Hasta La Gadget!

The engine that powered the vast majority of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3’s hit games, Unreal Engine 3, is getting a development kit update to support the soon-to-be-released Oculus Rift VR headset. Of course, the model of the Rift that’s soon-to-be-released is intended for developers, so the Unreal Engine 3 UDK update is right on time; it arrives at some point in “early April,” soon after the headset itself arrives for Kickstarter backers. Beyond UDK integration, full UE3 licensees will also get an update for integrating the headset into their games.

That said, if you snagged yourself a Rift dev kit and have no intention of actually developing games with it, the upcoming UDK release also includes a “VR Mode” version of the software’s sample Unreal Tournament game, as well as a summer version of the Epic Citadel demo we were shown at CES 2013. Paired with Valve’s offering of Team Fortress 2 VR Mode, that brings the grand total of playable things with the Rift headset to … five or six (depending on what you define as a “demo”). Upcoming PC mech shooter Hawken is also promising Rift support, though it won’t launch until mid-December. The Oculus folks are saying that Rift dev kits will begin shipping to Kickstarter backers this month, with orders fulfilled by mid-April.

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals, Software, HD

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You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

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This news is likely to be a bit disappointing to some Oculus Rift backers. Project supporters were set to be rewarded with a copy of Doom 3: BFG Edition, which was to arrive bundled with each development kit. Unfortunately, it turns out that the device won’t support the game at launch, so the team is offering some alternative compensation instead. You can opt for a $20 Steam Wallet credit, $25 Oculus Store credit or a full refund of your original pledge, if you so desire. Log in to make your pick by April 5th — if you miss that deadline, you’ll automatically receive the $25 credit to the Oculus Store. Kickstarter backers can hit up the source link to make their pick.

Filed under: Gaming, Software

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Via: GameSpot

Source: Oculus Rift (Kickstarter), Oculus VR (compensation selection)

We’ve known for some time now that Valve was working on virtual reality support for its perpetually updated free-to-play shooter, Team Fortress 2. The company’s even giving a duo of talks at the upcoming Game Developer’s Conference on the difficulties of game development for virtual reality. What we didn’t know, however, is that said support is also headed to consumers as “VR Mode,” and it’ll get pushed to PC Team Fortress 2 players “sometime within the next couple of weeks.” But how will you play it? Simple: Team Fortress 2 is the Oculus Rift‘s first official game.

Valve programmer Joe Ludwig revealed as much during a recent visit Engadget paid to the Bellevue, Wash.-based game company. “This is a mode that everybody who has a Rift dev kit and access to Team Fortress 2 will be able to play, just on public and in the same servers that everybody else is playing in,” Ludwig said. Of course, “everybody” doesn’t include Mac or Linux TF2 players just yet. “We don’t have a Mac or Linux SDK from Oculus quite yet, but once we get those, we’ll get it ported over to those other platforms,” he explained. Oculus tells us those SDKs are coming. “The Oculus SDK will only support Windows at launch, but we plan to add support for OS X and Linux as quickly as possible. It’s just a matter of time,” Oculus VP of product Nate Mitchell says.

We’ll have more from our visit to Valve in the coming hours, so keep an eye out!

[Image credit: Michael Clinard]

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals, Software, HD

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Want to know what the future of gaming will be? Odds are that the panel we’re hosting now at Engadget Expand has the answer. Our very own Ben Gilbert is sitting down with NVIDIA Product Marketing VP Ujesh Desai, Oculus VR Product VP Nate Mitchell and Razer Systems Product Group VP John Wilson to see their latest hardware and how it will impact the way we play. Hop past the break for a vision of gaming’s new frontiers as it unfolds.

Follow all of Engadget’s Expand coverage live from San Francisco right here!

Filed under: Gaming, NVIDIA

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