When I first reported on the debut of Bigscreen, a virtual desktop social sharing and streaming platform for VR headsets, I immediately recognized a huge opportunity. Sitting in a virtual room, on a virtual couch, chatting with a real person, and sharing our screens as if we were side-by-side hanging out together, was thrilling. From a gaming perspective, it was even more exciting. It felt like the perfect opportunity to play multiplayer games like Rocket League or essentially any modern shooter.
Several months ago, we hosted our own mini-virtual LAN Party while playing Overwatch in VR, the first-person hero shooter from Blizzard, but now the folks at Bigscreen are going one step further. Recent updates have included features such as audio streaming and even split screen support to really make it feel like you’re playing a local multiplayer game with friends.
As a result tonight, November 4th, the social virtual desktop application is hosting the first VR Lan Party for a large group of people. There is no strict time, as you can drop in and out whenever you’d like, but they have noted that Bigscreen sees the most activity between the hours of 7PM and 11PM PST.
While each room in Bigscreen has a strict limit of only 4 people, there is no limit to the number of rooms that can be hosted, which gives it a large house party vibe. In the future, the developers of Bigscreen plan on adding larger room sizes and spectator features.
If you’re interested in joining the virtual LAN Party tonight, Darshan Shankar, CEO at Bigscreen, outlined some specifications to get the most out of the experience. “Inside Rocket League, turn on VSync, lower your graphics settings, and use borderless mode,” Shankar explained. “Keep in mind that Bigscreen is like streaming to Twitch, playing a video game, watching 4 HD videos, and rendering a VR environment all at the same time. It’s performance intensive, so expect to reduce some graphics settings unless you have a GTX 980 or better.”
Also today, Bigscreen is releasing its version 0.12 update. In this update they are debuting a Virtual Keyboard of sorts, which allows you to see what you’re typing without leaving VR. It’s similar to the Google Daydream keyboard that was revealed last month. The new feature supports both Oculus Touch (releasing December 6th) and the Vive motion controllers.
For more details on playing Rocket League in VR with Bigscreen tonight, you can read the Reddit thread here.
