Echo Arena on Oculus Quest should be launching an open beta soon for its zero-g virtual sport.
Ahead of the launch of the free multiplayer Oculus Studios project from Ready At Dawn we’ve gotten into the closed beta and captured video of a full match. Overall the game seems to be shaping up incredibly well on the Oculus Quest and I had a ton of fun.
Check out the video here:
Playing the game in a room with a large Quest guardian and the freedom to move around wirelessly is a bit of a revelation. I can get sick pretty easily in VR and the game didn’t really click for me on the original Rift because I always felt like my tracking — even with three or four sensors — never quite gave me the freedom I needed to really enjoy it. Echo Arena is a lot like the zero-g sport described in the book Ender’s Game and the competitive play constantly encourages you to reach out and punch other players so they freeze in place. You also need to stretch out to try and grasp the disc floating by. On an original Rift the combination of nearby external cameras and the tether to your PC constantly warns you to be cautious. On Quest, though, I am learning to let go of that fear, turn around more freely and stretch my body out to reach the disc.
That’s led me to a more satisfying sense of complete focus on the game. Even though the movement is pretty intense I haven’t needed to quit playing Echo Arena on Quest yet due to discomfort.
According to Ready At Dawn, the studio should be providing an update about open beta soon through a developer log. The game will be free and will also feature cross-play with Rift players.
