'Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' is coming to VR on Oculus Quest 2

 

Rockstar Games

One of the most-loved entries in Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series is coming to VR. On Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a port of 2004's GTA: San Andreas is in development for the company's Quest 2 VR headset. "This new version of what I think is one of the greatest games ever made will offer players an entirely new way to experience this iconic open world in virtual reality," Zuckerberg said during the event.

Zuckerberg didn't say when Quest 2 owners can expect to play the game. The blog post the company published after the event also didn't provide many other details either. "This is a project many years in the making, and we can’t wait to show you more of it," the company said. Whatever form the final product takes, it's likely to look a lot like the Resident Evil 4 remake Facebook and Capcom released last week. Expect the company's Oculus Studios division to rework various elements of the game to make the PlayStation 2-era game more practical and comfortable to play in virtual reality.     

The latest 'Valorant' hero is Chamber, the dapper sniper

 

Riot Games

Valorant players are getting another hero to use in Riot's free-to-play shooter. As described by character producer John Goscicki, Chamber plays the "gentleman assassin" role, a Sentinel-class character who "bunkers down, and holds a location by getting frags.” He can do this through a skill and weapon set that includes a trap that scans for enemies, a heavy pistol and a sniper rifle that can take enemies out with one perfectly-placed shot. Chamber will go live in Valorant with Patch 3.10 on Nov. 16. 

Riot Games

Given that his abilities are focused around "highly lethal, pinpoint accuracy," as Goscicki says, they wanted his style to match. "A person like that would care about the finer things in life as well—from the cut of his vest, to the color of the threading, and how shoes would bring the whole outfit together." If that description speaks to you, Chamber might be an agent worth trying out.

That patch comes a few weeks after Riot is set to release the Valorant Episode 3, Act III Battlepass, which goes live on November 2nd and will be available for 10 weeks. It comes with five free and nine paid "Marquee Items," and the pack itself costs 1,000 Valorant Points, the game's in-game currency. According to Riot associate art director Sean Marino, the Battlepass is focused on bringing some fall holiday vibes to the game. Given that one of the items Marino mentioned is meant to fit in with Halloween, it's a little bit of a bummer that this doesn't launch until after the holiday. But hey, why limit Halloween to just one month?

VR hit 'Blade & Sorcery' comes to Oculus Quest 2 on November 4th

 

Warpfrog

Blade & Sorcery has been a strong showcase for VR, but it has a drawback: its PC-only nature has meant occasionally tripping over wires while you fight your fantasy battles. Thankfully, that won't be an issue for long. Warpfrog has unveiled Blade & Sorcery: Nomad, a stand-alone game coming to the Oculus Quest 2 on November 4th for $20. The basic concept remains the same — it's a "sandbox" brawler with immersive swordplay and magic — but the developers are taking advantage of the freedom that comes with a stand-alone headset.

The familiar Sandbox mode is now fine-tuned for room-scale VR. There's also a Dungeons mode that challenges you to fight through "semi-procedurally generated" chambers. In 2022, there will also be a mode with progression that rewards frequent play.

This probably won't get you to spring for a Quest 2 by itself. It might tip the balance if you were already curious about titles like GTA: San Andreas, though, and it may serve as a good introduction to what VR can do. If nothing else, it shows what's possible when you aren't tied to a computer.

Roblox says its extra-long outage can't be blamed on Chipotle

 

Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

It hasn't been a good weekend for Roblox players. The Verge notes that the gaming platform has been down since 7PM Eastern on October 28th (nearly two days as of this writing), with no resolution in sight. It's not clear what prompted the failure beyond an "internal system issue," but Roblox Corporation stressed that it wasn't due to a Chipotle promo that launched just half an hour earlier. This wasn't linked to "any specific experiences or partnerships," Roblox explained.

The promo offers a total $1 million in free Chipotle burritos to players as part of a Halloween event. That could prompt a spike in activity on Roblox, but it's not likely to disrupt a game with over 40 million daily users.

The outage certainly won't help the platform, though. Over half of Roblox players are pre-teens, and its surge during the early pandemic helped fuel high-profile concerts and platform-exclusive games. Failures like this could easily anger kids (and their families) that spend much of their time in Roblox's virtual universe. While the downtime likely won't hurt the platform's long-term reputation, the company clearly can't afford many incidents like this.

Still making progress on today’s outage. We’ll continue to keep you updated. Once again, we apologize for the delay.

We know that this outage was not related to any specific experiences or partnerships on the platform.