Valve’s monthly hardware survey reports that the Oculus Rift has risen in popularity on Steam, to the point that it has knocked the Rift from its usual position as the most used VR headset on the platform.

While the Rift’s new number one ranking is notable and bodes well for the headset’s presence on the typically Vive-led platform, game developers should keep in mind that participation in the hardware and software survey is entirely optional for Steam users, so the data shown doesn’t represent VR use of Steam’s entire user-base as a whole.

All in all, the Rift now boasts roughly 2 percent lead over the Vive. February’s numbers show the Oculus Rift accounting for 47.31 of the VR headsets on the platform, while the Vive is now only used by 45.38 percent of reporting VR users. 

Both PC-bound headsets have received a fair number of price cuts during the last year or so that could be responsible for the slow rise in VR usage, and Oculus has notably been more aggressive than HTC when slicing prices. 

The last cut from Oculus knocked $100 off of the price tag, bringing the Rift headset and controller bundle down to $399. One month earlier, the price of the Vive dropped from $799 to $599, though, even with the $200 cut, HTC’s headset is still a fair bit more expensive than the Rift.

Overall, roughly .28 percent of reporting Steam users have VR headset plugged into their PC. Looking at Steam’s entire reporting userbase as a whole, the Rift is now used by .14 percent of users, up .02 percent from January, while the HTC Vive is used by .13 percent, up .01 percent from last month.

While the percentages show an increase, Valve notably doesn’t release the number of users that use each headset or the number of people that opt into the hardware survey overall, so the numbers should be taken with a grain of salt.

This interview is part of our Road to the IGF series. You can find the rest by clicking here.

Echo takes players to a palatial space station, one eerily filled with clones of the heroine that shift and adapt to the player’s style, taking their actions as their own. Before long, players will have to learn how to defeat their own tactics and combat movements, constantly trying to stay ahead of themselves.

Gamasutra spoke with Martin Emborg of ULTRA ULTRA, developers of the Excellence in Visual Art-nominated title, to talk about creating the striking space station players will battle through, as well as the thematic and gameplay concerns that were addressed by the game’s art style.

What’s your background in making games?

After graduating from the Danish Design School, I got a job at IO-Interactive, and I ended up staying with them for almost 10 years! During that time, I got to try my hand at many of the disciplines that go into making a good gaming experience, learning from some wonderful people – a few of which actually ended up joining Ultra Ultra to make Echo!

How did you come up with the concept?

We’ve been asked this many times, but man, it’s a hard question… The Palace itself was probably the original spark, inspired in part by Jorge Luis Borges’ The Library of Babel, which Christel (who wrote Echo) had introduced me to. We both have a strong affinity for high concept science fiction, and especially the kind that confronts you with the unknown. We wanted that sense of awe and wonder, and the idea of a planet-sized splendid maze certainly had the potential to provide that. But what would you face in those maddeningly infinite halls? It’s hard to separate idea from process after the fact, but somewhere along the line came the idea of you coming face to face with yourself, and we ran with it!

What development tools were used to build your game?

We build the game in Unreal 4 – We shipped on a modified version of 4.11. It was awesome to be able to just download Unreal and then be operating at AAA levels from the word go. As for software packages, beyond that, we’re all over the map. People just use what they’re comfortable with.

How much time have you spent working on the game?

Around three years. A half year getting the company up and running, finding funding and being anxious about the decision, and then 2.5 years of actual production.

What drew you to use the striking art style of Echo? What thoughts went into creating the striking, palatial space station players explore?

Beautiful malevolence is just so much more unsettling than the decrepit kind, in our opinion.

The palace aesthetic tabs into many aspects of the game, both from a narrative and thematic perspective. I don’t want to give too much away by going into the culture that created the structure, but let’s just say it reflects their arrogant world-view. Hopefully the environments also convey a sense of having entered some kind of afterlife, one containing both the elevated and the outcast.

Thematically, the repetition and symmetry of ornamentations found in real world palaces like Versailles and the Winter Palace just fits perfectly in a game called Echo, where you play against replications.

What do you feel this style added to the unsettling experience of being stalked by clones of yourself? In setting the game’s mood?

As mentioned above, our objective was to transport players into the unknown, and they are completely used to the typical dark oil-rig/submarine style space stations, having experienced plenty of games and movies set in those! So, in order to take them out of that comfort-zone, we take them elsewhere.

From a more practical perspective, we wanted a bright location so that the effect of the blackouts would be clear, but at the same time we didn’t want the surroundings to be too easily read. We wanted the eyes and minds of the players to be continuously scanning and searching the surroundings, so the high frequency of detail in an ornate Palace hopefully achieved that.

There is a beauty in the UI that surrounds En (the heroine). How did you come to create this endlessly-shifting flow of information and give it a visual form?

Our design sensibilities with regards to the suit and HUD/UI was, very much in contrast to the surroundings, completely utilitarian, actually; it needed to be functional first and foremost. The idea for the radar “orb” arose during prototyping – we’d made arrows that pointed towards enemies, but it wasn’t really communicating anything about distance, so the basic task became to try and make a kind of holographic mirror-ball surrounding the character in game-space that would allow you to perceive what was going on around her.

Design-wise I think it’s one of our bigger achievements. Once you get used to it, you almost stop noticing that it’s even there, and it becomes a natural extension of your senses within the game world.

Being attacked by clones of yourself throughout the game should get visually dull. How did you work to avoid this in Echo?

Haha, I’m not sure we did! Perfect copies have no variation after all! In the beginning, as they evolve, and when you encounter one you killed earlier, rematerialized by the Palace, they appear as incomplete, twisted abominations, but we didn’t do this to battle visual dullness, but to tell the player something. The aesthetic throughout Echo is carefully anchored in repetition and symmetry.

Have you played any of the other IGF finalists? Any games you’ve particularly enjoyed?

Cuphead is just delightful! Insanely hard, yes, but delightful. The craftsmanship that went into that is impressive, and obviously done with a steady hand.

What do you think are the biggest hurdles (and opportunities) for indie devs today?

Being noticed is the biggest hurdle, definitely. You can make a super great game, and still, you’ll completely disappear in the throng. We were lucky to get quite a lot of attention from the gaming media as well as streamers, and still the most frequent thing we hear is “Why haven’t I heard of Echo before?!”.

We know you’re busy and might miss out on all the exciting things we’re talking about on Xbox Wire every week. If you’ve got a few minutes, we can help remedy that. We’ve pared down the past week’s news into one easy-to-digest article for all things Xbox! Or, if you’d rather watch than read, you can feast your eyes on our weekly video show above. Be sure to come back every Friday to find out what’s happening This Week on Xbox!

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Badland Games has revealed that SWDTech’s JRPG-inspired title Pixel Noir is now in development for Nintendo Switch after smashing its funding goal on Kickstarter.

Pixel Noir is a detective game set against a film noir backdrop which sees your character, who has been in jail for many years, finally get a chance to clear his name once and for all. For ten years you were haunted by unanswered questions and unspeakable horror, frightened by what you saw and what you did, leaving you with no choice but to take the opportunity to fix things.

The Switch version of the game is said to contain all of the features coming to other platforms, which you can check out below.

Features

– Solve a variety of mysteries as Pinnacle City’s cheapest Private Eye! From missing pets to murder investigations, your detective skills will earn you either fortune or face punches.
– Fight enemies in turn-based combat. Unleash devastating combo attacks by teaming up with other heroes in your team!
– Explore Pinnacle City–a wretched hive of scum and villainy harboring black market trade & hawked by colorful characters.
– Use your investigation mode to reveal clues. Level it up over time to unearth new secrets and storylines!
– Overkill mechanic: if you do too much damage, instead of knocking your enemy out, you can kill them. This will affect what type of spoils you get from battle!
– New timed hit mechanics for skills including button sequences and d-pad rotation!
– CRDTech card game… can you find Phil, the Dust Master?

While we have no confirmed release date as of yet, the fact that the game is now officially coming to the Switch (and at the same time as other platforms) is, of course, great news. Does this one look right up your street? Let us know in the comments below!