PlayStation VR2, PS5’s newest VR headset, announced at CES 2022

PlayStation VR2 is the next virtual reality headset coming from Sony, and a VR adaptation of Guerrilla Games’ acclaimed Horizon series is a launch title, the company announced Tuesday evening. The launch dates and windows of either product have not been announced.

Horizon Call of the Mountain is being developed by Guerrilla and Sony’s newly acquired Firesprite studios, the makers of The Playroom series for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation VR. The game will use the new PlayStation VR2 Sense controller, along with “new sensory features” that the headset can deliver, to provide a more lifelike and immersive feeling of playing virtual reality games, Sony said.

PlayStation VR2 uses headset-based controller tracking. This eliminates the need to use the PlayStation Camera. The headset will use embedded cameras to reflect the wearer’s movements and field of view in-game. Sony explained that the headset will use embedded cameras to provide feedback as well as 3D audio for an enhanced in-world experience.

“Headset feedback is a new sensory feature that amplifies the sensations of in-game actions from the player,” Hideaki Nishino, the PlayStation executive in charge of platform experience, said in a blog post Tuesday night. “It’s created by a single built-in motor with vibrations that add an intelligent tactile element.”

As an example, Nishino said that players “can feel a character’s elevated pulse during tense moments,” or perceive objects whizzing by their heads. “Additionally, PS5’s Tempest 3D AudioTech makes sounds in the player’s surroundings come alive, adding to this new level of immersion.”

The eye tracking means that looking in a different direction — without turning one’s head — “can create an additional input for the game character,” Nishino added. “This allows players to interact more intuitively in new and lifelike ways,” Nishino said.

Eye tracking represents the state of the art for VR headset technology; so far, it’s been integrated into the HTC Vive Pro Eye, introduced in 2019, and eye-tracking modules and add-ons are available for other Vive headsets. Facebook’s Oculus headset has yet to implement eye tracking, and Samsung has been said to be working on it for its Gear headset line since 2016.

Tuesday evening’s announcement confirmed previous statements and reports in 2021, some of them from Sony, about plans for the new PlayStation 5-compatible headset and controllers. UploadVR’s May 2021 report covered eye-tracking in detail. Sony’s headset-based controller tracking was also mentioned in an updated feature list last March.

For more information, see Horizon Call of the MountainSony and Guerrilla Games shared little more than a teaser video that had Jan-Bart Van Beek (studio director) talking for 90 seconds about the project. Then, there was an in-game clip of the player staring up while a huge, brontosaurus like mech tromps along.

“We don’t want to reveal too much just yet,” Van Beek said, “but this story will be told through the eyes of an entirely new character. There will be other people you meet. [series protagonist] Aloy, other familiar faces, and new characters along the way.” The studio is keeping mum about additional details until its PlayStation 5 title, Horizon Forbidden WestLaunched on February 18,