'Arizona Sunshine' To Go Beyond Rift, Vive; Will Reach PSVR In June (Updated)

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By Kevin Carbotte
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Update, 5/12/2017, 8:48am PT: Vertigo Games reached out to inform us that the PSVR version of Arizona Sunshine also supports the Dual Shock controller.

Original article published 5/11/2017, 1:04pm PT.

Vertigo Games’ highly acclaimed zombie apocalypse VR game is ambling its way from the computer room to the living room. Arizona Sunshine is coming to PSVR in June.

Vertigo Games and Jaywalker Entertainment launched Arizona Sunshine in December 2016 following a lengthy development period. Upon launch, the developer met with some backlash because it limited part of the game to Intel Core i7 owners. Vertigo Games quickly changed its tune and patched the game to remove the CPU restriction. Shortly thereafter, Arizona Sunshine went on to become one of the most successful VR titles available. Unfortunately for PSVR owners, you had to own a Rift or a Vive to take part in the gun-toting, zombie-slaying adventure through the Arizona desert.

The two developers haven’t yet revealed the final PSVR release date, but we now know the game is coming in June. We also now know that the PSVR owners will have an option to enhance the experience beyond what you would get with the average Rift or Vive system.

The PSVR version of Arizona Sunshine will ship with full support for the PSVR Aim controller, which debuts next week with the launch of Impulse Gear's Farpoint. The Aim controller is a motion tracked gun peripheral that works with the PSVR’s camera tracking system and features a thumbstick so you can move around in-game. Arizona Sunshine is a perfect game for a gun peripheral, and in fact, Vertigo Games embraced the concept early. Shortly after Arizona Sunshine launched, a small company called Ilium launched a Kickstarter campaign for a VR rifle peripheral called Athena; Vertigo Games was a partner. Anyone who pre-purchased an Athena rifle would receive their choice of Nest from Invrse Studios or Arizona Sunshine, and both games would offer full support for the Athena Rifle. It’s nice to see the work that Vertigo Games did to support rifle controllers is still being put to good use.

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If you don’t own a PSVR Aim controller and don’t have plans to pick one up, you can still play Arizona Sunshine on PSVR. The game features full support for the PlayStation Move motion controllers. The game does not support gamepad input, though, so if you bought a PSVR core bundle without the motion controllers, you won't be able to play. Vertigo Games also added support for the PlayStation Dual Shock 4 controller.

Arizona Sunshine features a two-player co-operative mode, and on PCs it’s possible to play with friends across the Rift and Vive platforms. Vertigo Games and Jaywalker Entertainment didn’t give any indication that the PSVR version would support cross-platform play, but it does include co-operative play over the PlayStation Network.

Kevin Carbotte

 Kevin Carbotte is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware who primarily covers VR and AR hardware. He has been writing for us for more than four years. 

2 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Jeff Fx
    This new controller seems to just be a Move Controller built into a gun, with all the tracking shortcomings inherent in Move. I could snap my controllers into a gun years ago, but Move tracking made the shooting games unplayable on a big screen. Move was a huge disappointment.
    Reply
  • Sakkura
    It's nice that it supports the new controller, which may still be a little more accurate from how you hold it. But yeah, the devs will probably need to account for the less accurate tracking when balancing the PSVR version. Wouldn't be much fun to run out of ammo because you weren't doing headshots because the controller tracking wasn't accurate enough.
    Reply