Journey For Elysium - new VR adventure game - reviews and impressions

[RuneSR2]

The game arrived a few days ago, looks interesting - I have not yet tried it:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1036260/Journey_For_Elysium/

I'm not that fond of black and white games, which also may look better using oled, because lcd hmds typically have greater problems separating blacks and greys (because lcd hmds cannot do real blacks). 

Some shots and award:

Some reviews:

(quote - High quality, low quantity - game is too short for the price)

https://www.vrfocus.com/2019/10/review-journey-for-elysium/ (60 % verdict)

https://www.games.ch/journey-for-elysium/test/review-iRn/ (77% - written in German)

https://steamcommunity.com/games/1036260/announcements/detail/1608275615653803533

[RuneSR2]

Note that according to the devs, primarily supported HMDs seem to be oled HMDs:

" [...] we've always stated everywhere that only HTC Vive & Oculus Rift are supported. Though the Index headset + Vive controllers will still work."

That doesn't mean that the game won't look great on lcd hmds - I have not tried it - but to me it looks like another game where the devs used oled hmds when making and designing the game.

I'm probably going to try buying the game especially if it has native Oculus driver support - I've just asked the devs about the native driver support. I'd prefer to play such dark games on the CV1. Clearly the devs have spent many hours making the game, really sad if it gets no attention or sales - right now there aren't many reviews on Steam indicating few sales. The devs not making the game available in the Oculus Store will probably not be a clever decision, if the game being unavailable in the Oculus Store was their own decision...

[RuneSR2]

Patience is a virtue  o:)

Hi Rune, I checked with the team. Currently, it will require SteamVR. We're working on a build for the Oculus store right now though 🙂

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1036260/discussions/0/1640927348809693333/

[RuneSR2]

Index is now working - but I'm not falling for that - not gonna buy a black game for  a lcd hmd  B)

Journey For Elysium - Playable on Valve Index

Index Players now also get to enjoy our mythological VR adventure

Great news for all Valve Index users that have been wanting to play Journey For Elysium. Our developers have managed to fix the major issues we were experiencing with the headset & controllers. It's now been QA tested and approved, so we're happy to share this information with you.

Valve Index Headset + Index Controllers

You can play Journey for Elysium with this combination, but we would like to mention a few elements to take into account

• The Inventory can be opened via the Grip button, but it will not be highlighted in the first tutorial. It will be indicated correctly though.
  
• You can also open the Inventory with the "A" button. (Recommended)
  
• Turning the camera is mapped to the Touch Pad and isn't 100% as responsive as we'd have liked due to the small surface of the Touch Pad on the Index Controllers.
  
• There is no Finger Tracking support
  

Valve Index Headset + Vive Controllers

This should work perfectly and we recommend this setup for Index users who also own Vive controllers. There have been no reported issues for this combination.

Should you discover any other issues, we are always happy to read your feedback in the comments or on our Discord.

[Luciferous]

I have been quite surprised at how good the Rift CV1 looks using ss 2.0 but I do notice the SDE more. Are the blacks that bad in the index? I don't remember the DK2 blacks being bad?

[RuneSR2]

Luciferous said:

I have been quite surprised at how good the Rift CV1 looks using ss 2.0 but I do notice the SDE more. Are the blacks that bad in the index? I don't remember the DK2 blacks being bad?

The blacks can be really good in the Index depending on the amount of non-black content to provide contrast. Due to such contrast some blacks look quite deep (and dare I say oled-like) using the Index, like when starting Doom VFR due to white text (blacks then look perfect). But it seems the more black an image gets - like when you really start to notice the SPUD effect in CV1, then Index will look much more gray. Like space sims/apps, or horror games like Affected the Manor (where Index is gray at best, while CV1 shows SPUD but looks much darker). 
If you don't know how a game looks using CV1, I guess many Index owners may not really notice the difference and just think it's normal - and of course you don't have SPUD in the Index. 

One dude measured the following, and I guess Vive and CV1 are close due to the oled screens:

Luminance in nits (high values are best):

• Index: 95

• Rift-S: 74

• Vive: 214

Black level in nits (low values are best):

• Index: 0.153

• Rift-S: 0.16

• Vive: under 0.02 with true blacks turned off via black smear compensation (default). (This value is 0 without black smear (SPUD) compensation)

https://www.reddit.com/r/ValveIndex/comments/c5sxu5/brightness_blackpoint_and_gamut_measurements_of/

Oled and lcd don't display the same colors, and although it feels close in many games or apps, in games like Asgard's Wrath I couldn't help thinking when changing from Index to CV1 that this was the image quality that the devs and artists worked so hard to achieve. It just did not look right using the Index, especially the more dark places - but especially also in the Tavern. 

It's a luxury to have both oled and lcd - but for very dark games I greatly prefer the CV1. What's happening now is probably that new games will be made for lcd hmds, and then artists will provide some contrast and lighting to avoid blacks that look gray-ish. Unfortunately playing older VR games originally designed for oled hmds does reveal several places where colors and darkness don't look right - potentially breaking immersion. 
As a rule of thumb I guess you could say that games taking place in daylight or in relatively well-lit rooms look much better with the Index than CV1, but the CV1 ss 2.0 still wins when the night comes, lol. 

I posted this earlier - from a CV1 owner getting the Index, and I think he's spot on when it comes to describing what I try to say in the above text:

Got an index yesterday (upgraded from the first rift) And Ive noticed when playing games with dark areas, for example The forest, during night time, everything is really brightly washed out that i can hardly see anything, and when i turn the brightness down its just too dark to see anything. On the rift i could easily see in the dark (it just looked 'right'). Is there something i could try to fix this? or is this just how the index is?

Its the same in other games as well

Edit: i just realied the original rift had a OLED screen, perhaps thats why it looked so much better in dark scenes

Expect exactly the same problem with Rift-S, so don't throw out the CV1 just yet 😉 Also I don't know how all of this affects Journey For Elysium - I just tend to worry when I see games with a lot of black areas. I no longer use CV1 in SteamVR, so I won't test Journey For Elysium before it arrives in the Oculus Store. 

[RuneSR2]

Journey For Elysium - Nominated for Best VR Game at Unity Awards 2019!

No news about the game showing in the Oculus Store though - I'm not getting such a dark game for the Index, but wouldn't mind using the CV1 (oled)...

[RuneSR2]

Tried the game for the first time ever using Rift CV1 - have only been using Valve Index previously for this game. 

Have to say that graphics were mind-blowingly better with the oled/CV1 - clearly this game was made for oled. I'd say graphics with Index were like 5/10 - but 8/10 with CV1. Graphics just don't look "right" with lcd, but everything looks just perfect with the CV1!