Tripwire Interactive is excited to return to Oculus Connect 4 on October 11-12 and will be participating in an exclusive talk discussing their recently released Oculus Touch exclusive action horror title, Killing Floor: Incursion. Key members of the Tripwire team will also be on-hand to introduce brand-new content – a new gameplay mode that is coming to the game in the future as a free update for owners of Killing Floor: Incursion. During the talk, titled Killing Floor to Shattered Ceilings: Leveraging Established IP to Break Into VR, the team will be discussing the challenges and key learnings in bringing their smash-hit Killing Floor franchise to virtual reality.
Show attendees will also get an exclusive chance to play new content coming to Killing Floor: Incursion later this year! The developer will be on the show floor in the “Oculus Anywhere” section with a demo of the upcoming Holdout mode. In Holdout mode players will experience arcade-like, over the top action as they’re dropped into a random location in one of the game maps and tasked to defend that position for as long as possible. Quick thinking and creativity will be required, as players will begin with a pistol and knife and must scavenge better weapons and ammunition to survive against increasingly challenging waves of Zeds.
Oculus Connect 4 2017 Details:
What: Killing Floor: Incursion show floor hands-on demos at Oculus Connect 4
Who: Tripwire Interactive (Creators of the Killing Floor franchise and Killing Floor: Incursion)
When: Wednesday and Thursday, October 11-12, 2017
With Oculus Connect 4 right around the corner I have to deliver the great news that the CatsAndVR OC3 Game Of The Show ARKTIKA.1 is also right around the corner from 4A Games the company best known for developing the critically aclaimed Metro video game franchise.
In ARKTIKA.1, barbaric raiders and mutated cannibals push humanity to the brink during the Great Freeze, a man-made ice age . Survival is far from guaranteed – and only customizable weaponry and tactical thinking stand between you and a very cold grave. From the creators of Metro 2033, Metro: Last Light, and Metro Redux comes a new vision of the apocalypse. ARKTIKA.1 is a highly immersive, action-packed, first-person shooter designed exclusively for Oculus Touch.
STORY & GAMEPLAY
Nearly a century into the future – in the aftermath of a silent apocalypse – Earth has entered a new Ice Age known as the Great Freeze. Only the equatorial regions remain habitable, yet pockets of humanity still manage to survive in small numbers all over the planet. These regions of civilization sit on resource-rich, highly desirable territories to the north and south. As a mercenary hired by Citadel Security, you must protect one of the last colonies in the wastelands of old Russia from violent raiders, marauders, and horrifying creatures. ARKTIKA.1 is powered by the acclaimed 4A Engine and was built from the ground up for Oculus Touch. With breathtaking detail and superior shooting mechanics, ARKTIKA.1 is on a fast course to redefine the scope and graphical fidelity of VR first-person shooters.
KEY FEATURES
* Immersive FPS action with full-body shooting mechanics.
* Engaging combat featuring unique abilities such as touch, dodge and hide.
* Some of the most impressive visuals ever seen in VR, thanks to the 4A Engine.
* Intuitive controls for natural, realistic gameplay.
* Atmospheric settings with a blend of post-apocalyptic and futuristic environments.
* Advanced weapons with plenty of customization choices to suit your personal playstyle.
* Visceral challenge with finely-tuned difficulty balance.
* Deep, immersive storyline.
* Available initially in English, Russian, and Ukrainian.
PRICING & AVAILABILITY
ARKTIKA.1 is set to arrive on October 10 and will be compatible with Oculus Touch. The game can be pre-ordered for $26.99 – 10% off the retail price.
Oculus Store:
https://www.oculus.com/experiences/rift/682000918570174
If you were not able to make Oculus Connect 3 this year here is a Youtube playlist with 32 videos from the event included:
I was able to attend quite a few and some highlights for me include the sessions below. Check them out to really get a great understanding of not only what Oculus and Facebook are doing with VR but how the industry is developing as a whole.
The proliferation of 360 content coupled with the new WebVR standard promises to bring a wave of fresh content to VR. Using familiar tools such as WebGL, three.js, and React, developers can easily create interactive 3D and 360 experiences.
Virtual reality has changed how we create. From games and movies, to experiences and tools-we're just beginning to see what's possible. But what happens when you take traditional artistic methods and transfer them to VR? Learn how Oculus is creating new tools, specifically for Touch, to help more people express themselves.
VR has become a powerful empathy machine. What is it about this new medium that's so effective at connecting humanity? This panel discusses how we can continue to harness the power of VR for positive social change.
Well last week was Oculus Connect 3 and it was a pretty inspirational time for VR. Attending connect as both press and in a biz dev role had me in a position where most of the super exciting news had been reported on. Well I am still going to post about it but I am also going to mention some stuff that I felt fell under the radar. OC3 was actually a very big event for Oculus and Facebook in that they showed that this is not a fad for them and they were bringing the big guns to show. The keynote featured perhaps one of the biggest tech guns of them all, Mark Zuckerberg.
They did not hold back from showing how social Facebook want VR to be with Avatars and social interactivity rooms. I wonder if companies like AltSpaceVR are pretty much f'd right now. How do you compete with Facebook on Social VR? They are bringing VR emojis that will use body language to show emotion in your virtual avatar. Just WOW!
Palmer Luckey was absent from the Oculus Connect 3 Keynote, perhaps due to the controversy surrounding the Oculus founder as a result of the revelation that he had supported a pro-Trump online campaign. In fact it was rumored that Luckey was the one that was originally going to do the Oculus state of the union that Zuckerberg ended up delivering. Despite the controversy I was a bit sad to not see him in his trademark Hawaiian Shirt and flip flops, especially during the reveal of Oculus's high end wireless prototype, Santa Cruz.
But enough about that, if you want more info just check out the recorded Keynote bellow.
I want to talk about some things I felt did not get enough media coverage. Lets start with TheWaveVR. Not only was TheWaveVR crew in attendance, Grimecraft played the OC3 afterparty...with Oculus Touch controllers. This is news because every time I have seen TheWaveVR demoed or showed off it has always been on an HTC Vive. This was the first time I had seen the platform used with Oculus Touch controllers in a public setting.
Something else that went under the radar was the first mass scale public demo of Kingspray VR Graffiti Simulator. I have been hyped for this since May but after releasing a few trailers the team pretty much went dark with no word about development. At OC3 I got a chance to not only try out the game but talk with one of the members of the Infectious Ape development team, Nolan Cunningham. Nolan was super cool but and said I could interview him but did not want to be recorded. Mostly because he is just a cool dev making cool content not frigging Kanye West.
Funny enough publicity may have been what led the Infectious Ape team to go dark for a little bit. Nolan said the team put out some videos in May, had some congratulatory drinks, and then woke up to way more attention than they wanted at the time. The Infectious Ape dropped off the radar and surprisingly showed up at OC3 with a demo for Oculus Touch. Once again another company who started of with a HTC Vive focused product showing up on Rift before an official Vive launch.
I had a chance to speak with High Voltage Software's Chief Creative Officer Eric Nofsinger who stated that between him going from the Keynote to the press area there was a significant increase in new users. I am very happy for the HVS team and look forward to seeing what VR excellence they will bring in the years to come.
Lastly I have to point out the CatsAndVR 9/9 Lives Game Of The Show. ARKTIKA.1 is a highly immersive, action-packed, first-person shooter designed exclusively for Oculus Touch.
Nearly a century in the future, the world has fallen into a new ice age in the aftermath of a silent apocalypse. Only the equatorial regions are still habitable, yet pockets of humanity survive in small numbers all over the planet, hanging onto existence in the resource-rich territories to the north and south-- resources that everyone wants to control.
