The ‘Burnout’ successor from Criterion Games is no more
Electronic Arts’ E3 keynote last week featured an awful lot of soccer (football to the rest of the world), Battlefield and Titanfall, but no word on how developer Criterion’s post-Burnout racing game was coming. That’s because the team is occupying different pastures, according to GameSpot. An EA spokesperson tells the publication that the studio has “moved on from the previous project they’ve spoken about and aren’t pursuing it.” It was teased at E3 2014 during the company’s media briefing and never heard about since.
The “biggest game that Criterion’s ever made” was supposed to combine action racing with helicopters, wing-suits, jet skis and ATVs has been abandoned in favor of Criterion working in that galaxy far, far away. Specifically, co-developing the Battlefront VR game that EA teased back in March, which we now know as Star Wars: Battlefront X-Wing VR Mission. Rolls right off the tongue, doesn’t it? Regardless of how cumbersome the name is, you’ll be able to play it this October — for free assuming you haven’t traded Battlefront off just yet.
Maybe after that ships we could see the team make a long-awaited follow-up to Star Wars: Episode One Racer. If anyone could pull that off, it’d be Criterion.
Via: Polygon
Source: GameSpot
‘No Man’s Sky’ developer ends ‘legal nonsense’ battle over name
There’s no sign that it contributed to the delay, but Hello Games founder Sean Murray said today that after “3 years of secret stupid legal nonsense,” his company’s game can be called No Man’s Sky. They had to settle with trademark owner Sky TV to use the name that it’s very protective of — remember when Microsoft had to rename SkyDrive as OneDrive for the same reason? According to Murray’s tweets, he’s learned a lot about trademark law, and might have a good idea about why Skynet never happened. Seriously though, the highly anticipated game should be on track for its rescheduled release date of August 9th, and we can’t wait to see it procedurally generated universe unfold.
This is the same folks who made Microsoft change Skydrive to Onedrive… so it was pretty serious
— Sean Murray (@NoMansSky) June 17, 2016
Source: Sean Murray (Twitter)
E3 was secretly terrible for the future of virtual reality
After years of being teased with prototypes, developer kits and tech demos, it’s finally happening: Virtual reality is on the cusp of going mainstream. Need evidence? Just look at the events of E3 2016. Over the past week, the first-ever VR headset for a home console got a release date, and we caught a glimpse of virtual reality games from popular franchises like Star Wars, Final Fantasy and Batman. Better still, pretty much every major player in the industry (save for Nintendo) promised to support VR in 2017. On the surface, things are looking amazing. Dig a little deeper, though, and the situation just might be terrible.
Don’t misunderstand me: The VR announcements at E3 are a good indicator that consumer virtual reality is about to go mainstream. In a broad sense, that’s fantastic — but the details are a little worrying. Take Sony, for instance. At E3, we learned that the PlayStation VR headset would be available in October, and that early adopters would have as many as 50 games to choose from by the end of the year. Unfortunately, we also learned that some of those games might make you sick.
Even players who’ve spent countless hours in virtual reality (like our own Jess Conditt) found themselves on the verge of puking while playing Resident Evil 7: Biohazard — and it wasn’t because of the horror game’s gory visuals either. No, it’s that the game is pushing the limits of PlayStation’s hardware, barely managing to run at the minimum 60 frames per second required for PSVR. The problem? Every other VR headset on the market recommends that games run at a minimum of 90 fps.
This wasn’t the game’s fault so much as the headset’s. By having such a low bar for entry, Sony is allowing PlayStation VR developers to create games that flirt with simulator sickness. Resident Evil 7 will probably improve its framerate before hitting the consumer market, but giving it the option not to be better sets a dangerous precedent: If the first console VR games to hit the market make players sick, that could severely damage public perception of virtual reality gaming in general.
Oculus VR’s Palmer Luckey warned about this exact scenario two years ago. “When [VR] arrives, it has to be good,” he told me in 2014. “I think really bad VR is the only thing that can kill off VR.” Maybe that’s why Microsoft is holding off on offering VR to Xbox users until the arrival of its forthcoming Project Scorpio — an upgraded version of its console designed specifically for virtual reality and 4K content. Sony’s own PlayStation Neo will probably help with low framerates too, but Sony has also promised that all future games will run on today’s PS4 hardware. That means it’s possible that consumers will be exposed to nausea-inducing framerates. That’s bad for everyone.
Palmer Luckey may be right about simulator sickness, but Oculus VR isn’t off the hook when it comes to poisoning the well. The company spent much of E3 under fire for supposedly buying out multi-platform virtual reality games in order to make them exclusive to the Oculus Rift. Games like Superhot and Killing Floor: Incursion won’t be available to HTC Vive owners for a limited period of time after release, while others, like Ripcoil and Wilson’s heart, are first-party Oculus titles that will never be available to Vive owners. Nobody blinks when Sony announces an exclusive PlayStation game, but for the Vive and Rift’s platform, this is completely unprecedented. Until now, there was no such thing as a hardware-exclusive PC game.
To be fair, the accusations against Oculus are only partially true: Oculus is buying timed exclusivity in exchange for helping to fund a game’s development. It’s not actually taking games away from Vive owners; it’s just delaying their delivery. Even so, that’s never been done on PC before. Yes, game releases sometimes only sell on Valve’s Steam platform, or EA’s Origin, but players have never been barred from playing them because their PC wasn’t outfitted with a specific brand of component. If a PC was capable of running a game, it was allowed to play a game. That’s not the case with software sold through the Oculus store; if you own any other PC VR headset besides a Rift, you’re out of luck. Even if that same VR title is available on Steam, without hardware restrictions.
This directly contradicts statements made by Oculus’ own founder: “The software we create through Oculus Studios are exclusive to the Oculus platform, not the Rift.” That sounds diplomatic and fair, but the fact of the matter is that everything on the Oculus store lists the either the Rift or GearVR as its “platform.” If you don’t have Oculus hardware, you’re not going to be able to play anything. The only way to play an Oculus game on the Vive is to use a hack that bypasses the hardware check — except that tool, named Revive, was shut down by Oculus for stripping games of their DRM. It was the right business move for Oculus VR, which has a responsibility to protect its assets, but the move clearly drew a line in the sand: play these games on Oculus hardware, or don’t play them at all.
From a business perspective, Oculus has every right to lock the software sold in its store to its own hardware — but the practice is still disappointing. It’s expected that console VR market will fall in line with the console wars that define their marketplace, but that’s not something that’s ever existed in the PC market. By locking all software on the Oculus store to a specific brand of VR headsets, Oculus is declaring a platform war in a space that has been at relative peace for decades. That’s not just bad for the burgeoning VR market; it’s bad for PC gaming in general.
In the broader sense, however, things are still looking bright for the future of consumer VR. A major player in the consumer gaming space is releasing a mainstream headset, and another is building a console just to serve the market. Oculus’ immersive Touch controllers are getting prepped for launch, and there are a ton of great looking games on the horizon — but a fractured PC market and a headset that makes people puke could stifle the growth VR needs to make it big.
Maybe Nintendo is right to sit out of VR’s first consumer generation. Sometimes, the only winning move is not to play.
Follow all the news from E3 2016 here!
‘Here They Lie’ made a nightmare feel safe on PlayStation VR
The advantage that horror video games have over movies is that you’re an active participant in what’s happening; you make what happens onscreen that much scarier. But playing these games in virtual reality instead of a 2D screen is a different proposition: The display is on your face, and in the case of PlayStation VR, costs $400. Ripping the headset off and reflexively throwing it to the ground out of fright is going to be a very expensive mistake. That’s why the team at Tangentlemen is taking a different approach for Here They Lie, a psychological thriller drawing from directors Stanley Kubrick and Terry Gilliam, and films like It Follows and Jacob’s Ladder for inspiration.
In the PlayStation-exclusive Here They Lie, everything moves at a very deliberate pace. From the creepy, masked humanoid creature that shadowed me, to the speed I moved through a subway station and how the hammerhead sharks swam through the air (yeah, the game gets weird), everything moved at a leisurely gait. Unlike Resident Evil VII, which occupied the demo station immediately next to it and gave two of my coworkers severe motion sickness, Here They Lie feels like a native VR game even though it’ll also be playable without a headset.
Art director Rich Smith said that the main difference between a VR game and a traditional one is that the camera can be doing anything. That means developers have to employ periphery elements like spatial audio and lighting design to ensure the player sees exactly what they’re intended to. Then they combine it with the medium’s inherent sense of immersion to amp up the creepy factor. “That’s the way you structure a horror experience that still feels like you have agency, and that you can go anywhere and see anything,” Smith said.
Image credit: Giphy
During my brief demo, a subway station went from dingy and dirty to me wading through an ankle-deep pool of blood toward a door. That immediately drew the infamous tide of blood erupting from the elevators in The Shining to mind. As soon as I reached the door, it shifted ahead, forcing me to reluctantly keep trudging forward. The next time I reached for the doorknob, it shifted again. Earlier, before the blood took over, I found myself walking backward down a flight of stairs to keep an eye on the vaguely human creature following me before it disappeared just out of sight.
“It’s surreal, psychological, existential horror,” Smith commented.
A feeling of present danger pervades everything, and yet nothing was an imminent threat. When the demo ended with the game’s twisted, fiery “big bad” enemy grabbing hold of me, I was extremely unsettled, but not scared. He didn’t jump out of a dark corner; crouching under the low ceiling, he slowly stalked toward me on an unnaturally long pair of legs and I was helpless to stop him. I felt like I was playing through a nightmare.
That comes from the team’s cinematic inspirations. “There’s a kind of dread involved in [It Follows] that’s different than slasher horror,” Smith said. “We’re definitely looking more at the kind of Kubrick vein of horror. What he did in [The Shining] is about building a mood and setting a tone. And when you do hit [players] hard with a scare, it has a little bit more weight.”
What Here They Lie does so well is it builds an atmosphere and feelings of unease by taking recognizable bits from our world (like the hammerhead sharks) and twisting them in ways that don’t add up (like them swimming above my head in a subway tunnel). It creates an overall sense of uncertainty and fear in indirect ways rather than lazily signposting the emotions with piles of rotting bodies or a few jump scares.
Smith said this is a strong, direct inspiration from the 1990 cult movie Jacob’s Ladder.
In that film, Vietnam War veteran Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins) sees all manner of horrific imagery like someone asleep on a train who quickly curls a bloody tail into their trench-coat and a nurse with a set of ghastly, diminutive horns under her uniform hat. During Singer’s time in the war, the government administered a drug that made soldiers hyper-violent and more effective killers. The side effects aren’t pleasant at all.
“You really don’t know what [Jacob’s] deal is. Is it all a hallucination? Is he in hell? Even all the way to the end of the movie, it’s intentionally ambiguous,” Smith said. “That’s what we’re grabbing at as well: The kind of ambiguity where parts of the game are recognizable, where you can see figures and locations you recognize from real life, but they’re not quite right and they don’t stitch together the way you want them to.”
As for why you’re enduring these horrors, Smith was intentionally vague about the game’s overarching story. You’re chasing after a woman in a yellow jacket and you’ll have to rely on other characters to fill in the blanks for you, but that’s about all Smith revealed. How you learn about the protagonist is from other characters, who know more about you than you know yourself. “You’re thrown into this space where, almost [Terry] Gilliam-style, you don’t know where your stance is in relation to the world you’re in,” he revealed.
There are morally ambiguous choices to make regarding these characters, and by story’s end you’re complicit in how the narrative plays out. “The game persistently asks questions, and in the end, it asks the player a particular question based on their experience throughout. That decision is pivotal to the experience.”
Of all the games launching with PlayStation VR this October 13th, Here They Lie looks like the one that’ll take advantage both of the format and the Halloween season.
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Zombie thriller ‘Days Gone’ will need to find its humanity to survive
Lots of people are burnt out on the post-apocalyptic zombie trope, but I’m not one of them. I was fairly insulated from the genre until I played The Last of Us, which quickly became my favorite game of the last five years or so. So the trailer for Days Gone, a new title set in a post-pandemic corner of the northwestern US that was unveiled at Sony’s E3 event, piqued my interest. The attention to detail in the ruined world was excellent, the narration intriguing enough to make me wonder what went down, and the idea of a former motorcycle gang biking around an open-world felt like a concept worth exploring.
But the in-game demo that concluded the Sony event ended up being a bit of a surprising letdown, and I’ve been thinking about why ever since. What was missing from the demo was a human connection — a motivation for bounty hunter and protagonist Deacon St John’s actions beyond simple survival. Without that, the massive horde of “freakers” featured in the gameplay demo might as well kill St John and be done with it.
Obviously, this is just a first look at the game; developer Bend Studios focused on gameplay mechanics and the undeniably impressive and overwhelming nature of the freaker horde over fleshing out more of the story. But I was left with plenty of questions at the end of the demo that’ll need satisfying answers for the game to carve out a space in the crowded zombie apocalypse landscape.
Chief among those is what Days Gone will do that The Last of Us didn’t already do to near-perfection. Representatives from Bend focused on that horde of freakers, noting that they were not “undead” — they’re alive and need food and water just like you do. They’re just more “animalistic” than normal humans, competing for survival in the ruined world. Additionally, the world itself will shape your encounters, with constantly changing weather as well as transitions from day to night affecting how you approach any given scenario. The open-world nature of the game means there are a host of different ways to survive any given scenario, and part of the fun will likely come from the various play styles you can bring to the same encounter.
While we didn’t get to see how the weather and environment affected the experience, the demo did show some interesting concepts as Deacon tried to escape from hundreds of freakers. Funneling the zombies into a “choke point” where they’re all trying to fit through a small space lets you gun them down en masse, and at one point Deacon cuts the rope on a huge stack of logs at a sawmill, temporarily blocking pursuit. You can also grab items from the environment to augment your weapons or build something out of nothing — another conceit that reminded me of the crafting system in The Last of Us, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be used to good effect here.
As impressive as the freaker horde is, though, the big question is how Deacon can possibly survive facing down this many enemies. Bend assured us that not all encounters will play out like this one, but there has to be a way to “win” against such a vast and speedy enemy. It might be more about escape than actually taking down all the freakers. The motorcycle will play a big part in the game, so maybe the goal of the encounter in the demo is to get in, capture or kill your bounty, and get out before being overrun.
The question of motivation still remains. What’s the point of being a bounty hunter in such a world? Who is trading valuable resources to get revenge on someone who might have wronged them? And is the benefit large enough to put yourself in the path of hundreds of freakers? Again, it’s very early for Days Gone and we’ll surely learn more about the circumstances of this particular pandemic as time passes. But fleshing out the universe of Days Gone in a compelling way is going to be crucial to making the game stand out. The reason The Last of Us was so successful wasn’t because of the zombies or the combat — it was because of the beautifully-built world and, most crucially, Joel’s relationship with Ellie.
Fortunately, the Days Gone trailer hinted at some depth to Deacon St John and the trauma he endured trying to survive as the world fell apart. The clip of him in the past, with his blond love interest on the motorcycle with him was right on-the-nose, but nonetheless it helped paint a picture of a man who lost something and is trying to find the will to continue on. Hopefully, Bend can pull of a combo of chaotic, unpredictable open-world adventuring with a story and characters worth caring about.
PlayStation didn’t need a new console at E3
Sony didn’t show a new, more powerful PlayStation because it didn’t have to. But it still had the best show at E3. PlayStation repeated its strategy from last year by focusing on the games. The event was filled with exciting trailers, relaunched classics, release dates for highly anticipated titles and a better look at what’s going to come to its VR headset, which arrives in mere months. (And it was refreshingly short on small talk.) Sony played a smarter game than Microsoft.
Neo, aka the PlayStation 4.5, definitely exists. After the information leaked months earlier, Sony’s Andrew House told the Financial Times that the console would eventually launch with the PS4 still in stores. The new hardware is “intended to sit alongside and complement the standard PS4.” He also warned that it wouldn’t be on display at E3.
The Neo will obviously be more powerful than the existing PlayStation, outputting games and video at 4K (if you have the television for it). The company also insists that all future games will still run on PS4 hardware. The Neo would be for the hard-core gamer while the original remains the (cheaper) console for everyone else.
When it came to PlayStation hardware announcements at E3, the company limited it to a release date for a very important incoming peripheral: The PlayStation VR lands on Oct. 13th. And the company spent plenty of time hyping up a whole raft of games for its new toy.
At its E3 presentation, PlayStation unveiled VR Star Wars, Batman and Resident Evil 7 — as well as a Final Fantasy XV “experience,” whatever that is. It’s an attempt to draw fans of those properties to PSVR, which is important for both Sony and for virtual reality in general.
With an install base of over 40 million PS4s (and a lower price than the sort of PC you’d need for an HTC Vive or Oculus Rift), PSVR has the biggest chance of bringing virtual reality to the masses. Meanwhile, Xbox’s VR strategy hasn’t been spelled out explicitly. Microsoft is working with Oculus (it even had John Carmack onstage during its showcase), and HoloLens remains a completely different kind of product. (That’s not to mention the confusing messaging surrounding its new Xbox consoles.) Where is Xbox VR or VR One? When is it coming? How much will it cost? PS VR starts at $400 and goes on sale in mere months. It’s all known, and it’s coming soon.
The company didn’t need to add more noise by unveiling additional hardware. It would be crazy for Sony to try to pitch an upgraded PS4 at the same time as an accessory that costs as much as one. So it didn’t. In the meantime, PlayStation owners get to play with PSVR and save up for this future console upgrade if they want it. All the while Sony will be watching and learning. Is virtual reality going to be the next big thing? Or will we all be content playing on our 4K TVs? All of that will help shape the PS4 Neo, when it does eventually show itself.
Correction: A previous version of this article marked PSVR’s release date as October 17th, rather than 13th. We apologize for the error.
Watch Sony’s E3 2016 press event in 7 minutes
On the heels of Microsoft’s big press event yesterday, Sony followed with a showcase of its own at E3. While the company didn’t discuss that new console we know is coming, it did reveal that the PS VR would launch this fall. Staying true to form, there was a truckload of game news, ranging from the return of God of War, a new take on Spider-Man and Hideo Kojima’s new title that features Norman Reedus in his birthday suit. There was a ton of virtual reality news as well, including upcoming Resident Evil and Batman entries. You don’t have to take our word for it though, as we’ve condensed the full even down to just 7 minutes.
PS4 players can get ‘Modern Warfare Remastered’ a month early
We’ve known the upcoming Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare title would come bundled with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered for a few weeks now. However, at this week’s E3, Sony and Activision clarified just how the availability of the reboot will go down. If you pre-purchase Infinite Warfare bundle that includes Modern Warfare Remastered for PS4, you’ll receive that latter game a month before the duo is officially released on November 4th. Those packages range from $80 to $120 and the pre-release of Remastered will only feature the campaign. Those 10 multiplayer maps will remain under wraps until the first week of November.
You’ll notice we said “pre-purchase” and not “pre-order.” Unlike the usual scenario where reserve a copy in advance, these Call of Duty bundles require you to pay for them outright in order to get access to the perk of having Remastered on October 5th. And again, the deal is only available on PS4. But hey, at least Xbox and PC gamers still have a battle with Kit Harrington to look forward to.
Source: Polygon
Everything we saw at Sony’s E3 2016 event
Sony revealed the PS VR’s launch date in North America and served up game after game at E3 2016 with barely any pauses in between. We saw trailers and sample gameplay of the new God of War, Insomniac’s take on Spider-Man, Hideo Kojima’s mysterious creation Death Stranding (featuring a naked Norman Reedus), the remastered version of Crash Bandicoot and about a two-second-view of Persona 5. Sony also previewed its upcoming virtual reality titles, including Resident Evil 7 and Batman. We’ve gathered (almost) everything the company revealed this year right here — just browse the gallery below to watch all the trailers and to get a quick look of what you can expect for the PS4 and the PS VR.
Follow all the news from E3 2016 here!
PS VR Aim Controller promises 1:1 precision for virtual shooters
The PlayStation VR headset might not be the only new PS4 accessory you’re grabbing this fall, as Sony unveiled this add-on for use with the game Farpoint. The PS VR Aim Controller picks up where the PlayStation Move shooting attachment and Sharp Shooter left off a few years ago, promising direct 1:1 tracking — wherever you point the controller, your in-game gun points the same way. Farpoint is a PS VR exclusive and developer Impulse Gear is already claiming it enables “things in Farpoint that just are not possible in a standard FPS game.” We’ll hopefully have a chance to judge that on the E3 show floor this week, but first you can check out a trailer below.
Follow all the news from E3 2016 here.
Source: PlayStation.Blog
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