The technology behind the “Control Theatre” and the game’s movement system lies at the heart of Espire 1: VR Operative’s gameplay and intuitive VR control system. Any time a player performs any artificial locomotion, the game world shrinks down to the size of a floating tablet, with the Control Theatre visible in the player’s peripheral vision.

This “VR within VR” system allows for precise full freedom of movement, maintains immersion, and also eliminates “VR motion sickness” for almost everyone.

The Control Theatre is fully customizable to suit the player’s level of comfort, up to fully disabled for those already comfortable moving in VR.

To celebrate the success of Espire 1: VR Operative, Digital Lode is launching the Espire 1: VR Operative Assimilation content update for free today on all major virtual reality platforms, including Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, Oculus Rift-S, HTC Vive, Valve Index, and Windows Mixed Reality.

The Assimilation update will be available for PlayStation VR later this month. 

With today’s release of the Espire 1: VR Operative Assimilation content update, players can look forward to an expanded armory of weaponry as well as a series of Virtual Challenges.

Highlights of today’s free Espire 1: VR Operative Assimilation content update include:

New Operative Weapons

• Vector SMG: This semi-auto weapon is an excellent choice for mid-range combat, providing for accurate and quick bursts of controlled fire with one bullet firing upon the first trigger press and the last bullet firing upon release. With an extended clip of 45 rounds and very low recoil, it is the weapon of choice for the new “SMG” weapon challenge mode.
• Sawed-off Shotgun: Get up close and personal with this new shotgun, boasting a wider spread for close quarters combat. Its compact design allows for the shotgun to be holstered as either a sidearm or primary weapon -- and reloads via magazine clip instead of individual shells.

New Virtual Challenge Game Modes

Experienced Espire agents can also look forward to three new Virtual Challenge game modes, featuring new stealth gameplay not featured in the campaign. These new Virtual Challenges focuses on weapon mastery, climbing and intel gathering stealth skills essential to completing missions quickly and efficiently. Test your skills against players around the world with an improved leaderboard.

• Weapon Challenges: Run, weave, duck, climb, jump and zipline your way through seven courses designed to test your mastery with each weapon class. Rack up the highest combo while eliminating static, moving and explosive targets, as well as enemy combatants in order to reach the top of the leaderboard.
• Climbing Challenges: Overcome climbing puzzles where speed and timing is paramount to completing the course with the highest score. Make sure to avoid getting squashed by the fast-moving crushers!
• Intel Challenges: Explore four completely new environments. Locate and hack intelligence from all workstations in the area and reach the extraction point. This game mode builds on the core Espire gameplay from the campaign.

In addition, Espire agents can expect a variety of technical and quality of life gameplay improvements based directly on player feedback and requests with today’s free release of the Espire 1: VR Operative Assimilation content update. For full details on the update, please head here.

Key Features:

• The definitive VR stealth experience: Espire 1 brings the stealth genre to the exciting medium of Virtual Reality, delivering gameplay mechanics for the stealth and action genres that have yet to be explored.
• Full freedom of movement: Espire 1 allows players the freedom to move anywhere within their virtual environment, moving, climbing, and falling with full comfort and no motion sickness for almost all players.
• Complete single-player story, rich in detail: Espire 1 is being developed as a dedicated single player VR experience with individual story missions and scenario missions that use the story mission environments for short challenges.
• Voice control: Using the VR headset’s onboard microphone, you can make commands and perform actions simply by speaking. The noises you make could draw the enemy to your location – use this to your advantage.
• Arsenal of weapons and gadgets: As an Espire 1 VR Operative you will have access to dozens of unique gadgets and weapons such as a tranquilizer pistol and deployable spy cameras in order to complete your mission objectives.
• Global Leaderboard: A worldwide tally awards players a competitive score based on mission time, movement, stealth, ammo conservation, takedowns and other factors.
• Intuitive controls that mimic real life: Interaction in this game aims to be natural and intuitive. Instead of memorizing dozens of button combinations for every action, you perform them as you would in real life. You can crouch and enter cover by physically using your body.
• Smart AI: Enemy combatants in this game actively hunt the player. The AI responds to sight, sound, and other stimuli and will react to with varying levels of suspicion based on your physical stance, movement speed, cover and relative location.

Espire 1: VR Operative is available on all major VR platforms, including Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, Oculus Rift S, HTC Vive, Valve Index, Windows Mixed Reality, and PlayStation VR.