The VR Master League, a community-driven platform that began forming in late 2016 with a couple dozen enthusiastic VR players, now features one of the largest VR competitive communities and today they announced a combination of prize packages worth over $12,000 in sponsored products and cold hard cash for their top three competitive titles.
Prize pools for the following games for the VR Master League seasons currently in progress will be as follows:
- Onward – $5,520 USD (including $1,500 USD in cash)
- Echo Arena – $3,545 USD (including $1,400 USD in cash)
- Pavlov – $3,060 USD (no cash included)
Onward
Officially established in early 2017, the VR Master League initially featured only Downpour Interactive’s Onward, a 5 v 5 tactical mil-sim first-person shooter. Onward had been developed by Dante Buckley, a young man working on his own to create a realistic tactical mil-sim VR game. It was incredibly well-received upon release and has continued to remain one of the top VR first-person shooters on the market.
Onward is currently in season 10 and the game is set to release on the Oculus Quest tomorrow, which is certain to bring an influx of new players on the stand-alone headset who are eager to experience VR esports. The Quest port was the result of a massive effort on the part of Dante and the entire Downpour Interactive team.
VR Master League hosted 24 players for Onward Season 1 in 2017. There are currently 475 players registered for Onward Season 10. With the increasing prize pools and the Quest port, the game is certain to see a continued rise in these numbers.
You can check out highlights from Onward VR Master League Season 9 below.
Echo Arena
Ready At Dawn’s Echo Arena has had a colorful competitive history. The game was included as one of the first two titles featured in the Oculus-sponsored, ESL-run VR Challenger League that kicked off in the summer of 2017. It’s also a popular title in the Collegiate VR Esports League (CVRE). Last fall the game was added to the lineup of choices in the VR Master League, with support of the community and RAD developers.
Last year Ready At Dawn and Oculus also announced that Echo Arena would be coming to the Oculus Quest. Ads featured the exciting zero-gravity gameplay and brought an entirely new group of enthusiastic VR esports competitors along with the Quest port.
The Echo Arena VRML pre-season last fall hosted 158 players. Season 1 earlier this year had 238 players participating. Following the Quest port for the game, there are now 1,312 registered players for Echo Arena VRML Season 2.
Pavlov
Vankrupt Games’ Pavlov VR is a fast-paced first-person shooter that’s often compared to Counter Strike with a similar economy management and buy/loadout system. The Pavlov community handcrafts league maps that help drive the VR esports scene and they’ve recently entered season 7.
Pavlov was first featured in the VR Master League in 2017 with 19 players in season 1. There are currently 445 players in Season 7, which began last week. As with the other titles, new players are invited to register on the VRML website and join the competition during the regular season.
Pavlov can be purchased through Steam and played on all major headsets, including the Valve Index, HTC Vive, and Oculus Rift. There is currently a working build on the Oculus Quest. Information about installation can be found in the Pavlov VR Discord server under “quest-installation.”
VR Master League
You can register for any of these games or other titles on the VR Master League website.
