The XR Week Peek (2023.06.12): Ubisoft announces Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR, and much more!

Exactly one week ago, Apple announced the Apple Vision Pro, its first XR headset. This has been a piece of massive news, which most probably has started a new course for VR. And for this reason, I’m preparing a dedicated special roundup of posts to read just dedicated to it that I will publish in the next 2 days. Today, I want to turn the spotlight on the news that have been obscured because of the hype about the Vision Pro. It will be a shorter and maybe not-so-exciting newsletter, but I will be happy of having shed some light on other interesting pieces of news from this week in XR 🙂
 
 Stay tuned for my roundup about the Apple Vision Pro coming in the next few days!

Top news of the week

Apple releases the Apple Vision Pro

I promised a roundup not focusing that much on the Vision Pro, and I will keep my word. But it’s impossible not to mention at all what has been a piece of massive news for the whole ecosystem.
 
 I’m leaving you below a selection of good posts that can give you an overview of this new headset launched by Apple. It’s expensive ($3500), it’s not bending the laws of physics like some people were thinking, and it has shown no exciting use case. But it’s a solid device that does a few things and does them very well. Especially the UX is incredibly polished and all the reviewers say that using it becomes immediately second nature. As Ben Lang said, Apple put solid foundations for its XR ecosystem. And now the ecosystem can only grow, thanks to the applications released by the developers, plus the fact that over the years Apple is going to release cheaper headsets. Because what matters is not the present, but the future: Apple’s commitment to XR is a long-term game, and while this headset will never become mainstream, probably the Apple Vision 3 (or 4) will.
 
 Welcome Apple, we were waiting for you.

More info (Apple launches Vision Pro Headset — Road To VR)
More info (Apple launchs Vision Pro Headset — Upload VR)
More info (Apple Vision Pro Specifications)
More info (Ben Lang’s hands-on the device)
More info (My editorial on the Vision Pro, its pros, its cons, its vision)

Other relevant news

Ubisoft announces Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR

After a long wait, finally, Ubisoft has announced Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR during today’s Ubisoft Forward event. But unluckily, we haven’t got many details about the game.
 
 We don’t know the price and we don’t know the release date. We even don’t know how it really looks, because the trailer is a CGI one. So we miss all the most important details. And Ubisoft hasn’t even dedicated to it much time: it just showed the trailer, said a few words, and then spent a lot of time describing the mobile-based Assassin’s Creed Mirage. This doesn’t pose very well for the interest that Ubisoft has in this game.
 
 Anyway, we did not come from this event with our hands completely empty. We have now a (very cool) trailer, that shows that you can embody one of three assassins (Ezio, Kassandra, and Connor), and fight with physical movement as if you were in the game. You can also wander around historically-accurate open maps. We know that the game is coming during this year’s holiday season, so it can be a great Christmas gift. And you can already preorder it on the Meta store.
 
 Assassin’s Creed VR was one of the most awaited games by the XR community. I’m happy to see that it has finally been announced and that it is coming at the end of the year. I think this is a game that has the potential to draw a few more people into the VR ecosystem.

More info (My tweet where I share the news)
More info (Ubisoft announces Assassin’s Creed VR — Upload VR)
More info (Official website)

Quest 3 features better passthrough and room scanning

This week we had two non-news about Quest 3.
 
 The first one is about its passthrough vision: Mark Zuckerberg himself confirmed that is much better than the one of Quest Pro. Most probably it won’t be on par with the one of Apple, though.
 
 The second one is that the device will be able to scan your room. We already knew it: it has a depth sensor, so of course it can scan the environment around you and reconstruct a mesh of it. But now we have some leaked videos by Samulia that show how the process happens. I’m personally convinced that Quest 3 will auto-configure its guardian like the PSVR 2, but let’s see.
 
 I’m curious to see how this device will be…

More info (Quest 3’s mixed reality)
More info (Quest 3’s leaked guardian — Upload VR)
More info (Quest 3’s leaked room scanning videos)

News worth a mention

Oppo announces its MR glasses

As I’ve reported in my roundup about AWE, Oppo has announced OPPO MR Glass Developer Edition, which is its first mixed reality headset. The device reminds a bit of a Quest 2 and it is one of the first MR headsets to support Snapdragon Spaces. It also features a heartbeat sensor, even if it is not clear where it is installed.
 
 OPPO MR Glass will be available as a Snapdragon Spaces developer kit in China, distributed in the second half of 2023.

More info

HTC VIVE launches VIVE Business+

HTC is one of the leading companies in enterprise virtual reality. And this week, it strengthened its position by launching another B2B interesting service: VIVE Business+. Vive Business+ is a solution that companies can use to configure their fleet of XR headsets, perform bulk installs of an XR application, define the user roles, perform device monitoring, and so on. This is the B2B VR solution that many companies were looking for.

More info

Meta to show passthrough improvements at SIGGRAPH

Passthrough mixed reality is one of the big trends of this year. And Meta, which has an enormous R&D department, is working on improving its internal technology in this sense. That’s why at SIGGRAPH in August is presenting a new prototype headset that doesn’t do the reprojection of passthrough, enabling perspective-correct VR passthrough with good image quality, low latency, and thin form factor. It will be very interesting to see this in action!

More info

Beat Saber tops PSVR 2 charts

It was nice to see some new games on top of the PSVR 2 charts. But now that Beat Saber has been launched there, it has immediately come back to the first position as the most downloaded experience. Next on the list are Walkabout Mini Golf and Red Matter 2. It seems that the rankings are going to become similar to the ones of the past…

More info

Discover the VR experiences from Tribeca

Tribeca Festival is coming, and we have started seeing what are the amazing storytelling experiences that will be available there. This week I’ve found news about two of them:

• “Maya: The Birth”, which promises a “uniquely female” superhero story,
• “Monstrorama VR”, a mixed-reality monster museum featuring Andy Serkis

More info (Maya: The Birth)
More info (Monstrorama VR)

Some content announcements

• ‘Escape Simulator’ is Bringing Its 8-player Co-op Escape Rooms to VR “soon”
• Sairento VR’s follow-up Hellsweeper VR is coming to Quest, PSVR 2, and SteamVR headsets on September 21st, 2023
• Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Hung Parliament, one of first VR experiences to use live-action FMV with professional theatre actors, is coming to Quest on June, 15th
• Bartender VR Simulator has been released on Quest 2 for $19.99
• Upload VR has interviewed the team behind Dungeon Full Dive, one of the experiences that aim at recreating DnD 5e For VR

More info (Escape Simulator VR)
More info (Hellsweeper)
More info (Sherlock Holmes)
More info (Bartender VR)
More info (Dungeon Full Dive)

Some content reviews

• Firmament is a game with astonishing visuals, but its puzzles are frustrating and the game requires a too-powerful computer
• Synapse looks good, but especially it is amazing how it can offer “Telekinetics” powers via eye tracking

More info (Firmament)
More info (Synapse)

Other news

CCS Insight forecasts more headsets sold in 2023 than 2022

Learn more

Meta Quest now implements a new system keyboard that developers can add to their XR game

Learn more

News from partners (and friends)

Discover XRSI rebranding

X Reality Safety Initiative (XRSI) Rebrands to X Reality Safety Intelligence. The acronym will stay the same exactly as its attention towards safety and privacy in immersive realities.
Learn more

Submit your artwork to the Beyond the Frame festival

The upcoming 4th edition of the Beyond the Frame festival will take place in Tokyo from the 25th to the 29th October. And its organizers are thrilled to announce their new Open Call for XR projects!
 
 They say this “is a unique chance to showcase their immersive creations and make a lasting impact sharing them with the Japanese XR industry and audience”. Projects can be submitted using the link below
Learn more

Some XR fun

Sometimes VR memes are reaaaaally weird
Funny link

Some games are really like that lol
Funny link

Donate for good

Like last week, also this week in this final paragraph I won’t ask you to donate for my blog, but to the poor people that in Ukraine are facing the consequences of the war and the ones that in Italy have been victims of the flood. I will leave you the link to donate for these two causes below.
 
 Let me take a moment before to thank anyway all my Patreon donors for the support they give to me:

• Alex Gonzalez VR
• DeoVR
• GenVR
• Eduardo Siman
• Jonn Fredericks
• Jean-Marc Duyckaerts
• Reynaldo T Zabala
• Richard Penny
• Terry xR. Schussler
• Ilias Kapouranis
• Paolo Leoncini
• Immersive.international
• Nikk Mitchell and the great FXG team
• Jake Rubin
• Alexis Huille
• Raghu Bathina
• Chris Koomen
• Cognitive3D
• Wisear (Yacine Achiakh)
• Jennifer Granger
• Jason Moore
• Steve Biggs
• Julio Cesar Bolivar
• Jan Schroeder
• Kai Curtis
• Francesco Strada
• Sikaar Keita
• Ramin Assadollahi
• Juan Sotelo
• Andrew Sheldon
• Chris Madsen
• Horacio Torrendell
• Andrew Deutsch
• Fabien Benetou
• Tatiana Kartashova
• Marco “BeyondTheCastle” Arena
• Eloi Gerard
• Adam Boyd
• Jeremy Dalton
• Joel Ward
• Alex P
• Lynn Eades
• Donald P
• Casie Lane
• Catherine Henry
• Qcreator
• Ristband (Anne McKinnon & Roman Rappak)
• Stephen Robnett
• KaihatsuJai
• Sb
• Enrico Poli
• Vooiage Technologies
• Caroline
• Liam James O’Malley
• Hillary Charnas
• Wil Stevens
• Brian Peiris
• Francesco Salizzoni
• Dimo Pepelyashev
• Alan Smithson
• Steve R
• Brentwahn
• Pieter Siekerman
• Matt Cool
• Simplex
• Gregory F Gorsuch
• Matias Nassi

And now here you are the links to donate:

Support The Red Cross in Ukraine
Support the populations affected by the flood in Italy

(Header image by Ubisoft)