Epic Robo Recall fun

Epic Games today announced Robo Recall, the company’s new VR game for Oculus Touch. The company announced it today as part of the Oculus Connect 3 keynote in San Jose.  Robo Recall is an over-the-top arcade style game, designed for the new Oculus Touch controllers. Robo Recall is expected in early 2017 and will be free for all Oculus Rift owners.

Using a range of customizable and unlockable weapons, Robo Recall allows  players to test their “bot destroying skill”s through a variety of increasingly challenging and over-the-top missions. The game is built on top of the Oculus platform API. Robo Recall also features an emergent sandbox experience that allows players to test out trick shots while tearing apart and decimating robots in extreme ways!

The quality of the graphics, (especially given the 90fps and very high resolution VR environment) is incredible, -but it is perhaps the irreverent humour and serious Robo destruction that will make this game an instant classic, and a lighthouse for what is possible in immersive entertainment.

While the lighting and interactivity are particularly strong, so are the environments and the texturing, much of which was contributed by GameTextures.com in Seattle, Washington. The company offers libraries of of ready-to-use video Game Materials & Substances that import into UE4 easily.

Actual screen grab from the UE4 game
Actual screen grab from the UE4 game

In the game during an eruption of defective, homicidal robots inundating RoboReady customer service centre, you, the player, have been promoted from tech repairman to ‘Recaller’. Time to throw away your key card and “rely on your wits, reflexes and a vast arsenal of weaponry to eliminate the robot uprising!”‘

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Robo Recall is Epic’s first fully-featured VR game and the spiritual successor to Bullet Train, the critically-acclaimed VR demo revealed at Oculus Connect 2.

Epic Games is clearly very serious in exploring the VR space with the Unreal Engine 4 and its VR development tools. The engine provides developers with the necessary rendering power and scalability to bring a vast range of experimental and ambitious VR projects to life across major platforms.

While this game is very much a first person shooter, it is also an exercise in showing what is possible for gaming in VR using the UR4 Engine. Robo Recall pushes the visual and performance bar for UE4, which runs the game at a solid 90 FPS. 

But Epic is not just interested in hard core game fun (- although this is a very good example of just that!). The Epic Game team will also be at VR on the Lot next week in LA. This conference is aimed at VR in a narrative sense. The VR Society and AMD are promoting the event as “The Definitive VR Narrative Medium”

The VR Society’s goal is to accelerate the transformation, innovation and profitability of the Virtual Reality Content, Distribution and Technology Business.

As part of VR on the Lot, fxguide’s own Mike Seymour is moderating a panel on AI characters is VR. On that panel is:

  • Epic Games CTO Kim Libreri, along with
  • Kiran Bhat , Co-Founder and CTO, LoomAi (a San Fran. AI Avatar Startup)
  • Maxwell Planck , Technical Founder, Oculus Story Studio
  • Chris Edwards , CEO, The Third Floor
  • Andy Jones , Animation Director, Wevr

The panel features experts from the realms of film, animation, artificial intelligence and game engine technology.  This dynamic discussion will explore the importance of creating believable characters and performances in VR and the challenges these critical components bring to interactivity.

What will it take to conquer the Uncanny Valley of VR? What is required to build virtual worlds that feel genuinely human?

Topics to include

  • AI versus human-driven performance,
  • capturing emotion and facial expression outside and from within the VR headset,
  • behavior UX, deep learning and more.

Crossing The Uncanny Valley in VR will be at the Paramount Pictures Main Theater, next Thursday, October 13, 1:45-2:15PM PT as part of VR on the Lot.

Also talking over the two days will be Directors such as Robert Stromberg, Bryan Singer and James Foley, as well as a major set of hands-on demos from companies such as Epic games, Vive, Google VR, AMD, Intel and Oculus.

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