spatialcomputing.info

Impulse Gear announced that Larcenauts (2021), its 6v6 hero shooter for PC VR and Oculus Quest, is getting a few key updates today which focus on increasing immersion in the game.

The cross-play hero shooter first launched June 17th with a few things hardcore fans of the fps genre weren’t really expecting. The game’s gun-shooting experience felt like it had been heavily simplified: when larger guns are stabilized with two hands, only your dominant hand contributes to actually moving the gun. Reloading was also simplified with a console-style ‘press button to reload’ scheme, making for a pre-animated reload sequence.

Called the game’s ‘Immersion Overload’ update, the game will be receiving a few new features starting today which Impulse Gear calls “heavily requested by the Larcenauts community.” Now coming to the game is two-handed pivot-aiming, manual reload options, and immersive sprinting, the studio says.

Here’s Impulse Gear’s breakdown of the update coming today:

• Manual Reloads: An immersive new reload system option that lets the player perform actions to manually reload their weapon for maximum realism. This, with Style and Automatic reload options allow players to tailor the reload mechanic to their liking.
• Two-handed Pivot Aiming: Players can now select an all-new aiming mode that uses the position of both hands to aim weapons, keeping them in control and in the action.
• Immersive Sprint: A new sprint mode option where players retain control of their hands while sprinting. Players can simply aim their weapon downward to start sprinting.
• Cross-play Lobbies: Cross-play lobbies are now live. SteamVR and Oculus players can now join each other’s lobby by entering a player’s unique lobby code.
• Spatialized VOIP in lobby: Players in the social lobby will now hear their friends VOIP spatialized.
• Native support for bHaptics TactSuit vests: This third-party wearable interprets in-game actions into haptic feedback that the player can feel when wearing the bHaptics TactSuit vest.

The studio also says if you login before the end of July, you can also nab a new skin for Calima, the Infiltrator.

We gave Larcenauts a solid [7/10] in our review as it was technically well made game with strong art direction, great performance, and a sense of progression with eight characters to unlock. Its launch state however made the game feel more like a run-and-gun free-for-all than a team-based hero shooter, but it seems the studio is actively working on a number of the issues we saw early on.