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The 5 biggest announcements from UploadVR’s 2019 E3 VR showcase

The 5 biggest announcements from UploadVR’s 2019 E3 VR showcase

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After the Fall screenshot
Vertigo Games

This was the first year of the UploadVR’s E3 virtual reality showcase, and although we’ve probably seen bigger individual VR announcements at E3, the show was packed with trailers and game reveals. We’ll see a lot of these games get full releases over the next year, but for now, here’s some of the most exciting stuff.

Arizona Sunshine’s creators are back with After the Fall

Arizona Sunshine is one of VR’s best first-person shooters, and at E3, developer Vertigo Games announced a new co-op shooter called After the Fall. The game is set in an alternate 2005 amid the ruins of post-apocalyptic Los Angeles, and it’s designed for up to four players who will explore the hostile landscape, craft gear, and take on hordes of enemies. The game will be released in 2020, but interested players can sign up for an early beta here.

Budget Cuts 2 is a bigger sequel to a great VR stealth game

The original Budget Cuts combined a classic stealth game with Portal-like mechanics. You had to escape the offices of an evil corporation that was replacing its workers with robots, evading the robots and getting around locked doors by opening wormholes. Budget Cuts 2: Mission Insolvencydeveloped by original Budget Cuts studio Neat Corporation and Apex Construct creators Fast Travel Games — looks like it offers a lot of the same elements in a bigger package. It’s supposed to be focused more on open-ended infiltration missions, and it features the player trying to take down TransCorp. It’ll be released later this year.

Imagine Dragons is coming to Beat Saber today

Beat Saber is one of the few VR games to earn a substantial mainstream fandom, and today, it’s getting a $12.99 song pack with 10 Imagine Dragons songs. The pack was teased in the lead-up to E3, and it’s available today for PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest, and SteamVR. While it’s not the first add-on song pack, it’s the first to feature a truly ubiquitous band.

Pistol Whip is a rhythm shooter that makes you feel like John Wick

Pistol Whip is a fast-moving action / rhythm game from Cloudhead, the studio that worked with Valve on its Portal-themed Aperture Hand Labs. It’s described as a mashup of Beat Saber, Superhot VR, and John Wick, wrapped in a stylish neon package. It’s coming out for major VR platforms later this year.

Acron is a game about being a magical tree, and it looks adorable

Asymmetrical multiplayer games — where one person wears a VR headset and other people play with or against them — have always been a great VR genre. Acron: Attack of the Squirrels is the latest project from Bait! developer Resolution, and it follows in that tradition. One person wears a headset and becomes a magical tree, while other people can use iOS and Android devices to play squirrels that are trying to steal the tree’s acorns. It’s supposed to come out this summer for the Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift.