The Best Family-Friendly VR Games
You're technically supposed to wait until your child is at least 14 years old to play games in VR, but it's safe enough in moderation. Some parents will want games specifically for their young 'uns, while others will want games that kids and adults can enjoy. Thankfully, most of the best family-friendly games are ones that people of all ages will get a kick out of, even if they don't have the violence or serious storytelling of some other favorites.
Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs
It's exactly what you think it is
Does Angry Birds even need an introduction? The game that practically defined quality mobile gaming proved to be a perfect fit for VR puzzle heads. Grab your slingshot, load it with a bird, and fling them at defiant piggies that just won't stop stealing eggs, no matter how many times you defeat them. Clever physics-based puzzles have been the hallmark of the series since its inception, and the translation to 3D space only makes them more compelling.
Developer Resolution Games has been behind over half a dozen VR hits and used that experience to translate Angry Birds to VR. It updated the game several times since the original launch, and players can now sling through over 100 official levels of mayhem, with each level topping the last in terms of complexity. There's even a level creator and thousands of community-made levels to play, so you can sift through those in your free time and aim to top the developers in their level-building skills after.
Plus, Quest 3 players can enjoy a mixed reality mode and hand tracking capabilities that are new for Spring 2024, letting you play Angry Birds on your living room floor as if it were a set of real toys. —Nick Sutrich
Cosmonious High
Another home-run puzzler from Owlchemy Labs
A healthy majority of VR fans have played Job Simulator or Vacation Simulator (two other picks below). Developer Owlchemy Labs didn't stray too far from its comfort zone with Cosmonious High; it may have a much different look and theme, set in a high school for aliens, but it has the same humor, puzzles, and creative mechanics we've come to expect.
As an alien called a Prismi, you can adapt your abilities and powers to your surroundings, enabling some context-sensitive tools to find your way out of one brain-teaser after another. As you master your abilities, you'll interact with the charming students and teachers, made memorable by great voice acting and writing. As with any great family-friendly game, it's one a child can freely enjoy but that offers plenty of entertainment and depth for adults. —Michael Hicks
Ghost Giant
Be the guardian angel you wish you had
Some of my most memorable VR experiences, including Allumette, Arden's Wake, Moss, and others, play with the idea of you as a giant in the virtual world, with the power to lean down and peek in on character's lives or even change them with a single touch. The more interactive control you have over their lives, the greater your responsibility to protect the little characters around you and keep them happy. Ghost Giant plays with those same themes, but acknowledges that there are certain things that you can't fix.
Our Ghost Giant reviewer had a similarly powerful and emotional response to this game as I did. You're there to protect and bond with a young boy named Louis while also taking apart the little houses around you to spy on the other NPCs, solve puzzles, and look for little collectibles. In the midst of exploring the beautiful landscape, you will have several emotional moments as you see first-hand what these characters are going through. It's a family-friendly game, but the emotional beats are not treated with kid gloves.
Like many story-driven VR experiences, Ghost Giant is fairly short for the price, and the puzzles are more little diversions than tough brain teasers. But the wonderful story, soundtrack, and visuals make the game worth experiencing. —Michael Hicks
LEGO Brick Tales
LEGO is finally in VR, and it's just as great as we'd hoped
Get up close and personal with LEGO sets just as if they were right in front of you, all without having to spend hundreds of dollars on each and every set. LEGO Brick Tales is an action game with light platforming elements that sees you controlling characters that walk around diorama-sized levels, each packed to the gills with secrets to find and little details to take in.
As you venture through each of the game's worlds, you'll solve levels and problems by building your own LEGO solutions, each of which is entirely physics-based and realistic. The diorama-like levels might be prebuilt, but there's nothing prebuilt about the contraptions and solutions you can build yourself.
Each world sports different themes, different playable characters, and tons of puzzles to build and solve. You can completely walk around each level and inspect it, and Meta Quest Pro and Quest 3 players can view each level in mixed reality space, making it look as if these LEGO worlds were built with real bricks right in your own home. It's unbelievably fun and more rewarding the more creative you are!
Max Mustard
There's something timeless and deeply charming about 90s platformers. Max Mustard is inspired by all the best 90s 3D platformers like Super Mario 64, Sonic Adventure, Banjo Kazooie, and Crash Bandicoot, but the genre takes on a life of its own from a VR perspective.
Just as platformers jump from 2D to 3D, the jump into VR opens up a new way to see the world around your character, better judge distance, and even interact with the world around your character. Levels are often packed with unique power-ups that help you through the unique challenges presented in each, and the variety of power-ups and environments is unmatched from platformers on the Meta Quest.
With gorgeous Saturday morning cartoon-like visuals, a great soundtrack, and a fun storyline, Max Mustard will appeal to your sense of nostalgia just as much as it will to the younger gamers in your household.
Moss: Book I & II
A VR classic that redefines the traditional platforming experience
The original Moss is still one of the best Oculus Quest games despite its age, and we still recommend playing it. If you'd rather just pick up one game, Moss: Book II explains the plot of the first game so you can dive right into it. Fans of the original will also love this long-awaited sequel thanks to revamped gameplay, puzzles, and combat. It, quite literally, picks up the second after the first game ends.
As with the original, you play a spirit who assists Quill, a brave young mouse warrior, in her fight against evil forces. If you wave at her, she waves back, and if she runs into a puzzle, she signs in ASL to tell you how to get past it. She feels like a living partner, not an avatar. When Quill runs into obstacles she can't get past, you move your head to look around the map and find ways past the obstacles, then guide her to them.
The sequel adds more complexity, letting you choose different weapons and form your own unique playstyle as you support Quill. You can also interact more directly with the environment to help your mouse companion traverse impossible obstacles instead of just finding a hidden path.
Our Moss: Book II reviewer played the entire campaign with the game cast to the TV and his son's eyes glued to the screen. It's an experience that both adults and older kids who can figure out the tricky puzzles will enjoy.—Michael Hicks
Vacation Simulator & Job Simulator
Great humor, tons of varied minigames, and brain-teasing puzzles
We decided to group these two, not because they didn't deserve their own spots individually but because anyone who enjoys one will immediately want to invest in the other. Both games are set in a near-future dystopia where most of humanity has been replaced by robots who are now trying to recreate "jobs" and "vacations" to make the remaining humans happy — but are pretty bad at figuring out the specifics.
Like a smart Pixar movie, these games have bright, cartoonish visuals and easy-to-grasp tasks that kids will enjoy while also employing smart jokes that'll get the biggest laughs out of adults. Some games have you complete tasks, solve puzzles, or design silly creations with the tools around you. Kids are encouraged to get creative, while anyone can hunt down secrets or waste hours on minigames. And the writing plays off of real-life in truly hilarious ways, especially in the free Vacation Simulator: Back to Job expansion.
If you're looking for a game to start with, Vacation Simulator is a more complete and technically advanced experience. For the kids, Vacation Simulator has multiple saves and a "small human" mode that ensures the gameplay happens at the proper height for them. It also adds hand tracking, where Job Simulator relies on the Touch controllers to be your hands. And while Job Simulator keeps its gameplay focused on the arc directly in front of you, Vacation Simulator takes full advantage of wireless VR and encourages you to look in any direction. Still, Job Simulator is a great introduction to VR and a fun experience in its own right. —Michael Hicks
