecture, design, developing, and testing the next generation of relational database management systems (RDBMS). Applicants should have a Bachelor’s degree in computer science or engineering, a cloud certification, and experience with related cloud technologies. See the full job description here.
Data Engineer – Python, HUMAN CAPiTAL, Amsterdam
HUMAN CAPiTAL is recruiting a Data Engineer – Python for a client based in Amsterdam which specialises in creating software used by healthcare institutions which helps medical workers calculate and decrease the risk of post-surgery infections. In this role you’ll maintain and enhance the internal data warehouse and create data flows to assist the work of the data scientists. You’ll create and maintain ETL components, create tests to automate data integrity checks, resolve problems with data availability and integrity, and manage and monitor data gathering procedures.
As well as the option of remote or hybrid working models, this role also offers flexible working hours. You will need a Bachelor’s degree, preferably in computer science, proficiency with Python and SQL along with knowledge of Linux, and excellent written and verbal English. Apply here.
Azure Operations Specialist, Rencore, Munich or remote
Working with the rest of the IT operations team, the Azure Operations Specialist will be tasked with managing Rencore’s cloud infrastructure by planning and deploying ongoing cloud systems while keeping a security and improvement perspective that aligns with the architecture requirements from the product team and the wider business plans. The ideal candidate will have experience building and maintaining Microsoft Azure cloud platforms and technology solutions. Experience with PowerShell is a plus. You’ll also get the choice to work from Munich or remotely with flexible working hours. See more details here.
Augmented World Expo, AWE for short, returns to Santa Clara this year from May 31 to June 2, 2023. The agenda is still coming together but there’s already a lot to be excited about. Let’s take a look.
Morning Keynotes
Many XR companies save some of their biggest announcements for the AWE stage. Even when companies aren’t dropping new products, apps, and services, they use the time to inform and inspire listeners about this rapidly developing space.
Day One
The first day of AWE always starts with an opening keynote from event founder Ori Inbar. Inbar’s addresses are always insightful and digestible with good measures of his palpable enthusiasm and humor. During his opening keynote last year, Inbar spoke about how XR can help make both big dreams and small dreams become reality.
Next up is the Qualcomm keynote from Vice President and General Manager of XR Hugo Swart. At his keynote last year, Swart presented Snapdragon Spaces and introduced the first two recipients of Qualcomm Ventures’ metaverse-funded companies.
Then, Nreal CEO Chi Xu takes the stage. Nreal hasn’t been a keynote presenter in the years that ARPost has covered AWE. But, the company is definitely going places. This year saw the commercial launch of Nreal Air (review) and we know that they have at least one more model waiting in the wings for the next big launch.
Day Two
Day two only has one proper keynote scheduled, this time with Magic Leap. Last year, the company’s Head of Product Management, Jade Meskill, took the stage to talk about the Magic Leap 2 and “augmented enterprise.” We don’t yet know what will come of this year’s keynote but it’s being given by the company’s CEO Peggy Johnson.
Following that is a “Fireside Chat” with Unity CEO John Riccitiello. That it’s a “fireside chat” and not a “keynote” arguably suggests that there won’t be any big product announcements but that doesn’t mean that this session shouldn’t be on your schedule.
Days two and three are lighter on heavy-hitting speakers to encourage attendees to check out the expo floor, which we’ll look at next. Don’t worry though, there are sessions to look forward to beyond just keynotes and we’ll look at some of those later.
The Expo Floor
It’s impossible to know exactly what will be going on on the expo floor, which is part of what makes it so exciting. A list of exhibitors (over 130 of them) and a map of the expo floor are posted on the AWE website, but what companies will be showcasing and how is a mystery until the floor opens on day two.
First off, a number of haptics pioneers will be there including Haptx, bHaptics, and SenseGlove. Any immersive technology is better when you experience it yourself instead of just seeing it on YouTube, but this is doubly true for haptics. But, unfortunately, many of these products are still hard for the average person to get their hands on. That makes the expo floor a great intro.
Mojo Vision will also be on the AWE expo floor. While this company isn’t likely to be putting their AR contact lenses onto the eyeballs of just anybody, they do have rigs that allow you to get a glimpse through what they’re building.
DigiLens, Vuzix, and Lenovo will also be on the AWE Expo floor. These companies make components and enterprise hardware that’s usually a cut above available consumer models. Trying them out can be a glimpse into the future. I got to get my hands on some of their hardware at last year’s expo and left feeling enlightened.
Also, Tilt Five will be returning. Last year, their augmented game board was the life of the expo floor drawing huge crowds – not just to interact with the product but to watch other people interact with the product.
On day one, right after the keynotes, many will likely stay in their seats to see Forbes columnist, author, and educator Charlie Fink talk with Magic Leap founder and former CEO Rony Abovitz about “How We Can Invigorate XR.” A few hours later on the same stage, Qualcomm Director of Product Management Steve Lukas will talk about “Building AR for Today.”
A little after that, one might head out of the Mission City Ballroom to Grand Ballroom C’s “Web3” track where EndeavorXR founder and CEO Amy Peck will be debating “Pros &Cons of Web3” with XR Guild President Avi Bar-Zeev. It’s hard to find an XR organization that Peck isn’t or hasn’t been involved with, and Bar-Zeev co-created Google Earth and HoloLens.
From there, one might head back to the Mission City Ballroom for “Intersection of AI and the Metaverse: What’s Next?” a panel discussion with leading XR ethicist Kent Bye, HTC VIVE China President Alvin Graylin, WXR Fund Managing Partner Amy LaMeyer, and Creative Artist Agency’s Chief Metaverse Officer Joanna Popper.
But wait! Happening at the same time is “How XR Technology Is Changing the Fashion Landscape” with Beyond Creative Technologist David Robustelli, Ready Player Me co-founder Kaspar Tiri, and DressX co-founder Daria Shapovalova.
Depending on which of those last two talks you see, you might have time for “What Problem Does the Metaverse Solve?” with Nokia Head of Ecosystem and Trend Scouting Leslie Shannon.
If you miss the first fashion session, you can always catch “Redefining Fashion and Beauty’s Next Decade – From Virtual Beings and Gaming to Generative AI” with LVMH VP of Digital Innovation Nelly Mensah, 5th Column founder and CEO Akbar Hamid, and Journey founder and Chief Metaverse Officer Cathy Hackl.
Day Two
On the same day that the expo opens up, on the main stage, Paramount Pictures Futurist Ted Schilowitz presents “XR Excellence: Demonstration & Discussion” – billed as a collection of “what he thinks are the best experiences in VR and MR today, and what we can learn from those experiences” followed by Q&A.
But oh no! At the same time in Ballroom D, Khronos Group President Neil Treveett, XRSI founder and CEO Kavya Pearlman, and Moor Insights & Strategy Senior Analyst Anshel Sag are talking about building open standards for the metaverse!
Both of those events conflict with a “Meet the Makers” session featuring Julie Smithson and Karen Alexander of MetaVRse, Sophia Moshasha of the VR/AR Association, and Ben Erwin of The Polys Awards.
Later in the afternoon, Inworld AI’s Chief Creative Officer John Gaeta and Chief Product Officer Kylan Gibbs debut a new concept demo called “Origins” – a new kind of caper in which a human detective must navigate a world of generative AI bots.
The evening of AWE Day Two is also The Auggie Awards. We can’t tell you too much about the Auggie Awards because the finalists aren’t out. In fact, you still have until April 7 to submit nominees. Then, there’s a period of public voting until May 4. You can submit nominees and vote for your favorites here.
Day Three
On day three, in the “AI and Virtual Beings” track, producer, director, and strategist Rebecca Evans, Stanford University Graduate Research Fellow Eugy Han, Odeon Theatrical CEO Stephanie Riggs, and Dulce Dotcom advisor Dulce Baerga will discuss “Avatars, Environments & Self Expression – from Social VR to Cross-Reality Experiences.”
From there, you might head back to the Mission City Ballroom for a Fireside Chat with Tom Furness, the founder and chairman of the Virtual World Society – one of the oldest and noblest organizations in immersive tech.
AWE concludes on the afternoon of day three with Inbar’s closing statements and the Best In Show Awards on the main stage.
How to Attend AWE
Once again, all AWE recordings will become available on AWE.live. If you want to experience AWE in person, you still have time to get tickets. If you’re reading this before February 28, you still have time for Super Early Bird Tickets. You can also get 20% off of your ticket price by using discount code 23ARPOSTD at checkout.
And keep an eye on ARPost as AWE draws nearer. As a media partner of the event, we’ll be giving two free tickets to selected readers as part of an upcoming drawing. Watch our social media channels for details.
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 February 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
Ioanna is a writer at SHIFT. She likes the transition from old to modern, and she’s all about shifting perspectives. Ioanna is a writer at SHIFT. She likes the transition from old to modern, and she’s all about shifting perspectives.
With the goal of establishing a long-term presence on the Moon, the European Space Agency (ESA) is working on a new project that will help determine the feasibility of growing plants on the lunar surface. Led by Norway’s Solsys Mining, the project will seek to develop a method for converting lunar soil into fertiliser for use in hydroponic farming.
The study builds on previous research on lunar soil samples. While lunar soil, also known as regolith, is rich in most nutrients necessary for plant growth, it compacts in the presence of water, making it problematic for seeds to establish healthy root systems.
Hydroponics bypasses this challenge as it allows roots to be directly cultivated in nutrient-rich water instead of soil. But to ensure that the water used in the hydroponic system is nutritious, the ESA and Solsys Mining will have to create a method that extracts nutrients from regolith, concentrating the valuable elements before use, and removing the undesirable ones.
This would require three steps, as illustrated below. Firstly, regolith would be pulled through a mechanical sorting area. Then, nutrients would be extracted by a processing plant, before being dissolved into water and pumped into a greenhouse for hydroponic farming.
Artist’s impression of what the installation on the Moon would like. From left to right: the mechanical sorting area, the processing plant, and the hydroponic greenhouse. Credit: ESA
The Solsys Mining team is optimistic, having already grown beans using simulated lunar highland regolith as a nutrient source.
“This work is essential for future long-term lunar exploration,” Malgorzata Holynska, Materials and Processes Engineer at ESA, said. “Achieving a sustainable presence on the Moon will involve using local resources and gaining access to nutrients present in lunar regolith with the potential to help cultivate plants. The current study represents a proof of principle using available lunar regolith simulants, opening the way to more detailed research in future.”
To realise this study, the ESA and Solsys Mining have teamed up with Norway’s Geotechnical Institute (NGI) and the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Space (CIRiS). The project was launched in December 2022 and is expected to run for a full year. It’s being funded by the Discovery branch of ESA’s Basic Activities.
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Resident Evil 4 is getting a remake for PS5 soon, and although Capcom didn’t state it was bringing full PSVR 2 support when it was announced back in June, the developer now says its VR mode is in the works right now, and it will be offered as free DLC to the flatscreen game on PS5.
Update (February 22, 2023): The Japanese language Capcom Twitter announced that the Resident Evil 4 remake team has now started development on its PSVR 2 mode.
It’s not clear when it will launch, however the studio further confirmed that the “VR mode,” which presumably means we’ll be playing the full game on PSVR 2, will be a free DLC to the flatscreen game on PS5. This comes as contrast to the announcement in June of “VR content,” which left some room for doubt. The original article follows below:
Original Article (June 3rd, 2022): It’s a marked departure from the full-throated PSVR support announcement for Resident Evil 7 Biohazard when it was first unveiled at E3 2016, which lets you play the game start to finish in VR.
This makes it a bit unclear as to what “PSVR 2 content” really means, as it could either suggest full support, or ‘experience-style’ bonus material, which would frankly be a bit of a letdown.
Image courtesy Capcom
After all, Resident Evil 4 is already playable in VR via Meta Quest 2, although there are some key differences to note. The version for Quest 2 wasn’t a remake as such, but rather an uprezzed port of the original game, while the PS5 version is slated to be a ground-up remake ostensibly in the same vein of Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020).
It seems dubious that all the VR-specific work Armature Studio put into the Quest 2 version will necessarily translate since we’re essentially dealing with an entirely different point of departure in terms of development. What’s more, Capcom had no issue announcing that Resident Evil Village is coming to PSVR 2 with full motion controls.
This could point to two likely scenarios: Capcom is playing coy and will announce that its “PSVR 2 content” allows you to play the full game, either at launch or at some point afterwards, or we’re really actually just getting a PSVR 2 flavored experience. Either way, we’re hoping to find out before the game’s March 24th, 2023 launch date.
Check out the game’s PS5 announcement trailer below:
Predictive policing has exposed a new group of future criminals: MEPs.
A new testing systems has spotlighted five EU politicians as “at risk” of committing future crimes. Luckily for them, it’s not a tool that’s used by law enforcement, but one designed to highlight the dangers of such systems.
The project is the brainchild of Fair Trials, a criminal justice watchdog. The NGO is campaigning for a ban on predicting policing, which uses data analytics to forecast when and where crimes are likely to happen — and who may commit them.
Proponents argue that the approach can be more accurate, objective, and effective than traditional policing. But critics warn that it hardwires historic biases, disproportionately targets marginalised groups, amplifies structural discrimination, and infringes on civil rights.
“It might seem unbelievable that law enforcement and criminal justice authorities are making predictions about criminality based on people’s backgrounds, class, ethnicity and associations, but that is the reality of what is happening in the EU,” said Griff Ferris, Senior Legal and Policy Officer at Fair Trials.
Indeed, the technology is increasingly popular in Europe. In Italy, for instance, a tool known as Dalia has analysed ethnicity data to profile and predict future criminality. In the Netherlands, meanwhile, the so-called Top 600 list has been used to forecast which young people will commit high-impact crime. One in three people on the list – many of whom have reported being harassed by police – were found to be of Moroccan descent.
To illustrate the impacts, Fair Trials developed a mock assessment of future criminal behaviour.
Unlike many of the real systems used by the police, the analysis has been made entirely transparent. The test uses a questionnaire to profile each user. The more “Yes” answers they give, the higher their risk outcome. You can try it out for yourself here.
Politicians from the Socialists & Democrats, Renew, Greens/EFA, and the Left Group were invited to test the tool. After completing the quiz, MEPs Karen Melchior, Cornelia Ernst, Tiemo Wölken, Petar Vitanov, and Patrick Breyer were all identified as at “medium risk” of committing future crime.
“There should be no place in the EU for such systems — they are unreliable, biased, and unfair.
The gang will face no consequences for their potential offences. In real-life, however, such systems could put them on police databases and subject them to close monitoring, random questioning, or stop and search. Their risk scores may also be shared with schools, employers, immigration agencies, and child protection services. Algorithms have even led people to be jailed with scant evidence.
“I grew up in a low-income neighbourhood, in a poor Eastern European country, and the algorithm profiled me as a potential criminal,” Petar Vitanov, an MEP from the Bulgarian Socialist Party, said in a statement.
“There should be no place in the EU for such systems — they are unreliable, biased, and unfair.”
Fair Trials released the test results amid growing calls to outlaw predictive policing.
The topic has proven divisive in proposals for the AI Act, which is set to become the first-ever legal framework on artificial intelligence. Some lawmakers are pushing for a total ban on predictive policing, while others want to give leeway to law enforcement agencies.
Fair Trials has given supporters of the systems a new reason to reconsider their views: the tech can also target them.
TikTok parent company ByteDance is reportedly laying off what South China Morning Post maintains will be “hundreds of employees” working at its VR headset manufacturing subsidiary, Pico Interactive. A separate report from Reuters also maintains Chinese tech giant Tencent is scrapping its plans to release a VR headset.
According to two people with knowledge of the Pico layoffs, a substantial portion of the VR headset maker is expected to be affected. The report maintains that some teams will see as much as a 30 percent reduction, while some higher-level positions are also expected to be affected.
After being acquired by ByteDance in August 2021, Pico job postings revealed the company was making a sizable expansion into the US to presumably better compete with Meta on its home turf.
Shortly afterwards, the China-based company then released its latest standalone headset, Pico 4, in Europe and Asia to consumers. Seen a direct competitor to Meta Quest 2, Pico 4 still isn’t officially sold in the US; the headset is currently only available across Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, and most countries in Europe.
It was also reported by Chinese tech outlet 36Kr that Tencent, the massive Chinese multinational, was disbanding it 300-person strong XR unit. The company has since refuted this claim with Reuters, stating instead it will be making adjustments to some business teams as development plans for XR hardware had changed.
Citing sources familiar with the restructuring, Reuters reports that Tencent is abandoning plans to release a VR headset due to a sobering economic outlook.
This follows a widening trend of layoffs which have affected nearly every big name in tech, including Google, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft. Microsoft recently announced it was shuttering its social VR platform AltspaceVR in addition to its XR interface framework, Mixed Reality Toolkit. Meanwhile, Microsoft has also had trouble fulfilling its end of a US defense contract which uses its HoloLens AR headset as the basis of a tactical AR headset.
It was also revealed late last year that Meta was planning to cut discretionary spending and extend its hiring freeze through the first quarter, alongside a layoff which affected nearly 11,000 employees, or around 13 percent of its overall workforce.
With Horizon Call of the Mountain, Sony is hoping to have an exclusive big-budget VR game to entice players to the new PSVR 2. Does the title succeed? Read on to find out.
Horizon Call of the Mountain Details:
Available On: PSVR 2 Release Date: February 22nd, 2023 Price: $60 Developer: Geurilla Games & Firesprite Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Editor’s Note: The clips in this review that were captured from PSVR 2 do not look correctly saturated due to incorrect HDR downmixing on our part. Rest assured, the world of Horizon Call of the Mountain is quite vibrant!
Gameplay
The first thing you should know about Horizon Call of the Mountain is that at its core, it’s a VR climbing game. While it’s obvious from the name that climbing would be part of the experience, I can’t say I realized that it would make up about 50-60% of the gameplay. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing; climbing in Call of the Mountain is well executed and creates perfect situations to showcase the game’s stunning environmental art.
The second thing you should know about Call of the Mountain is that it really is a full game and not just a collection of mini-games or one-off experiences. That includes a cast of characters with performances that developers Guerrilla and Firesprite clearly spent a lot of time on, with results that challenge the groundbreaking portrayal of virtual humans in Blood & Truth (2019).
Climbing is the central pillar of gameplay in Call of the Mountain; at first you’ll be using just your hands, but later you’ll find new tools that do a good job of mixing up the climbing gameplay just enough that it doesn’t overstay its welcome, though I wish the later equipment felt less redundant.
While the climbing systems work very well throughout, I found a near complete lack of challenge in the climbing gameplay; I don’t think I fell to my death a single time during the game. The only ‘challenge’ is occasionally needing to look around to find out where to make your next move, but there’s barely any real ‘threat’ during climbing segments, which would have served well to emphasize the game’s otherwise daring climbs.
The climbing may not throw any real challenges your way, but it certainly creates effective opportunities to see the beautiful world of Call of the Mountain. The environmental art and lighting direction in the game is seriously top notch and of a quality scarcely seen anywhere else in VR. You’ll come across vista after epic vista as you climb to new heights, and it always felt worth it to me to take a minute to soak in the views. From most vantage points you can make out other major landmarks in the game which helps make the whole thing feel like a cohesive world.
While climbing is a huge part of the game, you’ll also be doing a lot of bow shooting, which is also well executed in function and feeling. To that end, the combat is where the game really challenges players, and I was actually surprised just how difficult it can be. While I only died from a single encounter in the game, the combat definitely put my skills to the test in a way that I expect would be fairly difficult for inexperienced VR players. While there’s options to tweak the difficulty, unfortunately they’re somewhat hidden in the Accessibility menu which means some players might not find them given that they may be looking for a more common ‘difficulty selector’ as some games provide.
Instead of throwing enemy after enemy at you, combat in Call of the Mountain most often consists of very specific encounters with a set number and type of enemies. The game also takes on a totally unique form of locomotion when these fights start, where the player can swing their arms to quickly rotate around the outer edge of the combat space as they avoid attacks and look for new angles to attack from. While it might look strange from the outside, the overall concept works well, especially when you’re fighting some of the game’s biggest and baddest beasts.
Granted, I found it difficult to read and time the enemies’ melee attacks, and I didn’t feel like the ‘dodge’ mechanic (where you swing both your controllers to one side to do a quick strafe) worked particularly well. While I applaud the developers for building a unique and thoughtful combat system that’s specific to VR (and impressively comfortable, I should add), it could use a bit more refinement to really shine.
The same goes for the combat overall. While it’s definitely fun to fight the fascinating machine creatures from the world of Horizon—thanks to their excellent looks and sounds—combat never felt particularly strategic to me. For the most part you just need to keep lobbing arrows down range. That’s especially strange considering the game allows you to craft several different arrow types (like fire and ice), but all of them essentially just felt like extra damage rather than a strategic choice. That’s compounded by the fact that the game provides the player with more than enough resources to usually have their special arrows maxed out—which further meant that actually finding those resources didn’t feel very exciting.
While Call of the Mountain is a linear adventure, you’ll return to a hub area between missions where you’ll get to talk to the game’s small cast of characters. Although there’s unfortunately minimal character development and intrigue, the characters themselves are impressively rendered across the board, from the way they look to the way they move to the way they sound. It’s a shame they aren’t more involved in the game because they’re so technically compelling.
When you’re on the trail but not actively climbing or fighting, there’s usually loot to scavenge for. The game does a good job of leaving extra bits of loot for those that go looking, but since the only gameplay reward is ingredients for different arrows (which as we established, don’t really make the combat more unique) or a small upgrade to your health it can be a bit of a let down to keep finding the same stuff that you’ve already got plenty of.
Even if you’re full on arrows though, the game still peppers its pathways with little collectibles to find for those who are looking more closely at the world around them, as well as hidden targets for you to shoot (which I appreciate because this gives players another good reason to take in the environment at large). Some of the game’s levels also have optional (and sometimes hidden) ‘Legendary Climbs’, which are longer climbing segments that usually lead you to another awesome view, and these feel like a good reason to replay a level if you didn’t find them the first time around.
Call of the Mountain is a fun adventure with tons of VR native gameplay taking place inside one of the best looking virtual worlds seen in VR to date. I can’t say the story really grasped me—I completely missed why the protagonist and his brother are at odds with one another—but at least it’s all well delivered and ties the gameplay together. It took me about 7 hours and 30 minutes to complete the main campaign while finding roughly 60% of the extras like trophies, collectables, and Legendary Climbs.
While it isn’t particularly comprehensive, the game also has a small challenge area where you can test your bow and climbing skills with some timed challenges. And last but not least, there’s also the ‘Machine Safari’, which is an extended version of the opening sequence which shows off the game’s great looking creatures and animations in a non-interactive way (great as a short demo to show friends who aren’t gamers).
Immersion
Image courtesy PlayStation
Call of the Mountain is definitely easy to get lost in thanks to its beautiful visuals and solid-feeling world. Yes, you’ll come across a bunch of epic vistas to soak in, but the game also does a great job with the smaller details too. You’ll see nice touches like moss growing between rocks, glints of crystal flecks in some of the rock faces, and a ton of foliage and environmental decoration, all backed up by great lighting and art direction.
While it was a bummer to find that only some of the foliage was interactive, it did make me smile when I could naturally use my hand to push a vine away from my face, see fuzzy moss bend under my hands, and watch leaves move realistically as I grazed them while looking for my next hand-hold.
Overall, Call of the Mountain might have the best visuals of any VR game I’ve seen to date. Though I’d say Half-Life: Alyx still has the more technically proficient graphics, those graphics are largely in service of realizing a dirty, broken, dystopic city. Call of the Mountain, on the other hand, offers up a rich world full of natural beauty that’s a delight to see.
Beyond the interactive foliage, the developers also scattered lots of interactive props throughout the environment. While they have nothing to do with gameplay, they’re certainly tempting to play with. Though I can’t even recall the name of the game’s main antagonist, I do recall playing a tambourine, drums, a pan flute, finding various hand-made dolls, smashing a table full of pots with a hammer, ringing huge gongs with a mallet, throwing snowballs, and shooting vases off a steep ledge with my bow. All of these various props are detailed with their own sound effects, physics, and generally tight hit-boxes.
While it was great to see that all of these items were physically interactive and could be pushed appropriately with your hands, the physics would sometimes freak out when items interacted with each other (ie: putting a stick in a mug).
Also relating to item interactions, I was a little disappointed to see that Call of the Mountain lacks a proficient force-grab system (which is essentially standard in VR games today). While you technically can grab things with a bit of range, it was really hard to see exactly which item you are targeting, which would sometimes mean grabbing something other than what you had intended. And then there’s the fact that when grabbing distant items, your floating hand in many cases would fly away to meet the object, which certainly doesn’t look right. And all of this sometimes makes picking things up from the ground an annoyance.
A more thoughtful force-grab system would have been welcomed; it’s easy to imagine emulating the gravity glove system from Half-Life: Alyx, and either explain it away by saying it’s advanced technology from the Old Ones (the futuristic lost civilization of the game), or by creating an (admittedly contrived) version of the gloves using string and pulleys. I also would have liked to put items over my shoulder to stash them in my inventory instead of having them magically teleport there after touching them once.
One place where Call of the Mountain really went above and beyond in the immersion department is with its characters. Yes, they look great, they’re well voiced, and the facial capture is very expressive, etc., but the thing that really impressed me is the way the developers dealt with players reaching out and touching the characters.
In many games if you reach out to touch a character nothing happens (maybe your hand even clips through them), which breaks immersion. Other games will just keep the characters 10 feet away from you, but that can also kill immersion because they’re outside of your ‘personal space’ (making you feel less connected with them).
Call of the Mountain keeps the characters in that personal space, but if you reach out to touch them they will lean away from your hand while sneering at you in a way that feels really natural. And when I say natural, I mean the expression on their face—and the way they first look at your hand and then back at you—very effectively conveys a sense of ‘what the hell is wrong with you, why are you touching me’ without using any words at all. It’s such a minor detail but it’s incredibly well done, especially considering that this system is fully dynamic so it can happen regardless of how they’re gesturing, looking, or speaking. Whoever worked on this system and the accompanying body language and animations, bravo, you’ve set a new bar for the ‘players touching characters in VR’ problem.
Comfort
Though there’s plenty of motion in Call of the Mountain, the game is clearly designed to take comfort into consideration.
First and foremost, the game has a solid ‘arm swinger’ locomotion option which is the default for two of the three pre-configured comfort profiles. I found that it kept me more comfortable and felt more immersive than using pure stick movement—though it was just a little bit annoying that it slows you down so much when you come within a few feet of stationary objects like walls or rocks.
In addition to the arm swinger movement, the game has a dynamic blinder system that kicks in when there’s lots of motion, like when you’re jumping, climbing, ziplining, or falling, and I found that it did a great job of keeping me comfortable.
In addition to offering up three pre-configured comfort profiles ranging from lots of comfort accommodations to fewer accommodations, you can also go into the menu and fine-tune the settings to taste. The game also thoughtfully includes an ‘Arm Reach Multiplier’ option for anyone that needs it, either because you don’t feel like reaching as far, or because there’s a physical reason you’re unable to.
As with any VR game involving climbing, when you clasp a handhold you can effectively shake your own body around by waggling your arm; some of the very sensitive folks are likely to find this movement inherently uncomfortable, regardless of blinders. So if you are particularly sensitive to motion in VR, you might want to give this game a shot but be ready to take advantage of Sony’s PlayStation Store refund policy if you can’t handle the motion comfortably.
Below you can find the full list of comfort options in Horizon Call of the Mountain.
Horizon Call of the Mountain’ Comfort Settings – February 16th, 2023
Sega’s futuristic block-breaker, which you might remember from its launch on Dreamcast in 2001 or in arcades throughout Europe and Japan, is being reimagined for PSVR 2 with C-Smash VRS.
The game is bringing an immersive twist to Cosmic Smash’slow gravity squash-meets-blockbreaker gameplay, including single player, co-op, and 1v1 multiplayer modes—that’s what the ‘VRS’ stands for, both virtual reality and versus.
Besides bringing the futuristic racket sport to VR, C-Smash VRS is also set to rekindle some long dormant memories with its thumping OST, which seems to be inspired by the original’s ambient techno score; new tracks are being composed by DJ Ken Ishii (Rez Infinite) and Danalogue (The Comet is Coming, Soccer 96).
The game is currently under development by indie studio RapidEyeMovers, with the IP licensed from Sega. The studio says it’s working with VR veterans Wolf & Wood (The Last Worker, The Exorcist: Legion VR), and designers Cory Schmitz (Rez Infinite, Sound Shapes) and Arkotype (Polytron) to bring it to PSVR 2 later this year.
While we don’t have a launch date yet, a free demo of C-Smash VRS for PSVR 2 is coming to the PlayStation Store on March 23rd. In the meantime, you can wishlist the game here.
Half-Life 2: Episode One is getting VR support soon, brought to you by the same team behind the recently released SteamVR fan mod for Half-Life 2.
Released in 2006, Half-Life 2: Episode One is the first in a series of games to reveal the aftermath of Half-Life 2 and launch a journey beyond City 17.
The standalone title is finally getting VR support on March 17th, courtesy of the SourceVR Mod Team, a group of VR enthusiasts who are unaffiliated with Valve.
Like the team’s Half-Life 2VR Mod, which released for free on SteamVR headsets in September 2022, the VR mod brings the same possibility of playing Episode One in full room-scale VR with tracked motion controllers, allowing you to physically walk around, shoot weapons, pick up objects, climb ladders, etc.
And as you’d imagine, the Episode One mod is including the rash of VR-specific interactions first released in the HL2 VR, such as intuitive and realistic weapon handling, quick and easy weapon switching via a radial menu, over-the-shoulder ammo inventory, functional iron sights, two-handed weapons, and manual reloading. Like HL2 VR, there’s also set to be optional laser sights and an arcade style ‘quick reload’ option if realism isn’t your thing.
SourceVR Mod Team says on their website that creating mods for both Episode One and Two required a separate build from the one used in the original HL2VR mod due to “a few major issues that need to be resolved,” the group said in September. Ostensibly, the team has now solved those issues, rendering Episode One fully playable in VR.
In addition to downloading the VR mod on Steam for free, you’ll need to own copy of Half-Life 2: Episode One to play. You’ll be able to find it in a variety of cost-effective bundles on Steam. While you’re at it, make sure to nab Episode Two to get a jumpstart on things before the team releases VR support in the near future.
