Onward is one of VR’s most popular and ambitious games to date and it was all made originally by a single man that dropped out of college to pursue his dream of becoming a game developer. It’s an inspiring story and the quality of the game reflects his attention to detail and ambition. It originally released in Early Access a little over a year ago on Steam for HTC Vive and then eventually added Touch support once Oculus’ controllers hit the market. Now, the game is becoming officially available for download on the Oculus Home store.
In Onward, players get to take on the role of a modern military soldier. You can engage in objective-based 5v5 multiplayer, as well as play cooperatively and alone against smart AI opponents. What makes Onward unique is that from the very beginning it featured full, smooth artificial locomotion that let players freely move throughout the environments. On top of that the game sports an incredible amount of realism and detail, such as the need to manually reload each weapon, unpin and throw grenades, use a shoulder-mounted radio to communicate with team members, and more.
“I grew up playing tactical military shooters and loved the strategy, teamwork, and skill needed to win,” says Onward Developer and Downpour Interactive Founder Dante Buckley in an Oculus blog post. “The high risk/high reward goals in games like Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, Counter-Strike, SOCOM, and Insurgency make these experiences a lot more meaningful and unique—you can see a lot of their influences in Onward.”
At the start of this year Valve even invited Buckley to work out of their offices in an accelerator program which he gladly participated in. Since Onward’s release it’s caused a shake up in the VR market as developers have taken note of gamers’ interest in more fully-featured, robust experiences with full smooth locomotion. For example. Arizona Sunshine added it after launch and Skyrim VR will include it from day one. We’ve also seen direct competition spring up in the form of other shooters like Pavlov on Steam and an upcoming project on PSVR.
According to Oculus Onward will be available for purchase on the Oculus Store as of the time of this writing right here. Buckley also told us that it will in fact have cross-platform multiplayer with Steam users as well. For some tips on playing the game check out our Onward Field Guide and let us know down in the comments below what you think!
