Virtual Reality

As the owner of Oculus VR, Facebook has been driving forward virtual reality development for much of the last year and recently announced a new Facebook social experience through the Rift headset. To head up its new social VR team, Facebook has now hired on ex-EA executive Rachel Franklin, who was …

Virtual Reality has been in consumer hands for months now and while we have seen some impressive titles hit the likes of the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, a lot of games have been shorter, demo-like experiences rather than full-blown titles that can match the scale of games not releasing …

Comics have been a storytelling medium for over a century for a good reason: they're a great at it. As popular as movies based on those characters are though, it could be that virtual reality offers the best way to read about your favourite heroes and villains, by adding motion, …

Although a number of experiences on the PlayStationVR platform will simply see your hands or head disappear into nothing if you step outside of the camera's tracking range, that's not how Rise of the Tomb Raider handles it. In its Blood Ties VR expansion, moving Lara to the edge of …

As the founder of Oculus, we have gotten used to seeing Palmer Luckey at various events over the last few years, talking up the Rift and making new announcements. However, at Oculus Connect 3 this week, Luckey was nowhere to be seen, whether it be on stage or on the …

Oculus VR made a lot of announcements at this year's Connect event, but one of the more exciting demonstrations was for a new wireless prototype called Santa Cruz. As well as untethering itself from a PC, it contains a battery pack, on board processing and self-contained positional tracking, meaning you …

You may have seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, but you haven't seen a sequel to the 1982 tech-noir movie Blade Runner, yet. The in-the-works sequel has now been named as Blade Runner 2049 and as was announced at Oculus Connect, when it debuts in October …

Although experiences like AltVR, Rec Room and Big Screen have been offering ‘multiplayer' experiences where you can hang out and talk with people in virtual reality for a while, Oculus VR now has its own alternative. Called Oculus Avatars, users will be able to hang out in virtual environment, play …

Bullet Train was Epic Games' first forray into developing something for virtual reality and it offered a compact, first person shooter experience for those who were lucky enough to try it. Now at the Oculus Connect event, it's debuted the spiritual sequel to Bullet Train and its first full VR …

Oculus Connect 3 is taking place today and while we are already expecting to hear more about the release of Oculus Touch and future games, it turns out that a bigger announcement could be on the cards as Mark Zuckerburg will be in attendance to reveal ‘something new'. Last night …

Google has officially taken its first step into virtual reality hardware by announcing the Daydream View headset, bringing virtual reality to a wider range of Android smartphones at a lower price compared to the Samsung Gear VR. It still requires a smartphone for display and horsepower duties but at £69, …

Google is expected to be announcing its first Daydream Virtual Reality headset today but it looks like we may have the details a little ahead of time. According to sources, Google's first Daydream headset will be announced today with a low $79 price tag, completely undercutting Samsung's GearVR and potentially …

Sky is looking to tap into the burgeoning virtual reality marketplace with an application of its own. Called Sky VR, the app is compatible with iOS and Android, as well as PC based VR like the Rift (no word on the Vive), will offer 360 degree video and movie content, as …

360 degree video is often the first look people get at “virtual reality,” through Google Cardboard or similar, even if it is nothing of the sort. Lacking any form of interaction, it's completely passive, but perhaps not for much longer. HypeVR's volumetric 3D videos allow users to more in, out …

Right from the get-go, HTC/Valve and Oculus have had fairly different approaches to the virtual reality market. While Oculus has been trying to push things along by paying developers for timed exclusivity deals, Valve has remained against such tactics. Now, HTC has also weighed in on the topic, stating that …

This year's debut of consumer grade virtual reality hardware and software has seen a lot of ‘firsts,' from first educational titles, to first sports titles, to first multiplayer shooters. At the beginning of August however, it gave rise to the first virtual reality music video, created entirely in Google's TiltBrush. …

Samsung has been quick to make a name for itself in the Virtual Reality market with the GearVR headset but the Oculus-powered device does have one drawback- it currently requires a high-end Galaxy Smartphone to run. This has led to whispers of a standalone VR headset from Samsung but it …

The Oculus Rift may have been the first major VR headset to hit the market, but since then it seems that the HTC Vive has found stronger footing in the market, with many preferring the motion controls and room-scale capabilities. Oculus has a plan to combat that, with Oculus Touch, …

The Oculus Rift is now readily available for anyone who wants one, with no more long waits or pre-order queues. However, if you are still on the fence, or don't fancy waiting for shipping and delivery, you can now find the Oculus Rift headset available at UK retail stores. This …

Something that has been iterated upon time and again since the release of the consumer grade VR headsets, is the hardware and cabling needed to build a quick and easy station to demo games to people. Developers and hardware sellers alike may fall in love with Innoactive's VR Suitcase though, …

It looks like Facebook is going to be much more involved with the ongoing Oculus VR experience moving forward, as with the latest 1.8 update for the headset's companion software and store, Facebook integration is possible. If you use it though, prepare for your VR skirts to be lifted. If …

Last week, Sony announced that it would be including a demo disc with all of its PlayStation VR units, giving buyers a chance to try out a bunch of titles before laying down any serious cash on full games. It sounds like a great idea and over in the US, …

Right now if you want to play the best VR titles, you will find yourself tethered to a PC, with bulky wires limiting your movement somewhat. Over the course of 2016, plenty of companies have begun showing off prototype Virtual Reality backpacks at tradeshows, eliminating the problem by having users …

Swedish robotics maker, Gleechi, has shown off some innovative developments in virtual reality, that could see in game hands and fingers grip and grasp objects far more realistically. It's hoped that this would help improve immersion, through letting you grab things in game as you would in the real world. As …

The Oculus Rift is set to get quite the upgrade later this year with the launch of Oculus Touch, the headset's own motion controllers, paving the way for room-scale experiences that will bring the Rift more in-line with what the HTC Vive offers. It's going to be pricey though if …

Supersampling in virtual reality can make a tangible difference to the perceived detail of your VR gaming experience, but depending on the game it can be rather resource intensive. Fortunately someone has made a new launcher just for Steam VR games and it offers a number of per-app features that make …

Samsung has actually been at the forefront of consumer VR for a few years now with the GearVR and for a while, Samsung enjoyed a fairly open playing field. However, other companies are starting to catch on with virtual reality for smartphones, with Google gearing up to launch Daydream VR …

One of the big problems Virtual Reality headset builders are currently trying to tackle is the sheer amount of cables involved. This is especially important for room-scale devices like the HTC Vive, which wants wearers to be moving around a room, rather than staying in one place. However, it looks …

It was going to happen at some point: someone was going to claim to be the first to make a feature length VR movie. While Jesus VR is technically a 360 degree movie, rather than a VR film, it's still set to debut at the Venice Film Festival and will be …

One of the big reasons we opted to recommended the HTC Vive over the Oculus Rift in our testing earlier this year, was because of the wand motion controllers. It turns out though that the Rift could have shipped with them, but Oculus wanted to give developers more time to …