Upcoming PSVR2 game Metro Awakening has been treated to some new screenshots and a developer interview on the PlayStation Blog ahead of its release later this year. A spin-off of the Metro series, it's confirmed the story of Awakening was created by author Dmitry Glukhovsky, who penned the books the franchise is based on. He's come up with a brand new, more personal tale based on a new character for Metro Awakening.
As a result, the combat in the PSVR2 spin-off is a little slower-paced, but there'll still be some action-heavy sequences. "But rest assured for everybody that is a little bit more trigger-happy, there's plenty of classic Metro action in the game," said creative director Martin de Ronde. Game director Samar Louwe then adds: "I think it’s also good to say that the mainline games, of course, have Artyom. After the first game he becomes a Spartan. But in [Metro Awakening], our protagonist is not necessarily a combat expert. So with that in mind, it also fits better to have a bit of a slower pace to the combat versus narrative than the original Metro series."
Elsewhere in the interview, it's revealed franchise developer 4A Games has supplied Vertigo Games with assets from the main series, which are either used directly in Awakening or have inspired new visuals. In terms of making the experience more immersive with a PSVR2 headset strapped to your face, some UI aspects have been translated into in-game actions. Instead of a bullet counter on-screen, you'll need to pull the magazine out of your gun and count how many bullets you have left. Then, to put on your gas mask, you first need to place your backpack on the ground and detach it. "It seems like a really small thing but it is kind of like those subtle elements that make you forget that you’re playing a game when it’s just there."
Are you excited for the PSVR2 spin-off Metro Awakening? Await a final 2024 release date in the comments below.
[source blog.playstation.com]
Comments 38
If I had a PSVR2 I'd be all over this. Love the Metro games.
This and the Alien game - life in the not so old dog yet.
Love Metro, games like this and the Assassin’s Creed one are why I’d quite enjoy VR if it didn’t make me feel violently ill.
This is the VR game I’m really waiting for now
@nessisonett Still feel ill on PSVR2? That sucks, but you should go check your ears, I read an article at the doctor's waitingroom that the balance part of the ear is the main factor for illness in VR.
If that is true, I hope they can make some "medicine" so everyone can enjoy VR.
@Mikey856 When this comes out... and its gonna exist alongside GT7... oh god I'm gonna buy a PSVR2 aren't I?
I f******g love the Metro series! The atmosphere and immersion was second to none and in VR it'll be incredible. It's a hell of a looker for a VR game too.
@hypnotoad Yeah like real dogs, they have that burst of life and then they die.
@Zeke68 interesting. I suffer from single-sided deafness in left ear, always at least moderate to bad tinnitus. Thank god the vertigo has gone away. Maybe I’m glad I’ve waited on the VR thing.
Everything I read and see about this game makes it a day one buy for me. Love the flat games. The atmosphere in vr is going to be great and I love the little touches like having to put on your gas mask.
@Zeke68 Haha, wouldn’t pay that much for PSVR2 considering the first one made me ill!
@hypnotoad
That first screen shot officially got me hyped! Also, don't forget Subside(Glorified Ocean tech romp) releasing Q1 2025. And we've got Max Mustard on the way which should land in a few weeks as well. Hopefully that'll scratch a quarter of that lack of an Astro Bot Rescue Mission+ itch.
And Sony most likely has zero plans on porting over and optimizing that incredible Shark Encounter from PSVR1 World's Ocean Descent to PSVR2. So we'll just have to make due with Subside, for those wanting to get their great white fix on. Can't forget Zombie Army VR & Alien: Rogue Incursion!
@nessisonett I have two friends that played my PSVR1 for like 2 minutes and was green in the face and ready to puke, but they play Beat Saber, GT7, Walking Dead and Resident Evil without problems on the PSVR2. So it must be the updated screens in the headset I guess. Better framerates and so on..
Wait, I thought Sony wasn't supporting this anymore. Someone email the Playstation Blog and take this post down. That guy on Android Central said so. Push Square and every other gaming outlet reported it. This post must be fake, otherwise gaming media is being really misleading for no reason.
@CVCubbington Yeah, as I was sitting waiting for my appointment my eyes fell on that medical magazine on the table. Some swedish research magazine, don't remember the name, but after a few pages I found this article "Why does Virtual Reality" make some people nauseous and some not"
And it was pointing to some "damage" in the middle ear. Was a lot of medical terms I can never repeat, but that was the main point. I found it great they actually seem to make some research about the problem at least.
Maybe I will dust it off for this one....even though I might just have to accept I don't like playing in vr that much...just a pain in arse lol
I've been playing my PSVR2 a surprising amount of late. Synth Riders is simply brilliant
Metro Awakening, Behemoth, Alien Rogue Incursion, Arken Age, Wanderer, Max Mustard, Ghosts of Tabor, Low-Fi(?), Zombie Army VR, Mare, Aces of Thunder.. The 2nd half of 2024 is going to be amazing for PSVR 2, so much bangers! My poor wallet...😬😭
Will be playing this on PC. I just hope that it's not yet another short VR game, that only last for about 5-6 hours, and has no replay value.
I also get the feeling that it will be more of an "experience", with a few heavily scripted action moment squeezed in. Which is another problem with a lot of VR games. Less of a full blown game, and more of an interactive "Universal Studios" ride.
I hope I'm wrong about everything above, as I want it to be a proper Metro game, and not a typical VR cash grab.
I love my PSVR1 and PSVR2 but I'm gradually moving my VR library over to my Quest 3.
I'm gutted I've spent so much money in the PS Store that I'll never get back.
@__jamiie
Are you using PC with your Quest 3 by any chance? I'm still using my PSVR2 until i eventually cave and get a PC. Using my Q3, as wonderful as it is, in stand alone obviously limits you to tablet graphics. But ya, I'd absolutely take the Q3 with a good PC over the PSVR2 since it does almost everything better, with the exception of black levels & colour. The lack of foveated rendering, eye tracking, weaker haptics and no adaptive triggers don't bother me all that much either.
@TheAmbienWalrus yeah the graphics look superb like you say. Mate do it! There’s not a whole ton of triple A games to buy but the ones that are there are superb
@WaveBoy No I don't have a PC (yet) but absolutely love my Quest 3. The sweet spot is perfect and the lack of cable has made it so much more hassle free.
I agree that PSVR2 has better colour range but I see very little difference in the fidelity considering Quest 3 is half the price.
What would be really cool is if this was just the first point in an unholy triangle of games to come to PSVR2, the other two being Resistance and Killzone... Come on Sony!
I have no plan to play this VR game as I haven’t and not interested to gave PS VR which is a useless gadjet.
But I will definitely chase its news and wishing 4A the best.
I’m insanely waiting for their next metro on consoles.
@__jamiie But they're essentially the same price? Or are you arguing that PS5 is needed? Cause if you're on here then chances are you already have one, no?
@WaveBoy I'll look into this.
Wooowww Sammy AND Liam remembered PSVR2 exists today. Is this heaven? Am I dead?
@maybemaybemaybe I don't quite understand what you're saying. I have a PS5, and PSVR2. And a Meta Quest 3.
One cost me £600.
The other cost me £1,200.
@WaveBoy Still curious to hear how psvr2 works out on PC. The lenses are pure garbage but the actual IQ is good on it. The problem most psvr2 games have is low resolution rendering because the hardware is really too weak, and most of the games are cheap quest 2, not 3 ports. May end up decent as wired pcvr aside the lenses. At least direct DP without compression so good to have along with q3.
@NEStalgia
It's pretty wild that PSVR2 is stripped of it's haptics, adaptive triggers, HDR, eye tracking & Foveated rendering when paired to a PC. When you compare both the Q3 & PSVR2 when connected to a PC, the VR2 has only two advantages over Quest 3 > Black levels and colours, and maybe less image compression? I'm not entirely sure about that last one.
Still, I'm not getting rid of my PSVR2 just yet. I really just prefer the idea of a headset wirelessly connecting to a powerful affordable console, rather than taking the highly expensive friction point heavy confusing game-crashing nichey' PC route.
I'm flip flopping like there's no tomorrow. Best case scenario, Sony does a headset revision and knocks it out of the park and pairing that to a PS5 Pro, or Quest 3 wirelessly connecting to Series X for PS5-like power. And i say 'like' because Q3 doesn't have ET & FR.
As for PSVR2 games having low resolution. I think Titles like Moss Book 2 max out at 2000x2040 per eye at 90fps unless I'm mistaken? It's games like RE4 Remake VR that wind up becoming an inconsistent mess at times with resolution drops, and graphical downgrades. the PS5 simply put isn't powerful enough to run it properly.
Still an awesome experience! First half felt like i was on a total adventure trudging through the villages, caves(etc) and searching for every last bit of treasure. Looking back it was pretty incredible. Aiming in VR completely blows away analog-stick wiggling too, obviously and feels completely natural. Although, going back to playing RE4R on my OLED TV definitely looks better thanks to being nearly 4K(with a locked 60fps), with zero graphical downgrades, no mura, much higher HDR brightness, and not having to deal with any motion duplication.
@WaveBoy the blacks and compression are big deals. Ironically psvr2 is a "real" pcvr headset with display port native while quest 3 is an AV1 compressed in between . Quest is still better in a lot of ways but it's nice to have a native dp pcvr set around if you do pc rather than only quest. Even if quest is better.
But yeah the gimped features is just dumb. Otoh no pcvr headset under $1500 has eye tracking so it's not at a competitive disadvantage there. And only a selection of titles supports it (flight Sim, dcs, UEVR (which is hacky) etc.
Moss 2 is one of the frew that use the full res. Legendary tales, cyube, Unplugged, red matter 2. Nms. Many games are sloppy q2 ports though and it gives vr2 a worse rep than it should.
Still a weird no man's land. Psvr2 has it's problems. Quest 3 is great hardware but either PS2 gfx or compromised on PC. And dedicated pcvrsv are big and expensive. Still for pc, at least if you already have vr2 you get a real pcvr dp set out of it.
Still probably getting q3. Though. Maybe a PCvr rig too.
@__jamiie it's a disingenuous argument. The PSVR2 didn't cost you that much, a PS5 and the VR2 did.
The target audience for the VR2 are those who already have a PS5, that's your baseline. From there both are essentially the same price and to suggest you're paying the whole 1200 for the VR2 is wilful ignorance.
@NEStalgia I suspect those features are absent... for now. They could either be implemented by Sony or modders down the line Again, this leads me to believe the "Sony has dropped PSVR2 support" premise is nonsense. They wouldn't hold those back if they were really trying to sell PSVR + PC Adapters in earnest. Galaxy brain: it's part of a deal to get Alyx on PS5 eventually. Practical brain: they're hedging their bets. Cynical brain: A team developed the adapter for a now vestigial purpose (an old Alyx deal that's never happening, or maybe a Horizon VR port to PC) and they're trying to recoup dev costs without investing more funds.
@yoda87960 I think it's a bit simpler than that, in that they were trying to get an adapter out quickly and cheaply. As no PCVR games even support the haptics, and no other unit at similar price points support eye tracking, it was a simple decision to not spend the extra money developing those features. People got overexcited that because the eye tracking exists it would bring foveated to low cost PCVR for the first time, but the reality is there's no incentive for Sony to invest in that as it can't generate a return for them.
And to be fair, the only reason they bothered implementing it to begin with is because of the PS5's relative "weak" hardware for VR made it kind of necessary for console VR to be viable, while on PC, it's a rare feature anyway, and most things rely on the ability to brute force it natively, and even in games that do support it, there's often only a 15% improvement from it at most. If that's the difference from 40-60 frames that matters, but often it doesn't.
So I kind of "get it", but I still think it's a shame.
As for their role in dropping VR, I think Jimbo was pretty up front about their strategy early on (rare for him) - their only reason to be in VR is because Meta is basically running a rival console ecosystem to PS and they couldn't let the VR differentiator allow Meta to start gaining traction in the "console gaming space" without their ability to also be there in case that happened and be able to have their own VR to compete. But since Meta isn't gaining enough market to be a threat to PS, Sony doesn't actually care about the VR space. I.E. Meta is in VR because they see a business market in VR. Sony is in VR just in case Meta creates a market that competes with PS for customers. PC support just lets them amortize their investment, but not enough to put money into making it a particularly desirable PC component.
@NEStalgia
Q3's blacks weren't quite as bad as I was expecting, that is, until you play a horror game that has you trudging through darker low lit environments. The 7nth Guest demo being a perfect example, was just washed out looking. It really put me off! I think I'll be picking that one up on PSVR2 instead. And sucks about the compression effect with Q3 and PC. You'd think with the constant Meta updates and just how invested they are in Q3 they would of figured out a way to eliminate the problem or at least reduce it. But i don't know all the technical mumbo jumbo that goes into it, so.
But ya, I'm currently going to town on Moss Book 2(PSVR2), which I'm feeling just a teeny bit mixed on. The wow factor just isn't there after coming from the original on PSVR1 which absolutely HAD the wow factor.. Technically, Moss Book 2 IS a PSVR1 game, running at 2x the resolution + 90fps, which makes a substantial difference, but it doesn't look that much better in terms of core visuals compared to Moss 1 on PSVR1. But purely based on gameplay, instead of feeling like a true sequel it comes across feeling more like an expansion of the first game with additional move sets you earn through out the experience. It's a bit of a slow burn. Where's the run/dash button when you need it? And i can only slash open so many empty pots scattered through out each environment. It's starting to feel like a chore.
Not entirely sure i needed a 2nd moss. It's an impressive VR show piece, but i'm not exactly having the greatest time with it. Might jump back into Horizon Call of the Mountain and possibly Pistol Whip. OoOoOO, and i completely forgot about the upgraded Affected The Manor, and Madalin. I'll be adding those two to the wish list in a bit.
And I'm getting Antsy over here, with no confirmed release date for Metro Awakening, Max Mustard, Subside, Zomby Army VR and a few others.
@WaveBoy For Meta, their two issues are that they're really a console, so subsidized hardware made up on software sales in their store. Theyn don't really want to put too much effort into to playing steam games on the hardware they payed for. Plus their whole platform is about simplicity. One cable, plug it in, done. Adding display port with a breakout adapter and power plug and USB etc runs against their brand design. And dp over USB at that res with power delivery isn't up to snuff either, so they just run it through the video streaming. It works for what they're doing but it's not whats ideal for heavy pcvr. It's ironically one place where the Sony is better. And obviously dedicated pcvr sets.
Psvr2 apparently uses the NV Link that Nvidia included, then abandoned on the rtx 20xx series. It's not a normal usb 3.2 plug on the front of PS5, is a property Nvidia connection that they abandoned after like 3 years. Which is funny, it means all PS5 owners are paying for psvr2 functionality, it's built into the console 😂
I loved both moss games, but I agree it's more of an expansion than sequel. Then again most sequels used to be like that until dlc made it extinct. I played both back to back on vr2 . Didn't get tired of it really but I wasn't longing for more either.
@maybemaybemaybe I'd love for you to show me a way to use my PSVR2 without the PS5.
@NEStalgia This makes the most sense, especially since Meta basically launched their own PS Plus Essential/nerfed Game Pass subscription thing. Seems like they're trying to go after Sony, but it's not making much of an impact overall (when you include non-VR home gaming). And yet, Sony will still attempt to have something in place in the event they do become a significant threat to market share or a whole new market emerges. Wonder if Zuckerberg will ever go crazy enough to try and launch a regular console. VR is fascinating from a historical perspective, even if it ends up being a dead end.
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