Virtual reality developer Digital Lode Immersive Media and publisher Tripwire Presents are proud to announce that the next setting for Espire 2, the gold standard in VR stealth and action, will be your own home. Coming later this year, players can continue the fight against OPHIS on their own home turf with the Espire 2 Mixed Reality Mode: literally. The free update will be supported on the Meta Quest 3, Quest 2 and Quest Pro headsets.
Announced during the UploadVR Showcase, the Espire 2 Mixed Reality Mode features a series of stealth missions that grow and adapt to the player’s personal playspace. Missions are deliberately focused and optimized for all environments ranging from small areas to multiple rooms. Play as Tempest, an agent who must pass a series of Mixed Reality Missions to earn their stripes and be cleared to pilot an Espire Frame. Each mission offers a variety of objectives, constantly changing familiar surroundings as you move; engage with enemy soldiers, bipedal mechs, electronic threats, and more that emerge to prevent you from completing your objective.
Mixed Reality Missions were designed utilizing key hardware features from Meta Reality, including color passthrough, scene understanding and passthrough occlusion. These tools allow users to have the ability to see the real-world environment around them, while giving developers unique abilities to customize player experience. Despite all items, threats and interactables being procedurally placed in your environment, all missions were handcrafted by the development team to ensure a thrilling stealth action experience for each user.
Espire 2 Mixed Reality Mode Key Experiences:
- ExperienceEspire 2’s signature stealth sandbox as all of its 1:1 tracked game mechanics translate perfectly into a mixed reality experience.
- Espire Vision: Raise your hand to your head and squeeze the trigger to use Espire Vision – your real world environment is tinted green and exposure is adjusted so darker shadows become bright!
- Hold Up Guards: Raise your hand to your mouth and speak to the guards. Your spoken commands are interpreted by Meta’s voice SDK AI assistant and translated into game commands. You can hold up a guard right in your living room.
- Take Down Guards: Squeeze the trigger on your controller and see a tranquilizer launcher pop out of your own forearm! Aim your arm at guards to fire darts for a silent takedown.
- Lockers are available in your real world. Open up the locker to find and collect resources like weapons, charge batteries and tranquilizer darts. Use the locker to stash an enemy guard’s body, or hide in the locker yourself. Peek through the slats in the locker and see the MR ‘real world’ beyond. Open the door and transition from VR into MR.
- Large blast windows will appear on your walls, dramatically extending your real world environment into the virtual world beyond the window. Peer through the windows to see large Hangar installations, store rooms, surveillance centers and other environments, with guard patrols to avoid, and resources to collect.
- Large boxes and crates can be utilized to create makeshift cover and hide from guards.
- Use your repair tool that’s built into your wrist to disable electronic threats like tripmines, cameras and turrets, and hack data from PC terminals.
Out now for the Meta Quest 2 and Quest Pro platforms, Espire 2 combines the tactical precision of modern stealth titles with the unprecedented immersion of VR, further expanding upon the genre-defining experience of its critically acclaimed predecessor. Coming soon to the Quest 3 headset, Digital Lode continues to make performance improvements and advancements to the game in advance of the expected release later this year.
Players new to the series can grab Espire 2 at a 40% discount for $17.99 USD / £13.49 GBP in the Meta Summer Sale, available through June 19, 11:59 p.m. (PDT).
VR media and content creators interested in learning more about the upcoming Mixed Reality mode are encouraged to join the official discord for further information and updates on playable opportunities during development. For more on Digital Lode and to stay up to date on the latest news for Espire 2, be sure to visit the official website, and follow the developers on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
For further information about Tripwire Presents please visit their official website and follow them on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
‘Ghost Replay’ Update Now Available for VR Puzzle Shooter ‘We Are One’
