LARCENAUTS by Farpoint developer Impulse Gear, headed to Quest and PC-VR platforms this Summer!

Earlier this year, we heard developer Impulse Gear was going to announce a new VR game, and that the new game would be releasing this year. To say that VR fans were excited about this news, would be a tremendous understatement. If you've never heard of Impulse Gear, you probably don't own a PlayStation VR, and you've probably never tried their smash hit, Farpoint. Farpoint has been one of the staff's absolute favorite VR games, especially when used in conjunction with the PlayStation AIM controller. In fact, if you check out our Top 200 PlayStation VR Games Rankings right now, you'll see that Farpoint is our No.1 PlayStation VR game! So, it's not hard to see how excitement would be through the roof for this announcement!

Yesterday, the developer let the cat out of the bag. The new game is called Larcenauts. It's a team-based multiplayer arena shooter featuring selectable hero characters. Surprise, surprise. Farpoint of course, was an epic single-player adventure game, so Larcenauts is a considerable departure for the studio.

The game features 8, unique "specialists" that players can select. Basically 8 character classes. If you select EVANDER [Hunter], you're essentially choosing the long-range sniper class. Another option would be SALTERS (Grenadier), she's a gritty space miner turned demolitions expert. You can also choose an adorable robot called THAL. Thal is in the Guardian class, where he specializes in defense and suppression. If you prefer staying out of the heat of the battle and concentrating on healing your teammates, then you definitely want to choose CHI, the Medic of the group.

CHI is the games designated "Medic". A mysterious creature from an Alien World

Larcenauts is a 6 versus 6 VR shooter where a group of misfits are engaged in heists for riches in the lawless outlands of the Ludus galaxy. The group of misfits angle is especially important, because if you check out the trailer below, you can see that Impulse Gear is definitely going for a fun and vibrant atmosphere, featuring comical characters that you can laugh along with as you compete against the opposing team. Towards the end of the trailer, we find out the origin of the game's name. One of the specialists says, "What are we going to do with the intel?", "We need it for the job, you know... the heist? Larceny? Then another specialist says.. "Larceny? more like...." So, we can almost think of it as a comical crime caper, mixed in with a hero-based team shooter. Be sure to check out the trailer below so you can get a feel for the game's humorous and whimsical approach:

We already know that the game features a total of 8 selectable specialists, but what about the various backdrops where the hilarious action will take place? How many maps or arenas will Impulse Gear have ready for their Summer launch? Apparently, there's four primary backdrops to enjoy. Relay, Blight, Excavation and Hazard Pay.

RELAY

Relay is located in Sector-2G of the Ludas galaxy. It's an abandoned station on the remote planet TPKT-73

BLIGHT

Blight is located on the fungal planet Mycos. It's a small laboratory surrounded by exotic flora and fauna

EXCAVATION

Excavation is located on the desert planet Beryl. Alien Ruins have been discovered at a drill site there, with an archeological excavation currently underway

HAZARD PAY

Hazard Pay is located out in open space at the Ucaultium Mines. It's an extremely dangerous location on an asteroid mine

So far, we've only seen a single screenshot of each map location, but it would appear that Relay and Excavation are both bright and sunny map locations, while Blight and Hazard Pay lean to the dark and dreary side. Of course, it's possible that all four maps will have an opposite time of day mode to keep things fresh. We also wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find out that Impulse Gear is busy cooking up additional maps that will be coming to the game post launch.

Of course, another question to consider, is what about a PlayStation VR version of the game? Remember, Impulse Gear is primarily known to VR gamers because of their amazing PSVR game Farpoint. You'd have to imagine that the PlayStation VR community is a bit confused and disappointed by this announcement. Some PSVR gamers may have erroneously assumed that Sony owned Impulse Gear outright, making the lack of a port even more head scratching. (Note: Impulse Gear is 100 percent independent) The good news, is that a PlayStation VR version could still be in the cards. We've noticed that a lot of times, the PSVR version of a particular game can lag several months behind other versions. So, this could simply be a situation where Impulse Gear doesn't want to put the cart in front of the horse. They want to know that their PSVR version is absolutely locked in stone before spilling the beans. Another possibility is that we might have to wait an extra year or so for the potential arrival of PlayStation VR 2. Either way, we really hope to see Larcenauts on a Sony VR headset as well!

Stay tuned for more Larcenauts coverage as we head towards launch and be sure to check out the Oculus Quest Most Wanted Rankings as well as the various PC-VR Most Wanted rankings to see how high the game is ranked on our watchlists!