Metaâs Sanzaru Games released a new look at Asgardâs Wrath 2 in a developer diary video that, in addition to showing off more of the upcoming action RPG, teases an opportunity to put your combat skills to the test against other players.
The studio says that in addition to its main narrative-driven quest, Asgardâs Wrath 2 is going to feature an âasynchronously social dungeon-crawling modeâ where you as the Cosmic Guardian will âtake part in an ongoing battle that evolves over time,â the studio says in a blogpost.
Weâre due to learn more about the newly teased dungeon mode in the gameâs next deep dive video, where the studio says it will further explore the so-called âUncharted Riftsâ.
Announced during the Quest Gaming Showcase in June, the Asgardâs Wrath sequel is headed exclusively to the Quest platform, which includes Quest 2, Quest Pro, and the upcoming Quest 3 headset.
In it, you travel across the realms in pursuit of the trickster god Loki, taking on the role of four mortal heroes with various weapons and playstyles. Like the first, which was a Rift exclusive, the new Quest-only title is said to be packed with creatures, quests, puzzles, and the ability to convert loyal animals into fierce warrior companions. The studio says we can expect â60 hours of exploration [and] viscous combatâ when the game launches in Winter 2023.
You can also now pre-order the game, priced at $60. Pre-orders include exclusive in-game weapon and armor set, a free download of Asgardâs Wrath 1 on PC, a Meta Quest home environment, and an exclusive Asgardâs Wrath 2 character bundle for battle royale shooter POPULATION: ONE.
Meta announced that Connect, its annual XR developer conference, will have an âin-person presenceâ this year, marking the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began in late 2019.
Connect is set to take place on September 27th and 28th at Metaâs headquarters in Menlo Park, Californiaâan entirely new occurrence in itself, since the company traditionally held its in-person Connects at off-site venues, including the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose and Loews Hollywood Hotel in Los Angeles.
Registration for the in-person experience is âlimited,â Meta says, with attendees having access to demo experiences, networking events, and more. Meta says to expect in-depth looks at new products, such as the upcoming Quest 3, the latest in AI and XR innovation, developer updates, and an exploration of âhow the metaverse is coming to life.â
Meta Quest 3 | Image courtesy Meta
The company says the event will also be livestreamed, which will include a keynote by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the Developer State of the Union, and breakout sessions covering âa range of topics related to AI and virtual, mixed, and augmented reality.â
Slated to arrive sometime in late 2023, the $500 Quest 3 signifies the companyâs next big consumer ambitions following its decidedly pricey Quest Pro headset released late last year, now priced at $1,000 after a tactical $500 price slash.
Weâre hoping to get an eye-full of Quest 3 there and hear more about precise launch details; Connect 2023 could even be an opportune moment to launch the headset. The event should give us a good idea of how much âgasâ Meta intends to use to push the upcoming headset, which, like Quest Pro and Apple Vision Pro, is a mixed reality headset that includes color passthrough and augmented reality capabilities.
The company says it will share more on specific developer talks in the near future. In the meantime, keep an eye on the Connect website for more information.
Today, big tech companies including Apple, Pixar, Adobe, Autodesk, and NVIDIA, announced the formation of the Alliance for OpenUSD (AOUSD), which is dedicated to promoting the standardization and development of a 3D file protocol that Apple says will âhelp accelerate the next generation of AR experiences.â
NVIDIA has been an early supporter of Pixarâs Universal Scene Description (USD), stating last year it thinks Pixarâs solution has the potential to become the âHTML of the metaverse.â
Much like HTML forms a sort of description of a webpageâbeing hostable anywhere on the Internet and retrievable/renderable locally by a web browserâUSD can be used to describe complex virtual scenes, allowing it to be similarly retrieved and rendered on a local machine.
Hereâs how the alliance describes their new OpenUSD inititive:
Created by Pixar Animation Studios, OpenUSD is a high-performance 3D scene description technology that offers robust interoperability across tools, data, and workflows. Already known for its ability to collaboratively capture artistic expression and streamline cinematic content production, OpenUSDâs power and flexibility make it an ideal content platform to embrace the needs of new industries and applications.
âUniversal Scene Description was invented at Pixar and is the technological foundation of our state-of-the-art animation pipeline,â said Steve May, Chief Technology Officer at Pixar and Chairperson of AOUSD. âOpenUSD is based on years of research and application in Pixar filmmaking. We open-sourced the project in 2016, and the influence of OpenUSD now expands beyond film, visual effects, and animation and into other industries that increasingly rely on 3D data for media interchange. With the announcement of AOUSD, we signal the exciting next step: the continued evolution of OpenUSD as a technology and its position as an international standard.â
Housed by the Linux Foundation affiliate Joint Development Foundation (JDF), the alliance is hoping to attract a diverse range of companies and organizations to participate in shaping the future of OpenUSD actively. For now it counts Apple, Pixar, Adobe, Autodesk, and NVIDIA as foudning memebers, with general members including Epic Games, Unity, Foundry, Ikea, SideFX, and Cesium.
âOpenUSD will help accelerate the next generation of AR experiences, from artistic creation to content delivery, and produce an ever-widening array of spatial computing applications,â said Mike Rockwell, Appleâs VP of the Vision Products Group. âApple has been an active contributor to the development of USD, and it is an essential technology for the groundbreaking visionOS platform, as well as the new Reality Composer Pro developer tool. We look forward to fostering its growth into a broadly adopted standard.â
Khronos Group, the consortium behind the OpenXR standard, launched a similar USD initiative in the past via its own Metaverse Standards Forum. Itâs unclear how much overlap these initiatives will have, as that project was supported by AOUSD founders Adobe, Autodesk, and NVIDIA in addition to a wide swath of industry movers, such as Meta, Microsoft, Sony, Qualcomm, and AMD. Notably missing in the Metaverse Standards Forum was support from Apple and Pixar themselves.
Weâre hoping to learn more at a long-form presentation of AOUSD during the Autodesk Vision Series on August 8th. There are a host of events leading up to SIGGRAPH 2023 though, which goes from August 6th â 10th, so we may learn more at any one of the companiesâ own presentations on USD.
Virtuix, the company behind the Omni VR treadmill, announced itâs raised $4.7 million through its latest crowd investment round. The Austin, Texas-based company also says it plans to ship 1,000 of its Omni One VR treadmills by the end of this year.
Earlier this year, Virtuix launched an equity crowdfunding campaign to further support the production of its Omni One VR treadmill, which, when paired with a VR headset, allows you to physically run around in a VR game instead of relying on artificial locomotion schemes, like stick movement or teleportation.
Similar to other parabolic VR treadmills like KAT VR, Omni One requires you to wear special low-friction shoes and strap into a harness system which keeps you in the center of the baseâs parabola. Read about our latest hands-on to see Omni One in action.
Since launch in early 2023, the campaign has already raised over $4.7 million. Although just short of its initial $5 million target, Virtuix has decided to conclude the crowdfunding campaign earlier than planned on August 10th.
In addition to individual investors, the funding round received significant support from JC Team Capital, a prior investor, with its founder and CEO, Parth Jani, joining Virtuixâs Board of Directors as a lead investor. Virtuix intends to use the funds to increase Omni Oneâs production and aims to achieve profitability by 2024.
Virtuix has already started shipping beta units of Omni One to 8,000 of its equity investors. More than 1,000 units are said to ship out by the end of this year, with plans to deliver to all remaining investors in the first quarter of 2024. Pre-orders for the general public are expected to open in late 2023, with deliveries scheduled to start in the second quarter of 2024.
While more accessible to consumers than similar enterprise devices, Omni Oneâs introductory is $2,595, which includes the Pico VR headsetâa sharp reminder that the accessory largely appeals to prosumers and businesses. The company has however devised a payment plan that offers the device as low as $65 per month.
Virtuixâs CEO, Jan Goetgeluk, expressed excitement about Omni Oneâs success and its potential for rapid revenue growth, saying the company already has a waitlist of 35,000 interested customers.
Founded in 2013, the latest campaign puts Virtuixâs lifetime funding to more than $35 million which was sourced from both individual and institutional investors.
Meta unveiled two new VR headset prototypes that showcase more progress in the fight to solve some persistent technical challenges facing VR today. Presenting at SIGGRAPH 2023, Meta is demonstrating a headset with retinal resolution combined with varifocal optics, and another headset with advanced light field passthrough capabilities.
Butterscotch Varifocal Prototype
Revealed in a developer blogpost, Meta showed off a varifocal research prototype that demonstrates a VR display system which provides âvisual clarity that can closely match the capabilities of the human eye,â says Meta Optical Scientist Yang Zhao. The so-called âButterscotch Varifocalâ prototype provides retinal resolution of up to 56 pixels per degree (PPD), which is sufficient for 20/20 visual acuity, researchers say.
Since its displays are also varifocal, it can support from 0 to 4 diopter (i.e. infinity to 25 cm), and matching what researchers say are âthe dynamics of eye accommodation with at least 10 diopter/s peak velocity and 100 diopter/s2 acceleration.â The pulsing motors below control the displaysâ focal distance in an effort to match the human eye.
Varifocal headsets represent a solution to the vergence-accommodation conflict (VAC) which has plagued standard VR headsets, the most advanced consumer headsets included. Varifocal headsets not only include the same standard support for the vergence reflex (when eyes converge on objects to form a stereo image), but also the accommodation reflex (when the lens of the eye changes shape to focus light at different depths). Without support for accommodation, VR displays can cause eye strain, make it difficult to focus on close imagery, and may even limit visual immersion.
Check out the through-the-lens video below to see how Butterscotchâs varifocal bit works:
Using LCD panels readily available on the market, Butterscotch manages its 20/20 retinal display by reducing the field of view (FOV) to 50 degrees, smaller than Quest 2âs ~89 degree FOV.
Although Butterscotchâs varifocal abilities are similar to the companyâs prior Half Dome prototypes, the company says Butterscotch is âsolely focused on showcasing the experience of retinal resolution in VRâbut not necessarily with hardware technologies that are ultimately appropriate for the consumer.â
âIn contrast, our work on Half Dome 1 through 3 focused on miniaturizing varifocal in a fully practical manner, albeit with lower-resolution optics and displays more similar to todayâs consumer headsets,â explains Display Systems Research Director Douglas Lanman. âOur work on Half Dome prototypes continues, but weâre pausing to exhibit Butterscotch Varifocal to show why we remain so committed to varifocal and delivering better visual acuity and comfort in VR headsets. We want our community to experience varifocal for themselves and join in pushing this technology forward.â
Flamera Lightfield Passthrough Prototype
Another important side of making XR more immersive is undoubtably the headsetâs passthrough capabilities, like you might see on Quest Pro or the upcoming Apple Vision Pro. The decidedly bug-eyed design of Metaâs Flamera research prototype is looking for a better way to create more realistic passthrough by using light fields.
Research Scientist Grace Kuo wearing the Flamera research prototype | Image courtesy Meta
In standard headsets, cameras are typically placed a few inches from where your eyes actually sit, capturing a different view than what youâd see if you werenât wearing a headset. While thereâs a lot of distortion and placement correction going on in standard headsets of today, youâll probably still notice a ton of visual artifacts as the software tries to correctly resolve and render different depths of field.
âTo address this challenge, we brainstormed optical architectures that could directly capture the same rays of light that youâd see with your bare eyes,â says Meta Research Scientist Grace Kuo. âBy starting our headset design from scratch instead of modifying an existing design, we ended up with a camera that looks quite unique but can enable better passthrough image quality and lower latency.â
Check out the quick explainer below to see how Flameraâs ingenious capture methods work:
Now, hereâs a comparison between an unobstructed view and Flameraâs light field capture, showing off some pretty compelling results:
As research prototypes, thereâs no indication when we can expect these technologies to come to consumer headsets. Still, itâs clear that Meta is adamant about showing off just how far ahead it is in tackling some of the persistent issues in headsets todayâsomething you probably wonât see from the patently black box that is Apple.
You can read more about Butterscotch and Flamera in their respective research papers, which are being presented at SIGGRAPH 2023, taking place August 6th â 10th in Los Angeles. Click here for the Butterscotch Varifocal abstract and Flamera full paper.
Meta introduced a new game called âSuper Rumbleâ to Horizon Worlds, something the company hopes will showcase a new generation of improved experiences on its own social VR platform.
Released after a successful beta weekend in May, the free-for-all first-person shooter is said to highlight new improvements to Horizon Worlds, such as âbetter graphics, deeper gameplay, and a variety of quests and rewards.â
Players can choose from six superpowers before each session, allowing them to outmaneuver opponents and develop their playstyles. Hereâs how Meta describes each power:
Super Dash gives you super speed
Super Jump lets you launch into the air with explosive force
Super Ammo saves you from having to reload
Super Tough reduces the damage youâll take from each hit
Super Net lets you immobilize other players
Super Punch lets you attack with a powerful punch
Super Rumble is aiming to offer a fast-paced experience, which serves up to two to six players, with each match lasting five minutes. The game also serves as a launching point for a new integrated system of player levels, quests, rewards, the latter of which includes avatar clothing, emotes, and nameplate titles.
Check out the action below:
Weâve seen a few first-party worlds alongside a number of third-party brand engagement experiences on Horizon Worlds since the platform launched in late 2021, however going the âfull featuredâ minigame route is a fairly recent move that has more potential to attract and keep users. Itâs certainly helped Rec Room to become one of the most prolific social VR platforms to thrive on both VR headsets and traditional flatscreen devices.
Interestingly enough, this comes only one day after Meta opened Quest up the online gaming powerhouse Roblox, which is in direct competition with Horizon Worlds. Now, Quest users can choose between Roblox, Rec Room, VRChat, Horizon Worlds, and Gym Class to name a few of the top free social VR platforms.
Tomorrow, Meta and Ready at Dawn are shutting down Echo VR, the free-to-play game that helped pioneer VR sports. Get in now before they pull the plug.
Meta made no secret it was shutting down the zero-gravity sport Echo VR and its PC-only squad shooter variant, Echo Combat, having announced earlier this year it was sunsetting the games come August 1st at 10 AM PT (local time here). That means fans only have a few hours left to play before the multiplayer-only games are unceremoniously disconnected from Metaâs servers.
Echo VR fans didnât go down without a fight though. Some spirited protests against the shutdown even included a dedicated fan group flying an airplane-towed message over Metaâs HQ in Menlo Park back in March, stating âZUCK, DONâT KILL VR ESPORTS FIGHTFORECHO.COMâ. Both online and offline protests fell on deaf ears though. The URL mentioned above now leads to a 404, and itâs pretty clear by now that Meta didnât change their collective minds.
The studio recently released the Echo VR OST on YouTube, which feels like small recompense for killing consistently one of the best-rated and most popular free titles on Quest. Ready at Dawn, which was acquired by Meta in 2020, explained earlier this year the shutdown was made for âmany good reasons [,] chief among them is the studio coming together to focus on our next project.â
Both Ready at Dawn and Onward studio Downpour Interactive found themselves caught up in one of the multiple rounds of layoffs to hit Meta earlier this year. To boot, Ready at Dawn has yet to reveal whatâs next. Whatever it is though, weâre hoping it has many of the same hard-won learnings baked in, like Echo VR and its narrative games Lone Echo did. In the meantime, check out the OST playlist below.
Apple Vision Pro is coming next year, not only making for the Fruit Companyâs much awaited first XR headset, but also spurring a resurgence in public interest (and likely investment) in the XR space. At $3,500, Vision Pro is undoubtedly an expensive steppingstone to the companyâs future augmented reality ambitions, but even if itâs ostensibly ignoring virtual reality in the meantime, it probably wonât forever.
Apple has a tendency to undervalue gaming initially, though perhaps reluctantly, eventually acknowledges its importance. Gaming in XR is considerably enhanced by fully immersive experiences and motion controllers, and Apple will probably start feeling the pressure of that demand from gamers and developers alike when it kicks off a consumer headset sometime down the road, causing them to relent (if only just).
Granted, Vision Pro isnât yet the sort of device youâll take out to the park to catch a random Zubat or Rattataâitâs very much an indoor device that Apple envisions youâll use to sit down and watch a virtual TV screen or stand up in place to have an immersive chat with a work colleague. But as an opening gambit, Appleâs initial pitch of Vision Pro has been fairly telling of its strategy for XR.
In the âone more thingâ bit of the WWDC keynote, Apple lauded Vision Proâs AR capabilities thanks to its color passthrough cameras, impressively responsive UI, and, from our hands-on with the headset, rock-solid hand-tracking. The company focused almost entirely on the work and lifestyle benefits of AR, and much less on the comparatively more closed-off fully immersed capabilities of virtual reality.
Image courtesy Apple
Considering just how much time and effort Apple has spent talking about AR, you may be surprised to find out Vision Pro can actually play VR games. After all, like Meta Quest Pro or the upcoming Quest 3, itâs basically a VR headset with passthrough camerasâwhat weâd call a mixed reality headset. In fact, the headset is already confirmed to support one of VRâs most prominent social VR games.
Instead, Vision Pro is focusing on eye-tracking and hand-tracking as primary input methods, with support for traditional peripherals like keyboards and mice and gamepads filling in the gaps for work and traditional flatscreen gaming. This means many VR developers looking to target Vision Pro will need to pare down input schemes to refocus on hand-tracking, or create games from the ground-up that donât rely on the standard triggers, grip buttons, sticks, and half-dozen buttons.
Still, many VR games simply wonât translate without controllers, which above all provide important haptic feedback and a bevy of sticks and buttons for more complex inputs. Not only that, Vision Proâs room-scale VR gaming chops are hobbled by a guardian limit of 10 feet by 10 feet (3m Ă 3m)âif the player moves any further, the VR experience will fade away, returning to the headsetâs default AR view. Thereâs no such limit for AR apps, putting VR more or less into a virtual corner.
Denny Unger, CEO of pioneering VR studio Cloudhead Games, nails it on the head in a recent guest article, saying that Vision Pro âappears to be a VR headset pretending not to be a VR headset.â
Appleâs Chronically Late Adoption
Without speculating too far about into its XR ambitions, it appears Apple is turning somewhat of a new leaf with Vision Pro. The company is reportedly departing from tradition by creating a dedicated Vision Products Group (VPG), which is tasked with spearheading XR product development. Apple typically distributes its product development efforts across more general departments, such as hardware, software, design, services, etc, instead of sectionalizing hardware development into individual product teams, like Mac, Watch, iPad, iPhone, etc.
Not only that, but the company is also publicly accepting applications for development kits of the headset and hosting a handful of âdeveloper labsâ around the world so that developer can get their hands and heads into the device ahead of time. Itâs a decidedly different tactic than what we usually see from Apple.
The companyâs wider strategy still seems to be in play however. Apple traditionally enters markets where it believes it can make a significant impact and actually own something, making it oftentimes not the first, but in many cases, the most important Big Tech company to validate an emerging market. The paradox here is Apple is actually early to AR, but late to VR. Deemphasizing the now fairly mature VR in favor of potentially creating a stronger foundation for its future AR devices makes a certain amount of sense coming from Apple.
Meanwhile, Apple is reportedly preparing a more consumer-focused follow-up to Vision Pro that will hopefully cost less than a high mileage, but still serviceable 2008 Honda Civic. Whenever Apple pitches that cheaper Vision headset to everyday people, theyâll likely need more entertainment-focused experiences, including fully immersive VR experiences with VR controllers.
Image courtesy Apple
And while Apple still isnât positioning Vision Pro as a fully-fledged VR headset, that doesnât mean it wonât relent in the future like it does with many crowd-pleasing features on iOS that in many cases donât appear until years after theyâve been available on Android. In classic Apple style, it could offhandedly announce a pair of slick and ergonomic VR controllers as a pricey accessory during any of its annual product updates, and of course pretend itâs some great home-grown achievement.
Another big reason Apple may eventually decide to un-hobble a future Vision headset is its strong hold on app revenue. Appleâs XR headsets are on the same path as its iOS devices, which means the company captures a slice of revenue from every app you buy on iPhone, iPad and Apple TV. Unlike Mac, which by all accounts is a second-class citizen for gaming, iOS devices seem to be getting their act together. Kind of.
In some ways the company has only just fully embraced gaming on iOS with the launch of Apple Arcade in 2019, which serves up a curated collection of high-quality games on iOS and Apple TV without any ads or in-app purchases. Still, itâs pretty clear Apple doesnât have big gaming ambitionsâit doesnât hoover up game publishers or studios like Meta or Microsoft tend toâso if it does unharness Visionâs VR capabilities, it may do so without the same raison virtuelle dâĂȘtre as Meta or ByteDance (the latter being the TikTok parent company that also owns the Pico XR platform).
Provided Apple can secure the same hefty market share with future Vision headsets as it does with iPhone today though, which is around 30%, it may be more inclined to stay competitive with more VR-forward companies. But it isnât emphasizing VR now, or even really competing against anyone, which may be a safer bet as it ventures into some truly unknown territory. Once the ball gets rolling though, the Cupertino tech giant will have less and less excuse to not toss out a pair of VR controllers and remove some of the arbitrary restrictions itâs imposed.
When that might happen, we donât know, but it does sound awfully Apple-like to sit on much wanted features and eventually release them with a flick of the wrist.
Smilegate announced that the Crossfire universeâs first VR game, Crossfire: Sierra Squad, is coming to PSVR 2 and SteamVR headsets next month.
Launching on August 29th, Crossfire: Sierra Squad promises both a 13-mission solo campaign and a number of co-op modes, which includes 50 squad campaign missions for both single and two-player co-op, and a Horde Mode for up to four-player co-op.
The studio says there are 39 types of weapons at your disposal, including pistols, rifles, grenades and sniper riflesâmore than enough ways to dispatch the gameâs 17 different types of enemies.
Hereâs how Smilegate describes the action:
In Crossfire: Sierra Squad, you are the leader of an elite paramilitary fireteam within the Global Risk organization. As the story narrative will explain to you in-game, during your mission you will unexpectedly tangle with the rival Black List organization and find out that there is something very big at play which calls for your expertise. Battle a variety of crafty enemies in a relentless search for the truth, and prove why you were selected as the intrepid leader of the most feared special unit in existence â Sierra Squad.
You can now wishlist Crossfire: Siera Squad on PSVR 2 and Steam. When the game launches next month, it will be priced at $30.
The 2023 FIFA Womenâs World Cup is on â and celebrations arenât limited to the physical world. A number of innovative activations on Snapchat ensure that fans everywhere can feel like a part of the action.
Snapâs 2023 FIFA Womenâs World Cup Lenses
While AR activations can be fun, they donât often add much real value for people actually following the sport. Snapâs USWNT (the US Womenâs National Team) Team Tracker Lens uses brand new tech and classic Snapchat style to display real-time team and player information. Another lens can be used to preview Stories augmented with content from the U.S. Soccer App.
Curious about other teams to follow? A lens created with FIFAâs âFancestryâ quiz helps fans follow new teams based on a brief personality survey â with a unique digital jersey representing your âFancestry.â
Whatever team (or teams) you choose to support during 2023 FIFA Womenâs World Cup, you can show your colors with the Across the Globe Lens with a different selfie lens for every team.
Or, show your support for womenâs sports in general with the TOGETHXR Lens. And, of course, all of the teams have their own stickers and bitmoji fashions to further customize your communications.
âSnapchat is honored to be a part of the 2023 World Cup,â Snapâs Strategic Partnerships Sports Lead Emma Wakely said in a release. âThrough immersive content coverage, creator collaborations, and new, innovative AR experiences, Snapchatters will have an unparalleled opportunity to express their football fandom like never before.â
Snapchatâs Playbook
Snapâs strategy for the package is an interesting play. For the most part, the engagements are more stylized than those employed last year for the (Mens) World Cup Snapchat celebrations. However, these interactions are more ⊠interactive. Though, Snapâs Live Garment Transfer Technology does make a comeback for an AR jersey activation similar to the one we saw last year.
Perhaps the most in-depth lens in terms of interactivity is the USWNT Team Lens. This activation is most like a multi-player partnership through which Snap augmented the Superbowl last year â but that app was only for fans physically at the Superbowl. And what is AR for if not for expanding experiences to people who canât be at one given physical location?
Donât forget, the Snap team isnât the only one making lenses. To find all lenses, including those made through partnerships or by independent creators, tap the explore tab on the Snapchat camera screen and search âWomenâs World Cupâ or â2023 FIFA Womenâs World Cup.â
Celebrate the Big Games
This has just been a look at Snapchatâs AR integrations around the 2023 FIFA Womenâs World Cup. There are also special Stories, Cameo content, Spotlight Challenges, Snap Map features, and more. So pick your team and go crazy.
Among Us VR (2022), the standalone VR version of the hit party game, just got a new map called Polus Point.
Just in time for mass heat waves comes Polus Point, a decidedly chilly (and sometimes hot) addition to Among Us VR.
The studios say the new map includes over 50% more tasks, including a contraption called âTHE CLAWâ, nine new rooms for hidden objects, new kill and ejection animations, and snowstorms. And lava?
Among Us VR is also getting exclusive hat releases, with five free hats launching with the Polus Point map alongside a new âPolus Point Picksâ hat pack DLC, which contains five paid hats.
Youâll find the new map on all supported platforms, including Quest 2 and SteamVR headsets.
Thereâs no word yet on when to expect the PSVR 2 version of the game, with creators Innersloth and Schell Games staying mum on the subject for now.
Metaâs latest quarterly results show its Reality Labs XR division is again reporting an operating loss just south of $4 billion. Now, for its Q2 2023 results, the company says Reality Labsâ revenue was down by 39% due to lower Quest 2 sales, making for the worst quarterly performance in the past two years.
Meta has been clear about its plan to spend aggressively on XR over the next several years, so itâs again no surprise weâre seeing operating budgets in the billions with only a fraction of that coming back in via Quest 2 hardware and software sales.
In fact, Quest 2 sales play such an important role in Reality Labsâ quarterly performance that Meta has reported $276 million in revenue in Q2 2023, or 39% lower than last quarter.
Image created using data courtesy Meta
Meta reported that Reality Labs expenses were $4 billion, which was up 23% since the same period last year. The company says this was due to lapping a reduction in Reality Labs loss reserves and growth in employee-related costs, bringing the XR divisionâs operating loss to $3.7 billion for Q2 2023.
Meta says it expects continued operating losses in the future, saying losses will likely âincrease meaningfully year-over-year due to our ongoing product development efforts in AR/VR and our investments to further scale our ecosystem.â
Meanwhile, the company is preparing to launch Quest 3 in late 2023, the $500 follow-up headset that integrates many of Quest Proâs mixed reality capabilities. Metaâs $1,000 Quest Pro has also reportedly been discontinued, however (without substantiating that particular claim) Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth implied earlier this month that a Quest Pro 2 isnât off the table.
Appleâs Vision Pro is also looming, set to launch sometime next year. As rising tides lift all boats, hype around Vision Pro could actually benefit Meta in the short term. Appleâs $3,500 XR headset has attracted new attention to the space, however Metaâs consumer-friendly pricing and extensive game catalogue for Quest 3 may be well positioned this holiday to capitalize on that Apple-adjacent cachet.
