ICYMI This Week: Smalland, Arizona Sunshine 2, MADiSON VR & More
Missed this week’s biggest VR games and hardware stories? Here’s our latest news roundup.
With VR hardware, Meta confirmed Quest 3 has higher retention than previous headsets and is reportedly still planning to bring a cheaper Quest 3 to China via Tencent. Apple’s WWDC24 promises a showcase of visionOS enhancements, a new Apple Pen reportedly supports Vision Pro, iPhone 15 Pro can now capture higher quality spatial videos, while Apple’s headset is coming to China. Owlchemy Labs also told us they feel “vindicated” by Apple Vision Pro’s approach to VR.
Across VR gaming, Oculus Publishing Ignition is a new funding initiative for Quest 3 developers. Flat2VR Studios is making licensed VR ports of flat games, Cyan’s Riven remake reaches VR this year, Eye of the Temple received a Quest 3 upgrade and Metal: Hellsinger VR is official. That was accompanied by news for No Man’s Sky, Hellsweeper VR, Grokit, RAGER, Some Assembly Required, Expansion and Toy Monsters.
You may have seen that we spent last week attending GDC 2024, going hands-on with Laser Dance, VRIDER, Anarchitects, Runaways, Underworld Overseer, the Angry Birds MR Mode and more. There’s still plenty more to come with our GDC coverage, so be sure to stay tuned.
You can find our remaining coverage here but for everything else, here’s our top five VR news stories we originally missed:
Smalland: Survive The Wilds Reclaims The Overland In A New VR Adventure
Smalland: Survive the Wilds VR is a new single-player VR adventure arriving on Quest this spring. Playing as a Smallfolk in a giant world, this story sees the Smallfolk try to reclaim the Overland after the Giants disappear. “Explore, scavenge, craft and build as you fight to gain a foothold in this hostile new world,” says Merge Games on the Quest Store page.
Vampire The Masquerade: Justice Is Now Available On Pico 4
Initially launched on Quest & PSVR 2 last year before February’s SteamVR release, Vampire: The Masquerade – Justice received a surprise launch on Pico 4 this week. Available with a 30% launch discount, you can find out more about the VR stealth game in our review below:
Tony Mowbray
MADiSON VR Receives Last Minute Delay To Add 90Hz Support
MADiSON VR has received another delay. Previously scheduled for a March 29 launch, publisher Perp Games pushed this back at the last minute to support 90Hz instead of 60/120Hz with reprojection. Detailing the technical reasons behind this decision in a blog post, it’s now aiming to launch in “a few weeks.”
Arizona Sunshine 2 Revives Trailer Park Horde Map From Original Game
Arizona Sunshine 2 added the Trailer Park Horde Map as the second part of its post-launch “Season of Chaos” roadmap, which you may recall previously appeared as a free update in 2020 for the original game. Two further Horde maps – Undead Valley and Old Mines, are promised for the next major updates in April and May.
PlayStation Spring Sale Includes Numerous PSVR 2 Discounts
A new PlayStation Store Spring Sale is currently live with around 50 PSVR 2 games on sale. While discounts vary between regions, US players can find sales for Horizon Call of the Mountain (34%), Gran Turismo 7 (43%), No Man’s Sky (50%), Pistol Whip (30%), Jurassic World Aftermath Collection (60%), Hello Neighbor: Search and Rescue (50%), Vertigo 2 (20%), Hubris (40%) and more.
Other Updates
Looking for more VR news stories? Here’s everything else we’ve seen recently.
- Block Buster received a major multiplayer update on Quest, adding two new modes alongside achievements, enhanced leaderboards and a balancing adjustment for Kaiju special attacks.
- STRIDE: Fates launched the free Concrete Jungle DLC on Quest that continues the main storyline.
- Gran Turismo 7 adds three news cars, three world circuit events and an extra café menu in update 1.44.
- Meta confirmed it won’t be making ‘air controller’ support available anytime soon on Quest.
- VRChat released a developer update and opened submissions for Venice Immersive 2024.
- Resolution Games teased the introduction of ranked battles in Demeo Battles.
- Following on from Ultrawings 2 last month, Genotype is the second VR game to accidentally launch early on PSVR 2.
- Hunt Together introduces a new laboratory map for Elimination Mode, new hunter tools and an easter event in update 1.4.
- Pico is holding an Easter Mega Sale with over 150 items discounted.
- Magic Leap launched a companion mobile app for capturing third-person MR experiences.
- Darksword: Battle Eternity received new DLC and a free update.
- Sugar Mess Jigsaw Puzzles is a free 3D jigsaw puzzle game on Quest App Lab with hand-tracking support.
- Kaiju Decode – super multiverse MR – is a new Quest App Lab game with a free demo based on the anime of the same name, following on from 2021’s VR film ‘first contact.’
If you’ve got an update for a VR game we should know about for this article or future updates, you can use our contact page or email [email protected] with details.
