As virtual reality HMD adoption rises, entertainment media powerhouses are getting more skin in the game. YouTube is where many consume their content and the platform has amassed over one million VR videos and experiences. The team behind it wants to continue to grow with VR and, to do that, the team revealed that YouTube is coming to the Oculus Quest as a launch application.
YouTube VR launched in November 2016 and is already available on Daydream View, HTC Vive, PlayStation VR, Samsung Gear, VR, Oculus Go, and Oculus Rift. This gives it a home on not only the powerful PC-tethered virtual reality options but can be taken on the go with mobile and completely wireless VR HMDs. The Oculus Quest is bridging the gap with powerful, fully immersive VR content without having to be connected to a PC and having the YouTube VR app at launch gives potential consumers a wealth of content to access immediately.
The Oculus Quest is an all-in-one VR headset with Oculus Insight tracking, meaning there are no external sensors that you have to set up. As long as you’re playing in the ideal setting, the Quest is a pick-up-and-play solution that removes the complicated setup. It comes in a 64GB version for $400 and 128GB model for $500 and they both will ship by May 30. Preorders are live now and some customers have even received their Quests early.
With the growing exposure of VR comes higher production values and investments in virtual reality content. For instance, the VR short film Crow: The Legend VR won multiple Emmy awards, including an individual achievement award for character design and another for production design, and it features performances from Constance Wu, Oprah, Liza Koshy, and John Legend. The Jet Propulsion Lab at National Aeronautics and Space Administration, also known as NASA, even earned an Emmy for showing the world outer space in a 360-degree livestream.
Creating VR content takes some additional layers of thinking even for the most experienced content creators and filmmakers. With that in mind, YouTube is taking applications in Europe for its VR Creator Lab. The program teaches the VR180 format for YouTube across three months. Select participants can even earn $20,000 in production funding, a VR180 camera, ongoing mentoring, and advanced education in a three-day boot camp at YouTube Space.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.