Arcade FPS After-H to get Free Steam Early Access Release

Plenty of home virtual reality (VR) titles have made the leap into arcades as a way to make more money for studios. The same can’t be said for the other way around though. French studio and VR operator smartVR will be doing just that later this month by releasing After-H, a first-person shooter (FPS) designed for location-based entertainment (LBE) venues on home VR headsets.

With a basic story revolving around two human factions fighting for strategic points across the solar system in 2080, After-H is a pure multiplayer shooter. With maps supporting up to 4 vs 4 player matches, After-H is a fast FPS with the Early Access release featuring three modes (Team Deathmatch, Free-for-All and Domination), three maps (The Cliff / Ruins Bay / Coliseum) and three weapons (MX42 (assault rifle), The Needle (precision rifle), T1 Gauss (shotgun)).

The Early Access release doesn’t have a fixed timeline for an eventual launch but the studio has plenty of plans for the title, saying on its Steam page: “The full version of the game will include a larger set of weapons, skins, maps, game modes, in-game player and team features. We also have high esport expectations for After-H, which means we’ll have to define a competition system.”

Currently being worked on are Earth and Io maps, pistol, long-range rifle and bow weapons, a tutorial, an account system with levelling rewards and ranked games/leaderboards, plus new gameplay features like social interactions and abilities.

“Our goal was to make a true esport game with quality graphics for optimal VR immersion. We’ve worked hard on balancing and gameplay to launch a game that’s fun and quick to pick up, where players can also develop skills,” says Jean Mariotte, co-founder of smartVR in a statement.

Supporting Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Windows Mixed Reality headsets, After-H will launch on Monday 23rd September via Steam and Viveport completely free, with the studio stating even with regular updates it’ll remain free.

For those that don’t own a compatible headset, After-H is available in over 200 arcades around the world which use the SpringboardVR system. For further updates on the videogame from smartVR, keep reading VRFocus.

https://www.vrfocus.com/2019/09/arcade-fps-after-h-to-get-free-steam-early-access-release/