[caption id="attachment_15027" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Photo courtesy Alan (CC BY-ND 2.0).[/caption] "Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so," Douglas Adams once wrote, and it's a fitting way to summarize how fast the last 12 months have felt since I was at Gamescom in 2013. Visiting the biggest games show in Europe again this year illustrates how far the VR industry has come in that year. VR hardware is still front and centre of course, but this year it's all about the VR games. Oculus VR, an Exhilarating and Brutal Year The most extreme example of VR's growth and rise to maturity is perhaps Oculus VR's meteoric rise and frankly incredible 12 month journey since Gamescom 2013. In that time the company has metamorphosed from a promising startup into the force to be reckoned with the in VR space. Highlights for Oculus over the last year include the reveal of their next generation headset, the Oculus Rift DK2, which addresses three of VR's biggest challenges: latency, motion blur, and motion sickness. The Oculus Rift 'Crystal Cove' prototype debuted at CES 2014 in January, which lead to the announcement of the DK2 in March, and finally it shipping to developers just last month. But of course, the biggest event—Oculus' acquisition by social media giant Facebook—meant their new era had begun, and their subsequent acceleration of hardware development and massive recruitment drive means they're now positioned to develop the VR solutions that Oculus founder Palmer Luckey could only have dreamt of just three years ago. I sat down at Gamescom this year with Luckey and Nate Mitchell, Oculus' VP of Product, and asked them to describe in one word. "Exhilarating," said Mitchell, "Brutal," said Luckey before they both conceded both were appropriate. As ever generous with their time and open with their answers (except of course the ones they couldn't answer), we talked about the DK2 launch—both the successes and the bumps. Mitchell admitted that although the company had really the nailed DK2's production and shipping, the updated SDK had more rough edges that they'd have liked. He also stated that the recently released Oculus SDK 0.4.1 beta is a noticeable improvement, but that this is still early days for DK2's supporting software. See Also: Oculus SDK 0.4.1 Beta Released: Mac OSX Support, SSE Fix, UE4 and More We talked in depth about Oculus Connect, their developer focussed event coming to Los Angeles, CA in September. Although exact details on precisely what would be discussed were closely guarded, Oculus are expecting around 1,200 developers at the event said that the majority of invites have now been sent. They also told me that the event would open with Luckey addressing attendees and "...a couple of interesting keynotes that people won't want to miss." An intriguing snippet too: when questioned whether developers attending the event could expect to see more on Oculus' work on VR input devices, Luckey responded "You'll probably hear more about it, we're gonna be talking about everything we're doing at Connect"—whether that means VR input devices will be debuted at Connect, or even that they'll begin to discuss details of the consumer version of the headset (CV1) is of course now open to wild speculation(.gif). Catch the full interview with Mitchell and Luckey very soon. Continue Reading on Page 2... Sony's Project Morpheus "Behind Closed Doors" Session, War Thunder, and Refreshing Openness Sony's Project Morpheus prototype VR headset has been in the public eye for a little over six months since being announced at GDC in March. Since then, Sony's commitment to their PS4 based virtual reality device has been palpable—if not in words, most definitely in actions. Sony have not only had high profile public and press demonstrations at every major show since GDC, they've also been front and centre in the VR community, attending event such as the SVVR Meetup. What's more, throughout that time, when questioned on the device, Sony's representatives have been open, honest and forthcoming about the project. It's also fair to say that the Morpheus headset plus PlayStation Move controller have been a big hit with VR fans and general gamers. See Also: Sony Morpheus, Oculus Rift DK2, Unity 5, and More at VRLA #3 This Weekend in LA This attitude of openness continued with my visit to Gamescom, although ironically at a "behind closed doors" press event dedicated to Project Morpheus. At the event we were first treated to an informative behind-the-scenes look at the evolution of one of their VR demo titles, VR Luge. Dave Raynard, Studio Director at Sony London Studio, walked us through the team's experiments in VR and finally the multiple iterations of VR Luge, documenting the roadmap to its current state. More on this soon. The usual tech demos were on display: The Deep, The Castle, and of course the newest build of VR Luge. But the big surprise was that, when I glanced around the low-lit demo room Gaijin Entertainment's War Thunder occupied one of the demo stations. Not only that, but sporting HOTAS controls! See Also: Sony Shows War Thunder Running with Project Morpheus and HOTAS Support I made a bee line for the pod and managed to spend an extended period with the game and its luxurious controls. I was impressed—but with reservations—and we'll have more on my thoughts and impressions of the event plus gameplay video of my time with the system and an interview with Sony Magic Lab engineer Anton Michailov (co-designer of the Move controller) which will be published soon. Continue Reading on Page 3... Gamecom 2014, All About the (VR) Games [caption id="attachment_12589" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Photo courtesy BagoGames (CC BY 2.0)[/caption] The single biggest noticeable shift in VR's presence at Gamescom this year was the sheer amount of incredibly promising virtual reality content on display. Whereas in 2013 VR gaming was represented by a handful of tech demos and a single triple-A title (EVE: Valkyrie), this year a wealth of new games sporting VR support were on display. We'll have in-depth coverage of each and every game I saw this year, including developer interviews going up over the next few days, but here's a quick rundown of what I got my hands on. Wednesday I had the chance to catch up with Darkfield VR developers VR Bits and try the latest build of their space combat title on the DK2. The game seems to leap in quality every time I see it and this time was no exception. I also got to try Poppermost's promising and ambitious open-world skiing title Snow in very early DK2 form. Thursday, I spent some time with Cyberith catching their new Virtualizer prototype and got to try it out for myself. The remainder of the day was dedicated to games. I spent time with the beautiful Wander, a combat-free exploration experience with Oculus Rift support. I got to sit in a new, very, very early version of Shoebox Diorama's (they of Blocked-in fame) delightful interactive diorama Pigeon Man. I had an interesting chat with SCS Software's CEO, Pavel Sebor, who talked Euro Truck Simulator 2's future and its Oculus Rift support. And I went hands-on with Mindfield Games' stunning 'Oculus Rift optimised' mystery adventure Pollen. So my time here at Gamescom 2014 is almost over with one special meeting remaining on which you'll learn more tomorrow. We'll have detailed coverage and impressions on all the games mentioned and every single one will have a developer interview to accompany it.