Farpoint

Farpoint
Information
VR/AR	Virtual Reality
Developer	Impulse Gear
Publisher	Sony Interactive Entertainment
Platform	PlayStation 4
Device	PlayStation VR
Type	Game
Genre	Shooter, Adventure
Input Device	PlayStation VR Aim, DualShock 4
Game Mode	Single-player, Co-op, Multiplayer
Release Date	16 May 2017 (North America), 17 May 2017 (Europe)
Price	US$49.99 at launch; US$79.99 bundled with the PlayStation VR Aim controller
App Store	PlayStation Store
Website	https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/farpoint/

See also: VR Apps and VR Games

Farpoint is a 2017 first-person shooter for PlayStation VR, developed by the San Francisco studio Impulse Gear and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4. The player crash-lands on a hostile alien planet and searches for a missing team of scientists while fighting hostile alien creatures. It was the debut title of Impulse Gear and launched together with the PlayStation VR Aim controller, a rifle-shaped motion controller that tracks the player's in-game weapon 1:1.

The game was released on 16 May 2017 in North America and 17 May 2017 in Europe. It used continuous analog-stick movement instead of teleportation. Farpoint debuted at number two on the UK retail sales chart, and it was nominated for Best VR/AR Game at The Game Awards 2017.

Reviewed 27 September 2026. Every claim, quote, price, date, score and award re-checked against its cited source (PlayStation Blog, PlayStation Store, Road to VR, UploadVR, Game Informer, Impulse Gear, Metacritic, OpenCritic, PlayStation LifeStyle, TheSixthAxis). About review dates.

Gameplay

Farpoint is played from a first-person view. Sony's product page calls it a VR space adventure in which the player crash-lands, tries to reunite with a group of scientists and fights through "hordes of indigenous and alien life", using weapons that include plasma rifles and railguns. The PlayStation Camera tracks the Aim controller through its light sphere and built-in motion sensors, so the player aims by physically raising and pointing the gun. The game can also be played with a DualShock 4 gamepad. Reviewing the game for UploadVR, David Jagneaux called the DualShock 4 support "atrocious" compared with the Aim.

Movement and comfort

The player moves continuously with the controller's analog stick rather than by teleporting. In Road to VR's review, Ben Lang noted that movement direction is decoupled from where the player is looking, that artificial turning is disabled by default, and that the relatively slow movement made the game more comfortable than he expected. Impulse Gear's co-founders told UploadVR in 2021 that the game had no 90-degree turns: the whole campaign could be completed with 45-degree head rotations, so the player never had to turn away from the forward-facing PlayStation Camera. Game Informer's review said the stick-based locomotion felt awkward at first and carried a higher risk of simulation sickness than teleport-based alternatives.

Story

In Game Informer's summary of the plot, the player is a pilot on a routine mission near Jupiter when an energy anomaly pulls the ship and a team of scientists onto an alien planet, where the player searches for survivors. The two scientists, Dr. Eva Tyson and Dr. Grant Moon, carry most of the narrative. Their story is told through databanks found in the levels, radio conversations, and playable sequences seen from their perspective, including a roughly ten-minute scene with no combat in which the player takes the role of Grant. The story was written by Rob Yescombe, who also wrote The Invisible Hours and later moved to Valve.

Co-op and versus modes

Online co-op for two players was available at launch. In it, the pair fight waves of enemies in levels already completed in the campaign and earn points. Online play requires PlayStation Plus. UploadVR's reviewer described the co-op mode as "exhilarating" and the high point of the game. The Versus Expansion Pack of December 2017 added competitive player-versus-player modes (see below).

Development

Impulse Gear was founded in late 2013 by Seth Luisi and Greg Koreman, about six months before Sony revealed the headset that became PlayStation VR. Luisi had spent 18 years at Sony, working on the SOCOM series and on MAG, a PlayStation 3 shooter for up to 256 online players. Luisi said in the game's announcement that the studio was set up "to create virtual reality games that would live up to the expectations of you, the gamer."

The Aim controller began with Impulse Gear's own experiments. The team built early prototypes from PlayStation Move controllers held together with "modelling clay and elastic bands", taking the older Move-compatible Sharp Shooter rifle accessory as a starting point, and worked toward 1:1 weapon tracking instead of cursor-based aiming. The finished controller was made with Sony. At launch, Sony product designer Taichi Nokuo said he had chosen a design that did not resemble a real weapon, so that "anybody, from children to adults, feel comfortable playing with it." Farpoint and the controller were revealed together on 13 June 2016, at E3 2016. Co-op play was confirmed at a GDC 2017 developer session.

The game is built on Unreal Engine 4. In a 2018 technical write-up, senior programmer Victor Ceitelis and Koreman described how the team met Sony's required 60 frames per second on PlayStation VR. Instead of Epic's deferred renderer, they used Oculus's clustered forward renderer, modified for the PS4, and added features it lacked, such as dynamic shadows. Other techniques included dynamic resolution scaling between 95% and 200% screen percentage, FXAA anti-aliasing, occlusion queries run for one eye using a merged depth buffer, and a mip bias toward the screen edges that approximates foveated rendering. On the PlayStation 4 Pro, the game renders about twice as many pixels as on the standard PS4 instead of adding objects or draw distance. Koreman said this makes it easier to see detail at long range when looking down the sights.

Release

Sony priced the game on its own at US$49.99, CA$59.99, €59.99 and £49.99. A bundle with the Aim controller cost US$79.99, CA$99.99, €89.99 and £74.99. Pre-orders included a Red Planet Wanderer spacesuit skin. In Europe, a launch promotion at participating retailers included a free physical copy of Farpoint with a PlayStation VR headset. It also offered the Farpoint and Aim bundle for €30 when bought with a headset.

Date	Release or update	Notes
13 June 2016	Announcement	Revealed alongside the PlayStation VR Aim controller
16 May 2017	North American release	Sold alone or bundled with the Aim controller
17 May 2017	European release	Sold alone or bundled with the Aim controller
27 June 2017	Cryo Pack	Free; two snow-themed co-op maps, Challenge Mode for all six co-op levels, a new skin and new Trophies
5 December 2017	Versus Expansion Pack	Free; Deathmatch and Uplink PvP modes, 15 weapons, three skins, player and weapon XP progression

Post-launch updates

The Cryo Pack came out about a month after launch. It added two co-op maps set in icy regions with enemies "reskinned to adapt to the cold", made all six co-op levels playable in Challenge Mode, and added an explorer-themed skin, lobby toys and Trophies. The update was free.

The Versus Expansion Pack, released on 5 December 2017, was free for all owners and added two player-versus-player modes for players with PlayStation Plus. In Deathmatch, players fight each other directly. In Uplink, players capture and hold communication relays to score points. The pack included three maps (Underworld, Pipeline and Permafrost) and 15 weapons across five weapon classes. It also added a 16-level player XP system and 15 levels of XP for each weapon class. Other additions were a harder Chaos difficulty for co-op, a crouch toggle for seated play and new turning comfort settings.

Reception

On Metacritic, the PlayStation 4 version has a score of 71 out of 100 based on 62 critic reviews, which the site classifies as "mixed or average". OpenCritic lists a top critic average of 70, with 25% of critics recommending the game.

Publication	Score	Source
Road to VR	8.2/10
IGN	7.5/10
Polygon	7.5/10
Game Informer	7/10
GameSpot	7/10
Eurogamer	Not recommended

Ben Lang of Road to VR called Farpoint "one of the most complete single-player VR games available today with a high level of polish" and said its weapons and enemies were varied. He criticized drift in the Aim controller's tracking, which he said hurt both gameplay and immersion, and put the campaign at just over five hours. Game Informer's Matt Bertz gave it 7 out of 10, praising the Aim controller but saying that "the linear design feels dated" compared with contemporary shooters. In UploadVR's review, Jagneaux praised the Aim controller and the co-op mode. He criticized the short campaign, repetitive enemies late in the game, stiff character animations and occasional tracking loss. He also said the forward-facing tracking of PlayStation VR limited level design. Eurogamer, as quoted by OpenCritic, called the game "a hollow novelty".

Sales and awards

In the GfK Chart-Track UK sales chart for the week ending 20 May 2017, Farpoint entered at number two behind Injustice 2. PlayStation LifeStyle reported it as the highest-charting VR-only game in the UK up to that point.

At Sony's PlayStation Awards 2017 in Japan, Farpoint was among the winners of the PlayStation VR award category, which recognized games that had made a special contribution to the headset over the previous 12 months. Road to VR named it PlayStation VR Game of the Year in its 2017 awards. At The Game Awards 2017, Farpoint was nominated for Best VR/AR Game alongside Lone Echo, Star Trek: Bridge Crew and Superhot VR; the award went to Resident Evil 7.

Legacy and current status

Impulse Gear's next game, Larcenauts, was made for Oculus Quest and PC VR headsets rather than PlayStation VR. In 2021 Koreman said of Farpoint, "we learned so much. It was breaking new ground."

As of September 2026, Farpoint is still sold on the US PlayStation Store as a PS4 title that requires the original PlayStation VR headset and the PlayStation Camera, and the listing includes the Cryo Pack and Versus Expansion Pack. Sony's product page says the game is playable on PlayStation 5, although some PS4 features may be absent. It does not run on PlayStation VR2: in September 2022 Sony's Hideaki Nishino said that original PlayStation VR games are not compatible with the newer headset.

See also

• PlayStation VR Aim
• PSVR Games