Sci-Fi VR Adventure ‘Hubris’ Celebrates Launch with First Major Update

In training to become an agent of the mighty and feared Order of Objectivity, better known as the OOO, Hubris transports players to the Twin planet system as they shoot, swim, climb and jump their way through the harsh, alien environment in an adventure critics are already branding as “exactly the kind of game VR needs”.

Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday 31st January 2023 – 3D animation and VR specialist Cyborn is eager to confirm that Hubris, the studio’s VR action-adventure designed to drive the genre forward, has received its first major update since launch.

Available today, the update includes improved combat – with a wider variation of enemies and improved AI, better gun aiming, and an alternative fire mode to make the shotgun more unique and useful. Players will now also find they require less resources to upgrade guns as well as auto gun-load whillst speed swapping between guns. In addition, the update also unlocks an overhauled menu system with more options to alter the graphical settings and gameplay in general and an option to disable gameplay hints.

In short, it’s a response to the feedback received from Hubris’ amazing player base so far, with developer Cyborn confirming it’s also added localisation for Chinese and Dutch, once again thanks to feedback from fans.

“This is not the last update we’ll be pushing out for Hubris,” confirms Ives Agemans, CEO and Game Director at Cyborn. “We’ve got a few more changes still in the pipeline that will be made available to all later this year, one of them being ambient music.

“We are glad so many enthusiastic players are willing to support us as a studio and are willing to contribute with suggestions and help us further push Hubris.”

Hubris, which is available to download on Steam, stands as a VR action-adventure game set in an absorbing and mystical Universe. Deployed as a recruit of the Order of Objectivity (or OOO for short), players will find themselves stepping out onto the Twin planet system to search for agent Cyana. Survival in Hubris comes down to shooting, swimming, climbing, and jumping your way through a hostile world in the midst of being terraformed.

Developer Cyborn set out to deliver immersive 3D graphics and motion capture, with Hubris comprising of a blend of visuals, sound, and technology formulated to produce unforgettable and engaging worlds. The end result is a captivating adventure specifically designed from the ground up for VR platforms, allowing players to move around its environment in an all-encompassing, engaging manner.

The full patch notes are detailed below. Hubris is available on Desktop VR platformsfor €39.99/£34.99/$39.99. Meta Quest 2, PlayStation®VR2, and some other unannounced platforms will be available later in 2023. Cyborn can also announce the game is currently available with a 25% discount for a limited period in order to celebrate the new update.

Gameplay:

Made all upgrades about 10 resources points cheaper per resource, making gun upgrades a lot more accessible.
Rebalanced salvage materials to lessen the grind of searching and dematerializing.
Lucia’s (Drone) hints can now be toggled on or off in the gameplay menu.
Drone detection ability has been increased in the Terraformer Interior to make them more aggressive in instanced where they would hang just outside of action range from the player.
The hoverbike can now be boosted with a single trigger press, instead of using both triggers.
The UI for all menu’s including start-up config has been revamped to be more user friendly and clear.
Loft juicer and food printer now works faster and smoother. The animation times and audio are cut so the player can insert all ingredients without pause.
Made some UI interaction on start-up clearer.
We passed over some dialogue to make them snappier. This was done blending certain animations and shaving some frames of others.
Fixed some dialogues triggering out of order in the SPI printer flow.
Added safety to soldering tool to make sure it’s always in place in the metro.
Did a pass on the Lucia drone movement to avoid clipping.
Underwater reactor in the SPIA can now be grabbed correctly.
Did a collision pass. Added collision to meshes where the player could still clip through.
Fixed hard locks in the tutorial when changing key bindings on certain buttons in SteamVR.
Wack now waits for the player before talking at the beginning of the terraformer interior.
The hooverbike now correctly stops and crashes when falling through gaps.
The debris at the end of the tunnel now correctly collides with the hooverbike.
Drones now have collision as well.
Players will respawn with a minimum of 25 percent hp. This way a ill-timed autosave with 5 percent health and no healing items should be less punishing.
Added extra Bhaptics calls in the ending scenes.
Slice no kills the player when slicing right through.
Added option to disable all screen shaking.
Pistol can now be fired as fast as you can pull the trigger.
Drones will now correctly respawn in the pillarforrest.
Containers on elevators now ease in and out when moving them.
The shotgun can now hit flying rocks and the shield generator.
All guns now have laser sights activated when grabbing them two-handed.
The pistol now has an accurate visor.
The burstguns’ holographic dot is now also accurate.
Added “without dying” to the “Speedy apprentice” and “License to speed” achievements to make clear that they need to be achieved in one run without dying.
Chapter selection is now available. Unlocking the previous act after it has been completed.

Stability & Performance:

Level streaming has been further optimized to prevent falling through the level.
Fixed not being able to jump near a moving elevator when not in the elevator.
Fixed certain particle effects not showing due to optimisation.
Fixed particle effects not being destroyed.
Added particles optimizations across the board.
Disabling Mirror display will now correctly disable the view instead of showing the last frame.
Added option to tweak ambient occlusion shadow generation, fixing the double vision issue on the Index.
Thicksacks now have the correct collision applied during their destruction animation and when destroyed.
Bhaptics implementation has been migrated to SDK2.
Fixed object physics bugging out when thrown in the chasm in the cave of the waterpond.
Fixed Post processing effect not going away on respawn in SPIA.
Fixed doors at the end of the tutorial not being closed correctly on respawn.
Fixed Lucia Drone lights already being on before the player fixed the drone.
Fixed gun grab animations still showing without gun after respawn.
Fixed health bar visual incorrectly showing full health after respawn.
Fixed mines correctly despawning and deactivating in the cyanpump and metro levels.
Improved performance in cyanpump.
Provided a fall back for the arm IK’s in case the tensorflow libraries are removed from the game files.
Shield now correctly show (or don’t show) and reload in the cyanpump after respawning.
Tweaked lucia drone flying very close to the elevators.
Loading the first tutorial save now correctly hides the new game button.
Prevented accidental overlap of the metro level trigger when running around the SPIA.
Slice now has better collision in the cyancave.
Changing sharpness now correctly remembers the setting in the menu.
Screen shake now doesn’t carry over in the pause menu.
Squidprinter now loads correctly being closed at first.

Animations:

Added general optimization and polish pass on animations.
Hand grabbing animations have been improved on certain meshes.
Fixed mismatches between the character animations and the voices.
Fixed some characters not being aligned on the floor.
Fixed trooper carrier in the pillarforrest being visible before the animation triggers.
Fixed Cyana’s hands clipping through the bed in the loft.
Wack now doesn’t get stuck in the terraformer reactor anymore.
Tweaked drone positioning in hangar interior to be in front of Wack when the speak to each other.

Visuals:

Fixed stretching algae.
Fixed visual bug where object looked see-through when held in the sun with the inventory opened.
Fixed medkit glasses overlay effect being visible in the menu.
Fixed positioning of decals in the control room sequence of the terraformer.
Fixed large drone smoke lodding.
Fixed repairgun particles showing in the middle of the metro level.
Fixed Wacks holo being gone after loading.
Uron shadows now disappear faster when they’re vaporized.
Fixed floor texture lodding issues in pillar forrest.
Fixed loft holograms rendering layers.
Adjusted death overlay effect.
Increased lighting arc resolution on the Uron Shield generator.
Wack’s holo in the SPI is now angled less awkwardly towards him.
Optimized and fade in/out Giant Uronship beam trail.
Centered some UI elements.
Sparks now collide correctly with the floor.
Tweaked Tyrim’s ambient occlusion.
Fixed set dress not aligning on the floor in SPIA