SteamVR Game

Open World Cyberpunk Adventure ‘LOW-FI’ is Coming to PSVR 2 This Year

blair renaud, HTC Vive Game, iris vr, low-fi, low-fi release date, lowfi, News, Oculus Rift Game, PSVR Game, SteamVR Game, Valve Index Game, VR Game, Windows Mixed Reality Games / Ryan Harris / March 10, 2023

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.

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VR Adventure ‘Firmament’ Releasing March 18th, From Studio Behind ‘Myst’ & ‘Riven’

cyan, cyan inc, cyan worlds, firmament, firmament kickstarter, firmament vr, HTC Vive Game, News, Oculus Rift Game, PSVR Game, puzzle game, SteamVR Game, Valve Index Game, VR Game, vr puzzle, vr puzzle game, Windows Mixed Reality Games / Mike M. / March 9, 2023

Cyan, the studio behind iconic puzzle adventure games Myst (1993) and Riven (1997), garnered their fair share of success with their April 2019 Kickstarter campaign, which sought to bring to life their next VR-compatible title, Firmament. Now Cyan says the long-delayed game finally has a release date: March 18th.

According to a Kickstarter backer update, Firmament is now set to launch on March 18th, coming to PC VR headsets including Meta Rift and Rift S, HTC Vive, Valve Index, and Meta Quest headsets through Quest Link. A flatscreen mode is also available for play on MacOS and Windows.

The studio says it’s also set to target PSVR 2, PS4 and PS5 at some point “down the line.”

Two months ago the studio released an extended look at some of the game’s preproduction footage, which we’ve included below:

Once targeting a July 2020 launch, Firmament has slipped again and is now targeting a Q1 2023 launch date. Here’s that statement is full; we’ve also included a 9-minute look at the work-in-progress game, embedded below this update:

“As a result of discussions with key team member and staff, Cyan is making the important decision to move the launch of Firmament to Q1 2023. The game is very closed to complete, and the development is rapidly approaching its final phase.

To our Backers, Fans, and Friends, thank you for your continuing patience and support. Your enthusiasm and excitement lifts our spirits daily. We cannot wait to share launch day news with you in (early!) 2023.”

Original Article (July 13th, 2020): Firmament’s launch window seemed a bit tight from the onset, however from an experienced studio that had previously created its latest VR-compatible puzzle adventure game Obduction to both PC VR and PSVR, it seemed not all together impossible.

The reality of creating a game however is admittedly “often quite a bit messier,” the studio says in a recent Kickstarter update.

Here’s a bit of Cyan’s reasoning behind the delay, which is said to push the game’s release date possibly to 2022.

With that in mind, Firmament’s Estimated Delivery date of July 2020 was- as it turns out- a wildly optimistic one. We know some of you had your heart’s set on playing Firmament this summer, and we’re genuinely sorry that you’re not going to be able to play it yet! We’re really bummed about that too!

Although there is no Release Date to announce today, we can tell you a couple things with some level of certainty: Firmament is not coming in 2020. And unless the stars align (which we all know happens rarely in game development), it is unlikely that Firmament will be coming in 2021.

In the studio’s own defense, Cyan says it has “always been about shipping things when they’re ready to be shipped, not picking a date and then trying to shoehorn the game into the box in an artificially limited amount of time.”

Firmament is said to be “something bigger than a studio [of Cyan’s] size would ordinarily be able to produce,” and that it will include a “richer and more substantial story” than was previously planned.

Whatever you thought of Obduction (and its initially uneasy technical performance on both PC VR headsets and PSVR) Cyan has a good track record of delivering, leaving the only real concern to when Firmament will arrive, and not if.

Food for thought: a prospective 2022 release of Firmament is slated to happen well within the lifecycle of next-gen consoles and PC hardware—and possibly VR hardware as well—so there’s no telling what technical advances the studio will need to adopt along the way if it’s looking to significantly lengthen the development roadmap. I guess we’ll see in a few years. As it is, Firmament is targeting PC, SteamVR headsets, macOS, and PS4 & PSVR.

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