Hello VR ladies and gents.
As you may know, Chary and I traveled to the US to attend Oculus Connect 6.
Over there, we had the opportunity to try out the things that were announced!
And there were some things announced that we think are very exciting for the industry,
some not so much.
In this video, we will give you our first impressions of everything we tried there.
During OC6, we also met up with a bunch of VR developers and other creators.
There will be another video highlighting the things we did at OC6 but were not Oculus announcements.
The video you are watching now will only be about the Oculus announcements.
Don't forget to subscribe if you haven't yet to never miss a video!
Also, full disclosure.
Facebook sponsored our trip to OC6.
However, we were not obligated to make a video or anything.
But now, let's go back to OC6.
Let's start with a couple of game release announcements.
Vader Immortal episode 2 is now available to buy for 10 US dollars or 10 euros on the
Oculus Quest and Rift.
So if you liked the first episode, then you should check out this one too, because this
one is focused on Force Power!
The first episode’s full playthrough took about 40 min, and this sequel has a playtime
of about 30 min.
I haven’t tried this episode yet myself, but I played through the first and I loved
it.
Asgard's Wrath and Stormland also finally got release dates!
Asgard's Wrath will release on October 10, and Stormland will release on November 14.
We already showed demo gameplay footage on the channel before which I'll link below.
What we haven't shown before was the multiplayer gameplay, which we tried at OC6 and it was
fun!
We will post a video on this later.
We also finally got some news about Respawns Entertainment's VR game.
You might know these devs from Apex Legends.
Up until now, we didn't know what they had up their sleeves for VR, but now we do.
They announced they are making Medal of Honor: Above And Beyond.
A world war II-themed first-person shooter.
So we will immediately move on to my first impressions of the game!
I've tried a short demo where I went through a tutorial that taught me how to use the weapons.
And there were several weapons: handguns, grenades, and rifles with scopes.
The weapons each have their realistic reload mechanics, as well as the grenades, require
you to remove the pins yourself.
You store and equip weapons either on your belt or over your shoulders.
I was able to carry three weapons, a grenade, and healing injections in one go.
I then also tried out one other game mode where I had to infiltrate an enemies base
in a snowy mountain.
I had a rifle with a scope at my disposal.
When I used the scope, my field of view went black around the edges forcing me to look
through the scope which was kind of disorienting.
This is the only weapon where I felt like this could be improved though.
The gunfire battles, in general, felt polished.
The AI felt smart, and shooting felt satisfying.
I think this game could be exciting for those into first-person shooters.
Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is set to release in 2020.
More to come on this game on our channel later.
Another game announcement was that a version of Boneworks is coming on the Oculus Quest.
Not much other information was given yet.
But this is interesting because that game has one of the most impressive physics interaction
mechanics we have seen so far.
And the last game announcement we will mention in this video is Facebook's Horizon.
This is going to be a social VR game.
Is this going to be the Ready Player One Oasis that we have been waiting for?
Well, honestly, I am not sure about that, I think it’ll be more of a start.
Horizon will be a place where people can explore, connect, and create themselves.
It is a world where anything is possible.
Examples of stuff to do are things like weekly painting sessions with friends who like art,
or if you're more of the adventurous type, there are other things to do.
For example, explore an island together.
The stuff that you can do definitely sounds diverse.
There will be a central public hub where people can gather and explore the experiences by
entering portals.
The most interesting thing about this is that there will be a world-building creator mode
where anyone like you and me can start creating experiences.
This can even be as intricate as creating a game.
And looking at the trailer, it looks like you can create with others online by drag
and dropping objects.
This is like making a VR game without the need for coding.
This does sound like a huge undertaking to make though and will only be sustainable if
a lot of people will play it.
Facebook has made social VR apps before, like Facebook Spaces, but because those apps didn’t
really take off, I am setting my expectations low until we see actual gameplay.
The Closed Beta will come next year.
On to something else.
There was an Augmented Reality tease before the event, so we were curious about what they
are building.
And during the keynote, Facebook announced that they are building AR glasses.
However, they are still early stages, so this will take a couple more years.
They did show us their vision of wanting to connect people using AR, and if they can make
this vision come true, we are all in.
As this is still early stages, we are not jumping on the hype train just yet, but man,
I hope we will still be alive to see our lives seamlessly integrated with AR and VR to improve
it.
So while you are watching this video, please leave a like if you found it interesting so
far.
Now, I kind of saved the best for last.
I know most of you are curious about these two announcements and our impressions on it.
The Oculus Link and Oculus hand tracking.
We tried both out during the show, so here are our first impressions.
Let's start with the Oculus Link.
For those that don't know about it yet.
The Oculus Link is a software update that allows you to connect a cable from the Oculus
Quest to a PC that can run VR games.
With it, you can play PC VR games on your Oculus Quest easily.
Steam games and Rift games will be available to you if you have a VR ready PC, a compatible
USB 3 cable and an Oculus Quest.
Oculus will be releasing their own optical fiber USB-C cable later this year that you
can buy.
At the event, there were two booth setups for the Link.
In one, you were able to play Asgard's Wrath and in the other Stormland on the Oculus Quest.
In both booths, there was a 5 meter (about 16 foot) USB-C to USB-C cable.
I played the Asgard's Wrath demo, where I could walk into a bar and talk to NPCs and
interact with objects.
It was a demo that showcased the storyline and questing system.
There wasn't much battling going on, unfortunately, so I didn't see any fast movements in-game,
but the graphics looked right, and everything was completely playable.
I didn't notice any latency or artifacts, even when moving my head or controllers fast
and I enjoyed the darker colors of the OLED displays.
Of course, you’ll have the Quest tracking system, and a slightly lower refresh rate
and some people will notice that.
But Rift S refresh rate of 80 Hz compared with the Quest of 72 Hz doesn’t make a lot
of difference for me.
I did notice some compression.
Before the game, I was in the Rift Home environment.
The video quality was slightly less there than what I am used to when using the Rift
S. In the game, it was hard to notice, but the game was also pretty dark, so maybe that
is the reason I didn't notice it much.
John Carmack has said in the keynote of day 2 that the video that is sent through the
cable to the Quest is resampled one extra time and so the quality is compressed and
not the exact same experience as the Rift S. I am guessing that that is what I saw.
We will have to try the Link out some more to give you a better comparison.
The Oculus Link software is set to arrive in November.
And I think this is an interesting move by Facebook.
It looks like they are shifting focus on standalone VR.
It would make sense since Mark Zuckerberg has said, and I quote: "We are selling the
Oculus Quest as fast as we can make them."
I guess they want to capitalize on the Quest’s popularity and get the most out of it.
And already, even our viewers have commented that they took the plunge now to get the Oculus
Quest with this newly added capability.
Why would people still buy the Rift S now if it's the same price?
I am not sure.
We wouldn't recommend the Rift S over the Oculus Quest anymore if the Rift S stays the
same price.
I mean, the Rift S has some advantages, like better out-of-the-box comfort, a display with
better subpixel arrangement, etc. but I feel these advantages are only minor now in comparison
with what you can do with the Oculus Quest.
What do you all feel about all this?
Definitely let us know in the comments.
Let's move on to our impressions on the also newly announced, Oculus Hand Tracking!
For those that don't know yet.
Here is a quick intro.
During OC6, Oculus announced they are adding hand tracking to the Oculus Quest, and you
won't need to buy anything extra for it.
They are going to use the inside-out tracking cameras that are already on the headset to
track your hands.
This means that once released, you probably only need to update your handset's software
to be able to use it.
And during the event, we were able to try out one of the demos that had there.
The demo I played was a room-scale Wizard's experience.
I was standing in the middle of a room where a cauldron was in front of me, and everywhere
else were tables with magical stuff on it that was interactive.
Like a couple of floating crystals that I could touch that would make them glow and
make sounds.
I could pinch a dropper to drop fluids in the cauldron, mixing a magical potion that
could transform my hands.
At one point my hands transformed into Octopus tentacles.
That was a strange feeling.
But this game gave a good impression on what the hand tracking was like.
I was able to see my fingers tracked individually and pretty accurately.
I could make many hand gestures like you can see me do here.
There are a couple of limitations, though.
Moving my hands over each other caused them to disappear.
Moving my hands close to each other would cause it to disappear too.
I also noticed that the tracking seems slower than that of the controllers.
If I moved my hands too fast, I could see a slight latency.
The game was completely playable though; for example I was able to defeat little evil eyeballs
that were flying around by walking towards one and poking it for example.
It is worth noting that all of this is in the current state of its software.
This could all be improved softwarematically.
Right now, you can't track the controllers at the same time as your hands.
But this could happen in a future update, which could be great because then you would
be able to enhance controller tracking precision.
And playing the game was fun.
I liked it, but I have my doubts if hand tracking is going to be something gamers will get to
use often.
Hand tracking is going to be great for business solutions, healthcare or educational apps,
and experiences.
It could be great for watching movies, instead of using a button to play a 360 movie, you
could, instead, use your fingers to press play.
Hand tracking would be easier to understand by first time VR users or people that aren't
really into button pressing or gaming.
But as we have seen with the hand tracking module Leap Motion, it worked great, but it
never took off in the gaming community because not many devs added support for it.
But okay, you did have to buy an extra module there.
With the Quest you don’t.
But VR devs already have so many different headsets and controllers that they need to
take into account, will they be adding hand tracking to their games too?
Right now, it doesn't seem sustainable to me, at least not in the gaming industry.
So I don't want to get your hopes up, I mean, hand tracking is awesome!!
But there won't be a lot for you to do with it when it launches.
Maybe if you could use the controller and hand tracking systems simultaneously that
it will happen?
I am so hoping to see some devs add this new ability though.
I mean, what if there were a VR controller belt, you would be able to put your controllers
on your hip.
Use hand tracking to do whatever you need, and then quickly grab your controllers again.
Imagine that with a shooter game or a wizards game.
Store that gun on your hip and then have your hands free to do something else.
That would add to the immersion.
Do you have any cool ideas for hand tracking?
Drop them below!
Maybe someone will make it.
And if you are a VR dev, let us know if you would add hand tracking to your game once
it's out?
We would love to know!
So we hope you enjoyed this video!
Another video is coming up about the best VR things we tried at OC6 but weren't Oculus
announcements. That's an exciting video.
So stay tuned for that video very soon.
A special thanks goes to artArmin, our Right-Hand Patron, and a special shout out goes to his
Patreon page.
Everyone, see you all in the next video.
And as always VR on!