Lone Echo (2017), one of the Rift’s most critically acclaimed titles (including one of our 2017 Game of the Year winners), has received a new update today which improves visuals for those playing on high-end hardware and offers up dubbing and menu conversion for three additional languages: French, German, and Spanish.
Lone Echo stands as one of VR’s most highly produced titles to date. Suitably, the game was also the fastest to reach $1 million in revenue on the Oculus store as of October. So it’s good to see that developer Ready at Dawn has continued to tweak and polish the title now almost six months after its July release; the studio says this will be the game’s final update.
Today Ready at Dawn deployed the new ‘Atlas’ patch. Those with high-end hardware (Intel i7 -7700k or above suggested) will now be able to enable three new features in the game’s settings to enhance its look and feel, the game’s development blog explains:
Enhanced Set Dressing
You’ll find higher concentration of floating props in various areas of the Station Interior and the Mining Facility. This change will be most noticeable on the Kronos II Bridge, in the Activation Bay, and at both the Primary and Depleted Dig Sites.
Tractor Device
This unique physics toy sucks in small props while you’re pressing the trigger, shooting them out at high speed upon release. There are two available in the game — look for them in the Activation Bay and at the Primary Dig Site.
Ragdoll Jack Husks
Normally, rigid, inanimate husks of Jack are left behind to mark your death locations. Now, these bodies can gain full ragdoll physics, so you can throw them around the environment with full limb mobility. Note that Jack Husks created by touching Bio Threat challenges will remain static objects attached to the Bio Threat.
Voiceover and Text in French, German, and Spanish
Speakers of French, German, and Spanish can now enjoy Lone Echo with a complete voice and menu text conversion in addition to the game’s native English composition.
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These rather late (but welcomed) additions to Lone Echo suggest that Ready at Dawn is very much continuing their work in the VR sector; as the development blog notes, “This is just the beginning of our continued investment in the Echo Games universe.” Some of the new features we’re seeing patched into Lone Echo may even be experiments derived from ongoing development work for Echo Combat—the studio’s forthcoming FPS combat game based in the Echo universe—you can imagine how ragdoll physics and the Tractor Device could be useful in a first person shooter!
Ready at Dawn also teased last year that the story of Liv and Jack, first portrayed in Lone Echo, will continue.