Hello everybody and welcome back for some weekly VR news. As always, I am Matteo 311 and this is your channel for everything VR related. Now, it looks like May is continuing to be an incredible month for VR gamers as we have another week of solid game releases. Some absolutely fantastic PC VR titles have returned to the Meta store. There’s plenty of new game updates like Into the Radius 2 coming to the MetaQuest this month, and the absolutely fantastic mixed reality fighter Guardian of Realms going freeto play. And last but not least, it looks like Meta is doing some truly interesting things with AI that we have to talk about. Now, there are of course links and timestamps if you want to skip ahead, but let’s just start things off like normal with the check-in. So, I just got back from PAX East and it was an absolute blast. And what made this year even better, besides the fact that the number of VR community members there each year grows, so is the VR showcase. I talked about this before guys, but it has become a passion project for me to make the PAX East VR showcase bigger and bigger each year. It was amazing when I first experienced it in 2020. Huge line. People were loving VR and then it just went straight downhill because of COVID and when they brought it back, it was all the old equipment. But I worked bringing everyone together, Meta, the people run packs, all these different groups to get the showcase bigger and better. They took the vast majority of my advice and Meta did donate 20 plus headsets to them. So, it was a really good showing. There was lots of people playing and there was new and old games, PCVR and Quest games, you know, native Quest, older PCVR titles like Space Pirate Trainer, all the way up to brand new games like Ark and Age. So, it was very solid showing. I wish they would redesign it so people can watch what’s going on. Like in the front they were all playing Among Us VR, but the screens were backwards. You couldn’t watch them, so you just had to turn that around so you could watch become a spectator sport. VR is just great. Now, they did have space ops like I suggested, but they were only showing off the single player, but I would have loved to see a bunch of people running around in the multiplayer mode. Regardless, this was a massive improvement over last year. I hope more people enjoyed VR, and I’m going to keep working at it to get this bigger and better each year. But let’s get into this week’s new releases right now. First up, you can now get your very own mixed reality pet with Hello Dot. This comes from the same studio that gave us Pokémon Go. And this adorable free-to-play experience is designed to showcase the power of mixed reality. You could reach down, pick up, and play with Dot, point around the room to tell him where to go, and just engage in a bunch of playful activities together. Overall, it’s a great glimpse into the future of this technology, and I recommend you give it a try, especially since it’s free. But if you’re itching for much more of a game, especially one with a horror theme, we’re also getting Tunnels VR this week. This is a claustrophobicinducing run for your life as you’ll find yourself navigating through underground tunnels, which of course are infested by some type of creature. Now, I actually just played a demo of this at PAX East, and I was absolutely impressed. When you find yourself in small spaces, you actually have to crawl to speed up, and you also need to utilize the spatial audio to make sure you don’t get ambushed by the creature. Now, overall, the gameplay seems like a walking sim where you’re constantly being chased, but the environments and most importantly that creature just look really awesome. So, I’m definitely excited for this one, even though I’m not the biggest horror fan. Now, the developers also released a multiplayer free-to-play version of this game. So, if you want to get a little taste of this, go check that out. Now, last up, we have two more games that are listed as coming soon, and I was originally expecting them to drop this week, but there’s no official release date as of just yet. The first one is a monster hunting co-op shooter, A Long Survive. Now, it’s actually been quite some time since we got a solid co-op shooter in VR, and I’m all for jumping into a new one. Now, it also looks like the full release of this game isn’t coming until next year, so at the moment, I’m expecting an early access release. Now, besides that, there’s not much overall information on this title, so I just promise to keep you guys updated whenever I hear more. And last up on this week’s new releases is Everdream Valley. Now, this is a port of the 2023 flat screen title, but now you’ll get to build up and manage your own farm while utilizing full VR mechanics. You get to chop down trees, plant some crops, and even pet your animals. So, if you enjoy anything like Garden of the Seas or maybe even Stardew Valley, this should definitely be a game for you to check out. And now, let’s move into new game updates where things are truly starting to heat up. First up, if you never get around to trying some of the absolutely fantastic titles from Insomniac Games, well, I’m happy to report they are once again available on the Meta Store. Now, this includes The Edge of Nowhere. Now, this includes Edge of Nowhere, Stormland, The Unspoken, and Feral Rights. Now, these are some classic VR bangers that for whatever reason constantly get kicked off the store and then after a little time come right back. I heard it has something to do with licensing, but I’ve never really looked into it and I’m just glad that they’re available once again. Now, even better than that, we just got the release date announcement for Into the Radius 2 on the Meta Quest. Now, for those unfamiliar with this title, it is a firstperson survival game set in a super creepy dystopian world that can be brutally unforgiving at times. The game truly leans into realistic VR mechanics and some fantastic environmental storytelling. Now, the sequel is also adding co-op, which should do a good job of cutting down the overall fear factor for the scycats out there who can’t currently play the original game. Now, just a quick reminder, this is not the full release of the game. The title is still in early access, and we’ll still have to wait quite some time for the full release, but that’s not the case with our next game, Zombie Army VR, which is releasing on May 22nd, and the developers just gave us a brand new trailer. The VR version of this game is a spin-off of the flat screen titles, similar to Sniper Elite VR. If you’ve never experienced these titles, it’s a co-op zombie shooter set during World War II, and it also utilizes that same badass sniper elite X-ray kill cam. I’m definitely not expecting a ton of depth from this game, but I do feel like it’ll be an absolute blast mowing down some Nazi zombies with a few of my buddies. But if you prefer brawlers over shooters, the mixed reality experience Guardian of Realms just went free to play. This is from Sin Studio, the same team that gave us Swordsman VR. And after months of adding new sandbox style content to this application, they’ve now made it freely available to everyone on the meta store. And last up in gaming updates, we have a little bit of bad news. We were supposed to be getting Slenderman VR this week, but it’s been delayed once again. Now, I’m always in favor of a delayed game over a buggy release, and the Slenderman series is absolutely iconic. So, I want to make sure the VR gamers get the best possible experience. Now, if you’re not familiar with this game, it released on flat screen over 10 years ago. basically became a cult classic. And it’s another one of those horror titles where there’s an extra creepy monster chasing you wherever you go. Now, I’m pretty pumped for this release. And if this is something you guys want to see me stream live, please let me know down in the comments. Okay, so let’s just end this video with some really interesting things that Meta is working on when it comes to AI. First is their 2026 AR glasses are rumored to have always on Meta AI running. It’ll be doing things like facial recognition and and checking out the world around you and being able to provide constant information, which would be super useful, but also really scary. It reminds me of that Black Mirror episode where everyone has contacts that record everything constantly and then they’re just rethinking their whole life and watching scenes over and over again and messes with them. I don’t think we’re going to go down that rabbit hole, but there are some concerns about privacy, and this opens the door to a lot of things. So, I’m not sure how I feel about Meta using AI in that capability. Everyone walking around in public with glasses and cameras on recording each other. And yeah, that sounds like a crazy dystopian future, but you cannot deny how useful AI is becoming. I know some people hate it. And the final topic is Meta working on more generative AI content. So Horizon Worlds, their level developer, they’re upgrading the AI system now that they have that you can use text prompts and it will create 3D objects. So, you would be able to do something like type up a brief description, create a dungeon populated with skeletons and chains hanging from the wall, and put a slime monster in it, and it would be able to do that. Now, previously, like all generative AI, what it would make was absolute crap. You would look at it, it didn’t look right, it would trigger the uncanny valley, or, you know, proportions were wrong, there’s really weird artifacts. We saw this in images and videos for years, but it’s getting better and better and better. Now, I know there’s a huge stigma or taboo about using AI in the industry. I’ve used some AI in some of my thumbnails. Some people don’t care. Some people can’t tell. Some people just lose their [ __ ] I think there’s definitely a place for it. I think it’s very useful. I think in the future it’s going to get harder and harder to distinguish what is AI and what isn’t. We’re seeing that very rapidly happen. And I think the ability to create these worlds is fantastic. I’m not anti- AI and I know some people probably get pissy about that, but we still need to give it the human touch. It can do the broad strokes. I don’t think it’s really ever going to do the really fine details like the high quality storytelling we get from some people or the direction that we get from people who are just so committed and want everything to be pristine and perfect. So, I’m really excited to see AI used more in certain fields. Like I love the mods that introduce the chatbot into NPCs in games like Fallout and Skyrim. Like that’s amazing. It’s something absolutely fantastic. But we just got to make sure we don’t lose the human touch. And that was today’s video. I hope you guys enjoyed it. If you did, go ahead and give me a thumbs up. If you’re new here, please consider subscribing. And as always, I’ll see you guys on next time.