Ever-agile VR developer Joy Way announced this week that its upcoming roguelike Dead Hook will be delayed into June, a little more than a month after the previously announced released date. To satiate your appetite in the meantime, a new gameplay trailer shows more about how the game will play.

Joy Way, the studio behind Stride and a slew of other interesting VR games, has released a new gameplay trailer for its latest title, Dead Hook:

The trailer outlines some of the game’s fundamental mechanics, including the ability to quickly navigate the environment by swinging around on chains like a steam-punk Spider-Man. The trailer also shows how weapon upgrades will work, and teases an interesting dual-wielding reloading mechanic that we’re curious to learn more about.

Alongside the release of the gameplay overview, Joy Way announced Dead Hook will now release on June 29th, a little more than a month after it’s previously announced May 18th release date.

The studio actually claims it’s still on track for the original release date, but delayed the game due to “important business reasons, including unforeseen changes in the Meta release calendar.”

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While there’s not much of an explanation beyond that, most likely it’s related to the recently announced Meta Quest Gaming Showcase that’s happening on June 1st.

In any case, Joy Way says it will use the additional time for “extra polish and finishing touches, as well as incorporating content that was planned for after the release.”

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."

  • Ooof these guys …

  • Jonathan Winters III

    Looks great, like all of Joy Way’s games. The question is: will it be another tech demo like nearly all of their previous games which are in always stuck in unfinished / early access hell?

    • I was going to write exactly the same comment

      • ViRGiN

        they just posted an official statement here in comments

  • ViRGiN

    never heard about the title, but i immediatly knew which guys are behind it.

  • JanO

    All I see is a reskin of Stride (which they still haven’t finished – broken promises and all…).
    The flying enemies are a SIMPLE reskin of Stride’s drones and worse, THE ENEMIES DO NOT MOVE or show any sign of competent AI…

    Sigh…

    Sad to see yet another push to help these thiefs on RTVR…
    C’mon Ben you’re better than this and your readers deserve better.

  • Joy Way — VR Games Devs

    With respect to the platform and the public on the site, we’re sad to observe that there is a small, but vocal group of a few strongly opinionated regulars. While they may do it with their best intent, the arguments they make are often misleading. Like calling Dead Hook a reskin for STRIDE, a game about parkour on rooftops. One doesn’t even need to play the games, just put 2 gameplay trailers next to each other and this narrative will fall apart immediately.

    Also, bullying journalists into not covering something you personally don’t like is not appropriate and disrespectful, in our opinion.

    We hope that their opinion will change after the release of Dead Hook and STRIDE Fates, as these games are anticipated by thousands of VR players and we know that they will be great.

    We are confident in the game and are sending preview keys to many content creators and media outlets, including Road to VR, weeks before the launch. If you want to learn more about the game, read or watch the reviews that will be available a few days before the launch date, or wait for player feedback after the the game’s live.

    • ViRGiN

      Sometimes it’s better to let criticism live on it’s own than directly address it.
      You have said nothing but denied everything.
      Your history speaks more than your words.

      The worst source of information are always official channels – it’s in your business to deny everything. Your game will be played by youtubers, who after calling it “immersive” “amazing” “GAME CHANGING” and other toxic positive bullshit will never revisit the game again.

      I just visited STRIDE steam forums and guess what, you aren’t active there either to legitimate complaints from existing customers.

      You are spreading yourself too thin working on so many games and never really delivering anything.

    • ViRGiN

      Also just out of curiosity i checked quest store for stride and this is the very latest review:

      What a scam
      I have wasted countless hours in this game. Don’t listen to any good review. I am probably one of the best multiplayer players in the game. Every update the game gets worse. However, this is more about the company behind it, JoyWay. They disappoint their player base constantly so no one plays it anymore. They have scammed people multiple times whether it’s selling a “limited time” pack for real money then bringing it back in a free battle pass, or not following through with promised updates. 90% of the player base can’t play because of issues they refuse to fix. When you point these issues out you get banned on the discord like I did (luckily I got unbanned thanks to some moderators). They are now trying to make 4 games at once. The worst part is that when the game launched years ago, a story mode was promised to be implemented as a free update. Now they are saying it’s going to be a 5th paid game!!! A mod even said “stop ranting you will buy it anyway”. DO NOT BUY ANYTHING FROM JOYWAY. Save yourself the time and money. They are just greedy.

      • Joy Way — VR Games Devs

        Out of almost 3500 player reviews for STRIDE, 60% are 5-star reviews, and the total rating is 4.3. 



        If you actually open the page, the most upvoted recent reviews by the regular players will be a bunch of 5-star reviews.
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0554ddf4edc301aec82a0ada4b7706b8678b558eaa0dc6b917542fa305d686de.png

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d319949ca68650674fc882e0c3da81586ff068d96fe00cb2929482456dad289d.png
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/76a162e2a885760218dc55e9d1bb7dab48c3a5434a536f83550f1162c7e8c242.png

        Statements like “no one plays it” or “no one likes it” are opinions of individuals that do not reflect the reality. In the very review you provided, this person says to have “wasted countless hours in this game”. Does one play a game for countless hours if they don’t enjoy it?

        

It’s fine if you or anyone else does not like what we do. We stick with our player base and work towards a direction to satisfy them. And we will continue making great games, since Joy Way has reached 100 employees this year and continues to grow as a company.

        • ViRGiN

          Congratulations on the growth, but again, statements like this are meaningless.
          Every title gets 5 star reviews. Even recently released Gambit does.
          One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
          Even Alvo gets 5 stars.
          There is 1 player on SteamVR. 7 was the maximum in the past 24 hours. You’ve been consistently loosing players according to steamcharts.

          As for countless hours – if they said they tried to get into the game in half an hour – you would be claiming not giving it a chance. Sometimes people are lured in with promise of big updates…
          You seem to deny the criticism – perhaps there is something in those customer statements?
          I even went on YouTube and watched recent reviews from absolutetly small people – and most of them said the game gets repetetive very fast.

          YouTube VR is extremely cancerous, with the biggest names barely saying anything negative ever. They all want to grow.

          Well I hope your future games gets better, currently those games doesn’t appear to be for me.

    • They do make some valid points that the first few games you guys released kinda got sidelined for new projects (Outlier beta tester and preorderer here) and a lot of people felt burned by those games going silent or being cancelled, however I agree that when you guys do put effort consistently into a title, it’s amazing! The amount of hours I’ve spent in the single player STRIDE modes, you don’t even wanna know XD
      (haven’t spent a lot of time in the multiplayer mode in STRIDE though, load times have been a bit of an issue for me but don’t think it’s a problem on Joyway’s end)

      Definitely looking forward to seeing what you guys can do with full singleplayer stories in both STRIDE and Dead Hook, looks like you guys have a lot of interesting ideas, can’t wait to see them fleshed out!

    • JanO

      Stride “released” in august 2021, yet it is still only a tech demo, albeit a good one… The main point of contension is that lots of us had bought it expecting you to fulfill YOUR OWN PROMISES, which you never did, period. Your “updates” are only meaningless cash grabs.

      You dug that hole for yourself, now deal with it, cry babies…

      As for “bullying” journalists… LMAO…! There’s big difference between the planned deception behind your bait and switch tactics and merely signifying to a journalist I count amongst the best ones covering VR that I’m sad they give your scams some visibility, while countless other devs are waaaayyyy more deserving …

      Any comments Ben?

      • Stride’s received lots of single player content updates, yeah, a story isn’t fully out for it yet but the difference between the city arena’s original release and it’s current state is massive! I agree with what someone else said that they really need to update their enemies so they move and don’t just stand still and shoot at you, but that’s an issue multiple studios need to solve, it’s kind of VR’s biggest flaw at the moment that AI is very simplistic in most small studio titles.

    • another juan

      lots of fanboyism nonsense going on in these comments.
      some very entitled people seem to resent that the devs went to the standalone camp because their former pcvr title couldn’t find an audience, so now they’re apostates or something.

      • ViRGiN

        it has nothing to do with anti-pcvr, these games shows exactly zero pcvr quality anyway.