Iris VR, the game studio behind cyberpunk titles TECHNOLUST (2016) and the still in-production game LOW-FI, teased some new footage recently of its Oculus Quest game AGENCY.

Iris VR says Agency is a prequel episode of LOW-FI, the non-linear cyberpunk game which first garnered support through a Kickstarter campaign late last year.

Blair Renaud, studio CEO and Creative Director, released a quick sneak peak of Agency, stating that they’ve just pitched the game to Oculus for approval. Renaud says the game’s tech demo is currently running on Quest 2.

Outside of that, Agency itself is still largely a mystery in terms of gameplay. If it’s anything like LOW-FI though, which is slated to put you in the shoes of a retro-futuristic cop for a non-linear jaunt through a cyberpunk slum, we’re sure to see plenty more tech-noir overtures to Blade Runner (1982) and Robocop (1987), and hopefully a bunch of classic gaming arcade cabinets too.

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As any VR developer can attest, Oculus has set a fairly high bar for content quality on Quest, something Oculus’ Content Ecosystem Director Chris Pruett says in a developer blogpost is “higher than we’ve ever enforced before.”

With the entry of Oculus Quest 2 arriving on October 13th, the company is no doubt looking to expand its content library to satisfy those upgrading from the original 2019 Quest as well as newcomers looking for games that make good use of Quest 2’s higher resolution displays and faster Snapdragon XR2 chipset.

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Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 3,500 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • But… why releasing a new game when he’s still working on the first one?

    • Bumpy

      And this is why I don’t back or buy games until they are done.

      My guess is they are hurting for money and think making a Quest game would be more quick money?

      • Ken

        Player base on Quest is huge, I dont think its a bad idea

        • Bumpy

          Sure, it’ll net them money but it’ll also piss off Lo-Fi backers at the same time.

    • Jim P

      Why can’t a team do more then one project. The developer here has not screwed anyone over. If he is doing it for more money then good. Hope it’s good and I will buy it and hope it makes Low Fi better.

    • Ad

      I think it’s mostly a visual showcase that can be done while they work on the hard stuff, and an extra source of income for the full game. A cash grab would be putting it on quest and he isn’t :P

      • VR5

        Cash grab implies low effort. Porting a full PC class game to mobile hardware isn’t low effort.

        Let’s reserve judgement on this being a cash grab or not for when it releases.

        • Ad

          No, it would be a cash grab because it would be selling out his vision for the game, which is why it isn’t coming to the Quest in his words. Also don’t comment on my comments.

          • VR5

            That would make it a sell out, not a cash grab.

            You’re trying to misrepresent the facts by misusing terms. I reserve the right to point that out.

          • Ad

            Sure, it would be selling out. I use them interchangeably.

          • VR5

            They don’t mean the same:

            Cash grab
            1) A scheme by companies to make poorly made product just for the purpose of making money

            2) Referring to an expensive but poorly made product

            From urbandictionary.

          • Ad

            Porting to Quest would reduce the quality, often of the entire product, so it does apply somewhat.

          • VR5

            This teaser game the dev is making for Quest might turn out a cash grab. If they just dump whatever can easily run on Quest on it and ask for a too high price, it would qualify as a cash grab.

            I don’t think they’ll do that since the point of this is to wet the appetite of users to get a PC so I think the dev will put in a quality effort. But we won’t be able to tell until we see the finished product.

            On the other hand there are Quest ports which are very close to their PC originals and with Quest 2 it seems the number of games to achieve that will grow.

            It’s not a foregone conclusion. You have to look at the actual product to be able to judge it.

    • Jonathan Winters III

      That’s why I decided not to back the Kickstarter. Burned too many times by Kickstarters and Early Access titles.

  • TechPassion

    Lo-Fi developer. you better focus on finishing the game people helped you to make, than creating another thing and wasting time and resources.

  • Very sceptical. LOW-FI is just pretty cyberpunk assets, no game whatsoever in there, marginally more than there is in something like the Aircar tech demo. It’s mostly one guy doing all this, right? Impressive I guess but he’s had people support him for that game. He was also trashing the Quest line during the initial Quest 2 reveal hype and showing all the ugliest programmer-art games on it as proof he can’t port LOW-FI to it. Also saying how Quest 2 will be just the same crap because the higher power will go to the higher resolution and framerate it has over the Quest. But then some people corrected him showing some good looking Quest games like Red Matter and Apex Construct and I guess he thought he could port some of his assets over for a quick buck by promising yet more people a game he’ll not deliver in this decade. While also going full narcisist saying how he’ll show “kids” (other devs) “how to [do good] art” on Quest, going back to the stupid thought all Quest games are ugly which was already proven wrong.

  • Ad

    This is definitely not going to have any of the gameplay of Low Fi, just some world building and nice visuals, the gameplay is TBA