After November 1st, zero-gravity multiplayer sports game Echo Arena was supposed to change from its low-low introductory price tag of exactly $0 and bump up to $20—a deal made possible by a temporary sponsorship by Intel. The standalone multiplayer spin-off from Ready at Dawn’s hit VR title Lone Echo (2017) has been available for free to all Oculus accounts since its launch in July, and in a surprise move by the studio, is now permanently free on Oculus Home with no limit in sight.
Update (11/02/17): Ready at Dawn announced in a blogpost that they’ve made the ‘Echo Arena’ permanently free. Future updates are coming too, which will include new features such as “Spectator, Code of Conduct features, and more.”
Original article (10/13/17): Anyone with an Oculus account just needs to claim Echo Arena from the Oculus Store in order to ‘own’ the title indefinitely. If you miss the November 1st cutoff, you’ll have to pay $20 to play.
Much like the single player experience, Echo Arena is a brilliant example of comfortable VR locomotion and hand presence, offering a compelling multiplayer sport that is only possible through using VR technology. A new expansion that introduces first-person shooter mechanics called Echo Combat was recently announced, due to launch next year.
Though the game is exclusive to the Oculus Store, Echo Arena can be played on the Vive headset thanks to the Revive hack, so even Vive owners ought to claim this one just in case.
