Oculus and Marvel Announce New Rift Co-op Title ‘Powers United VR’

By

-

Jul 15, 2017

Announced at Disney fan expo D23 today, Oculus are teaming up with Marvel to bring a new Rift exclusive title which lets you play as one of “more than a dozen” characters from their comic book universe, with a little help from the Oculus Touch controllers.

Take one iconic Marvel superhero, The Incredible Hulk, and throw him into a co-operative, first person VR action game with two slightly less iconic ones Rocket Racoon (Guardians of the Galaxy) and Captain Marvel, and you have Oculus Studios’ latest title Powers United VR. These are the first three characters to be demonstrated for the game, which will eventually offer up more than a dozen playable Marvel characters at launch.

The game, developed exclusively for the Rift & Touch by Sanzaru and Oculus Studios, lets you join 2 other friends to battle “across the Marvel Universe”. As Hulk you can, well, smash stuff with Rocket Racoon bringing his love of exotic weaponry to bear alongside Captain Marvel’s photon blasts.

With the exception of that, and the fact that we’ll have to wait until 2018 to play it, Oculus’ blog post was a little light on details. Except to state that if you’re attending this year’s San Diego Comic Con you can be one of the first to get your hands on the game July 19 -23 at Marvel’s booth.

It’s interesting that Oculus saw fit to highlight “full locomotion” as a headline feature, with more and more VR gamers seemingly demanding to choose a more immersive, if potentially less comfortable way to move through VR gameworlds.

25 Free Games & Apps Quest 3S Owners Should Download First

You can stay tuned to the official teaser website for more info later in the year.

Firestorm185

Just saw the trailer! Hoping to see Spiderman in this one in some fashion. The Homecoming experience was pretty cool but I’d love to actually fight some bad guys with his powers. ^^
Get Schwifty!

Superheroes and VR…. just made for each other, can’t wait for this if it’s even half good!
Skippy76

Come on Valve! Get off your butts and get some sweet titles like this!
Your tech is ovbiously superior. Why can’t you get huge releases like this?
Time to ditch your marketing team and get a better one!
- dogbite
  
  “Obvious”? The usual fanboy statement. Both have pros and cons. Man is that crap getting old. Give it a rest. Just enjoy what you have. Sheesh!
  - Skippy76
    
    The only pro for the rift is the controllers. The tracking alone is enough to turn most techies away. You need at least 3 sensors to play games like rec room and you still have people complaining about tracking issues in game.
    - Son of man
      
      I have the rift and three sensors with *NO* tracking issues *AND* I am enjoying this new marvel oculus exclusive title even before it comes out. Sucks not to have rift.
    - dogbite
      
      You have no idea what you are talking about. I track in 360 in a 8x10ft play space (plenty for almost anything) and more than most people have available on just two sensors. Rock solid. More Vive fanboy BS. Your either too stupid to follow VR with an open mind or just being a dick. Go away.
      - Skippy76
        
        Definitely not a fanboy. I played hundreds of hous or rec room with rift users and they always complain about losing tracking. They said its the same problem with any games requiring crouching or shooting over the head. At least I’m smart enough to know how to use ” too, two and to”.
      - dogbite
        
        Everyone who follows VR seriously, knows the Vive’s tracking is better (near bullet proof) but they also know the Rift is fine, although with less play area and needs consideration for usb hardware specs, to avoid issues. You need to understand this, but can set up a satisfying roomscale space. It requires more effort and a lot of people don’t do the homework. Lighthouse is brilliant.
        When an (objective) person or reviewer has both, they all speak to the mostly minor weaknesses with either, in a fair comparison. They don’t say stupid crap like “everyone knows this one is better” and the “ONLY” thing good about it is this. That’s just fanboy shit.
        
        You know your position is weak, so now you want to make it about spelling? Catching a spelling error and using that to bolster your position and you think that makes you smart. How childish. I can see why I keep getting PM’s to just delete you saying “don’t bother he’s just a troll” . Sounds like a good idea
victor

Can’t wait for spiderman!
Me

It has a very wave shooter vibe, I won’t expect much depth. Not getting it on the vive is one thing, but what saddens me the most is this trend of casual gaming coming to VR. Everyone wants AAA games, and by that I think most people think of long, story driven games, whether they are FPS, RPGs or strategy games.

Instead, the accent is put on social and casual (not a surprise from Facebook), but I wonder about this strategy: what was a revolution by getting everyone to play on the Facebook platform with farming games might not translate well on VR, especially since you have to shell out the complete package PC+headset. This might change with the standalone device we’ve heard of and would make sense with the Facebook strategy of casualising VR.

So you have on one hand Oculus with social and casual and raining money on every single big IP they can to get exclusives, and on the other hand HTC who after more than a year hasn’t come out with a single title worth losing 30 minutes of my time, yet betting big time on VR with arcade stuff.

I’m pretty pessimistic about VR’s future for consumers, at least it won’t be what we were expecting. The big surprise, and I don’t believe I am saying that, will probably come from Apple if they play it well. But that’s a big if…
- Tommel
  
  Well, we do not really know what the final game will be like, do we? In some way, I agree with you. On the other hand, I am sometimes wondering whether “wave-shooters” or adventures such as “Wilson’s Heart” are not the way VR is, at least for the moment, meant to be. And there are good ones out there, see Raw Data or Robo Recall. I just don’t know if I really want to play Fallout in VR… I think it might be a nice experience, but am I really going to spend 100s of hours in that? I more and more think that VR needs to find its own game mechanics… which should be shorter, but much more intense. I think that multiplayer titles such as Echo Arena and Raw Data are showing how it might work, how you can create addictive games which do not demand you to spend 3+ hours per session on them. Only my 2 cents, of course.
- Kris Bunch
  
  I worry about VR titles becoming “casual” too. I want immersive story driven games. I don’t want Farmvile VR.