Oculus Reveals Launch Titles, 30 Games Plus 'Lucky's Tale' Bundled

By Kevin Carbotte
published

The Oculus Rift will finally launch at the end of the month after nearly four years of anticipation, and we finally know more about the games it will launch with.

Oculus lifted the veil of secrecy about its launch game lineup today, and you might just be surprised about how much content will be available on day one. The company announced 30 titles that will be ready to play on March 28 when the first early adopters get their hands on the Rift HMD.

Of these games, you’ll find a pretty impressive variety of content. The Rift comes bundled with Playful’s Lucky’s Tale, a third person platformer reminiscent of games like Banjo-Kazooie, with its colorful environments and cartoonish art style. Pre-ordered hardware also comes with CCP’s EVE Valkyrie, a multiplayer first person space dogfighting game with AAA quality graphics and incredibly fast paced action.

More Games To Choose From

The lineup includes Elite: Dangerous, another space multiplayer space game and a AAA title that has been available for PC for over a year. This game is also available on the HTC Vive. Project Cars is another notable AAA title making its way to VR. The highly acclaimed racing game is available on PC and console, and there has been experimental VR support for months on the DK2. The game will be ready for the Rift on March 28.

Palmer Luckey recently praised Chronos from Gunfire Games (hands on here) for having “more depth than almost any other VR game at this time.” Rift early adopters will be able to experience that “depth” for themselves on the hardware’s launch day. We had a chance to briefly try the game at CES. It’s a third person adventure game, and the short time I spent with it, left me wanting more. The game is incredibly unnerving, but I expect it will be quite a lot of fun.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
GameDeveloperComfort LevelPrice
ADR1FTThree One ZeroIntense$19.99
Adventure Time: Magic Man's Head GamesTurbo ButtonModerate$4.99
AirMech: CommandCarbon GamesComfortable$39.99
Albino LullabyApe LawIntense$9.99
Audio ArenaSkydone StudiosComfortable$9.99
BlazeRushTargem GamesmoderateN/A
ChronosGunfire GamesComfortable$49.99
DarknetE McNielComfortable$9.99
Dead SecretRobot InvaderComfortable$14.99
Defense Grid 2Hidden Path EntertainmentComfortable$29.99
DreadhallsWhite Door GamesIntense$9.99
Elite: DangerousFrontier DevelopmentsIntense$59.99
Esper 2CoatsinkComfortable$9.99
EVE GunjackCCP GamesModerate$9.99
EVE Valkyrei Founder's PackCCP GamesIntense$59.99
Fly to KUMACOLOPLComfortable$14.99
Herobound SCGunfire GamesComfortable$9.99
Keep Talking and Nobody ExplodesSteel Crate GamesComfortable$14.99
Lucky's TalePlayfulModerate(bundled)
Omega AgentFireproof GamesIntense$14.99
Pinball FX2 VRZen StudiosComfortable$14.99
Project CarsSlight Mad Studiosintense$49.99
Radial GTammeka GamesIntense$24.99
RoomsHandMade GamesComfortable$14.99
Shufflepuck Cantina Deluxe VRAgharta StudioComfortable$9.99
Smashing the BattleOne-Man StudiosModerate$19.99
Vanishing of Ethan CarterThe AtronautsIntenseN/A
Vektron RevengeLudovic TexierModerate$9.99
VR Tennis OnlineCOLOPLModerate$24.99
WindlandsPsytec Games LtdIntense$19.99

Several games that are being released on the Rift already have a Gear VR counterpart. Gunfire Games’ second entry to the release catalog is called Herobound Spirit Champion. This game is a third person action/adventure game where you play as “a little goblin dude” trying to save the world.

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is another example of a game coming from GearVR to Oculus, though this one was built for DK2 (and it can be played on a monitor). Keep Talking is a first person bomb defuser game that requires at least two players. One person sees the bomb, and the other one uses a guidebook to find the instructions to defuse it. It can be very hectic, but it’s an awful lot of fun with a group of people.

Oculus Home

In addition to the 30-title launch lineup, Oculus has revealed the new Oculus Home interface you’ll interact with to manage your content. Oculus Home (think Steam for Oculus) is where you’ll find all of the games available for purchase, and where your content library will end up.

The storefront appears to hover in the air, Minority Report-style, in front of you in a virtual 3D environment. Oculus Home will also feature a friends list so you can keep in touch with all your VR-loving buddies.

You’ll also be able to access your Rift content through a desktop app, so you won’t have to be in VR to launch a VR game, and the app is customizable to make it easier to find the content you want.

Oculus said that Oculus Home has evolved significantly since the Gear VR launch and will evolve further. The company plans to update the storefront on a monthly basis.

More Coming Soon

Now that the major VR HMD releases are almost here, it’s refreshing to finally see the launch games lineup, and it’s exciting to see this much content available day one. Oculus also noted that there’s much more coming. The company said it has been working with thousands of developers, and that there are more than 100 more games coming out before the end of the year.

Follow Kevin Carbotte @pumcypuhoy. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

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. 

12 Comments Comment from the forums
  • rwguessjr
    why have a oculus home I have allready put significant investment into steam as my online gaming source. does this mean i can only play games on oculus's home and will not be able to use games i allready own. i.e. wow or SC. this will be a deciding factor in wether i get one of these.
    Reply
  • kcarbotte
    17671045 said:
    why have a oculus home I have allready put significant investment into steam as my online gaming source. does this mean i can only play games on oculus's home and will not be able to use games i allready own. i.e. wow or SC. this will be a deciding factor in wether i get one of these.

    Well, for starters, a VR HMD does not replace your monitor. Games designed for standard displays need special drivers to be converted to work in VR.
    A game like Wow, or Starcraft would not work in VR though, as far as I'm aware, becasue Blizzard doesn't allow external modifyers on its games.

    You can play games on a virtual big screen wiht a VR headset. Oculus does not currentlty support Steam games natively this way, but there may be some 3rd part software down the line.
    You can play Xbox One games this away though.

    If you want to play tour Steam library that way, you'll want to look at a Vive instead. Valve announced a mode that allows you to play your entire Steam catalogue on a VR bigscreen.

    Proper VR games have different needs though. Valve created SteamVR, which is similar to Big Picture, and Oculus has Home.
    Reply
  • Achoo22
    All of this proprietary software garbage is a gigantic red flag. My strong advice to anyone foolish enough to install anything from Facebook on their system: firewall the hell out of it and do not ever, ever, run any of it with administrative privs.
    Reply
  • Realist9
    As for AAA titles...

    Hopefully, the Rift does not have the 'gets people sick' problem the Vive has with Elite Dangerous. Although users in the ED forums mention they have to turn settings down to get the DK2 to work w/o nausea (probably by keeping the framerate up). Same idea with the 'screen door' effect...hopefully not on the release version.

    For Project Cars, you should note the Oculus release version "highlights the limited pixel density of the Rift, and even with anti-aliasing you still get pop-in and jaggies as a result."

    sources:
    - sick; article comments here at Toms by Kevin
    - turn settings down; from Elite Dangerous "VR discussion and support"
    - poor AA/jaggies and pop in; AnandTech article 16 Mar 2016

    Reply
  • fixxxer113
    As for AAA titles...

    Hopefully, the Rift does not have the 'gets people sick' problem the Vive has with Elite Dangerous. Although users in the ED forums mention they have to turn settings down to get the DK2 to work w/o nausea (probably by keeping the framerate up). Same idea with the 'screen door' effect...hopefully not on the release version.

    For Project Cars, you should note the Oculus release version "highlights the limited pixel density of the Rift, and even with anti-aliasing you still get pop-in and jaggies as a result."

    sources:
    - sick; article comments here at Toms by Kevin
    - turn settings down; from Elite Dangerous "VR discussion and support"
    - poor AA/jaggies and pop in; AnandTech article 16 Mar 2016

    I don't think - at least with current technology - that you can completely eliminate the "gets people sick" problem. The latency between head/eye/hand movement and the HMD's screen will eventually be eliminated, but you are still left with the problem of your brain. Your eyes ca be fooled to think that they are moving through the game's environment, but your brain has other inputs that tell it that your body is not moving or experiencing any acceleration/deceleration. That dissonance between inputs is what causes discomfort and nausea.

    You can decrease these effects, by improving the experience and the immersion as much as possible. A good example is VR treadmills like the Virtuix Omni. It's more natural for your brain to experience a first-person shooter environment with the body in an upright position and walking, instead of sitting on a chair or couch while your eyes "think" you are walking.

    Even with these improvements though, some people's brains might still be too sensitive to these differences from the real world. In the FPS example, even with a Virtuix Omni and a very good HMD, you still have other issues. For instance, there is no actual acceleration or deceleration when you walk/run/stop and your brain can tell. Even your character's height might throw your brain off, as it sees the ground in a different distance than what it's been used to for years.

    Maybe in the future we'll see VR systems that tap into our brain and fool it on other levels, not just optical. Or who knows, maybe we're just not used to it yet and future generations, with VR available at birth, might adapt and overcome those issues.
    Reply
  • cats_Paw
    Its a new technology with little content that looks rather poor right now.
    Ill wait and see later.

    There are far too many unanswered questions at the current stage.
    Reply
  • targetdrone
    All of this proprietary software garbage is a gigantic red flag. My strong advice to anyone foolish enough to install anything from Facebook on their system: firewall the hell out of it and do not ever, ever, run any of it with administrative privs.

    Windows 10 is 87 times worse.
    Reply
  • fixxxer113

    Maybe in the future we'll see VR systems that tap into our brain and fool it on other levels, not just optical. Or who knows, maybe we're just not used to it yet and future generations, with VR available at birth, might adapt and overcome those issues.

    Well, It seems that Samsung is already ahead of me :P

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3494981/Samsung-developing-headphones-make-feel-like-moving-Entrim-4D-stimulates-ear-nerves-make-VR-real.html
    Reply
  • kcarbotte
    As for AAA titles...

    Hopefully, the Rift does not have the 'gets people sick' problem the Vive has with Elite Dangerous. Although users in the ED forums mention they have to turn settings down to get the DK2 to work w/o nausea (probably by keeping the framerate up). Same idea with the 'screen door' effect...hopefully not on the release version.

    For Project Cars, you should note the Oculus release version "highlights the limited pixel density of the Rift, and even with anti-aliasing you still get pop-in and jaggies as a result."

    sources:
    - sick; article comments here at Toms by Kevin
    - turn settings down; from Elite Dangerous "VR discussion and support"
    - poor AA/jaggies and pop in; AnandTech article 16 Mar 2016

    Any comments I have made in the past regarding how Project Cars performs is irrelevant. I have not yet played the game on Retail hardware, nor have I played it with the latest build.



    I don't think - at least with current technology - that you can completely eliminate the "gets people sick" problem. The latency between head/eye/hand movement and the HMD's screen will eventually be eliminated, but you are still left with the problem of your brain. Your eyes ca be fooled to think that they are moving through the game's environment, but your brain has other inputs that tell it that your body is not moving or experiencing any acceleration/deceleration. That dissonance between inputs is what causes discomfort and nausea.

    You can decrease these effects, by improving the experience and the immersion as much as possible. A good example is VR treadmills like the Virtuix Omni. It's more natural for your brain to experience a first-person shooter environment with the body in an upright position and walking, instead of sitting on a chair or couch while your eyes "think" you are walking.

    Even with these improvements though, some people's brains might still be too sensitive to these differences from the real world. In the FPS example, even with a Virtuix Omni and a very good HMD, you still have other issues. For instance, there is no actual acceleration or deceleration when you walk/run/stop and your brain can tell. Even your character's height might throw your brain off, as it sees the ground in a different distance than what it's been used to for years.

    Maybe in the future we'll see VR systems that tap into our brain and fool it on other levels, not just optical. Or who knows, maybe we're just not used to it yet and future generations, with VR available at birth, might adapt and overcome those issues.

    latency is not a problem. hand and head tracking are one to one. Any lag is imperceptabble from my experiences.

    There certainly are games that don't work well for VR. Your example of moving in an FPS is a great one. Moving with a joystick while sitting can be very uncomfortabble for many people. That's one of the reasons you won't see a Call of Duty like game on Rift, at least not for a while.

    Acceleration is definitely a problem in VR, but that's why it's generally not done. Most developers have figured out that constant motion is fine, but acceleration and deceleration are not. Seated settings like being in a cockpit tend to cheat that in a way, likely because we're used to riding in vehicles and planes, and not feeling a lot of the sensory input you'd expect from something like riding a bike, where you are exposed to the elements.

    The Omni does let you accelerate and decelerate, and it's not uncomfortable to do that, because you have to physically move faster to move faster in a game. Transition between two speeds is not a problem on the Omni.

    Character height is a little weird when its a dramatic change, but your mind gets used to it fairly quickly. In the case of the Vive, it can tell where you are standing, and how tall you are, so you are represented in the virtual space as you are in real life. The Rift may or may not do this. I have no idea yet.

    Reply
  • Realist9
    Any comments I have made in the past regarding how Project Cars performs is irrelevant. I have not yet played the game on Retail hardware, nor have I played it with the latest build.
    - Kevin

    Kevin, I was actually referring to comments about Elite, but your response above could be applicable to Elite as well, so I guess it's better to wait and see info from the release version.

    Speaking of that sort of situation, it seems like VR is something you really need to try a bit before you buy. Are they going to place a demo set in some major stores (like Best Buy, Fry's, etc) where people can try it for 5 or 10 minutes on a game of their choice (that supports VR)? Or do they expect people to buy/try/return?
    Reply