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GDC 2017: What to Expect From VR at VRDC and GDC

GDC 2017: What to Expect From VR at VRDC and GDC

The 2017 Game Developers Conference (GDC) and accompanying Virtual Reality Developers Conference (VRDC) are right around the corner. Just like last year, they will run essentially concurrently again in and around the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA. Panels and discussions kick off Monday 2/27 through Friday 3/3, with the Expo hall itself opening from Wednesday 3/1 until the end of Friday 3/3.

Whether you’re attending the show or just scoping out the news and events from home, we’ve got you covered. If you’re attending, then you should absolutely check out these 12 talks that we’ve selected as some of the most important VR-focused discussions of the entire week, as well as this massive list directly from GDC. But beyond that, what about the news? What about the announcements? The demos? The tech? The games?

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There’s a lot going on at GDC every year, but with VR’s first big consumer year in the books last year, 2017 should be bigger than ever for our industry. The Oculus Rift and Touch, HTC Vive, PlayStation VR (PSVR), Google Daydream, Samsung Gear VR, and so many other headsets are all available for purchase. It’s a crazy time to be alive. But if 2016 was VR’s debut year, then 2017 needs to be the year of VR content.

We’ve put together this article to run down what we think are the biggest things to keep an eye out for coming out of VRDC and GDC this year. We might be wrong on some points and we might miss some surprises that we could have never predicted, but let this serve as a preview into where our heads are at heading into next week for the major providers and other segments of the VR industry.

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What to Expect from Oculus

Oculus always has a big showing at GDC and they will again this year, especially since they were mostly quiet at CES. Last year they had a big Media Day before GDC officially started and this year is no different. On Sunday 2/26, members of the press (UploadVR included) will attend a full-day long set of demos of all the latest upcoming games, but we can’t talk about them until Tuesday 2/28. Last time, GDC was just before the launch of the Rift itself, so we had a good idea of what we were getting, but this year the event is mostly shrouded in mystery.

At Oculus Connect 3 late last year, we had the chance to try out a ton of Oculus Touch titles ahead of the device’s launch and a few of those games still aren’t out yet. This means we fully expect to get hands-on time with titles such as Killing Floor: Incursion, Robo Recall, Arktika.1, Lone Echo singleplayer and multiplayer, as well as many others. The VR company recently promised “months of high-profile rollouts” and that likely starts at GDC 2017.

On the hardware side, we don’t expect much news. The Rift CV1 will likely continue its run with mobile VR picking up some fun titles here and there, such as SingSpace from Harmonix. We saw Santa Cruz at OC3, but it probably won’t be at GDC.

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What to Expect from HTC

CES was a big show for HTC. They showed off the Vive Tracker accessory, a new headstrap and audio solution, and solidified excitement for the TPCAST Wireless Accessory. As a result, GDC will likely be a much more reserved show for the company.

There will be new content from Vive Studios on display, as well as developers demoing their projects from their booth, but you won’t see a massive day-long Media Extravaganza like Oculus is doing the day before the show starts.

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What to Expect from Valve

Valve is likely in a similar boat to HTC. We know they are working on brand new base stations, shown in the image above, as well as experimental controllers they teased at Steam Dev Days last year. We also know the company is working on three VR titles right this very second. We do not, however, expect to learn much more about those things just yet.

If they decide to turn back the curtain on those projects this year, that will likely happen at E3 or a dedicated event of its own. It would certainly be a wonderful surprise next week and Valve does have its own booth space, along with developers showing games out of their area too, but if we had to put money it, we would bet against new Valve-developed titles being on display at GDC this year.

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What to Expect from Sony

The long and short of it is that you shouldn’t expect much from Sony at GDC this year. They have some impressive-sounding NPC technology that will be showcased a bit, but there likely will not be new game announcements or flashy demos that we haven’t heard about or played already.

Last year Sony had a massive GDC presence, announcing the price and release window of the PSVR headset, as well as demoing a litany of titles to members of the press. We tried out a ton of them at the event, but we don’t expect anything like that this year — all that stuff is out or is coming soon. Resident Evil 7 just launched in VR and other titles like Farpoint are on the horizon.

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What to Expect from Microsoft

With 2017 now in full swing and Microsoft moving their conference to a full day earlier at E3, we can expect that Scorpio and its VR functionality are likely being saved for that show too. HoloLens continues to gain traction in the development scene, meaning some demos will likely be on the show floor, but we likely won’t see any huge news on that front.

The biggest thing that we expect to learn more about is the impressive Windows Holographic platform that was first announced at the Intel Developer Forum last year. It’s slated to arrive on Windows 10 PCs later in 2017. Also, we know Microsoft is partnering with several manufacturers on VR headsets of its own, so we may learn more about some of those as well.

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What to Expect from Epic

Robo Recall. It’s one of the most-anticipated releases of the year and is expected to arrive sometime very soon, for free, exclusive on Oculus Home for Rift and Touch users. We’ve been nothing short of blown away each and every time we’ve seen or talked about the game, so you should expect, at the very least, a release date for this exciting shooter.

Additionally, Unreal Engine is one of the premier VR development ecosystems and new advancements on the technology side of the company will likely be announced as well. Don’t be surprised if they’re working on other stuff, too, seeing as how Robo Recall is just a beefed up and overhauled version of Bullet Train. We’re still waiting for an Unreal Tournament or Gears of War-caliber game from Tim Sweeney and company.

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What to Expect from Ubisoft

In 2016 Ubisoft quickly emerged as one of the premier publishers of virtual reality games. With Eagle Flight and Werewolves Within all achieving quality launches with full cross-platform multiplayer on PSVR, Rift, and Vive, it’s exciting to think about what they could be cooking up next. Chief among the things we know about is Star Trek: Bridge Crew.

The game was recently hit with another delay, along with the promise of new content, so an updated look at the game with some fresh announcements — or maybe even a brand new VR title in the works — would be awesome news to come out of GDC.

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What to Expect from PC Hardware Companies

GDC is always a big event for companies like Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA, among others, but with CES wrapping less than two months ago, it may not be time for any earth-shattering news to come out from the woodwork just yet.

We’ll likely hear about incremental advancements and new hardware for high-end users that can continue to push systems to new levels, but with the current generation of VR hardware less than a year old, major jumps in fidelity or performance aren’t likely.

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What Else to Expect

Those are the big names to look out for in headlines, but there will be plenty of other stuff going on too. GDC is one of the best conferences to discover indie games that were previously unknown, which is great for us here on the Editorial Team at UploadVR. It’s a great networking event for meeting people in the game industry. There’s more going on than we could possibly know about, so expect to see lots of interviews and hands-on demos from us throughout the next few weeks summarizing our time at the show.

What are you most excited about for GDC and VRDC? What are you expecting?  Let us know in the comments below!

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