When Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook bought Oculus back in 2014, the company billed VR as "a strong candidate to emerge as the next social and communications platform." Seven years later, in 2021, Facebook rebranded to Meta in an effort to become the de facto metaverse leader.

In the five years since then, a lot has changed at Meta, but one thing is clear: the original vision of VR as the next social and communications platform is becoming a reality, even if the path to get there looks very different from what was expected.

Instead of an all-encompassing capital-M Metaverse controlled by a single company (à la "Ready Player One"), a swath of free-to-play games from small indie developers has taken root, serving as social hubs for millions of Meta Quest gamers every month. Gorilla Tag began the movement in February 2021, and no one at the time had any idea how it would fundamentally transform VR in just a few short years.

"When we started our studio, we were building the wrong games," said Spencer Cook, CEO of Continuum, the studio behind the uber-popular Ug VR. The line came from a 2026 GDC panel where the studio helped explain what made Ug VR the success it has become and how VR is different from what seemingly everyone thought.

It's a powerful example of how each medium has its own draws, and how the same kinds of games that work on a TV-mounted console don't work on a head-mounted VR system.

Social first is how you win

For years, Meta and many VR-first developers chased the idea of creating the next Grand Theft Auto, Mario, Uncharted, or Halo. Meta poured billions into gaming development, creating genuinely phenomenal titles worthy of 5-star reviews. It stacked up big names like Batman: Arkham Shadow, Marvel's Deadpool, The Walking Dead, Assassin's Creed Nexus, and so many more, creating a powerful library of games any gamer should have been jealous of.

But it didn't work, and no one really understands why. Instead, VR gamers by the millions are coming back day after day to play social-first games that are (by developers' own admissions) simple experiences without "polished mechanics" or "clever gameplay ideas". It would sound damning if it didn't work so well.

Ironically, all of the biggest VR games these days follow the advice Andrew Eiche laid out when I interviewed him a few years ago. Eiche is the CEO of Owlchemy Games, creator of VR classics like Job Simulator and Vacation Simulator, and those games all follow the idea of letting you roleplay without letting exposition get in the way. In other words, you're not playing in the shoes of Cal Kestis or Kay Vess to save the galaxy; you're playing in your own shoes and a character of your own creation.

In addition, the most successful VR games in 2026 are almost exclusively designed to enable players to create and share content on the world's most popular social media platforms. From YouTube Shorts to TikTok, these games' videos amass millions of views and have created real success for the people playing them and having fun making content. It's an endless wheel of fun and success, and it keeps giving birth to more games like it.

For a few years, anything that looked or moved like Gorilla Tag was hastily referred to as a Gorilla Tag clone, but players have learned that this label is simply incorrect. Titles like Yeeps, Scary Baboon, Wizherd, Digi Gods, and Ug VR all share similar movement mechanics to Gorilla Tag, but there's often a special gameplay hook that separates these titles from the rest of the pack.

Last week, I spoke with Kyle Joyce, CEO of Enver Studios and creator of Scary Baboon, one of the most popular social VR games today. As you might expect from the name, this one uses familiar Gorilla Tag mechanics and the popular PS1-era art style, but blends it with horror-lite mechanics that fans of Five Nights at Freddy's and Poppy Playtime simply love.

The studio has expanded Scary Baboon recently with new co-op experiences that let players work together to solve problems, fight monsters, and explore the world. The key here is that players aren't fighting each other; they're working together to survive, and it's this concept that has also spawned the "friendslop" genre.

To date, seven million people have installed Scary Baboon (that's unique players, not installs), and Joyce told me the retention rate is impressively high. This tracks with the Ug VR GDC video I linked earlier, where Spencer Cook outlined a 70% retention rate among the game's audience. Scary Baboon's latest update lets players fight back against the monsters regularly haunting the halls. Still, players have to be smart about weapon usage because monsters can become enraged and invincible for a while if hit too much.

Scary Baboon's latest updates have been so popular that the company has been able to ink a deal with "a large, legacy IP" that'll debut in an update this July. Joyce says their numbers have consistently been up in recent months, owing to the success of both the latest updates and the shift from "frustrating PvP" to a friendlier co-op PvE experience.

"Our audience would rather play with their friends than against them," Joyce told me. I can relate to this, as I find myself gravitating toward non-PvP experiences more and more. This is especially the case with free-to-play titles like Scary Baboon or Animal Company, both of which I regularly play with my son and have regular content updates to explore.

Joyce says his studio has been focusing on community feedback and letting players drive the game's future, while also acknowledging that they can't please everyone. Joyce said this focus is why he started creating content for the game and participates in community events, helping other players feel involved in the game's creation.

Unsurprisingly, Ug VR's creators say "our success comes from knowing what entertains our players and from engaging with the community." It's a very different model from what has made games successful in the past, particularly because of the speed and voracity at which the community consumes and shares content.

It's taken a solid decade of learning and growing, but it's become clear that VR games do best when socializing or role-playing are the core experience. Given the impressive rate of growth of these types of games along with the stagnation of more traditional games, it's clear that VR's success will look different from what many initially thought, but players who embrace this change will find a unique, engaging experience that's truly different from what's available on any other video game medium.

It's the season of gaming showcases, and the Meta Quest is now on its second just in May alone. First, we got the Creature Feature showcase in early May, and now the father-son VR podcast duo just had its second-annual Ruff Talk VR Gaming Showcase, with over two dozen announcements and update trailers for Meta Quest gamers to get excited about.

And while I have plenty of favorites from the show, one announcement really struck a cord with me. The full showcase is in the video below, followed by my favorite highlights. Get ready to have some fun!

Walkabout Mini Golf: The Homestar Runner Distraction Pack

If you're a millennial like me, you'll undoubtedly remember Homestar Runner from the Macromedia Flash days. It's a hilarious cartoon that spawned a boatload of memes (everyone knows Trogdor the Burninator, right?), and now it's making its way to the Meta Quest in a special Walkabout Mini Golf pack.

But this one isn't a new course. Instead, it's called The Homestar Runner Distraction Pack and contains:

• 6 Activities to play through and conquer!
• The ultimate hang out spot: Strong Bad’s basement
• 18 collectable Lost Balls
• Custom putters to earn
• Unique avatars and a custom ball trail to channel your favorite characters
• Unlockable hole celebrations
• (Plus more)

I don't know what the "more" part entails just yet, but it's launching on June 25, so you've got a month to save up a few bucks for the DLC. Walkabout DLCs range from $2 to $5, so we're not talking much cash. Either way, I'm STOKED to see the Homestar Runner crew in VR, and this might just be my favorite update since the Wallace & Gromit one from two years ago.

Sky Legends

This one's actualy out now, which is always a blast when it's the first time you've heard of what looks like an impressively polished, immersive narrative adventure. Fix up planes, do some reconnaissance work, and make history in this 1920s-era VR title.

Survive the Night

I have no idea why there was no trailer for Survive the Night, but I don't need much convincing to get interested in The Binary Mill's next game. If you're not familiar with the developer's name, they're the ones behind Quest hits like Gun Club VR, Mini Motor Racing X, Into Black, and Resist. Survive the night is a free-to-play 4-player survival roguelike that's coming soon, and you can wishlist it now.

Cave Crave Multiplayer update

Cave Crave went viral on social media a few months back because of its ability to take players on an adventure 99.9% of them would never be able to (or even want to) in real life. Cave diving can be supremely dangerous, as the Nutty Putty cave proves in the game, and now you can join friends in the new multiplayer update to make things even more like the real thing, just without all the real perils.

Knights of Fiona

From the developers of Ruinsmagus comes a brand new VR JRPG that looks full of polish and character. A brand new trailer was shown during the showcase, giving a deeper glimpse at gameplay, characters, and the world ahead of the next previews that should be coming out next week.

If you happen to be at BitSummit in Kyoto, Japan, from May 22nd to May 24th, you can play it yourself. Otherwise, expect to see some hands-on videos on YouTube and wishlist the game now ahead of its full release.

And there's quite a bit more to see in the showcase back at the top of this article, so check it out and let us know what your favorite announcement was!

This year has been a wild one for VR gamers, and while there have been plenty of ups and downs, VR-focused publishers like Creature are carrying the mantle with exciting new releases. The live chat was filled with shouts and praises in all caps throughout the show, and it seems like Creature really hit a high mark with Meta Quest gamers!

This year's Creature Feature included tons of announcements, including new games and reveals, plus big updates for existing favorites, and a few Easter eggs thrown in for good measure. Creature is even having a publisher sale for all its existing games!

You can watch the entire show in the video below, followed by my favorite picks. Here's the full list of announcements for the Meta Quest platform before we begin:

• Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades 2: The hot dog-themed shooter finally gets a sequel 10 years in the making, with brand new modes and a Meta Quest release.
• Compass: An open-world flight adventure. Fly high above the clouds, find treasure, and upgrade your ship to go further and further.
• Wordbound: Smash together letters to form words, then smash those words together to create objects, all in an effort to solve puzzles. It's an impressively creative use of interactive technology!
• Janet's Planet:. A planet terraforming adventure that tasks players with saving dying planets via unique terraforming mechanics.
• Sock Puppet Superstar: Put on your Meta Quest and slide your hand into a magical sock that sings at concerts in this new rhythm game that went viral on social media. It channels Trombone Champ in the most Pixar way possible.
• Crepe Master: A VR beat-em-up that'll put the "sweet" in "sweet punch!"
• Spymaster: An action-narrative spy game where you play as three different agents, all with different skills and gadgets.
• Updates for Laser Dance, Deadly Delivery, Crossings, Sweet Surrender, Beat the Beats, and Forefront.

H3VR2

Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades. This strange combination of words is known very well to PC VR fans as one of the original VR FPS games, and its renown is now spreading to the Meta Quest with a proper sequel. As with the original Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades 2 (also known as H3VR2) puts you in the uncomfortable skin of gun-wielding hot dogs, including impressively realistic guns and gunplay.

Like any good sequel, this one builds upon the original by introducing a new Facility mode that lets players embark on missions to collect loot and make it back home alive. That, plus the Combat mode, daily challenges, runs, leaderboards, and more, will surely have players coming back again and again, just as they have for the last decade with the original H3VR on Steam.

Meta Quest Page / Steam Page

Sock Puppet Superstar

Sock Pupper Superstar is very different from the first announcement, but that's OK, given its charm. This unique rhythm game takes cues from Trombone Champ and Maestro by using your hands in ways that only make sense in VR. Some songs require a solo, while others ensure both of your hands will be singing while wearing fancy socks.

Meta Quest Page / Steam Page

Wordbound

I've been stoked for Wordbound ever since its initial teaser, and now we're getting new gameplay footage of the uber-creative word-based puzzle game. You'll solve object-based puzzles by rearranging letters and smashing them together to create something brand new, all while completing a fun story. Mixed reality mode makes this a truly chill experience.

Meta Quest Page / Steam Page

Compass

I'm not sure I've ever played an open-world game where the main goal was to fly as far as possible (although, No Man's Sky is pretty close), but Compass is here to offer that unique gameplay hook with sweeping vistas and fully interactive ships. Ride, collect treasures, upgrade your ship, and repeat to infinity and beyond!

Meta Quest Page / Steam Page / PlayStation VR2 Page

Janet's Planets

There's something very special about holding an entire planet in your hand, but even more special when you realize you've got the tools to completely reshape how it looks. Turn unlivable wastelands into lush forests, thaw the permafrost, and save planets from the brink of destruction with your powerful, Godlike tools.

Meta Quest Page / Steam Page

Tons of updates

One of my all-time favorite Quest games, Laser Dance, is getting new levels with a new mimic laser that moves when you move. It's a unique challenge that'll make your living room feel more like the latest Tom Cruise movie.

Deadly Delivery is another fantastic title that's getting a big update with new enemies, mechanics, cosmetics, and more. And who can forget about the recent Forefront 1.0 release, which I recently called my favorite new multiplayer VR game. Watch the whole Creature Feature showcase to see the rest of the announcements, and enjoy these new games!

Given the state of the gaming industry right now, it's always surprising when a gem comes along and blows me away. It's even more surprising that this has happened more than once this year, and TMNT: Empire City is just the most recent example of developers triumphing during a particularly tribulating era.

But given Cortopia Studios' pedigree, this shouldn't be all that surprising. The developer is responsible for games like Wands Alliances, Down the Rabbit Hole, Escaping Wonderland, and GORN 2, and it's great to see the company working its magic on an IP that's so close to my heart: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I've been a turtle fan ever since I was a kid, and the number of excellent beat-em-up games the property has spawned over the years is nothing short of legendary. This latest title puts the action in first-person via a Meta Quest headset, letting you team up with three other friends — each embodying a legendary Ninja Turtle — to take down the Footclan once and for all after the death of the Shredder, and there's more to it than you ever could have hoped for, too!

Smells like teen spirit

After a particularly fantastic intro that takes you through all four turtles to learn their abilities, you learn that the Shredder is dead, but a new villain threatens to resurrect him in an even more powerful state, putting New York City into a state of emergency. As the city fills with portals to another dimension and the Footclan moves in to take over, you wake up safely in the sewer-bound Turtles' Lair alongside Master Splinter, April O'Neil, and even Casey Jones.

From the onset to the moment you finish it, the game feels like a living comic book. The visual style plays perfectly to this feeling, with thick cel-shaded edges, heavy shadows, and gorgeous hand-drawn textures. The game is impressively interactive throughout, too, with tons of collectibles to find, lots of optional side quests and activities to complete, minigames to play with friends, and plenty of objects to pick up and goof around with.

In many ways, this feels like a TMNT version of the latest PlayStation Spider-Man games. You get a sizable New York City to explore, complete with different neighborhoods and sections, underground sewerways, buildings you can enter to complete quests, random crimes and missions that pop up around the city as you roam its streets, and tons of ways to parkour and show off your ninja skills.

Like any good modern open-world game — particularly in VR — you can climb basically anything you want. Reaching for the side of buildings, windowsills, steel beams, light poles, etc., will present you with a white highlight of where to grab. This mechanic feels accurate for a Ninja Turtle, because you still have to grab specific places to climb, not just bare rock walls, but there's no shortage of ways to parkour up a building to get a better vantage point.

TMNT: Empire City rewards players who approach situations with a stealth-first approach, but you can always just rush in and go ham if you enjoy the traditional beat-em-up mechanics. As you would expect, each Turtle has its own weapon and skillset, with plenty of attitude and jokes to fill the gaps.

Combat is rewarding and visceral, albeit a little easy from the onset, but things get more challenging and varied as you progress through the game. You'll also come across tons of little puzzles along the way. Locked doors might require a keycard or just a conveniently placed computer to hack, or maybe even a power junction box that you need to rewire (via a fun laser puzzle).

You'll also find lots of junk lying about. Plastic parts, electronics scraps, and other pickups can be used in Donnie's machine back in the Turtle Lair to craft items and upgrades. You can hold several items at a time in your pouch, and players can equip two upgrades from a list of unlockables that suit the mission best. There's a ton here, and it deeply rewards players who enjoy exploring, something that's great to see in a game like this.

The new hangout

When I first joined a friend of mine in TMNT: Empire City, we high-fived each other and quickly realized how much fun it is to be a Ninja Turtle. The Turtle Lair is decorated in a way that feels legit. Each of the Turtles' rooms fits their unique personalities. There's even a chessboard in the living room with pieces you have to find throughout the game, eventually culminating in a board you can use to play with friends.

Running and climbing through the city with friends is a ton of fun, and between the minigames and strategizing your next attack, there's no shortage of things to do. And if you want to roleplay, there are tons of ways to do that, too. It's equally great for kids and the kids at heart.

One of the most surprising things to me was seeing a city faction map that constantly changes. When you start the game, the Footclan has taken full control of the city, but you can liberate it by completing missions and destroying outposts. The Clan will eventually rebuild these outposts and take the territory back if you don't defend it, so keep an eye on the crime meter back in the Turtle Lair.

As you clear Footclan outposts, special NPCs will appear in those safe parts of the city to offer you bonus quests and challenges. These can be anything from parkour races to basketball, and are all a blast to play with friends. They've all got leaderboards, too, so if your friends can't join you, you can always compete on your own.

I came into this game expecting a fun beat-em-up that lasted a few hours and was just fun for that brief time, but I came away realizing this is so much more than meets the eye. It's an impressive accomplishment in every way, from the visuals to the size of the city, things to do by yourself and with friends, and even the original story itself.

This is what I'll be doing for the next few Fridays when I play with friends, and I hope to see a ton of Turtles joining the fray as the game launches on the Meta Quest and Steam on April 31 for a crazy good $24.99. Plus, it's crossplay-compatible, so you can enjoy time with friends even if they're on a different platform.

What you need to know

• DIRECTV has launched its app on Meta Quest, bringing live TV streaming to VR headsets for the first time.
• The app offers access to 150+ live channels, on-demand content, and free streaming via the MyFree service.
• Users can also subscribe to paid packages for sports, movies, and other content directly within VR.
• The app is available on Quest 2, 3, 3S, and Pro through the Meta Horizon Store.

If you're someone who prefers watching TV shows and movies on a VR headset and also wants access to live TV, you just got lucky, as DIRECTV has officially launched its app for the Meta Quest platform.

DIRECTV announced that its app is now available on Meta Quest VR headsets. You can download it through the Meta Horizon Store or Horizon TV on Quest 2, Quest 3, Quest 3S, and Quest Pro. The company claims it's the first virtual multichannel video programming distributor to bring its service to Meta Quest.

With DIRECTV on Meta Quest, you get access to over 150 live channels along with on-demand shows and movies directly in VR. This includes channels like ABC News Live, NBC News Now, Fox Weather, and even dedicated live sports channels. The company also says a lot of this content can be streamed for free through its MyFree offering for registered users.

In addition to the free content, DIRECTV also offers paid packages for sports and other programming. The company says its existing channel bundles carry over to VR as well, so you can choose specific packages based on your interests, whether that's sports, movies, or lifestyle content, or go with broader bundles.

DIRECTV isn't the first app to arrive on Meta Quest. Apps like Disney Plus and Prime Video are already available on the platform, but DIRECTV is the first live TV streaming service to make the jump to VR. It is, however, worth noting that Netflix is still missing from the Meta Quest platform.

This also comes at a time when Meta has increased the prices of the Quest 3 and Quest 3S in the U.S. due to component costs. The Quest 3S now starts at $350, while the Quest 3 has gone up to $600.

Android Central's Take

This is good news for Meta Quest users, although I'm not entirely sure how big the demand for live TV in VR really is. That said, watching live sports in VR feels like a different experience, and it's nice to see more users will be able to enjoy it now.

For two solid years, a group of friends and I played Breachers every Friday night. It was something I looked forward to all week, and thanks to the game's regular updates, it took us a solid two years to finally call it quits. Since then, we haven't found something that all of us consistently want to play, but that's all about to change with the release of Forefront.

Unsurprisingly, Forefront is made by the same developers of Breachers. Just as Breachers borrows many of the best concepts from the Rainbow Six series, Forefront borrows many concepts from games like Battlefield and PUBG, all while still feeling unique and visceral in the way only VR games can.

I recently had the opportunity to play the final release build of the game with dozens of YouTubers and gaming journalists, and when I tell you this is the next big multiplayer VR phenomenon, I'm not exaggerating. By the end of the three rounds we played, there wasn't a single person who wasn't cheering and asking for another one.

It's a feeling I haven't had since Breachers came out, and while I've played many different (and excellent) multiplayer VR games since then, this is the one that's going to bring me back to consistently playing with my friend group, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Battlefield 2035

Forefront takes place in the year 2035 and puts players in 32-player battlegrounds, vying for control of different points on the map in one of two game modes. It channels classics like Battlefield and Tribes with plenty of bespoke mechanics for VR headsets and is available on Steam VR and Meta Quest platforms, with a PSVR 2 release in the near future.

As you might expect from a game like this, you can choose from one of four classes, each of which has its own special traits and equipment. Whether you choose the Assault, Medic, Engineer, or Sniper classes, you can pilot a dozen different types of vehicles, from jet skis to helicopters, ATVs, tanks, and more.

All vehicles allow more than one player to board, and several even allow players to operate large guns or other special equipment while riding. The environments are semi-destructible, including many buildings that can have walls blown up, as well as other obstacles that can be destroyed to open up new paths of attack.

As someone who poured hundreds of hours into Tribes 2 and Battlefield 1942, it's been a while since I've truly enjoyed a game in this genre. Don't get me wrong, I've tried several similar titles over the past 20 years since those games existed, but few of them have held my attention the way Forefront was able to.

Unironically, the same thing happened with Breachers, as the last time I played a similar type of game was Rainbow Six 3 on the original Xbox. Clearly, there was a time where I enjoyed these types of team-based multiplayer games, and that ship certainly sailed for a bit, but it appears it's back in port thanks to the immersion only VR can provide.

Being able to physically steer vehicles, hide behind walls, climb towers, and slap the paddles together to revive a teammate just hits different. Physically doing something feels objectively different than watching an on-screen character do it, and it's that difference that's reinvigorated these types of games for me again.

It also helps immensely that VR games like Forefront make communication so darn easy. All the equipment needed to talk to my teammates is built into the headset, no silly keyboard menus to navigate through, and no nonsense tech support to deal with just to get a microphone working, either. Just strategize with your teammates using your voice and they hear you.

Forefront has been in early access for several months now, and the difference between this version 1.0 release and the original release is pretty monumental. The odd lag or occassional jank that was present in earlier versions is gone, replaced with an impressively smooth game that delivers Battlefield-sized levels with 32-players, all minus hitching or lag. This is why I love gaming on consoles like the Quest 3, and it's great to see something made so well!

Developer Triangle Factory also introduced a combat bow with the version 1.0 release, and I couldn't be happier about how it feels to use it. Bows are already my favorite weapon to use in VR because of the highly tactile nature of the weapon, and this one is typically an instakill so long as you pulled back far enough on the string.

There's nothing quite as thrilling as setting an arrow sailing across the ravaged town square only to down an enemy in an instant. It's far more rewarding than using a gun, even if guns are more efficient.

I also loved operating vehicles, but will understand if some people need to have others drive. If you're prone to motion sickness at all, you'll definitely want to enable some of the supporting settings to keep that at bay while operating a vehicle. It can be intense.

I'm so happy to have a game like Forefront that reinvigorates this genre for me, and I can't wait to see what Triangle Factory does with the game over the next few years. Their support of Breachers over the years was legendary. Given the community that Forefront has already developed over the past few months of early access, I know big things are coming to an already impressively big game.

As I rode my way down the elevator with my wirecutters, screwdriver, blowgun, and assorted other tools at the ready, I gleefully anticipated what my next mission would look like. Would I encounter AI-powered robots that were sure to blow my cover? Maybe take down a few fields of laser traps? Hack into the security cameras and gather my intel that way? The choices seemed infinite, and the best part was that I rarely knew what to expect next.

It was this sense of exploration and adventure that was most unexpected in Unseen Diplomacy 2, the surprising sequel to an incredibly niche VR tech demo from the original HTC Vive's 2016 release. I recall being enamored with the physical movement required to play the original title, and I showed it off to numerous people who visited. Still, that game was little more than a well-executed, unique concept that lacked any real gameplay depth.

The sequel is, quite frankly, one of the best VR games I've ever played. The visuals are not only impeccably stylistic and fit the mood very well — think back to the 2003 pseudo spy game XIII with its graphic novel style — but the concept is properly fleshed out and utilizes all of the Meta Quest 3's best and most unique hardware features. Full wireless freedom, the ability to map out your whole home and convert it into a playable virtual space, and the fantastic possibility that comes with moving your body like a real spy would, all without the potentially fatal consequences at the end of the day.

Time to suit up, agent

Like the original, Unseen Diplomacy 2 was designed around the idea that your home can become a virtual playspace that looks and feels totally different. This isn't a mixed reality game, although it does have mixed reality missions you can do if you like that sort of thing. This is still very much a VR game that transports you to new places, but the difference is that this release not only allows for the full range of physical human movement, but it also recognizes that not everyone has the space or physical ability to move around like a spy.

As you begin, I recommend two things right off the bat. First, if you're playing in full roomscale mode — which means you'll be walking around your room and relying on full physical movements — make sure the floor plan it shows you before playing is correct. My space worked best when I cleared the whole thing out and drew a long rectangle in my living room to play in.

Second, play the tutorial first. This is not the first game, which means there's a lot more going on. You'll need to familiarize yourself with all the gadgets in your inventory (and there are a lot of them). Otherwise, you'll get to a puzzle and be totally stumped in the real game.

After you've started, get ready to sink some serious time into this. You can play for as long or as little as you'd like, but I found the gameplay loop to be ridiculously addictive. Each day starts out at a sort of game board that loosely resembles a mix of Risk and Catan. Each day, pawns will move around the board, showing where spies are located throughout the world. Selecting a spy will give you a range of actions, including further movement, investigation, and mission execution.

You'll have 17 days to stop "doomsday" from occurring, so gathering intel and completing missions is paramount to this goal. Each mission takes place in a different location based on intel, and as you might expect, missions have individual goals. Sometimes you'll have to collect more intel and upload it back to HQ, while other times you'll be disarming missiles, sneaking into server farms or mansion basements, and fighting plenty of police bots along the way.

The best way to play the game is with roomscale movement, as the rooms and corridors are all fully scaled to fit within the physical confines of your home. But don't worry, these rooms don't work like "normal" rooms do. Doors take you to new areas through a clever mix of procedural generation and brilliant programming, requiring you to physically walk through them and into a new space, even though you've only walked in a circle in your living room.

It's enough to truly boggle your mind the first few hours you play the game, and it'll continue to bake your noodle throughout the entirety of the gameplay experience. That's not to mention all the physical puzzles like cutting wires and rewiring panels, ducking under and around lasers, climbing through vents, etc., that you'll come across, plus a multitude of hacking minigames, climbing up and down ropes, ladders, unmarked walls with McGuyver-style climbing gear, etc.

The campaign spans several different countries and continents, sports 3 different save slots, and half a dozen different difficulty modes, and even includes a dedicated fitness mode that gauges your level of movement and intensity with lots of follow-up stats to tie everything in. Plus, of course, the mixed reality room mode I mentioned earlier, adding yet another layer of depth to this package.

It's quite literally the full package and one of the most memorable bespoke VR games I've played in quite some time. Developer Triangular Pixels maintains a roadmap for new features, bug fixes, and general improvements, plus you can suggest new ideas on the Discord server. At $15.99 on both Steam and Meta Quest platforms, this one's a no-brainer day one buy when version 1.0 lands on March 16.

Fans of "The Twilight Zone" will remember the feeling that came with the start of every new episode. I'm not old enough to have seen the black & white TV show fresh when it aired, but I have wonderful memories watching it with my father during my middle school summers when he would come home from work during lunch time, trying to riddle out what was actually happening in each episode's strange realities while simultaneously feeling horrified at the answer.

More modern classics like "Severance" use similar tactics, setting up an environment that looks and feels normal at first, only to turn something on its head in a sinister way you didn't expect. I recently played Hotel Infinity on Meta Quest, and it evokes the same feelings I get from watching "Severance" or "The Twilight Zone," but this time, the twist is that I'm the one walking the liminal spaces of a warped, twisted universe.

Hotel Infinity is the newest game by Manifold Garden developer Studio Chyr.

The hall to nowhere and everywhere at the same time

In Hotel Infinity, you'll walk from room to room, solving puzzles that open impossible doorways, move entire floors, and even rotate gravity itself as you move from one liminal space to the next. The trick here is that you're physically moving the entire time, not just pushing on a joystick to move your character.

Hotel Infinity is one of maybe half a dozen VR games I've played that want players to traverse virtual space by physically walking (or wheeling) in real space. It's one of the most brilliant uses of what's called "roomscale VR," meaning you use an entire physical room's space to move your body and translate those movements into the virtual world.

Like Eye of the Temple, Hotel Infinity's levels are designed in such a way that you can physically walk infinitely around your room and make progress in the game. That's because the hotel's rooms are a bit of a quantum puzzle. They simultaneously both exist and don't exist, depending on how you look at them. Peer around one corner and you'll find a hallway. Peer around it the other way and you'll see a hotel room.

It's this use of impossible spaces that makes the game's movement possible, and it'll have you getting closer to hitting your 10,000-step goal in your living room every time you play it. The game also has an option for smaller spaces that swaps out physical walking for pushing a virtual thumbstick, but I would advise against this unless you absolutely have to settle. The game is still interesting without the physical movement, but it tends to ruin the immersion a bit.

The game's puzzles aren't ever particularly difficult, although most of them will have you looking at familiar objects in unfamiliar ways by the time you're done. If there's anything to expect from the game's clever, dynamic worlds, it's to expect the unexpected.

If you're a person who enjoys solving puzzles or venturing into the unknown, few games feel as perfectly crafted as this one. There are no "monsters" and no combat. This isn't a game full of gore or foul language. It's one that understands that less is more, and the power of the imagination is far more powerful than any particular thing a person can see.

Some gamers thrive on competitive multiplayer experiences. Battlefield, Call of Duty, Fortnite, and plenty of others have built a community of millions of players through this concept, and while I can enjoy a few rounds in these games from time to time, I've never been a competitive person by nature. Thankfully, there are a lot of people like me who would rather join forces with other players rather than compete against them.

A surge of new co-op games has appeared in recent years, with titles like Lethal Company, R.E.P.O., PEAK, and Doors (to name a few) that encourage players to work together to achieve a goal. These titles are often referred to as "friendslop" games because the real goal of the game isn't to complete the goal, per se. It's to spend time with your friends and turn funny moments into lasting memories.

It evokes that feeling of you and your childhood friends venturing into the woods to do something stupid, and everyone remembers those moments for the rest of their lives. Recently, I've come across Deadly Delivery, a Meta Quest game with friendslop vibes that I simply can't get enough of, and it's made special not just by the fact that it's in VR, but that it has a unique gameplay loop while still feeling familiar to fans of other games in this genre.

What if Amazon employed goblins?

In Deadly Delivery, your job is to deliver packages to the places no one else wants to go. After all, someone has to fulfill those orders, right? We're talking denizens of the deepest caves, the darkest caverns, and the most dangerous haunted forests. They want their packages, but they don't want you hanging around.

So what's a goblin delivery person supposed to do? Grab a few friends and take them along for security, of course! Deadly Delivery sports three save slots, so you can keep your progress separated between friend groups, or just keep a save slot free for those nights when you want to join up with random players.

Each round begins at your living quarters, a sort of hostel with chicken legs (more on that in a moment) that allows you to customize your character, buy new cosmetics, purchase items before your next run, and even upgrade your character's skill tree. Once the team is ready, you select one of a dozen different locations from a globe near the exit and hit begin.

That hostel you live in is actually the famous Baba Yaga house from Slavic folklore, which explains the chicken legs and its ability to travel to different parts of the world. When the doors open at your new location, you and your friends will grab as many packages as possible and venture forth to deliver them to any door you can find.

This is where Deadly Delivery VR differs from extraction games like Lethal Company, R.E.P.O., or even the Roblox game by the same name. Instead of scavenging levels for treasure to bring back, you're bringing packages into each labyrinth-like level. The only thing you're tasked with collecting is the delivery fee for each package. Apparently, cave-dwelling monsters don't use PayPal.

As I previously mentioned, these denizens might want their packages, but they certainly don't want you sticking around, and they don't want anyone randomly wandering into their caves, either. Because of this, you'll come across any number of traps and monsters along the way, most of which you'll need to avoid or face certain death. Even ringing the doorbell will often trigger a trap of some kind, making each delivery a hazardous affair.

Each player has a number of slots on their body where they can store packages or items, and special items like carts can be purchased for you to take more into the dungeon at a time. When a player dies, they drop a crucifix that can be picked up by any other player and dropped into a sacrificial fire to resurrect the downed player. But beware, some of these fires require a sacrifice in addition to the crucifix, and that often means you'll lose a hand in order to resurrect your friend.

Each goblin's work week consists of three days to achieve a monetary goal. Bigger packages are often worth more to deliver, but require two hands or a cart to drag them to their destination. Successfully meeting the goal will allow you to work another week, unlock new areas, and even special cosmetics that are only available after consecutive weeks of service.

Fail to achieve your goal each week, and the corporation will remove you from service. Permanently. Once you and your team all fail this weekly task, your money and level progress will be reset, but you get to keep the skills you've unlocked and any cosmetics you've been awarded. Now you have the opportunity to do it all again, but this time, in style.

Of course, Deadly Delivery wouldn't be a proper friendslop game without crazy hijinx or wacky physics-based nonsense. Huge packages are unwieldy and make navigating through caverns difficult (or extra easy to step on land mines, depending on your perspective). Carts don't always behave like you think they might in real life. You can even climb up your friends as they climb up you, making an infinite ladder to the stars.

It's all good, silly fun with a bit of terrifying horror to keep players in check. I enjoy that there's nothing overly violent, no foul language, and nothing really inappropriate for younger players, all while still delivering a unique art style that doesn't look like low-budget trash. Too many games fall into that last category these days.

I've been obsessed with this game since Christmas and can't wait to jump back in with friends tonight. Ideally, you'll want a total of four players so you have the best chance of hitting your goal, but I've played with two or three players and it scales just fine. Good luck out there, especially when you hit your first blood moon.

What you need to know

• TMNT: Empire City is a 4-player co-op beat-em-up for the Meta Quest, SteamVR, and Pico headsets.
• Players can embody any of the four Ninja Turtles, battling Footclan soldiers in the streets of NYC, utilizing each Turtle's special weapon and full freedom of movement.
• The game is expected to launch in early 2026 and we got to play through the intro section early.

As a kid, one of my favorite games was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the NES. It felt like the perfect gameplay adaptation of one of my favorite TV shows, and it helped that I could tag along with friends and beat the heck out of the bad guys plaguing NYC.

Fast forward several decades, and now I'm actually embodying those same Ninja Turtles in a new VR game for the Meta Quest and Steam VR, and Pico headsets. You can wishlist the game via those links, which is scheduled to come out sometime early in 2026. TMNT: Empire City has been teased since August, and now we finally have the gameplay to understand what you'll be doing in the game.

In a nutshell (halfshell?), this one's a near-perfect translation of the classic 2D gameplay into a 3D space, giving you full autonomy over your Turtle of choice via freedom of movement offered by a VR headset. Slicing Footclan members with Leo's swords, smacking them on the head with Michaelangelo's nunchucks, wacking them with Donatello's staff, or stabbing them with Raphael's Sai felt as authentic as a comic book come to life could be. It was cathartic in every way.

My gameplay session was about 30 minutes long and followed through the tutorial section you'll play in the final game. The storyline in this portion of the game involves all four turtles "gaining ingress" into a building, as Leonardo so eloquently put it, only to have three of them get captured by a heinous villain who works for The Shredder.

The Turtles apparently think the Footclan and Shredder were supposed to be defeated, but it turns out some dark art is keeping Shredder and his minions from properly entering the afterlife. That's where the turtles come in, although the demo cuts off right as the boss's plans are thwarted.

You play as each turtle in the tutorial, learning movement tricks, how each weapon works, and how to utterly kick the butts of every Footclan member you come across. You'll climb pipes and walls, jump higher than any human could, and unleash kicks and a fury of weaponry that make you feel exactly like the arcade beat-em-up, just translated into 3D movement.

The final game supports 4-player co-op gameplay just like the classics, too, so you can properly roleplay your way through the streets and sewers of NYC. All the classic moves are here, including the flying jump kick that sees you hopping into the air and pressing the dash button to unleash a devastating thwack to the bad guys.

The remaining 10 minutes or so of the demo was spent in the Turtle's lair, which acts as the central hub for this pseudo-open-world game. The lair is unmistakable in its design, meticulously crafted and fun to roam around. You can check out all four Turtle's rooms, chat with Master Splinter, plan the next mission with April O'Neal, and head upstairs to craft unlockables throughout your adventures.

While none of the levels were open for this demo, heading out into the sewers takes you to different parts of the city for butt-kicking mayhem. Based on the previous parkour video, it looks like a notable amount of space is traversable, with climbable buildings and fun parkour everywhere. I'm super stoked to play this one with friends and couldn't be more excited to finally get the chance to embody a Ninja Turtle next year!

November is always full of tentpole releases for any gaming system. From heavy-hitters like the recently released Deadpool VR to the return of classics like Thief VR, there's no shortage of games to play on your Meta Quest this holiday season. But one stands out from the rest for me because of its polish and near-perfect gameplay execution: Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked.

This long title, which I'll just shorten to Demeo x D&D from here on out, builds upon the successful turn-based strategy card battler Demeo with the expansive universe of Dungeons & Dragons. While I played it on the Meta Quest 3 the entire time, the game is also available on Steam and PlayStation in both VR and non-VR versions, so you can play with all of your friends, no matter their platform of choice. Yes, that means VR players can play with non-VR players just as Demeo allowed.

Demeo is out now on Steam, PlayStation, and Meta Quest for $29.99 USD, an unbelievable value when you consider that the substantially shorter Demeo was $39.99 for the longest time.

Demeo x D&D: the basics

In Demeo x D&D, players can join up to three others to scale massive turn-based D&D campaigns that take place in familiar locations like Neverwinter, Icewind Dale, and more. Each battle takes place on a "board" composed of movement squares, but each board is lavishly decorated to look like a convincing location rather than a simple board game.

During a battle, players can choose to carry out two actions per turn. Each player has a hand of cards that contains attacks or items to use, or an action point can be spent moving on the board. If you've played D&D, you'll be immediately familiar with some of the mechanics, although the card-based abilities shake up gameplay in a meaningful way from standard D&D.

Like D&D, you may randomly come across an encounter or trap that requires you to roll a die to either pass or fail the test. Each of the eight playable classes can specialize in a number of different traits, and each of these traits plays a role in combat, traps, and even dialogue.

The game features two main campaigns at launch, each of which spans dozens of hours and locations to complete. Players can save and stop at any time, resuming their saved campaign with or without other players. Developer Resolution Games recommends always starting with four characters when playing a campaign, and these characters can be controlled by you or other human players.

Combat isn't the only thing players can do here, either. During each campaign, players will visit locations like taverns that allow them to chat with NPCs, investigate locations and objects, accept side quests, and more.

Three "one-shot" campaigns are also included in the launch game, adding even more variety and replayability to the game. The game can be played in VR or on a traditional TV/monitor system setup, giving you freedom to choose how you prefer to play this epic strategy title.

What's different from regular Demeo?

The base battle gameplay is similar to Demeo in that each character on the board takes turns moving and attacking, with players utilizing abilities from a deck of cards in their hand. But the basic structure of the rest of these games is quite different.

In Demeo, players choose from a half-dozen campaigns to play through. Each campaign is made up of three "floors." The first floor is usually a medium-sized area, the second floor is typically a much larger area with more challenging groups of enemies, and the third floor is a boss battle. Players stop at "Cleepto's Bazaar" between each floor to shop and trade cards with the merchant NPC.

In Demeo x D&D, players always begin at a map of the campaign's world and choose areas to visit from there. Each area is bespoke and has no set size. Some sidequests may be made up of a single forested area with a handful of enemies, while other sidequests may be multi-floor dungeons with dozens of enemies. You'll also come across plenty of areas where fighting is not an option, allowing you to move freely around to investigate areas or talk to NPCs.

Demeo x D&D has a much more traditional RPG structure in this respect. You can follow the main campaign or get sidetracked as often as you'd like, exploring each of the game's diorama-sized areas to your heart's content. Cleepto's Bazaar still exists in Demeo X D&D, but now it's a dedicated part of the world that you can visit any time you head back to the world map.

The game saves very often, making it easy to pick up and play. One of the best additions to the original Demeo was a later update that added save slots, allowing you to stop and save, then pick up the action at a later time. Demeo x D&D supercharges this mechanic by dropping a save slot on each player's system, allowing them to continue the campaign you were playing together on their own or with completely different people.

It's a brilliant mechanic that gives you the freedom to play when you want instead of having to perform a miracle and get all four players' adult schedules lined up. Public multiplayer lobbies are available just as they were in the original Demeo, and I'm hoping the crowd is just as friendly.

And unlike Demeo, the characters in Demeo x D&D are customizable. You can paint colors on them in a basic way, and each character has a skill tree that you'll build out as you progress through the campaigns. As you might hope, those skills transfer between campaigns and can make things much easier as you go. One-shot campaigns use new characters each time, which is typical of D&D.

How about a local Demeo x D&D night?

One of the very coolest features of Demeo x D&D is the ability to play the game together with other people in the same room. Using the built-in co-location feature, Meta Quest players can place the board on a real table as if it were a real board game. Everyone sees the same board in the same exact location, so this works as you'd expect (or even just hope to expect).

I recommend players use only a Meta Quest 3 or Quest 3S for this, as the color passthrough is a significant upgrade over the nasty, low-res, black-and-white passthrough of the Quest 2. This will make it feel like a "proper" D&D night with friends, albeit with no one having to take the helm of dungeon master.

And that's another area where Demeo x D&D shines. It features several of the stat-based random encounters of D&D, including environmental hazards and enemies alike, plus lots of dialog choices that players can all vote on. It's an incredible way to get that D&D feel without having to put in all the dungeon master work (and that crap is a lot of work).

All of these new additions and the fact that there are two full campaigns, plus three "one-shot" campaigns, add significant variety to an already impressive game. I also love that this still uses the tried-and-true Demeo style of combat and movement, which helps it feel different from traditional D&D, all while still maintaining enough of that property's soul to feel like the branding belongs here.

The polish on the visuals, dialogue, voice acting, and gameplay all combine to make this my favorite VR game of the year. Of course, if you're not a VR gamer or have friends who might be interested in playing the game (but don't have a VR headset), don't worry, as Resolution Games ensured cross-platform play works perfectly. I played with some friends using the non-VR Steam client, and things were as smooth as I had hoped. It's a must-have title on the Meta Quest, for sure, and a must-buy game for D&D and strategy gamers, as a whole.

FAQ

The holidays are here, and that means tons of new games ready and waiting for folks opening new consoles stuffed under the tree, plus plenty to play for those of us who already have one.

The Meta Quest 3 and Meta Quest 3S are seeing a huge surge in new games, and the latest VR Games Showcase just brought 20 more announcements that'll flood your headset with joy.

But the VRGS isn't the only game in town, and several developers also stealth dropped new trailers and announcements for upcoming games that you've got to see. Here's everything I've personally cherry picked below!

Out now!

You can watch the entire VR Games Showcase above, which includes the announcements I've rounded up here plus a ton of others, but let's take a look at the games you can play right now before we move onto the wishlist items. I'll link to each trailer and store listing below so you can experience the games ASAP!

Vampire Survivors but it’s in virtual reality (trailer) (Meta store link): This one really threw me for a loop! Vampire Survivors goes pseudo-3D with this exclusive VR release, featuring all the massive hordes you've come to expect in the famed game with the unique immersive qualities of a diorama experience.

Hotel Infinity (trailer) (Meta store link): Set aside a 2m by 2m square space of your physical floor and get to exploring Hotel Infinity like you were Tanjiro headed into the Infinity Castle. The world constantly shifts and changes as you physically walk through it, with MC Escher style impossible architecture that'll blow your mind constantly. It's a perfect representation of what VR can do.

Glassbreakers: Champions of Moss (trailer) (Meta store link): I don't know anything about MOBAs and I've never played DOTA, but this Moss spinoff has me intrigued. It's a realtime strategy game that looks like a cross between Demeo Battles and classic board games like Catan, and the quick battle length makes this one perfect for a snappy weeknight VR session.

Syberia VR (trailer) (Meta store link): The classic point-and-click adventure game from the early 2000s just got remastered and is fully playable in VR on the Meta Quest. I loved this game back in my high school days and can't wait to play through the whole thing again from a fresh perspective!

EXOSHOCK (trailer) (Meta store link): Heaven knows there are enough VR shooters out there, but every so often one comes along that stands out from the pack. This co-op PvE sci-fi squad shooter aims to redefine how you work with your friends with unique combat and a memorable art style. Give the alpha client a shot by joining the Discord now.

Banners & Bastions (trailer) (Meta store link): I previously tried Banners & Bastions when it released in early access, and now a big new update adds tons of new content, including major UX improvements, controller support, new bosses and enemies, and more! It's a quick thinking strategy puzzle game you have to try!

Dimensional Double Shift (trailer) (Meta store link): The developers of Job Simulator have taken the proven formula and added multiplayer, encouraging players to work together to get high scores and serve up orders, fix up cars, and enjoy all of the differences in each dimension. The New Joysey dimension recently launched on Meta Quest, and the game is also available on Galaxy XR starting December 11.

Coming soon

Star Trek: Infection: This sci-fi horror title is a decidedly different take on what I would think of a traditional Star Trek game would be, but maybe that's what makes it so interesting! We're expecting this one to land before the end of the year.

Deadly Delivery (trailer): Have you ever thought about how all those creatures live in dungeons in the age of Amazon and Door Dash? Deadly Delivery answers that question by letting you and three other friends dress up as goblins and deliver packages to dungeon dwellers. But beware, because those dungeons feature plenty of traps and unfriendly residents. Coming December 4.

How To God (trailer): Ever play Black & White on the PC back in the 2000s? How to God puts players in charge of a world, giving them godly powers and a giant creature that may or may not do their bidding. It's virtual pet sim meets Civilization-style world builder! I played it in early access and now it's coming out for everyone on December 4.

Men in Black (trailer): Talk about a shadow drop! From the developers of Jurassic World Aftermath and Augmented Empire comes a game that puts you in the literal shoes of the famous Men in Black. It's described as a stealth action game that gives you access to untold numbers of gadgets and the directive to remove the alien threat without anyone finding out. Good luck with that! Coming December 5.

VR Giants (trailer): A co-op VR platformer like you've never played before! One person plays as a giant who helps the smaller player hop, skip, and jump through traditional 3D platforming levels. It takes real teamwork to get through these levels! Coming December 11.

Tin Hearts (trailer): Christmas is just around the corner, so why not play "the most Christmassy game ever made" on your Meta Quest? It's a narrative-heavy, block-based puzzle game that takes you through a family-friendly adventure everyone is going to love. Coming December 11.

Espire MR Missions (trailer): Espire 2 launched a set of mixed reality missions back when the Quest 3 came out two years ago, and now the concept of Metal Gear Solid in your home is getting a full standalone release! Sneak and shoot your way through your own bedrooms, living room, basement, yard, or wherever you're physically at with this stealth action title, coming Decembrer 16.

Wrath: Aeon of Ruin VR (trailer): There's nothing quite like the intensity of a 90s 3D shooter, complete with unfiltered textures, gorgeous low-poly art, gratuitous violence, and a heavy metal soundtrack. Coming Spring 2026.

Orcs Must Die: By The Blade (trailer): The classic trap-placing action game comes to VR! Protect your castle from descruction by eliminating every orc that tries to worm its way inside. Coming January 22.

Knights Of Fiona (trailer): Japanese RPGs have seen a big resurgence in recent years, and Knights of Fiona aims to put a new perspective on a cinematic action JRPG that looks like a ton of fun and a half. Coming 2026.

What you need to know

• Thief VR is making its debut on PlayStation VR2, Meta Quest, and Steam VR platforms on December 4, 2025, and can be preordered now for $26.99.
• Thief VR is the first VR entry into the classic series and the first Thief game in over a decade.
• Players embody a new thief character named Magpie in stealth-heavy gameplay, with a voice narration of Stephen Russell, the voice of Garrett in the original Thief series.

It's been teased and hinted at for months, but the release of Thief VR is just around the corner! The first Thief game in more than a decade is making its VR debut on December 4, 2025 on PlayStation VR2, Meta Quest, and Steam VR platforms. Better yet, it's just $29.99! That's a lot less than many people were expecting.

The trailer below shows the first-ever recorded Meta Quest 3 gameplay, proving that Batman Arkhan Shadow isn't the only good looking major Meta Quest title where you can lurk in the shadows. In fact, I had a hard time telling the difference between the Meta Quest trailer below and the nearly identical PlayStation VR2 trailer for the game. That's an excellent sign for Quest players!

As was the case with Batman Arkham Shadow, Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow is developed by VR developers first and likely wouldn't exist at all if it were up to Eidos to make a new Thief game. Vertigo Games, popular for the Arizona Sunshine series and last year's Metro VR game, co-developed Thief VR with Maze Theory, known for their work on Peaky Blinders VR and The Infinite Inside.

As such, you can expect this to be the work of veteran VR developers who know how to make a VR-focused title. Surprisingly, despite the high-profile name, Thief VR is launching at just $29.99 and can be preordered now for a 10% discount, making it just $26.99. That's an unheard-of price for such a title and makes it Vertigo's cheapest big name launch ever.

If you don't already have a Meta Quest 3 or Quest 3S headset, I recommend waiting until closer to Black Friday for a good sale. We've seen the Quest 3S go on sale for $250 several times recently, and there's a big chance we could see the Quest 3 get a sale this year, too!

What you need to know

• Little Planet channels the vibes of Animal Planet and The Little Prince into a cozy social life sim VR game on the Meta Quest platform.
• The game launches as a free-to-play title on October 30 after 2 years of early access with special rewards for people who have paid for the game.
• New multiplayer games, a virtual pet system, and more are being added as part of the launch.

It's been more than five years since Animal Crossing: New Horizons debuted, and that means fans are salivating for a new title to scratch the itch of collecting and socializing. Thankfully, the developers of Little Planet heard the call and are launching what feels like Animal Crossing VR on the Meta Quest platform on October 30, 2025, for the crowd-pleasing price of free.

Just as in Animal Crossing, players start out making their own avatar, followed by selecting one of three islands to begin their journey on. Here, you'll be harvesting resources, building houses, making friends, and collecting over 4,000 items to decorate your world with. You can also sculpt the land to bring your vision to life.

Unlike Animal Crossing, items in Little Planet are interactive. Place a piano down in your house and you can actually play music on it. Drop a basketball hoop down and shoot hoops with friends. You can even ride inflatables in the water! That's one of my biggest complaints with the Animal Crossing series, and it's been solved here.

With the free-to-play launch version, Little Planet is debuting two huge new systems that transform the game: a virtual pet system, and a ton of new multiplayer features. Several different virtual pets can now be chosen from and will follow you around, begging for pets and treats. From abstract creatures to cute capybaras, the game likely has something you'll love to keep around for the long haul.

The new multiplayer lobby also makes it simple to find people in game and make new friends, join in seasonal festivities, and play a ton of new multiplayer-focused games. This lobby is a central way to socialize in the game, something that's not always easy to do in Animal Crossing.

I got to join the developers in the Halloween-themed area which, as you might imagine, changes regularly depending on the season or holiday. It's yet another area where the game improves over the classic Animal Crossing formula.

The multiplayer games are a great way to change up the normal gameplay in fun ways, including a scavenger hunt, a giant maze, fishing contests, and more. As you might imagine, winning each of these games gives you in-game rewards that can be exchanged for items or special edition prizes that you can't collect otherwise.

Since the game has been in paid early access for two years, existing players who paid for the game will be getting rewarded for their support. The developers call this the Founders Pack and it includes a full year of the "Little Planet Premium" subscription, exclusive items for your planet, and a unique founder's hoodie and name tag that will never be available again.

If you haven't jumped onboard yet, you can still grab Little Planet Early Access for $20 on October 29 and get the full Founders Pack. Otherwise, check out that same listing on October 30 and beyond for the free-to-play version. Happy collecting!

What you need to know

• Laser Dance is coming to early access on the Meta Quest 3 and Meta Quest 3S on November 6, 2025, for $9.99, €9.99, or £7.99.
• The game adds Mission Impossible-style laser mazes to your room via mixed reality, tasking players with pressing buttons on each end of the room.
• Over 80 laser patterns are playable in any space and scale with the size and shape of the room, plus tons of accessibility options to cater to all types of players.

Looking for a great party game as friends and family get together this Holiday season? Laser Dance is exactly what you need, and it's debuting on the Meta Quest 3 and Quest 3S this November in early access.

In Laser Dance, the Meta Quest's brilliant color passthrough cameras turn any ordinary living room — or any room, really — into a laser-filled obstacle course that you'll have to dodge, weave, duck, and maybe even jump over to get to the shiny red button at the end.

Any old room will work for the process, which begins with you placing one button on each "end" of the room. Buttons have to be at least 10ft/3m apart, but the trick is that you just need to walk that distance. It doesn't have to be a straight line.

I asked developer Thomas Van Bouwel about it, and he told me, "So, e.g., if you have a master bedroom with two nightstands, putting the buttons on the two nightstands and walking around the bed is valid." Remember, since the Meta Quest is a wireless VR console, you don't have any wires or cords to trip over, so you can go ham with the playspace size and shape.

The action begins fairly simply, with the first few levels involving static lasers that stay in one place, making it easy to get into character and slink your way around each laser to get to the end. As you can tell from the video above, those lasers don't stay in place for long, becoming much more like a traditional video game as you progress.

I've had access to the game for a few days now and can call it another huge win for Vanbo games. If you're not familiar with the name, this is the same developer behind the uber-popular puzzle game Cubism, which is on every VR platform from the Meta Quest to the newly minted Samsung Galaxy XR.

Plus, at just $9.99, it's nearly impossible to pass up. This might be called "early access," but it's got over 18 levels to play, all of which scale with your room size and shape and has over 80 laser patterns. That ensures even the same levels feel different when you play them in another room or home!

And if you've got some accessibility needs, don't worry, the game caters to a wide variety of players with significant adjustments where you might need them. So what are you waiting for? Wishlist this puppy right now and get ready for the launch in just 2 weeks!

Imagine yourself in a plane surrounded by seven other people. Everyone is suited up to jump out, and just as the bay doors open, a brown backpack is thrown out that looks a lot like a parachute. Unfortunately, you don't have time to wonder if the thing on your back is a real parachute or a fake, because the plane has already ejected everyone, and you're now free-falling at 10,000ft in the air.

Knowing what's likely going to happen, it's pretty clear to you that you're not going to be the one landing without a parachute. For the next several minutes, all eight of you battle it out in the clouds, using your arm-mounted rockets and grappling hooks to catch other players and keep the backpack until the end.

The game is Project Freefall, and its unique nature isn't just the gameplay; it's also the fact that you can play on a Meta Quest headset, a Steam Deck, or any of the other non-VR platforms the game supports, all flying together in a fairly rare cross-platform quest to reach the bottom.

Battle royale against the clock

Developer Schell Games has long made some of the best Meta Quest games. The veteran VR studio is behind well-known games like I Expect You to Die, Among Us VR, Silent Slayer: Vault of the Vampire, Until You Fall, and many more. While Among Us VR eventually became Among Us 3D with crossplay support between VR and non-VR systems, Project Freefall is designed for crossplay from day one.

The game launched in "earliest access" this week during Steam Next Fest, with a demo on the Meta Quest and a demo on Steam that you can download right now. Since the game is multiplayer only, I recommend visiting Schell Games' Discord server and joining any one of the active sessions posted there.

Project Freefall is simple enough in concept, but certainly one of those games that'll become increasingly complex as players master the unique movement systems. As you're falling through the air, you not only have those arm-mounted thrusters, but each hand has an independent grappling hook that can be used to grab items or pull yourself toward obstacles.

Why are there giant Ninja Warrior-esque obstacles falling through the air while you skydive? It's a video game that's not afraid to be a video game, that's why! Any number of objects can fall, from giant shark statues to literal Ninja Warrior-style obstacle courses that you can pull yourself through to avoid being tagged.

Grabbing the backpack is as easy as simply running into the player wearing it, from whence you'll immediately boost away wearing the coveted prize. Schell Games told me this small boost was introduced in early testing to help avoid the pitfalls of backpack juggling, giving players a brief moment to collect themselves before being chased.

Along with those giant obstacles that help make movement more complex in an otherwise empty sky, you'll find a smattering of power-ups and items that help you achieve the goal of holding the backpack the longest.

Whether it's a paint grenade to blind your opponents, Mario Kart style, or a bat that you can smack them with and stun them, these items are all about increasing the competitive nature of the game.

And that brings me to the unique qualities of playing on each supported platform. VR players will find that they have a distinct movement advantage, as they can easily aim each of their arms in different directions or even blind fire toward an obstacle while faking movement toward another. It's a classic juke movement that's made even more chaotic by the freedom of movement VR allows.

But non-VRs aren't at a disadvantage, despite being a little stiffer. While the VR version plays out in first person, the non-VR version is entirely done in 3rd-person. This gives the non-VR version a distinct perspective advantage, as you can more easily see everything around you without having to whip your head around constantly.

Schell Games told me it worked around the clock to balance these two distinct gaming perspectives, ensuring that neither platform has an overwhelming advantage. Some players will simply choose one over the other based on either convenience or their own strengths. If anything, playing it on a Steam Deck made it feel more chill, while the VR version felt far more active and chaotic, effectively highlighting the strengths of both systems.

The full early access period begins on October 21 and is fully free to play. A fairly standard skin shop is set up for players to purchase unique skins if they want, although in-game currency ensures that you will be able to earn skins and plenty of other fun cosmetic prizes without having to bankroll your character.

Check out the demo now and give it a shot! I was thoroughly impressed with how much fun it was, and the unique movement concepts make it feel substantially different in a flooded market of games that too often feel the same.

Quest headsets took a back seat at Meta Connect 2025. Zuckerberg focused on smart glasses and signaled that Meta will shift its VR focus to 3D media like Avatar. But in my time at Connect, it only took a few minutes of Star Wars podracing, Dungeons & Dragons battles, and Deadpool carnage to remind me of VR gaming's magical effect on me.

Demoing the Meta Ray-Ban Displays and running with the Oakley Meta Vanguards was exciting. It's just a different kind of excitement, focused on convenience and blending technology into your everyday experience or workouts.

When I dove into the demo for Star Wars: Beyond Victory, though, I was transported back into childhood memories of podracing on the N64 or playing with my little Star Wars collectible figurines. And the new Demeo x D&D VR game brought me back to my high school days of tabletop roleplaying.

It's a reminder that even if the Quest 3 and Quest 3S aren't cutting-edge or Meta's number-one priority, they remain as immersive and transformative as ever.

Recapturing the imaginative joy of Star Wars

ILM's game has a bit of a generic name, but Beyond Victory is essentially a cross between Podracing VR and Star Wars Action Figure VR. And both of them sent me to a faraway galaxy in different ways.

The main story mode has you joining the podracing circuit under the tutelage of Anakin's old nemesis, Sebulba. But it doesn't put you inside a cockpit in first-person view, as you might expect for VR; instead, it's more of a top-down racing style where you have to react quickly to obstacles and power-ups floating into the play space.

Fans of the N64 game might have preferred a first-person game with cockpit immersion, similar to Squadrons. Instead, ILM went for the same kid-friendly vibe as driving Hot Wheels toy cars on motorized loop tracks.

I need to hone my reflexes to improve at the game, but I felt that same nostalgic joy as when I podraced on the N64 or first watched the film as a kid.

The Playset mode, meanwhile, has a simple premise: what if you want to put a Stormtrooper in a Karate Kid pose, dueling C-3PO holding a lightsaber, or have a Godzilla-sized Darth Vader stomping on tiny rebels? The answer is, you can, and I did!

It's not "gameplay" in the traditional sense (though you can fire weapons to "kill" figures). Beyond Victory's Playset mode gives you a sandbox limited by your imagination, best suited for the Gorilla Tag demographic, but still a fun diversion for kids-at-heart, recapturing their imaginary games.

D&D, Deadpool, and the good old days

I already got a chance to try the Deadpool VR demo earlier this year, and loved the creatively gruesome combat, snarky meta-dialogue, and the impressive comic-style graphics. I played it again at Connect 2025, just to reexperience the violent adolescent joy.

When I play video games these days, I often have one eye on my phone or listen to a podcast. I lack time to sink hours into games or fully immerse myself in a world, and I feel too grounded in real-life concerns and busyness to escape.

When playing Deadpool and Batman: Arkham Shadow in VR, though, I get that refreshing feeling that I've stepped into the comic book pages and I'm roleplaying how they'd act and fight. VR games like these still have that special quality of transporting me somewhere else, the way I used to.

I also enjoyed playing Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked with three other people — dungeon-crawling through a tabletop environment and taking down foes as a shifty rogue — for similar nostalgic reasons.

I used to play my fair share of tabletop RPGs (mostly D&D) and board games, but my friend groups switched to lunches and bars when they found it hard to commit hours to rolling dice and roleplaying.

Demeo isn't complex or narrative-driven like Baldur's Gate 3. Instead, Resolution Games made a sit-down-and-play style game that brings back that feeling of sitting with HS friends around a table on the weekends, without being too complicated.

The VR gaming magic's still there

After spending a handful of seconds on the VR games above, Zuckerberg spent much more time discussing "3D storytelling," the new Horizon TV app, and how VR films will push a new generation of users to Quest. They even invited James Cameron to come on stage and talk about his vision for 3D content.

I'm not surprised by this reprioritization: Meta's Chris Pruett talked at GDC 2025 about selling Quests to 30-something dads who want to watch TV instead of gaming, and we already have hints that the Quest 4 will be redesigned to prioritize 3D films.

But even if VR isn't considered as mind-blowing as it was during the pandemic days — when people used it to feel less isolated — it's not any less powerful an experience.

My colleague Nick has also written about XR games bringing back youthful joy, specifically tabletop-style games where you place plastic soldiers, toy trains, or Legos. And I'm sure others who haven't given up on VR feel the same.

The Quest 3 and 3S do the hard work of creating imaginative templates that I might have once conjured up from nothing as a kid, but can't anymore. And thanks to full-color mixed reality, these games almost feel more real than full VR worlds because they're inserted into my living room.

I don't blame folks for being pumped about the new Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses. But I hope they don't give up on VR, either!

I've been obsessed with the idea of mixed reality gaming ever since the Meta Quest 3 debuted almost 2 years ago. I have no idea how this thing is already two years old, but it's taken that time for me to amass a significant number of truly intriguing mixed reality games that are laying the groundwork for smart glasses gaming.

While we're expecting the first major commercial pair of smart glasses with a display to debut this month, the latest batch of rumors point to the Meta Quest 4 looking a lot more like a pair of tethered smart glasses than a VR headset. That's excellent news for mixed reality games, which will be even more fun with lighter, slimmer headwear.

Meta Quest developers creating mixed reality apps are catering to gamers today and in the future. When smart glasses have the display and capability to run games, they'll be running many of the same types of games we're playing on Meta Quest 3 today, all without the bulk of a VR headset.

Banners & Bastions

Banners & Bastions is a new bite-sized roguelike real-time strategy game from the creators of Airspace Defender. Like that game, everything takes place in a "half snow globe" of sorts, placed conveniently on your lap. You can move this half-globe anywhere you want, so it's just as good a tabletop board game as it is a compact lap game you can play on a plane.

The gameplay is a bit similar to Steam favorite Bad North, but with several different recent roguelike gameplay trends blended in. Each level begins with a preview of the number and type of enemies that will appear, as well as each spawn point's estimated movement direction (handy for putting up walls).

Players choose units from a random collection of cards that appear on screen, tying into the roguelike nature of the game. You've got a finite amount of money to spend on units, so it's uncommon to buy more than 1-2 cards each turn. Units can be placed anywhere on the map and moved at any time, so while it's important to plan ahead, you can always move things around during combat.

Levels are completed in a linear fashion and awarded the traditional 3-star mobile score model. Stars can be used to unlock a sizable skill tree, and you'll unlock new cards and units as you progress in the game. Plus, emergency powers like raining down meteors or calling up reserve soldiers can be used to help keep your units intact between rounds.

The real draw of playing this in mixed reality is the degree of control you have over the action. The game is hand-tracking-only, which makes it far more convenient to play than most VR games since you only need to put the headset on and launch the game. Hand tracking is phenomenal these days. Even my son, who has historically hated hand tracking because it used to be very finicky, found Banners & Bastions' hand tracking to be super effective.

Building a mixed reality game that relies on hands instead of controllers ensures that, in a few years, smart glasses with displays and game-ready hardware will be able to play this kind of game on the go with no issue. It's so much better than squinting and struggling to tap the right unit on a phone screen. I also deeply appreciate the game's quick levels, which typically take only a few minutes each to complete, making it a perfect fit for portable gaming.

Mythic Realms

Mythic Realms is one of the most full-fledged mixed reality games I've played to date. While it starts off as a seemingly simple mixed reality game where you battle monsters in your own physical room, you quickly learn that this game isn't just a combat simulator.

Rather, this is a full roguelike RPG in the vein of The Elder Scrolls: Blades. In fact, the gameplay loop is incredibly similar to that title, down to the concept of heading out on quests to gather resources and money to rebuild the town you call home. From blacksmiths who will improve your equipment to daily random events that'll keep you coming back to see what's happening, there's always something fun to do.

I actually audibly gasped when I realized the depth of the game, as many similar mixed reality titles with fantasy combat and randomized room layouts often just focus on combat and little else.

The town itself is fully virtual reality, so while that portion would need some adjustment to work properly on mixed reality glasses, I could see the company adapting the town concept to a diorama size that's a bit more manageable in mixed reality. I really enjoy seeing the town in VR, though, so it feels excellent in its current configuration for Meta Quest 3 and 3S headsets.

The way Mythic Realms transforms your playspace — even if you only have a small bedroom with very little walking space — is nothing short of incredible. Doors and windows become portals to another world, letting you see "outside" to a place that otherwise might not exist. Even the ceiling is replaced by open sky, which is peaceful and lovely until a fire-breathing dragon inevitably comes along and ruins your day.

But while the visuals are impressive enough, it's the gameplay loop that keeps bringing me back. I love the concept of a roguelike that mixes battle, crafting, and harvesting mechanics into one game. Every other roguelike I've ever played always just focuses on combat, while Mythic Realms offers plenty of combat-free situations throughout each run.

Screen time has become a bit of a taboo in the modern world. Too many people often have their faces buried in their phones even when they're in the same room as other people, but a new Meta Quest game is encouraging a unique use of screen time that I've never seen before.

Elsewhere Electric is a new asymmetric $25 Meta Quest game that tasks one player with donning a VR headset and infiltrating a mysterious office, while a second co-op player spends the entire session decoding puzzles on a bespoke phone app by the same name.

These two players work together in what can sometimes become a rough and tumble conversation, trying to figure out what the heck you're supposed to do, all while solving elaborate puzzles to make it to the next room.

The game oozes with atmosphere that I've rarely felt outside the hallowed backrooms of Portal 2, where Cave Johnson's backstory is juxtaposed with bouncy moon physics goo. Like Portal, there's no combat to be had here, but the gadgets employed make this no less exciting, and the need for descriptive communication with your partner certainly brings up memories of when GLaDOS lied to me about cake.

Delivering the power

Games like Split Fiction and It Takes Two have significantly popularized the "forced" co-op game sub-genre, but Elsewhere Electric does things differently. Instead of playing on the same screen or even on the same platform, one player uses a smartphone app while the other is fully immersed on a Meta Quest headset.

Despite the VR player doing "most" of the work, there are very few moments of downtime for the smartphone player. In VR, the game always begins in the desert just outside of the facility you're supposed to enter. The player on the smartphone begins by opening the van door for the VR player so they can fill up their "power glove," as I'll call it.

Aside from vaguely resembling the NES Power Glove accessory, the glove you wear in VR holds a small amount of liquid electricity that's used to power the puzzles you come across in the game. Once your glove is full, you'll turn around and head to the facility where the smartphone player will have to "hack" the elevator to send you underground.

Most puzzles in the beginning of the game revolve around the two players decoding strange symbols to activate a station of some kind. The VR player sees each symbol at a station, and the smartphone player has a list of several pages of symbols to choose from. Since the smartphone player never sees exactly what the VR player sees, you'll need to work on your communication skills to accurately describe what you see.

Right off the bat, I noticed that most gamers I played this with were able to figure out how the game works in a matter of minutes. The smartphone UI is the hardest part to understand, as there's no explanation offered for what you're supposed to do. Poking around will reveal flashing icons that should be pressed from time to time, but this is never particularly obvious.

I played the game with my son and with a few other non-gamers, and all of them had the same frustrations. Without me specifically showing them what to click and where to go, they got annoyed enough to quit before helping me solve more than a few puzzles. Developer Games by Stitch has a nice walkthrough for the first few floors in the YouTube video below, but it's a long video that could have been shortened to a few prompts in an intro tutorial.

If you have the patience to get through the first three or four floors, you'll be greeted with one of the coolest co-op games I've ever played. The style of this game is wholly unique, in my experience, and while it feels familiar at times, it never feels like more than maybe an homage to something amazing.

The 1970s-esque technology and decor found throughout the facility, plus the groovy soundtrack, lend to the already strange and palpably thick atmosphere. This place feels eerie, yet somehow comforting, in a way the vacant halls of Severance do on a happy day in the office.

That is, of course, until you come across your first invisible enemy. No doubt, the smartphone player will notice something amiss first, as a strange creature lurking behind the glass on the first floor can't be spotted by the VR player. If the pieces don't connect by the second area of floor 2, your VR friend is in trouble.

In this way, Elsewhere Electric requires the patience of a game like Dark Souls, as you'll often die or fail an area only to have to come back and try it again. As with any puzzle room game, you'll get through the area faster in subsequent attempts. Thankfully, though, this isn't rogue-like and you'll never have to solve the same room twice once you progress beyond it. The elevator always takes you to the most recent floor.

I dare not reveal too many of the game's secrets for fear of spoiling some of the coolest things you'll encounter in your time, but I will say that you need to be in the right mood to play this game. It's one that uniquely hinges on quality communication, patience, and teamwork in a way I've never seen from co-op games.

In a way, only the Biped series of games requires this much constant teamwork and, even then, it's a very different kind of teamwork from what's expected of players in Elsewhere Electric. The only thing I want to see changed is the addition of a tutorial section. If Games by Stitch can get that added in a post-release update, this will easily be puzzle game of the year for me.

It's not Prime Day, but if you were hoping to get into VR gaming this year, there are quite a few Meta Quest deals and discounted accessories that could get you set up for cheap right now. For example, in the wake of the retailer's recent Quest 3S sale, you can buy the Woojer Haptic Vest 3 from Best Buy and score a whopping $200 off your purchase. 

Typically retailing for around 500 bucks, the Woojer Haptic Vest 3 connects to your VR headset via Bluetooth (or 3.5mm cable) and transforms all of the sonic textures from your favorite content into a full-body experience. 

Think of it like a vibrating gaming controller for your torso. Every time you fire a gun or get attacked by an enemy in a game, you feel the action throughout your entire midsection. The vest also operates with a kind of full-body surround sound; if an explosion occurs behind you, for instance, you'll feel the vibration on your back. 

If VR headsets exist to deliver your favorite content in the most immersive way possible, a haptic vest can take that feeling of immersion to a whole new level. It's a pretty awesome experience, and once you try it out, the Woojer Haptic Vest 3 quickly becomes one of the most essential Meta Quest 3 accessories. That being said, the vest isn't just for VR. You can hook it up to your TV for a super-cinematic movie night, or connect it to some speakers the next time you want to enjoy your favorite album. 

Need a new VR headset too?

The past two weeks has seen several new VR-exclusive announcements. From Deadpool VR to Thief VR, and even a new built-for-VR co-op Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, Meta Quest gamers are about to have a ton of fun.

But a subset of gamers seems hell-bent on destroying anything VR because "they don't like it," regardless of whether the game or the experience is a good one. VR gamers, it seems, simply aren't entitled to the same quality gaming experiences because there's not enough of them to matter.

We saw this same kind of nonsense reaction when Batman: Arkham Shadow was announced, and loud, terminally online gamers didn't let the facts get in the way of their tired arguments then either. That argument goes something like this: "Real gamers" don't play VR games, and developers shouldn't be making serious VR games because they're a "slap in the face" of fans who want the same old games in a shiny new package.

Unfortunately, for them, the reality is that these VR-exclusive games wouldn't exist at all without VR developers looking for a way to get more gamers into VR, and no amount of whining is going to get Ubisoft, WB, or another giant publisher to remake that 20-year-old game you once loved.

The economy of VR gaming

VR games are their own medium, separate from the economy of traditional or even mobile games. You can think of these a bit like paintings, where artists might choose watercolors, oils, or acrylics. The right canvas has to be chosen for these paints to work correctly, and they often don't mix very well.

Because of that, funding for VR games is often separate from funding for traditional games. This is made even more complicated by companies like Sony and Meta, who often fund VR titles behind the scenes, even if they're not the ones publishing them. PSVR 2-exclusive VR modes like those in Resident Evil 7 and 8, for instance, were funded partially by Sony, which is why you don't see them on other systems.

Many titles funded by Meta end up as multiplatform VR games, but some remain as Meta Quest exclusives. Meta has funded hundreds of VR games over the last decade and continues to help support the development and publication of these games. Guess what that means? Without VR-specific funding, these games would never exist.

Embracer Group, the parent company of Vertigo Games and owner of the Thief IP, had no interest in making a new traditional Thief game. WB likely had no interest in making another traditional Batman Arkham game. If they did, the most recent releases for these franchises wouldn't have been a decade ago.

The new VR releases of these titles were made possible because companies like Meta approached the owners of these IPs and paid for the opportunity to resurrect a favorite series in a new way. In other words, this is the biggest fan service you could possibly get, as it not only brings back fan-favorite titles but also helps bring them to a modern gaming world with a unique perspective.

Likewise, Metro Awakening wasn't developed instead of a traditional mainline entry into the Metro series. Maze Theory, a VR-only developer, is developing it, while Vertigo Games, the same company that's making Thief VR, is publishing it.

The developers of the mainline Metro series, 4A Games, have been busy making the next mainline Metro game while simultaneously dealing with the Ukraine War since 2022. If you didn't know, 4A Games was founded in Kyiv, and the invasion of Russia is said to have made the next Metro game "even darker" than previous installments. Don't worry, Metro fans, you can have your cake and eat it, too.

But all of these facts seem to fall on deaf ears when it comes to "fans" and their favorite series. Instead of embracing something new and different — even if that difference just means a change of perspective — some gamers seem to be entirely allergic to having fun if that definition of fun doesn't fit a very narrow window.

There's a strange sense of irony here, too, given that plenty of gamers complain about new releases feeling the same as old releases, or that the industry has become too reliant on HD remakes of classic games.

Playing something new and different is exciting, and being able to actually do things is what separates VR games from traditional games played on a flat screen. You're the one grabbing the rope, throwing the knife, or landing the punch, not the automated avatar on a distant display.

Publishers are trusting VR developers with more big-name titles than ever, and it's a direct representation of both the quality of VR games and an audience willing to try something fun and new. These games aren't made by the studios that made the 10-year-old entry into your favorite series. They're made bespoke for a new medium with different paradigms, from new developers with an affinity for that medium, and that's a really cool thing to be a part of.

Forever a niche?

One of the biggest arguments against any kind of "big name" VR game is that the medium is too niche for high-caliber titles. Based on a report by the Entertainment Software Association, VR makes up 10% of the total player base of 195.7 million gamers. While 10% falls squarely in the definition of the word niche, the number of folks using VR headsets regularly feels anything but niche.

At just under 20 million active players and primarily made up of Millennials and younger generations, VR has the attention of the next generation of gamers. This is a great thing, for the most part, as it ensures that people who play VR now are still early in their gaming careers, while older gamers tend to enjoy gaming for the purposes of passing the time or relaxation.

If I had to define VR gaming in any single way, it would be the opposite of "relaxation." Most VR games are quite active and require you to move your body, which is probably one of the reasons VR usage is lower among older age groups.

Ironically, playing games "to have fun" is inversely proportional in the ESA's report, with younger gamers opting to choose this as their foremost reason for gaming, while older gamers are significantly less interested. Maybe this fits well with what I said earlier about some gamers being allergic to having fun?

Better yet for VR, "immersion and escape" was listed as the fourth-largest reason people love to play games, and the statistics here were fairly even across age groups. It's nearly impossible to get any more immersive than VR, which suggests that there's more than enough genuine interest to continue driving the medium forward.

To make things even better, Meta is said to be working on a sort of VR/smart glasses hybrid device that'll provide gamers with a substantially lighter headset than the current ones available. This device may launch as early as next year, opening up new pathways for gamers who have opted out of VR because of the size or weight of existing headsets.

Regardless of the reason, though, I'd love to encourage the nay-sayers to give these games a try. The Meta Quest 3S is back on sale for $269 right now and still includes a free copy of Batman: Arkham Shadow. The Metacritic score for the game is excellent, and it sits alongside many of the best Meta Quest games as a fantastic example of how to make a AAA-quality VR game.

I've seen a few people on social media who still seem to think it costs thousands of dollars to get a VR setup. That's simply not true, and it hasn't been since 2019, when the original Oculus Quest launched.

As a reminder, the Quest 3S is a console and doesn't need a PC or anything else to play, so you can get to playing Batman right now if you head to Best Buy and pick one up. There simply won't be a better deal than that, and you'll be able to finally play a new entry into the series you've been begging to get for a decade (or more)!

Deadpool, the 4th-wall-breaking Merc with a Mouth, is the latest superhero (after Batman) to get a Quest 3-exclusive VR action game. Marvel's Deadpool VR was announced at Summer Games Fest today, but I got to try an early demo in late May at Meta's offices in California.

Marvel's Deadpool VR stars Emmy-winning Neil Patrick Harris as the titular antihero and was developed by Twisted Pixel. Acquired by Meta in 2021, Twisted Pixel last made beat-em-up VR game Path of the Warrior in 2019. Deadpool has evidently been years in the making.

The game felt like an immediate and obvious foil to 2024's Batman: Arkham Shadow VR, made by another Meta-acquired developer, Camouflaj. Both have professional voice actors, long story-driven campaigns, and demanding next-gen graphics. And yet they couldn't be more different in combat, movement, and tone.

Deadpool snarks his way around a SHIELD helicarrier, Mojoworld, Spirit of Xandar, and other Marvel Comics multiverse locales that feel like polar opposites to the dark, grounded Gotham. And the violent gun and sword battles felt more chaotic and less structured than Batman's mix of timed punches and gadget combos.

It also sounds very different from Activision's Deadpool from 2013, which heavily focused on the X-Men comics and characters like Wolverine and Rogue. Deadpool VR's cast stars more niche characters like Mojo, Lady Deathstrike, and Flag-Smasher, and the narrative doesn't seem quite as dependent on 4th-wall breaks as the old game.

Having spent nearly an hour bumbling through one of the early levels, I can share my thoughts on the best and worst parts of Marvel's Deadpool VR during my hands-on, as well as all the game info that Twisted Pixel shared with us during the Q&A afterwards.

Gory, creative combat and silly one-liners

My demo started fairly early on in Marvel's Deadpool VR storyline, with Deadpool's head being studied by an evil scientist on a stolen helicarrier before you control his headless body to kill the scientist and free yourself.

Then you run through the ship, guided by a hapless SHIELD rookie by comms as you learn the controls and combat. By default, you can grab a sword over your shoulder, gun from your hip, or grenade from your wrist, and more weapons will be introduced as the game continues like a bow and arrow.

When you take damage, parts of Deadpool will fall off, and you'll have to adjust your gameplay strategy accordingly (until they grow back).

I had the least trouble mastering gunplay, aiming your default pistol or picking up weapons along the way and blasting waves of foes. You can aim at specific body parts to blast them off or use a grapple weapon to fling or disarm foes.

But gun combat is fairly common in a lot of Meta Quest games, and the developers want you to get more creative. For that, the focal point is the close-quarters combat. With the sword, you can dismember body parts, then pick them up and throw them at other enemies. You can counter attacks from shielded foes, or fling your sword at a far-away enemy before grabbing a new one.

The goal, Twisted Pixel said, is to "Say yes to the player" and "reward creativity," and that there was a "bunch of stuff that you guys didn't try" that we'd discover naturally across the campaign, but is available from the start.

The devs also promised things like a "boomerang sword" and "exploding bullets," and there will be custom moves you can use against specific enemies or with certain weapons.

Unfortunately, sword combat is also where I had the most trouble. I would swipe my sword at a foe and, for whatever reason, it would simply dance around their body with no effect while they hit or shot me. I especially struggled with shielded foes meant for close-quarters combat, who would wail on me while I swiped helplessly back.

I assumed it was a skill issue on my end, and I needed to master the timing of sword strikes better. But other journalists I spoke to after the demo agreed that sword attacks felt somewhat weightless.

The Twisted Pixel devs responded by saying they didn't want the reverse side of VR melee combat, where you simply hold your sword toward an enemy, "waggle it," and have it "chop people up instantly." They say they're "still working on" a "combination of animation, haptic feedback, and sound" to make sword impacts feel satisfying.

So I'm curious how it'll feel in the final version, with more practice. I'd say swordplay is the most important part of a Deadpool VR game, so I'm hoping they get it right.

Outside of combat, Deadpool runs and parkours around the stage, with double-jumping available for more flexible movement. Just in the early level, I spotted comic book collectables and mysterious doors I couldn't open labeled "Lady Deadpool" and other Deadpool-adjacent names.

Twisted Pixel promised replayability features and secret levels, so I wonder if you'll be able to go back through levels as other multiverse versions of Deadpool, similar to what we saw in the movie Deadpool & Wolverine.

But the main version of Deadpool, voiced by Neil Patrick Harris, was a lot of fun in my brief hands-on. They said their version of Deadpool "pulls more strongly from the comics" than from the movie Deadpool. They also mentioned how great it was to collaborate with Harris, who would riff off their script with his own comedy and one-liners.

Diving into the Marvel Mojoverse

The main premise of Deadpool VR seems to be that Deadpool makes some kind of "shitty deal" with the sorcerer Mojo, aka "hip-hop Satan," without reading the "fine print."

He then gets flung into different Marvel Comics locations in the Mojoverse, an extradimensional and extratemporal realm, facing off against foes like Flag-Smasher, Lady Deathstrike, and Omega Red.

Twisted Pixel promised "iconic (and not-so-iconic) villains," so I'm curious if we'll get more household names or stick to smaller foes to make Deadpool VR more distinct.

"We're not pulling from a particular story arc that exists already," the devs explained. "This is definitely our own thing. We wanted to come to this and make sure that it's our own story, it's our own Deadpool."

And by doing it this way, they want it to be your Deadpool that you can play in unique ways. "If people can get Deadpool in their head, they'll try stuff that Deadpool would, and it's super fun because it rewards you for doing it." So any time a playtester tries something that doesn't work, they add it in the next build.

Marvel's Deadpool VR comes out in "late 2025." My guess is that we'll see a proper release date around Meta Connect 2025 this fall, with more details on things like pricing and campaign length.

You'll need a Quest 3 or Quest 3S to play this exclusive, which may disappoint Deadpool-loving gamers without a VR headset. But based on my hands-on, Quest owners are in for a treat!

When I bring up the name Peter Molyneux, does it evoke nostalgia for you as it does for me? Games like Dungeon Keeper, Theme Park, Populous, Fable, and Black & White were all huge parts of my childhood, and I often think back on these as part of the golden age of video game development creativity.

So far, we've seen several of these titles reborn as some of the best Meta Quest games. Underworld Overseer successfully translated the Dungeon Keeper formula to VR, and that same developer brought us the Populous-inspired Deisim to VR a few years before that.

Now, a new developer is working on a full-fledged Black & White successor called How to God that you can wishlist now on the Meta Horizon store. I got to see the game early and have a 45-minute chat with the developers this past week, and came away impressed. As a huge fan of the Black & White games, I've been hoping someone would give me a good reason to combine my appreciation for virtual pets with the granular control that only VR can provide, and I think I've finally found it.

No animals were harmed, but you may be

In How to God, you play as a deity that can directly control the world around you, picking up people, trees, and animals, as well as directly building structures and other formations. But the one thing you cannot control is the giant creature that serves as your physical manifestation on the planet.

Just as in the Black & White games, this creature is fueled by an artificial intelligence that is essentially a living being, experimenting with the world around it and learning as it goes. Like a pet, your encouragement or discipline will help shape this pet's personality and its understanding of morality, which will directly influence the people in the world around it.

The primary goal of the game is to inspire humans to worship you — either with grace or force — which, in turn, will increase your powers as a god. As humans visit shrines to worship you, they'll generate prayer power that you can collect and use to grow your powers. As your influence grows, so does your population's notoriety worldwide.

The game isn't a massive open world but, rather, a level-based strategy sandbox with a clear storyline bridging each locale together. As you and your citizens grow in influence, you'll come across enemies that want to bring you back down to size. Whether it's bandits that appear out of the fog of war or another civilization bent on war depends entirely on each scenario.

But while some of these features can be found in other games, the "virtual pet" portion of the game is unique among VR titles. It's your creature that makes How to God truly unique among Meta Quest strategy games and the thing that gives it the most character and intrigue, by far.

As a "living" creature's master, you must shape your pet to represent you in the best way since you can't micromanage it at all times. This isn't a Familiar that you summon on command, and it isn't a creature that you can just pick up and put wherever you want. It must be molded to properly represent you in the world.

If you've ever trained a pet before, you'll know there are very different trains of thought. Do you squirt them with a spray bottle when they've done something bad? You certainly can in How to God, if you want, but you may find that positive reinforcement works better.

As you're training your creature, you'll still need to take care of each villager's needs in addition to doing anything you can to gain more power. Whether you choose to expand your village and earn praise or keep the population at bay by feeding your creature — thus inciting fearful prayers and power — is entirely up to you.

I also loved the game's alchemy system. Just like in the Job Simulator games, How to God lets you grab different elements and combine them, like mixing fire and water to make steam. While it doesn't look nearly as intricate as those games, I'm eager to explore everything the developers have implemented, as I've been told there are dozens of combinations to be discovered.

The game is set to launch in the next few months as a single-player experience, but the developers have hinted that their goal is to eventually incorporate a multiplayer component. Until then, though, the campaign and sandbox modes should keep you plenty busy on release.

You probably know that Google is launching yet another AR platform called Android XR. It has several hardware partnerships for glass frames and even a headset, but it's missing the most important thing of all: a clue about how to make people want it.

No, I don't like saying that any more than you like hearing it, but I really feel it's going to be true again, like the company's other failed AR/VR platforms. I expect Android XR to go the way of Google Stadia.

This is just my opinion, and it doesn't reflect the opinions of other people on the Android Central team. It might not align with what you think, either. That's great, and this is one of those times I hope I'm wrong.

VR and AR have the potential to do a lot for accessibility, but for that to happen, it has to become popular, so it's a bit more lucrative. Meta owns the current state of AR/VR, and even Apple is having a hard time gaining any traction with consumers. We either aren't ready, aren't interested, or no company has done it right yet.

Google isn't that company, and even with Samsung's help, it won't become that company. A look at where Google has had great success and why tells the whole story.

Google's success stories aren't a mystery

On the hardware front, Google has two very successful platforms that are used by billions of people nearly every day: Android and Chromebooks.

Although its offerings aren't driving huge sales numbers, Google is still raking in the money because of its business model; Google knows what you are interested in and gets big bucks from showing relevant ads. That, in itself, is also pretty successful and genius, even if it's a little creepy sometimes.

Android didn't come from Google. The story of how Android started as a spinoff of the OS that drove the Sidekick and was meant for a camera is fascinating, but that's not what matters.

Android was a ready-built Java-based OS and application platform from someone who knew what consumers wanted. Google only needed to look at what Microsoft, Palm, and BlackBerry Limited (formerly Research in Motion) had done and find ways to improve it. It did an awesome job of that, and most people around the globe use an Android phone because they bought the right thing and made the right changes.

Chromebooks are even easier to figure out. They are easy to manage, which makes them great for the education sector, while also running software that doesn't need a lot of resources. Cheap Chromebooks are the models that sell enough to keep manufacturers interested in building them.

One thing both have in common is that Google was smart enough to let the right companies build the actual products. Acer might not make the very best laptop you can buy, but the company does a better job of it than Google ever could — ask anyone still waiting on a Pixelbook 2 if you want another opinion.

This is the only positive aspect of Android XR, to me. However, this was also the case with Google Daydream.

Can Samsung save Android XR from an untimely demise?

I don't think so, but there is a chance. Samsung does software in a weird way. It's hard to describe, but the company takes a slightly different approach than most, and that means it's not the right company to launch a new software platform.

Hardware is another story. Samsung builds phenomenal things you can touch. Whether it's a refrigerator, an anti-aircraft gun, or a phone, Samsung products are designed well, built to last, and, in the case of consumer products, look good.

Samsung is the right company to build an Android XR headset. It also has the means to offer it at a discount or as a package with a new phone or whatever else the company can dream up to move more products. Android XR will need this if it's to survive for even a few years.

We are the real unknown here

What Android XR will need more than anything else is a public that wants to buy into it. I don't think that's in place, and I am doubtful that Google and Samsung can make it happen.

Google Glass was an amazing product. I was able to buy and use the product before it was basically abandoned, and while there were kinks to work out, the tiny heads-up display full of useful information is like nothing you've ever seen or used before. But people hated it. It was mostly people who hadn't used it, but the price was also prohibitive.

On the other hand, Google Cardboard was free. You could cut the template from an old cardboard box, and use the phone you already had. Sure, it was clunky and often buggy, but from a consumer point of view, it was there for anyone who wanted it and didn't cost anything. It failed, too.

I don't even want to talk about Daydream, but it was in the middle; it was reasonably priced, it used your existing phone, and another abandoned platform from the company that told us it was the next big thing.

Maybe people just aren't interested in wearing something on their faces? Your guess is as good as mine, but I'm going to gamble and say 90% of consumers have never tried an AR/VR product, and most have no interest in doing so. Until that changes, any sort of XR platform is going to be a financial black hole.

Meta has shown interest and a willingness to lose money today so it can make more tomorrow. I like seeing a company trying that. Google is a different animal. If a product doesn't make money or further Google's business model of collecting information, it won't be around long.

Maybe I'm seeing it all wrong. I hope I'm seeing it all wrong. But Android XR is going to need to end up in a lot of hands to make it worthwhile to maintain, and I just can't see that happening. Google and Samsung aren't charities, after all.

If the product does end up getting scrapped, who knows what its next iteration will look like?

There's never a shortage of upcoming Meta Quest games, but every now and then, you get a few that really stick out. Veteran developers and VR publisher Creature just debuted four brand new games in its Creature Feature showcase on IGN, plus a handful of other titles that you will be looking forward to once you see them.

While most of these games are VR-only, two of them are also making their debut on non-VR systems in the very near future. But all of them are playable on the Meta Quest 3 and the Meta Quest 3S, which means all you'll need to do is wishlist these and get excited for the future!

Adepts Arena

Seemingly, everyone loves the Nintendo classic Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon series, and Adepts banks on that feeling of nostalgia and elemental charm to immediately draw players into its gorgeous world. But you won't be The Avatar in this game. Rather, you're a powerful Earth Adept soldier who can unearth the rocks all around them in martial combat.

As you progress through the story, you'll unlock new powers as you achieve mastery over your earth powers. Adepts Arena is a single-player adventure, despite what the name might imply, so no PvP earth bending action just yet.

This one is debuting on the Meta Quest in VR (obviously), but is also going to be available on Steam with VR and flat screen support. Non-VR Steam gamers will control it like a traditional FPS, while VR gamers are treated to an immersive, active martial arts-style simulation. If you've ever wanted to weave the ways of the Earth Benders from Avatar, this is looking to be your best bet when it hopefully debuts later this year!

Deadly Delivery

Next up is a multiplayer-focused co-op horror game that'll keep you running as fast as possible through haunted mines in an effort to try to deliver as many packages as possible. You and up to three other human-controlled goblins will take on dangerous shifts to deliver packages come Hell or high water. Hey, no one said being a Prime delivery person was easy!

Of course, things aren't as straightforward as delving down and dropping packages at doorsteps. Traps are laid along the way to prevent intruders of all kinds, and not all goblins are the nice kind, either. This is the game I'm most excited about in the whole showcase, as I'm just imagining all the fun I'll be having with friends on a Friday evening.

Check out the Meta Quest page for more info and the official website to sign up for the closed beta!

Crossings

Dungeons of Eternity is one of my favorite VR games of all time, but wouldn't it be nice to get a change of scenery every once in a while? Crossings, a new game by the folks who brought us the Budget Cuts series — some of the best Quest games ever — are back with a new co-op action-adventure roguelite that'll test your skills with the blade in a way I've only ever seen from the VR classic Until You Fall.

As you'd expect from a roguelite, each level and area is procedurally generated to deliver a new experience every time. Unlike most roguelites, however, your only goal isn't just to become stronger. In Crossings, you'll delve into a story of the Norse afterlife, finding hidden stories and rebuilding the memory of your lost village. In essence, it sounds more like a mix of Hades story-heavy quest and the near-storyless world of Dungeons of Eternity rolled into one title.

Crossings can be played single-player or with friends, ensuring that you can enjoy the game even if your friends aren't available. A demo is coming to Steam Next Fest in June with a full release on Steam and Meta Quest later this year.

Wordbound

Have you ever thought about how you could make the word "rose" from the word "rooster?" Or maybe turning the word "pineapple" into two different words, "apple" and "pen?" It's these strange questions that keep us up at night that led to the creation of Wordbound, a fantastic new mixed reality word game coming soon to the Meta Quest platform.

Each level features a visual puzzle that needs to be solved by deconstructing the available objects into their letters, then rearranging them into the solution object. In one scene, a bowl of three apples needs a fourth to be full, so you deconstruct a plane and a pig, sort the letters, then smash them together to make an apple. It's a brilliant concept that can be played entirely one-handed, so you can wake up and chill with a great brain starter.

A different Star Wars maestro

John Williams might be the person you think of as the "Star Wars maestro," but a new Maestro in town might just be a Duel of the Fates you've always wanted. That's right, Star Wars is coming to Maestro, one of my favorite VR rhythm games of all time, and the DLC includes none other than the Duel of the Fates track by John Williams, plus a new environment and even a cool little lightsaber baton to conduct with.

It'll be available on June 20 when the game also launches on PSVR 2 for the first time.

Laser dancing, prisons, starships, and more

Check out the full Creature Feature Showcase above to see everything else that was announced, including an updated release date for Laser Dance, preorder discounts on Prison Boss Prohibition, the latest Light Brigade update, and news about Thrasher coming to flat screen systems.

And you can't forget about Starship Home, which debuted last Fall and remains one of the coolest, most convincing mixed reality games you can play today. Creature is launching a vinyl soundtrack from the game soon, letting you chill out to the vaporwave tunes after you've landed your starship.

As detective games, Shattered and Ghost Town couldn't be more different. In one, you play a paranormal detective with the power to seal away ghosts that can't seem to let go of this world. In the other, you're stuck in a mysterious mental facility, slowly losing your mind as you try to unravel the mystery of what brought you there.

Ghost Town is a fully immersive VR game made by the folks behind The Room VR, one of the most critically acclaimed games on the Meta Quest platform. Meanwhile, Shattered takes full advantage of the mixed reality capabilities of the Meta Quest 3 and Meta Quest 3S, transforming your room into an interactive space that morphs along with the story.

Both games tell an incredible story that'll have you wondering what's next, not wanting to take the headset off until the mysteries have finally been solved. I haven't been this enamored with a detective game since that first Phoenix Wright release on the Nintendo DS eons ago. It's been incredible to don the detective hat once again and give myself a little taste of what being a modern-day Sherlock Holmes might feel like.

Entering Ghost Town

You are Edith Penrose, a paranormal detective who is finally getting her act together in life and becoming a success, just as your brother goes missing. But he didn't go missing in any traditional sense of the word. Rather, the event plays out in a haunted theater as the two of you are trying to exorcise the ghost of the show's lead actress, who was inadvertently murdered during opening night by a faulty prop knife.

The storytelling, animations, and voice acting are beyond what you would typically expect from a VR game. That's not to say that there are no VR games that feature these qualities, quite the opposite, considering titles like Batman Arkham Shadow exist, but I've come to expect that most VR games will always have a bit of an indie, understated flair to them.

This level of quality holds true throughout the entirety of the game's experience. The graphics are among the best I've ever seen on the Quest 3 and look more like a PC game, with very few exceptions. The environmental detail is superb, and while not everything in the environments is interactive, the available interactions are all done supremely well.

Levers you pull and knobs you turn have a palpable weight to them. The environment feels like it actually exists all around you, even if this is just a fantasy story. The same feeling was also present in the studio's prior work, The Room VR, so while it's not surprising to see it carry over to another game, it still feels like a breath of fresh air in an era when even the biggest name games ship with ridiculously stupid bugs and other design problems.

Beyond just excellent base mechanics and environmental details, the game's puzzles, story, and settings are all incredibly well thought out and frightfully intriguing. I found myself thinking about the game hours after the end of a play session. It's a feeling I find happens most often with the best Meta Quest games because of their unique spatial quality.

Solving the puzzles felt challenging and rewarding because the developers don't hold your hand, but they do leave enough hints in the area to help you understand what you're supposed to do and where you go next. This quality is not often present in games, as it is very difficult to design environments so that the player has a general understanding of what they're supposed to do without having floating arrows or deliberate text telling players exactly what to do next.

You can still request a hint via a cleverly devised notebook system when you get stuck. Hints are found in the pull-out tab on the bottom of the notebook, but these hints don't feel too obvious, and there was never a time when I felt like I needed the developers to directly tell me what to do next.

Players familiar with The Room series will feel right at home with the puzzles here. While there is generally more narrative attached to the puzzles than some of the ones that series has, the general feel of most puzzles is right in line with what I expect from this developer's pedigree. These aren't obscure, sometimes obtuse puzzles, as I feel the Myst series can suffer from. Rather, the puzzles feel in line with the story and the setting, no matter where you are in the game.

I love how many different locales you'll go through in this game and how many characters you'll talk to, as well. Solving the “puzzle” of how to turn on the stage lights in an antiquated theater is a great example of how practical many of the games' puzzles are versus other titles that might throw you into a world filled with a collection of weird puzzles that don't make any sense in the greater context.

So far, Ghost Town is my meta quest game of the year. We might only be in May and have plenty to look forward to before the end of the year, but something this high quality only comes along every once in a while. It's a game I highly recommend to all Meta Quest players, especially since there's a free demo you can try before committing to the price.

Shattering expectations

I've played a ton of incredible mixed reality games since the Meta Quest 3 came out in 2023, but few nail the execution as well as Shattered. Like all mixed reality games, Shattered places virtual objects around the room you're physically standing in. Suddenly, you'll find a new door or window on your wall and, of course, you're immediately compelled to see what's behind it.

That's when things start to get really trippy. Just like in games like The Last Stand or Spatial Ops, these windows and doors are portals to another world. The door you just opened might lead to your sister's apartment, or the office you swore you left at 5 o'clock.

These portals aren't just relegated to windows or doors, though. Sometimes, they're holes in the wall, or maybe a hatch on the floor that you'll have to unlock and peer down through. The first time you open the hatch and look through your physical floor into a completely different room is a thing of true amazement.

But that portal isn't one you can walk through, only one you can see through. As such, you'll have to use your mind's powers to clone the room's objects by aiming at them and placing them in your physical space. In a way, it's like solving an escape room from the outside-in, and every new room feels fresh in a way that's physically impossible in real life.

As you make your way through each of the game's case files, which will take you around 4 hours to complete in total, objects will start to pile up in your room. While you can remove these objects when you're done with them, I enjoyed leaving as many as possible to remind myself what I'd solved up until this point.

The story is told in memory fragments that you'll grab and place around you, assembling each piece in your space like a Hollywood movie. It's an incredible feeling that's unmatched on the platform, and it's a game that simply wouldn't make sense outside of a mixed reality headset.

This week, Mojang officially cut VR support from the Bedrock version of Minecraft on PCs. Mojang originally launched VR support for Minecraft Bedrock on the Samsung Gear VR back in April 2016, porting the experience over to the PC version that August. PSVR support was added in 2020, but things went downhill from there.

While there was a way to play the old Gear VR version on the Oculus Go and the original Oculus Quest, the Oculus Quest 2 ended support for these older games, making it impossible to play. As Mojang slowly pulled the plug on Minecraft VR as an officially supported concept, modders took up the mantle the company failed to uphold.

Vivecraft is by far the most successful Minecraft VR mod. It adds VR support to Minecraft Java, including made-for-VR mechanics that Mojang never bothered to add to the Bedrock version. QuestCraft, a port of Vivecraft made to run natively on Meta Quest headsets, debuted in February 2022 and was a gem until the v71 Meta Quest update broke the game in December 2024.

The only official reason Mojang has given for ending VR support is a cop-out, at best. "Our ability to support VR/MR devices has come to an end," says Mojang's Jay Wells in an October 2024 update changelog, making it sound like Mojang doesn't have enough funds or resources to get the job done. But nothing could be further from the truth, and the rest of the politics of Meta and Microsoft's recent work further muddle an already confounding decision.

Let's so some quick math

Since Microsoft seems allergic to giving official player counts for anything these days, I have to estimate things based on other factors. We know that Minecraft sold more than 300 million copies as of October 2023, and statistics firms like DemandSage estimate that Minecraft sees over 55 million daily active players. Only games like Fortnite can match those numbers, again according to statistics groups.

Mojang employs over 600 people, and recent successes like the Minecraft Movie further add to the hundreds of millions of dollars Minecraft makes for Microsoft every year.

So, how in the world can a studio that's this massive, with this much funding and annual revenue, confidently proclaim that its "ability to support VR/MR devices has come to an end?" None of it makes any sense, and no one seems to know why.

The best answer I could gather is that the number of VR players would be "a drop in the bucket" compared to the number of Minecraft players worldwide. That may be true, but it wouldn't take very many staff members to properly support a Minecraft VR on the world's most popular VR platform, Meta Quest. QuestCraft, the only native Quest port of Minecraft, is run by four individuals in their spare time. Surely Mojang could match this effort.

The Meta Quest's demographics have been shifting younger and younger over the years, with free-to-play content ruling the roost for revenue and player count on the platform every month. Unironically, this exact demographic is the one that would put the most time into Minecraft if it were officially launched as a Meta Quest game.

Back in 2020, then Oculus CTO John Carmack famously got Minecraft running on the Quest "with full positional tracking," something Mojang already had working just fine on the PC side of things. For some untold reason, this version of the game was never officially picked up by Mojang.

All of this becomes more confusing when you consider Meta and Microsoft's other VR partnerships over the past year. You can play Xbox Game Pass games on Quest, Windows 11 has an official linking app so you can use your PC on a Quest, and even Microsoft Office has official Meta Quest apps. Oh, and don't forget that we're still due for the Xbox-branded Meta Quest headset that was announced last April.

Meta claims to have attempted to work with Microsoft on getting an official port even as recently as August 2024, but, strangely, hasn't seemed to be able to make any progress.

If I were being overly optimistic, I'd say that Mojang killed the PC VR version of Minecraft Bedrock in favor of launching a native Quest version later this year. I'd probably lose money if I bet on that, but there's a very real expectation that these third-party Meta Horizon OS-powered headsets should be launching later this year to compete with the official release of Android XR, and this would tie in perfectly with those announcements.

No matter the reason, Mojang is leaving money on the table by not supporting a native Meta Quest Minecraft VR. The official QuestCraft Discord server has 80,000 users with dozens of new ones joining every day. That's for a mod of a game that requires you to sign up for a developer account and then sideload it onto your Quest just to play. Oh, plus, you need to own Minecraft Java, not Bedrock, for it to work.

Imagine, then, how many more players would be on Minecraft VR if there were an official Bedrock version of the game? It's not hard to expect that number to be in the hundreds of thousands or even over a million active players, as the most popular Quest games have.

That's players buying stuff on the Marketplace, people subscribing to Realms so they can more easily play with friends on their own time, and players making even more content for their YouTube channels. Everyone loses when Mojang decides that Minecraft players don't want VR support, and it's ridiculous that Microsoft and Mojang don't see that.

Walkabout Mini Golf is one of the best Meta Quest games ever made, and it's also the 20th best-selling Meta Quest game. This success has allowed the developers at Mighty Coconut to support it for years, regularly cranking out new courses and features for gamers to play around with.

Today's release of the latest course, Raptor Cliff's, marks the culmination of a trio of Walkabout-related announcements, making April 2025 an extra special month for the game. Before that, Mighty Coconut announced it would fold six previous DLC courses into the main game, with a nominal $5 price increase, nearly doubling the number of base courses. That's $5 total for what used to cost players $4 per course, and existing players are getting that for free.

To round out the festivities, Mighty Coconut partnered with FormX Design to debut the Grip-to-Putter 3, the third generation of my favorite VR golfing accessory. All of this adds up to a splendid month for the best mini golf game you'll ever play, and all you'll need is a Meta Quest headset or an iPhone to enjoy it.

The meaning behind the apostrophe

You probably saw "Raptor Cliff's" and wondered if it was a spelling mistake. I thought the same thing until I walked through the new course with Walkabout's senior art director, Don Carson, and one of the level designers, Henning Koczy. As it turns out, there's a very specific reason the apostrophe is in the name.

The reason has a name, and his name is Raptor Cliff. He's the mascot for the roadside golf course attraction featured in the latest Walkabout Mini Golf DLC, and you can find his picture behind the gift shop, right at the entrance to the course (pictured above). Carson told me the course was designed specifically to evoke the feeling of the roadside attractions along the Northwestern American coast in the 1970s, which he used to visit with his grandparents when he was a kid.

"There's no anachronism in the gift shop" that makes its theme inherently obvious, but you might draw from the cars on the road that the course doesn't look like this in 2025. As a roadside attraction, the team wanted to emphasize that "this isn't Jurassic Park" and that the dinosaurs think you are friends, not food.

That all starts right at the beginning of the course as you putt your way through the middle of a giant redwood tree, only to be greeted by a giant red T-Rex with its tongue hanging out like a dog. Watch him long enough and you'll see his belly shake as he scratches himself while watching you golf.

"All our dinosaurs are so very well fed that they're just like big dogs," Carson told me, which alludes to the idea that these aren't scary man-eating lizards like you see in the movies. Several holes feature dinosaurs more prominently, like one where you roll the ball up a Stegosaurus's back, or another hole where you hit the ball into a Brontosaurus's mouth and then have to putt between its legs on the next hole below.

There's even a Triceratops that lets you sit on its back, plus a new zipline mechanic, cars you can ride on (that actually move around the island), and several new mechanics found throughout the course. In one section, I noticed that you had to bounce a ball off a sign to make it to the next part of the hole, and I asked the team how often they build for scenarios that can't be done in real life.

"A normal golf course wouldn't really do this. I kind of forget how tame a realistic golf course has to be. You can't get the ball off the ground for fear of hitting another patron in the head. So this unpredictable bounce off the sign is probably not going to happen in real life." It's one of the many reasons I love mini golf in VR, and it's just the start of what makes this course so special.

As I was admiring all the little details found in the second caddy shop on the course, Carson told me to keep an eye out for little stories hidden along the way as I progressed through the course. "Emma Mercado, who does all the avatar accessories and avatar heads, also she does a lot of our set decoration, and she imbues so much of the environment with little bits of story."

Behind the counter in the gift shop at the beginning of the course, you can find a pair of dinosaur slippers and a half-eaten container of fudge that an employee obviously broke into. But the real fun tidbit to learn was that Emma has an almost obsessive interest in placing "jilted love affairs" scattered throughout several courses.

"There was always some vignette somewhere where someone had broken up with someone else. You could tell by the arrangement of props," Carson told me.

"My favorite being up in the rooftops of Venice. Someone had obviously whipped out an engagement ring and you see the wine's been knocked over and the flowers have been thrown off the roof and are leaning up against the chimney."

It all fits so well together in the theme of each course, which Carson told me was specifically planned out to offer something for everyone throughout the year. Course size and complexity are additional considerations made by the team, and while Koczy told me that holes are normally designed to be between 60 and 80 square meters, larger courses like Mount Olympus require a bit more space.

But Raptor Cliff's was designed to feel cozy and warm, "like a trip to summer camp," as Carson put it. The warm glow of the sun and the simple joy of a roadside tourist attraction provide a wonderful break for your cramped legs and bored brain, something that, ironically, fits quite well in our modern-day-to-day, where so many of us sit on our rear ends for hours at a time.

Finding the right club

While I've named the YOGES Adjustable Length club the best Quest 3 accessory for VR golfers for quite some time, FormX's new Grip-to-Putter 3 just took its place as the new best. The previous Grip-to-Putter 2 design didn't work very well for the Quest 3 because the controller is tracked differently than the Quest 2, so FormX went back to the drawing board for the third generation.

While it doesn't feature the adjustable length feature of the YOGES club, it does offer a more useful feature for Walkabout Mini Golf: a physical grip-to-putt handle. See, Walkabout has this clever in-game feature called grip-to-putt, which makes your club transparent until you hold down the grip button on your controller.

This mechanic allows you to practice your swings without fear of hitting the ball until you're ready, but it's not possible to use with a normal golf club controller attachment since you can't reach the grip button while holding the club handle. The Grip-to-Putter 3 has a little trigger on the handle that you press and hold to activate grip-to-putt functionality, and it works as well as you would hope.

And that's not the only thing that's really great here. Most golf club attachments are a bit of a pain to get set up, as you typically have to slide the wrist strap through a tiny hole and wrap it around the handle to keep the controller from flying away. With Grip-to-Putter 3, you just slide the controller into a chamber and lock it in with a little green sliding mechanism. No wrist strap, no custom battery door, no hassle at all.

The one negative thing I found with the design is that when inserting the controller, sometimes it's easy to push it too far into the chamber. This causes the grip button to be held down, negating the grip-to-putt functionality. It's an easy enough fix — just pull the controller up a bit until it clicks — but I played through more than half the course before realizing grip-to-putt wasn't broken because of a game bug, rather because of the physical controller's positioning.

However, this only happened once, and now that I'm aware of it, it won't happen again. I love using clubs like this because they add real weight and club physics to your virtual club, which ends up translating into better scores in my experience. If you're looking for the ultimate Walkabout Mini Golf club attachment for your Meta Quest 3 or Quest 3S, this is the one to get.

Anyone my age will likely recall seeing Toy Story for the first time. I had just celebrated my 10th birthday a few weeks before its release, and to say I was thrilled to see toys come to life in fancy new CG animation was an understatement. It also helped that Pixar was a master at storytelling.

The idea of toys themselves moving around and playing was a concept that continued to stick with me over the years. Toy Commander, a 1999 Dreamcast release, remains one of the most memorable games of my childhood because it shares that same theme, and now some recent Meta Quest 3 games have caught my attention in the same way.

Recently, Plastic Battlegrounds has been trending on TikTok, racking up millions of views with shorts that perfectly recreate those moments when you played with plastic army men as a kid. The difference is that now you're not just moving the little guys around, you're actually fighting alongside them, commanding them, or just seeing what it's like to pretend to be Sid.

Plastic Battlegrounds

Plastic Battlegrounds debuted on the Meta Quest platform on October 14, 2024. While it's a sandbox game still very much in development, the classic theme and the impulse buy price of $9.99 quickly rocketed it to success. The game describes itself as "the newly commissioned sandbox toy-based battle simulator where your plastic soldiers engage in intense set piece battles of your imagination."

That last part is key. Plastic Battlegrounds isn't going to blow anyone's minds with its advanced AI or cutting-edge graphics. The game looks fine enough on a Meta Quest 3S, but the real joy is recreating scenes from your childhood and, maybe even more relevant today, making content from those ideas.

Because, let's face it, there's something fun about making your own version of Toy Story with your own ideas at the helm. Since you can choose either to embody a toy soldier or get a kids-eye view of the scene and command them, there are plenty of ways to work the angles and come up with a creative story along the way.

The video above embodies the true spirit of the game and what I think is the real fun in playing it: pretending. There's something truly amazing about seeing plastic soldiers come to life. Being able to spawn them and command them just adds a cherry on top, and the game's different levels all help realize a childhood fantasy of being a tiny toy in a giant room.

The developers specifically note that Plastic Battlegrounds was designed as a sandbox game, but two other modes are currently available and in active development. "Sandbox would be the optimal game mode to get the most out of the Plastic Battlegrounds experience," they note, and it's clear from social media posts that people love playing this way.

In this mode, you embody a plastic soldier and can spawn, command, and fight your own way through an unlimited number of enemies and scenarios. A bunch of different maps — kitchen, basement, hallway, backyard, etc. — give you different parts of the house to play in, and each of the two alternative modes gives you additional options.

Spawning in units is simple, but you'll want to be careful not to spam that spawn button too many times. While a Quest 3 or 3S can handle lots of units just fine, a Quest 2 will have a tougher time managing a decent framerate. I look forward to seeing where this game's development takes it, especially if the developers can get a good multiplayer mode going.

Toy Trains

Plastic Battlegrounds might be trending right now, but it was Toy Trains VR that gave me the first "Toy Story" feelings more than a year ago. Toy Trains VR is an absolutely brilliant puzzle game that's polished in a way most Meta Quest games wish they could be. The goal is to assemble a toy train track to connect all the towns in an area, helping to transport goods between each location.

The game sports a uniquely toy-like quality with excellent graphics — complete with a fur-shaded carpet — all of which takes place in your grandfather's attic. I can remember venturing up to my grandparent's attic when I was a kid and finding similar sets of trains, so this one immediately evoked a sense of nostalgia for me.

What I love about Toy Trains VR is that it's not just a sandbox game, although there is a sandbox mode if you love that sort of thing. Rather, the main single player mode follows a heartwarming story that's well put together AND well voiced, something that adds a rather intriguing bit of character to what would otherwise be "just a puzzle game."

And that brings me to the mechanics. The available tracks are cleverly laid out for you to grab, letting you know exactly how many, and what type, of pieces are available for you to finish each puzzle. The introductory levels are quite easy and give you a good idea of what to expect, while the later levels will provide sufficient challenges for even hardcore puzzle fans (that is a thing, right?).

L'Eggo my LEGO

Before both of these other games, though, was LEGO Bricktales. This brilliant puzzle platformer puts a life-sized LEGO diorama in front of players' faces, letting you control a LEGO character that traverses each area as you build the missing pieces.

It was originally shown off as one of the premier mixed reality titles when the Meta Quest 3 was first announced, and the result was even better than I had hoped. While some might have just wanted a plain sandbox LEGO game, I far prefer this style of storytelling that melds nicely with LEGO construction.

While most LEGO games are the same — third-person action games with lots of combat and collection but little brain usage — LEGO Bricktales rewards players who enjoy exploration and puzzle solving. It's particularly amazing being able to fully walk around these life-sized dioramas and find the secrets hidden within.

There's a serious childlike wonderment that bubbles up inside me while playing this game, and it made me freshly appreciate the spatial nature of VR games. It's even nicer that you can have the whole game hover in front of you no matter where you stand (or sit), giving you the freedom to fully explore or build each piece as if it were real.

This week, Meta launched a new Meta Quest store page revealing the top-50 best-selling games of all time on the platform. I was tipped off to it yesterday when one of my favorite VR games, Walkabout Mini Golf, posted on X about being the 20th best-selling game of all time on the Quest. Funny enough, Walkabout shares one common trait with 80% of all games on the list.

But it's not the type of game that's the trait, nor is it the price of the games or their complexity. The official list actually sports a ton of variety, with all but maybe one major genre not represented (strategy games).

No, instead, I noticed that only 11 out of the top-50 games were part of an already-established franchise: Among Us, Five Nights at Freddy's, Resident Evil, The Room, Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, The Walking Dead, and four Star Wars games. And most of these were original spin-offs, with only a few ports.

Nearly 80% of the best-selling Meta Quest games of all time are from names you've never heard of if you don't have a VR headset. While that could be worrisome for some players, I think it's a very good thing.

Out with the old

Years ago, I wrote about how big publishers ignoring VR was a good thing. These companies often don't care about gaming as an art and are only in it to make millions of dollars. Take Assassin's Creed Nexus, for example, which has made Ubisoft several million dollars and saw an uptick in sales around the release of Assassin's Creed Shadows. Despite making quite a bit of money for the company, it didn't land on the top-50 list.

Notably, Metro Awakening, Batman Arkham Shadow, and even the recently-released Alien: Rogue Incursion aren't on there, either. In fact, the only games on the list that would fit a more traditional definition of a AAA game are The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, Resident Evil 4, and Arizona Sunshine. Compare that with the list of best-selling PlayStation 5 games, which includes franchises and names everyone in the world knows.

That all plays in quite nicely with the narrative that "there's no money in VR gaming" among big publishers, but the reality is that this couldn't be further from the truth. What appears to be the case is that AAA games don't sell boatloads of copies on the Quest platform, but that doesn't mean they don't make good money.

Looking at the top-earning games of the week shows what I'm talking about. The top-3 titles are all free-to-play games, which have driven the biggest revenue growth on the platform in recent months, but below that, you'll find many of the AAA games I listed above.

The Walking Dead, Alien, and Assassin's Creed are all in the weekly top 50, and while these games certainly seem to be doing well for themselves, there aren't many other games of this caliber on the list.

If anything, this proves the point that VR gamers are putting on headsets to try something new and exciting, not just to rehash the games they've been playing for years (or decades). As VR continues to grow in 2025 and developers find new and unique ways to immerse gamers, it's clear that the most original games that take advantage of the medium's strengths — perhaps like Dimensional Double Shift or Orion Drift — are the ones that will end up on the top-50 bestseller list far into the future.

Whenever someone gets their first VR headset, Job Simulator is almost always one of the first games they'll play. The game is as ubiquitous with virtual reality gaming as Beat Saber is and this has earned developer Owlchemy Labs quite the pedigree over the years. For that reason, the company's latest game, Dimensional Double Shift, immediately caught my eye.

Dimensional Double Shift, or DDS as I'll call it from now on, can be described essentially as a multiplayer Job Simulator. While Job Simulator sees you taking your time as one of four jobs, DDS splits the workload between two main job types to finish as many duties as you can within a shift. Each job supports up to four players, and you'll find that jobs change based on how many players are in the game and what workstations they're at.

While DDS is still a free-to-play game on the Meta Quest platform, the new Hexas dimension is the first paid DLC to debut. For $4.99, players will unlock Hexas and all the cheeky swag that comes along with it. Anyone can play in Hexas so long as at least one person in the party owns the pack, you just can't earn those sweet accessories unless you pay the $5. It's a great business model that mirrors Walkabout Mini Golf and ensures that everyone gets to have fun even if they don't have money to spare.

Heck, let's go

Hexas debuts the launch of public lobbies, as well as a completely new dimension to experience the cooking and mechanic jobs in. While the base jobs are the same concept, the ingredients, stations, and even mechanics of them can be wildly different.

Let's cover the basics first. DDS is a hand tracking-only game, meaning you'll toss those controllers aside and feel the sweet relief of your God-given hands in the air. The game's controls are weirdly tactile, given that you're just grabbing air the whole time, thanks to a unique system where items lock to your hand until you perform an obvious "letting go" gesture. That means you just dramatically open your hand very quickly to drop something.

Players start out in a lobby of sorts with two jobs to choose from: cooking or mechanic work. With Hexas, the dimension chosen is randomized, so you never know when you'll get to fix cars in Hell. You'll just have to play to see when it finally happens.

If you've played Job Simulator, Vacation Simulator, Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality, or Cosmonious High, you'll immediately feel at home with the game's mechanics. As a cook, you'll grab an order ticket and assemble it as quickly as you can, and the fastest players will complete more orders than everyone else. The mechanic job is more about teamwork since the entire team works on a single car rather than individual vehicles.

Owlchemy Labs games are wildly creative and are best enjoyed by people who enjoy role playing and exploration. As the CEO of Owlchemy Labs once told me, the best VR games "let you roleplay and don't put exposition in the way of your roleplaying."

That means when you start a job in Dimensional Double Shift, the workstation is your canvas. Each work station has completely different tools and machines with which to work. You don't move between stations during a shift, ensuring that teamwork is required when one person's problem requires a tool or part they don't have immediate access to.

Like all other Owlchemy Labs games, this is built for players with all sorts of heights and abilities, so you can adjust the height of your workstation on the fly, pass parts and ingredients between players, use hand gestures and your voice to communicate with other players, and so forth.

DDS's first dimension, Treeattle, is a parody play on the hipster hippy culture you might find in suburban and downtown Seattle. Hexas, likewise, is a parody of the larger-than-life attitudes and lifestyles you'll find in Texas, just with a demonic twist for comedic effect.

As with any good Owlchemy game, DDS rewards players for thinking outside of the box and combining items that otherwise might not go together. It also heavily leans into the alternate dimension concept where cars might have milkable udders or demonic patrons might enjoy a literal bloody Mary drink.

Everything is so ridiculous that it ups the fun factor even beyond what was in the original dimension, and the humor is just the right mix between older-kid-friendly and still hilarious to adults who understand the references.

As I've written about several times before, I love playing VR games with my family. Whether it's Dungeons of Eternity with my son or Walkabout Mini Golf with my wife, there's a real joy that comes with playing VR games with other people. For that reason, I absolutely had to play this one with them and the results couldn't have been better.

My son typically hates hand tracking games, but Owlchemy Labs has been perfecting hand tracking since Job Simulator and it shows. He didn't once complain about not being able to use controllers — something that's never happened with other hand tracking games — and was moving around with the precision normally only associated with using motion-tracked VR controllers.

My wife also enjoyed the heck out of the game, especially during the mechanic section when we had to co-op fix several different broken car parts. It was like putting both our hands on a physical puzzle and working together to solve it. The teamwork was amazing.

Owlchemy's CEO, Andrew Eiche, told me the company is already hard at work on the next big update. While he didn't commit to what sorts of new jobs we can look forward to, I'm confident that the next update will once again reinvent what DDS players have come to expect.

Now that lobbies can be publicly searched, it'll be significantly easier to find players online when you're friends (or family) aren't available to play. Given how great Owlchemy's previous games were when played in a room with other people, it shouldn't come as to any surprise that this game is a blast to play online.

Owlchemy's first online multiplayer game is a huge success — the game already surpassed 500,000 downloads and is the fastest-growing Owlchemy game ever — and Hexas doubles the fun for just $5. Hard to say no to that.

The father-and-son podcast duo is back with the second annual Ruff Talk VR Showcase, a show dedicated to new VR releases for 2025. The 40-minute show debuted 23 new games and updates, and it was a delight for indie game lovers.

This one comes hot on the heels of the VR Gaming Showcase, meaning there are plenty of upcoming Meta Quest games for you to look forward to this year. In fact, a ton of games came out just this week, including Wanderer: The Fragments of Fate, Ghost Town, Stay: Forever Home, and Pinball FX VR. If you're ready for the next batch of excitement, though, check out the full show on YouTube and read my highlights below.

The 2025 Ruff Talk VR Gaming Showcase

The full 40-minute showcase can be watched above.

Vestiges: Fallen Tribes

Wanadev Studio continues to flex its creative muscles with Vestiges: Fallen Tribes, a new take on the interactive board game concept. It's set in a unique sci-fi universe that blends the tribal desert style of Dune with the card-battling minifigure concepts in Demeo. After Ragnarock and the Propagation series, it's hard to think of a more different type of game for the team to tackle.

Like Demeo, Vestiges: Fallen Tribes is playable in VR and on a desktop PC via Steam, giving its gameplay a wide range of players and styles. Unlike Demeo, you control several units at a time, powering your army with a stack of cards that give them powers.

In addition to a seriously fantastic art style and fascinating universe, the game supports both PvP and PvE modes. That solo campaign features "dozens of missions, diverse objectives, and three playable tribes with distinct playstyles, offering players countless hours of strategy-based gameplay."

Expect the game to launch on April 24 on the Meta Quest platform.

Silent North

The developer behind Ghosts of Tabor is back with another banger, this time set in the snowy landscape of the Swiss Alps. What once was a picturesque landscape is now dotted with waves of the undead. Combat Waffle Studios might have popularized survival extraction games in VR, but Silent North is here to redefine the concept with its PvPvE gameplay.

You'll need to visit villages and scavenge as many items as you can. Anything from clothes to food, guns, ammo, bandages, or even scrap can be used to aid your survival in the harsh wilderness. Not only are the zombies after you, though, but so are the players. Team up with humans or take them down and take their stuff. The choice is yours.

Silent North can be preordered now on the Meta Quest platform or on Steam with a special preorder discount.

Exer Gale

Pilotwings is a series that's seriously underappreciated by Nintendo. Developer Chark is making up for that by giving us a game that lets us fly freely and land softly in VR, all with a simple control scheme that makes flying easy for anyone. Just spread your wings (arms), and you'll naturally glide through the skies, racing other players or challenging yourself to top the leaderboards.

Like many of the most popular Meta Quest games, Exer Gale aims to be a social landing point that eschews complicated controls for pure fun. The developers said the game has been in development for years, primarily targeted as a single-player release with multiplayer to follow, but changes in the VR landscape have them reworking things to be multiplayer-centric on release.

Early access begins in June, so wishlist the game now on Meta Quest or Steam platforms to get notified when it's available.

Disembodied

As a fan of the weirdest games available — Katamari Damacy is among my all-time favorites, for example — Disembodied immediately caught my attention. You use your hands to control a disembodied pair of hands with the goal of hopping and grabbing your way through this mixed reality 3D platformer.

Seeing your hands tethered together and walking on their own is a crazy enough experience, but that feeling gets even weirder when you start grabbing objects and tossing them across the level. It's an incredible bit of innovation that I'd love to see more of, and it's easily one of my most anticipated upcoming VR games.

Disembodied is coming to Meta Quest 3 and 3S headsets "at some point," hopefully this year.

Loop One Done

I've never really been interested in games like Factorio because they require a lot of calculation and far more time sitting in front of a screen than I want to do, but Loop One Done's physical interactions make this concept a lot more appealing to me.

You'll start by sending a drone to mine materials, guided entirely by your hand. That loop is then recorded and repeated forever, allowing you to focus on the next piece of the puzzle.

Directly interacting with your factory pieces and drones evokes a very "toy-like" quality that immediately gets me interested. This isn't just sorting through a visual spreadsheet of machines; it's actually placing the machines down, physically moving them, and even recording manual drone movements to make things happen.

The developer says he's been making the game for the last four years as it's evolved from a drone delivery game to a massive mixed reality factory automation game. It supports controllers and hand tracking, plus there's a miniature mode that makes it easy for players of any height to enjoy. Look for it to launch on the Meta Quest platform in early access on May 2.

The Phoenix Gene

Many years ago, Sega promised us a Panzer Dragoon VR game. While that never materialized, The Phoenix Gene seems to have risen from the ashes and thrown a little bit of Rez in for good measure. As a huge fan of the Panzer Dragoon series, I'm always excited whenever I can play a new release, and the VR motion controls for The Phoenix Gene look like the perfect way to take the concept into the 2020s.

The developers describe controlling your phoenix as "like holding a paper plane." You'll move it around with your controllers, ducking, diving, and shooting your way through the game's colorful levels.

What particularly intrigues me is the ability to shoot 360 degrees around you at any time just by moving. The Panzer Dragoon games allowed you to swivel the camera in 90-degree segments but it was always a bit harrowing trying to multitask between different directions. This seems to solve that problem entirely, thanks to natural hand and head movement. You can wishlist the game now on Meta Quest with a release date of some time this year.

Pedal Rebel VR

VR exercise games are a dime a dozen these days, and while some games are hidden workout gems, Pedal Rebel VR aims to turn that dusty exercise bike in your closet into a sweat-covered machine in no time. Strap a controller to either of your legs and get pedaling in this neon-soaked, 80s-flavored, fast-paced racer with a twist!

Instead of biking the serene countryside, as some other VR biking games have you doing, Pedal Rebel VR gets you rip-roaring down a highway at breakneck speeds, weaving through and dodging traffic to get high scores. It's a great twist on the concept of exercising at home, and it does something unlike we've seen before in VR.

Hit up the official website and join the Discord for a demo!

Civilization VII is on the way to the Meta Quest sometime this Spring, but you don't have to wait until then to play great strategy games on your Meta Quest headset. Strategy games in VR come to life like never before, giving you a new angle on the action so you can get up close and personal.

Whether it's commanding armies, building cities, directing ships to attack or mine, or even terraforming an entire planet, you'll be pleasantly surprised at the amount of high-quality strategy games already available on the Meta Quest platform. I can't wait to see Civilization like never before on my dining room table in a living board game but, until then, here's how I'm strategizing away my time.

Dark fantasy comes to life

Underworld Overseer sees you excavating and managing a dungeon from the perspective of the almighty Overseer, including the ability to directly pick up your units and move them around where you want. As you command your units to dig further underground, you'll unearth treasures galore and build new areas that'll attract all sorts of different creatures to your dungeon.

The game evokes memories of the hit Dungeon Keeper games from the 90s and early 2000s, something I lauded when I first wrote about Underworld Overseer last October. I got access to the next big update recently and it offers additional levels and challenging new enemies for free. Plus, a PSVR 2 version is coming out soon!

Demeo has been the go-to recommendation for turn-based strategy for years. Demeo sees players choose one of seven different heroes, each with their own unique set of skills and movement options. Players make two actions during each turn which consists of movement, attacks, or special cards in their hand. Levels are proceedurally generated and scale up to four players.

It's a brilliant multiplayer title that's managed to sidestep the toxic nature of many multiplayer games, offering up a friendly community and tons of fun. It's been so successful Resolution Games was able to deliver a PvP spinoff called Demeo Battles in 2023 and is currently working on an official Dungeons & Dragons VR game using the Demeo engine. You can even play with your non-VR friends thanks to cross platform play!

City building for real

Little Cities proved that city building doesn't need to only be for the hardcore stat nerds that love games like SimCity and Cities. That's not to say that these folks won't also enjoy Little Cities, but the game isn't designed to keep you in your headset for hours at a time, just little sessions here and there as you desire.

Each session begins with an empty island that you'll need to zone for and build on to create the mini city of your dreams. A little $6.99 DLC package introduces snowy islands that bring winter coziness to this already cozy game, and hand tracking support means you don't even have to grab your controllers to have fun. If you do want more detailed city building, Cities VR is actually a game on the Quest, too.

Sick of building on Earth? Per Aspera VR will take you to the red planet to terraform and colonize its harsh landscape into something a lot more livable for humans. It's more stat-heavy than Little Cities but I didn't get overwhelmed by it at all. In fact, I had an easier time playing this one in VR because of the VR-centric controls and the ability to feel more "aware" of the planet, as a whole.

Aside from great gameplay, the game's story is intriguing and well voice-acted. You'll begin the game playing as AMI, an artificial intelligence (or maybe not so artificial since it's you) that has been tasked with getting the planet ready for the first humans, scheduled to arrive in a few short years. A DLC even brings about life in Mars after terraforming is done, dealing with the myriad of problems that come about with a flourishing planet.

Give me some space

If you're sick of city building and just want to get out into space, these last two options will be right up your alley. Gods of Gravity launched as one of the earliest free-to-play success stories and quickly became my strategy game of the year in 2023. It's a built-for-VR experience that sees you capturing planets to farm resources and build bigger squadrons, all with the goal of capturing all the home planets in a system.

The game is designed to be played multiplayer but a single-player campaign delivers all the strategy you want without a pesky story getting in the way. You'll play as one of several different gods, each with its own set of powers, that's able to physically grab any ship in the squadron and launch it like a dart. The strategy is real and the players will give you a serious challenge, especially as you make your way to the tournament rounds. This is Chess in Space and it evokes some of my favorite moments from Ender's Game's Command School.

Last, but certainly not least, is Homeworld: Vast Reaches. Yes, it's that Homeworld and it's in glorious VR and mixed reality for the first time ever. I grew up with the Homeworld games and always wondered what it would be like if I could be the one physically grabbing those ships and pointing them where to go with more than just a mouse and a keyboard. Now I don't have to wonder anymore! The mixed reality mode even puts ships and asteroids in my living room, making it feel even more unique.

Homeworld VR is an original story that takes place between Homeworld 1 and 2, helping fill in some gaps in the story. Don't worry if you've never played any game in the series, though! The excellent narration and beautifully illustrated story keeps you in the loop. The campaign can be finished in just a few hours and it's not as detailed or stat-heavy as the non-VR versions of the game, but I tend to find that this method works best in a headset.

Alien: Rogue Incursion is one of the finest examples of how to cleverly adapt a famous movie IP into a VR game — that is if you can get past the poor performance and even worse visual quality. It's the latest Meta Quest 3 game from veteran VR developer Survios, known best for the Creed series of VR and non-VR games, plus a handful of VR classics like Raw Data and Sprint Vector.

While the game was released on PC VR and the PSVR 2 on December 19, 2024, the Meta Quest 3 version was delayed two months, almost certainly to remake most of the game's visual assets to fit better on Quest. Aside from lower-quality assets when compared to the PlayStation or PC releases, Survios also tweaked the lighting in many areas to work better for the Quest 3's screens and power.

It's not these changes that are so offensive, though. Rather, it's the resolution and downright sub-par performance. It's the lowest-resolution game I can recall ever seeing on Quest 3, and the game still chugs when moving between areas. Developer Survios says a patch is coming as early as next week (at the time this is written) to address these issues, but until then, gamers will have to deal with them.

But if you can get past the poor visuals, you'll be treated to one of the better action-horror games on the Meta Quest platform. That's especially true if you enjoy the Alien movies and the sci-fi universe within them. Alien: Rogue Incursion is Part 1 of at least a 2-part game series, although Part 2 doesn't have a definitive release date just yet.

Brilliant gameplay, hazy corridors

From the moment the game began, I knew I was in for something special as far as gameplay goes. The intro is simple enough but also introduces a great way to get the player used to the game's mechanics without feeling obtuse. Alien: Rogue Incursion uses a combination of shooting, puzzle-solving, and key card-hunting gameplay mechanics to excellent effect.

The on-body inventory system is among the very best I've used in any VR game. Two large guns can fit on your back — shotgun over your left shoulder, assault rifle over the right — a pistol on your right hip, ammo on your left hip. Grabbing the ammo always presents the right kind for the gun you're carrying, assuming you have enough ammo in your inventory.

On the left arm, you'll find healing syringes on the forearm and grenades attached to the shoulder. The right shoulder holds the motion tracker, which is always active, giving you forewarning of anything moving in the shadows. Picking it up will let you scan the surroundings and get a rough idea of the direction Xenomorphs are coming from, but not much else. It helps get rid of cheap jump scares and allows you to prepare for battle rather than being surprised all the time.

The initial launch was met with plenty of criticism, from ridiculous spawn rates of Xenomorphs — which made it feel more like an arcade game than an action-horror one — to bugs with guns and a distinct lack of ammo to be found. All of these issues have been addressed in the Meta Quest 3 launch and the subsequent patch has also been issued to the PC and PS5 versions.

Now, the balance feels nearly perfect. Aliens take 2-3 direct hits from a shotgun to dispatch — a weapon you don't even have for the first hour or two of the game — roughly 30 bullets from the assault rifle or a few rounds from your pistol. Meanwhile, two shots from a Xenomorph will be the end of you, so you'll need to be strategic about every encounter you get in. Most Xenomorphs travel in packs, and you'll do your best to remember that.

Gun handling is superb, although I don't like the sound of the assault rifle. It sounds tinny and hollow compared to the punchier sounds from the pistol and shotgun. Placing a sticky grenade as a trap for oncoming Xenomorphs never seems to get old, although the physics of Xenomoph deaths tend to be more comical than realistic. Maybe comic relief is needed to keep the tension down.

Throughout the game, you'll make your way across a research base on a remote planet to unravel the events that occurred. Everyone at the station has either fled or is dead, and it's not long until you figure out why. Since you're the only living human there, getting around through locked-down, high-security areas requires a bit of work. Thankfully, your faithful Synthetic — maybe we should call him an Android in keeping with our site? — is there to assist.

Aside from combat assistance early in the game, he'll also help guide you across the station to get from one objective to the next and hack terminals through your PDA, which handily docks into computers — so long as they have power. If you boil it down, you're essentially playing a more complicated Doom as you look for colored key cards to access different parts of the station.

But it's not all badge scanning or computer hacking. Many puzzles require you to rewire electrical panels with special tools, un-weld sealed doors, or just blast through with your assault rifle's special rounds. They're extremely satisfying, and traversal through the large station and ship is made even better by the excellent map on your interactive PDA.

Environment and tool interaction is another strong point of the game. The PDA is a touchscreen device that you'll need to physically grab and interact with as if it were a modern-day tablet. Hold it with one hand and touch the display with your fingers on the other. It feels authentic, and interacting with the many computer terminals throughout the game might be even more fun since you'll grab the joystick and use it to move a mouse cursor around the screen.

Tools all have a very satisfying tactile feel. From the pop of the torch on the welding tool to the clamp of the wrench during rewiring puzzles, every interaction feels like a veteran VR studio made it — because it did, of course. Survios has been honing these kinds of interactive systems for a decade now, and it shows.

Even the story is compelling and kept me wondering what was going to happen next. I'm not the biggest Alien fan in the world, but I've seen a few of the movies and love the lore and character designs — especially the Xenomorphs. A twist about 2 hours in really shakes things up for the rest of the game, leaving me to wonder what's going to happen in Part 2 when it eventually releases.

A visual downgrade

Of course, all of these positive feelings only go so far when the performance and visual quality of the game are as poor as they are. The game runs at 36FPS most of the time but has significant hitching when loading new areas or trying to do anything else on the Quest, like capturing a screenshot or video. If you're sensitive to low frame rate, this is not a game you should play.

Meta's Application Space Warp technology enables the game to run at a "reprojected" 72FPS, so it doesn't feel like a slow-motion action scene the whole time, but this leaves some odd visual artifacts at times. This could all be forgiven if the game's resolution were substantially higher than it was, but at least by default, it's the lowest-resolution game I've ever seen on Quest, and it dynamically scales the resolution down when performance tanks.

That means you're often left with a blurry, shimmery mess that just plain looks bad. None of these issues are surprising given PC and PSVR 2 reviews of the game that often referred to bugs, crashes, and other visual and performance problems even after the patch that was supposed to fix them.

Visually, the game simply doesn't look like it should be taxing the Meta Quest 3's hardware the way it does, and games like Genotype prove that this game should look and run a lot better than it does. Survios also changed some visual aspects of the game's art, like adding a blue haze to the Quest version to help hide the terrible pop-in problems when the geometry is loaded.

It's clear that whatever engine Survios is using needs to be swapped out for something else. Sure, this is a game that was developed for much higher-end hardware than a Quest, but, again, there's nothing visually in the Quest version that looks like it should perform this poorly when compared to plenty of other games.

In the end, Alien: Rogue Incursion is a brilliant game wrapped in a distractingly bad visual package. If you're willing to sideload Quest Games Optimizer, set the game to 120% resolution, CPU/GPU to high or ultra, and FFR to high. These settings completely fix both the resolution and performance problems at the expense of battery life, but that's why I have a great Meta Quest 3 battery head strap, after all.

Hopefully, Survios will address these visual issues in a promised upcoming patch, because the rest of the game deserves to be surfaced in a better way than this.

Metro Awakening is the horror game I didn't know I needed. I say that because, first off, I'm not exactly a fan of the horror genre. I've enjoyed the occasional scary movie or game from time to time, but those are exceptions rather than the rule. I've also never really gotten into the Metro series despite enjoying the theme and the original release of Metro 2033.

But Metro Awakening is something special. It's a narrative-heavy, linear first-person shooter — just like the rest of the series — that had me hooked from the moment its clever intro began. It's also the first made-for-VR entry into the storied series, developed entirely by veteran VR developer Vertigo Games, the same company behind VR classics like Arizona Sunshine and After the Fall.

Despite being from a different developer, Metro Awakening feels incredibly similar to Metro 2033 in all the right ways. As the story goes, it takes place primarily in the metro train tunnels under a once great city, where you'll find yourself uncovering the horrors that both radioactivity and desperate humans created. It's easily one of the best Meta Quest games I've ever played.

Feeling Vertigo

If you've played the Arizona Sunshine games or After the Fall, you'll immediately feel familiar with the mechanics in Metro Awakening. That's not to say things are identical — the dual backpack-based inventory system is a clever new design I haven't seen yet — but everything that's good about the company's previous apocalyptic shooters sits on display for players to experience in Metro Awakening.

Intuitive on-body inventory systems, where you can consistently depend on grabbing the same item every time you reach for it, make them feel as good as a hot bar in a flat-screen game.

This is particularly important given the level of fear the game consistently holds you in, as you'll be able to make better split-second decisions because you won't be fumbling with an unreliable inventory system. Healing is always on your left hip, a pistol always on your right, and reaching into the pocket on your chest always delivers the proper ammo or refill for the weapon you're holding.

That is, of course, so long as you've been able to hold on to enough ammo to get you through the next section. One of Metro Awakening's biggest strengths is its consistent difficulty level, which is directly relative to how much ammo you're given between any of the game's encounters.

The first time you pull the hammer back and peer into the gun's body to make sure you still have a bullet in the chamber isn't just clutch. It's vital for immersion.

Metro Awakening's combat encounters are as often about taking the stealthy approach as they are about blindly shooting at unseen enemies like a character in one of Ridley Scott's Alien movies. Most encounters with humans give you the option to be stealthy — which I'll encourage you to use — in order to save up as much ammo for the next encounter as possible.

But every single encounter — even the ones that very obviously imply a stealthy approach is best — can be run through Rambo style. Enemies' weapons can be taken after they are downed, and while ammo in those weapons is always severely limited, they allow skilled players to hop from enemy to enemy and piggyback in creative ways. Cans and bottles can be brought from place to place and used to distract enemies, so you can use a stealthy melee attack to take them out.

The ability to act naturally in VR dawned on me during one early encounter. While running from a giant mutant rat, I grabbed a large sliding door and closed it three-quarters of the way, blocking the rat's entry and giving me enough space to blast it to smithereens.

There's no way to do this in a non-VR game, and it makes the game feel special and bespoke in a way that another flatscreen entry couldn't.

Variety and a bit of half life

There was never a time in Metro Awakening's 12-hour campaign where I felt like I was repeating the same old situation over and over again. Each hallway, air vent, metro tunnel, or other space you walk through feels unique in a way that's rarely achieved outside of something as good as Metroid Prime. While this isn't a Metroidvania by any stretch of the imagination, the variety of locales and the compelling story kept me coming back to the game for more each day.

Metro Awakening has you playing the community's doctor whose eccentric wife seems to always cause problems. When she starts hearing the voice of your long-dead son in the steam pipes, you know something bad's about to happen. The rest of the journey will have you wondering if she's sane, prophetic, or maybe somewhere in between the two. Either way, you'll be venturing further than your character's hard past has ever gone before.

Since many parts of the world you'll explore are radioactive, you'll need to occasionally put on a gas mask and keep track of how effective its filter is working. Finding and swapping out filters will let you explore these areas more, often helping you find survival supplies and a few collectible items. If there's any replayability in the game, it's for folks who love to re-experience specific events or to find all three postcards hidden in each chapter.

Despite not being a big fan of the horror genre, the macabre scenes depicted constantly throughout the game were fascinating in a way I didn't expect. Likewise, the horrifying creatures that had me jumping and blindly shooting were always interesting to encounter, and I regularly tried to find creative ways to dispatch them before they got too close.

While I wouldn't put Metro Awakening in the same general category as a horror game like Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife, there's no denying the importance of horror to the story and the overall atmosphere of the game. Even if you're not a fan of horror like me, I'd encourage you to try it. The Meta Quest store has a 2-hour return window, anyway, and you'll definitely get the feeling of the game in the first 30 minutes, let alone two hours.

If I had to name one specific critique of the Quest version of the game, it would be that I expected to see the game running at a higher resolution than it does. I used Quest Games Optimizer to boost the resolution to 130%, and it looked downright breathtaking at times, all without any noticeable performance hitches. Hopefully, Vertigo Games can patch in something like this soon.

The VR community has had its share of ups and downs with big releases this year, but this last quarter has proven to pack a serious punch that gives me high hopes for the future of big-name VR games. Batman Arkham Shadow sits firmly at the top as game of the year, although Metro Awakening has already making me question which title will get the crown at the end of the year.

Batman: Arkham fans around the world have been begging and pleading with Rocksteady to make a new single-player Arkham game, but it turns out that we've been asking the wrong people all along. While WB is busy trying to make the next successful live service game from the shell of the successful franchise, it's the Iron Man VR developers that actually delivered the single-player Batman Arkham game we've been clamoring for.

Batman: Arkham Shadow returns to the series' roots, something I've wanted since Arkham Knight. In many ways, it's identical to the way Ubisoft handled Assassin's Creed Nexus VR when it was released on Quest last year. Instead of a daunting open world, Batman: Arkham Shadow focuses on a key area of the world — Blackgate Prison — and cuts out the unnecessary padding and fluff open world games so often suffer from, as Michael pointed out in his hands-on of the game.

Because of this, Batman: Arkham Shadow feels laser-focused on its intriguing story, which follows The Rat King's rise and the scourge that both The Rats and the corrupt police have brought upon Gotham. It's a story that wedges itself between the events in Arkham Origin and Arkham Asylum, helping to fill in the gaps about what happened to Gordon, Bruce, and Gotham City as a whole.

Batman: Arkham Shadow is a Meta Quest 3 and Meta Quest 3S exclusive game developed by Camouflaj and published by Oculus Studios. It's more than worth noting that this game would not exist without Meta funding it, and Rocksteady was not the primary developer. However, Camouflaj did pull some seasoned Arkham talent onboard, like Bill Green, who was the head designer for all previous Arkham games and helped lead game and level design on Arkham Shadow, as well.

New medium, familiar feelings

The transition from flatscreen gaming to VR was a challenge for Camouflaj, but one the studio is specifically primed for. As studio director and founder Ryan Payton told me, Camouflaj isn't one to shy away from pushing the boundaries of what people thought was possible for VR gaming.

In Batman: Arkham Shadow, you'll fight multiple enemies at a time, sneak around in the vents, hop from vantage point to vantage point, glide around using Batman's cape, throw Batarangs to flip switches or disarm enemies, and use plenty of gadgets like the grapple hook to move around quickly and stealthily. These are all things Arkham fans expect from an Arkham-branded game, and every one of them has been lovingly recreated in VR.

But then there's the spatial awareness that you can only feel and understand when wearing a VR headset. Meta has been prominently using "Become the Knight" as the tagline in ads for the game, and while that might sound cliche to those who aren't familiar with VR gaming, there's something truly visceral and personal that happens when you do the literal cowl by wearing a Quest 3.

Suddenly, the monologue that takes place during story sequences becomes your own monologue. Inward thoughts from Bruce Wayne feel personal, and the anger and deception the character of Batman feels turn into your own as your blood pumps and sweat drips down your face.

Finishing a fight against 20 enemies at once feels like you just got out of a back alley brawl, as your muscles will ache, and you'll truly feel like you've just taken out those bad guys in real life.

Likewise, crouching in the vents, grabbing enemies from behind, and zipping between gargoyles elicits feelings that are very different from the flatscreen Arkham games. Sure, there have been plenty of moments throughout the storied franchise where I've felt tense or excited during stealth segments or during combat, but doing all of this yourself instead of mashing buttons on a controller is a very different experience that breathes new life into familiar mechanics.

Case in point, I noticed a trend in reviews for the Arkham series as it progressed from Asylum to City, Origins to Knight, where people commented that some of the mechanics and locations were starting to feel tired. You can only do the same thing so many times before you get tired of it, but people also don't want to deviate too far from something they love.

That's particularly what Arkham Shadow does well. It features the Metroidvania level design from Arkham Asylum with its "hub world" that revolves around Blackgate Prison and certain sections of Arkham City. Much like Asylum, you'll be revisiting places once you've acquired specific gadgets, each of which grants you access to places you weren't able to access previously.

Each gadget is designed to be both familiar and accessible in VR in clever ways. For instance, you'll aim with the Batarang by looking at your target and then physically throwing the tool. It feels a lot like eye-tracking and will be an even better mechanic once that tech is more commonplace.

If I had to levy any complaint against the Metroidvania design in this game, it would be that I often forgot where I needed to go back for secrets. The game's story guides you back through necessary areas via audio cues very well, but I'd love a way to tag a specific part of the map to make a waypoint for when I unlock the explosive gel, for instance. There are plenty of collectibles throughout the game, and as a classic gamer, I love finding and grabbing each one as I go.

Combat for the Beat Saber age

In my first interview with the team at Camouflaj, Batman: Arkham Shadow's combat was described as being heavily influenced by Beat Saber and SUPERHOT VR, two of the best Meta Quest games. Beat Saber's influence can be directly felt in the pseudo-rhythmic nature of the combat and the different movements you'll need to make to feel like Batman.

This isn't Blade & Sorcery or another VR action game where you might find yourself flailing around to cheese the physics system. You'll need to punch in specific directions, hit a certain number of times, and ensure you follow the prompts to complete a combat-specific move.

Sometimes, that's delivering an uppercut followed by a punch to the face for a knockout. Other times, it's knocking an enemy senseless with five straight jabs followed by a shoulder grab and a kick to the face. At all times, this combat feels visceral and authentic, and juggling between enemies is as easy as reaching toward them with a closed fist.

Countering enemies is just as easy, but you'll need to properly time the counter instead of simply reaching toward the enemy. A handy gauge appears to let you know an attack is incoming, and a grab toward that direction when the gauge is blue will successfully counter.

As you progress through the game, new enemies will require new tactics to dispatch. After a few hours, you'll be tapping the right stick forward to leap over enemies with stun batons, while you'll need to do a cape swing or explosive gel blast to stun more heavily armored enemies before punching them.

I will say that while this combat is incredibly exciting and rewarding, it's not terribly friendly for folks who like to sit on a couch. That doesn't mean it's not possible, but I often found myself angling my body weirdly when juggling between multiple enemies. I never had this problem when playing the game while standing.

Playing the rest of the game while seated is easy, thanks to the quick height-adjustment option. Just hold down the menu button and it'll set your height to that of Batman's, making you feel tall, dark, and handsome no matter your height or preference for seated or standing positions.

This kind of design is important for all sorts of folks. Whether you need to play seated because you feel nauseous when playing while standing, or you have a disability and cannot physically stand, Arkham Shadow is here for you. If you're not quite Batman's height, the game will make you feel Batman's height and size, transporting you properly into the psyche of the Dark Knight.

I actually found that I enjoyed playing some of the stealth Predator areas more while seated and the game's quick height adjustment made it easy to quickly swap between these two. Likewise, I preferred to physically crouch while sneaking around whereas other players might just want to click in the right stick to toggle between crouching or standing states.

Camouflaj worked to get options in here for all sorts of players and play styles, and it paid off marvelously.

Why is Batman: Arkham Shadow a VR game?

Some players have asked, "Why is this a VR game?" As I covered in the intro, this one was paid for by Meta, so it makes sense that it's a VR-focused game. Rocksteady and WB as a whole have been tone-deaf for the past decade, and the push from major publishers to develop expensive live service games has done nothing but cause problems industry-wide.

Batman: Arkham Shadow is an incredibly well-made, high-quality single-player game that'll take you around 10-15 hours to complete. That's the same length as Arkham Asylum and it includes combat and Predator mode challenges that you can play to either train yourself or just have fun when you're not delving through the main story. Thanks to an early Spring 2025 update, there's even a New Game+ mode that lets you carry over all your upgrades to a new game, making it easier to find all those collectables and 100% the game.

As far as the VR question goes, my best response to that is that being in VR gave Camouflaj the ability to make classic Arkham mechanics feel fresh and new again. Like anything popular and good in the gaming industry, most third-person brawler games have adapted Arkham's combat and it makes Arkham feel more generic than it used to.

Likewise, games like the PlayStation-exclusive Spider-Man series have even aped Arkham's predator stealth mechanics, once again making Arkham feel more generic as the series ages. Batman: Arkham Shadow does an amazing job of feeling like an Arkham game without feeling like it's the same game you played a decade ago, and that's because of what changing perspective does.

Just as a first-person shooter feels palpably different on a TV than a third-person shooter, Batman: Arkham Shadow feels palpably different from Arkham Asylum while still feeling familiar enough to please fans. It also does all the normal stuff a VR games do well — immersion, scale, emotional connection to characters — including interaction with the world at large.

I was surprised to see that some environmental objects weren't interactable, though. You can pick up a newspaper and read it, you can find hidden radios that The Rat King broadcasts on, and you can even pick up memory echoes that bring you back to Bruce Wayne's past in ways that Batman fans will care about. However, you can't pick up most mugs or bottles and smash them, something I think would have been good to do for some of the stealth parts of the game.

It's difficult to pick my favorite moments from the game. Walking around Blackgate Prison gave me "Chronicles of Riddick" vibes, something Payton told me was a big inspiration for the team during development. Hearing the prisoners talk about Batman's latest catch or what the Penguin was doing felt like I was spying in on a conversation I wasn't supposed to hear, and fighting and capturing famed Batman villains felt satisfying in a way I've never felt before.

One of the most clutch mechanics is detective mode, which is activated by holding the controller to the side of your head and pressing the trigger. It's a satisfying mechanic that activates a sort of X-ray vision that makes it easier to figure out what you're supposed to do, especially when buttons and gates are involved.

Some of the dedicated detective sections will have you piecing together clues by scanning objects in a room or area, but you can always scan random objects in the world with detective vision, Metroid Prime style.

A fresh perspective

Does this game evolve the formula in important ways? Definitely. It opens up the series to a new perspective and paves the way for a more open world, one that could be achieved on more powerful hardware that'll inevitably ship with the Meta Quest 4. More importantly, it proves that the series' original developers aren't needed to make something truly great.

If Batman: Arkham Shadow's overall quality and fun factor lead other publishers to trust that storied franchises can be handled by proven developers like Camouflaj, then I consider it a win for any fan who wants more from a series or universe. Arkham Shadow isn't just a win for the Meta Quest platform or VR; it's a win for the industry as a whole. It proves that successful games can branch out to new mediums without ruining the original feel, and that's what really matters to me.

My experience began in a snowy mountainscape as a small avalanche of bricks landed right in front of me. It immediately informed me that I could expect danger around any corner, and even going in with the idea that I thought I knew what I was in for, I never expected to feel the scale that was about to await me.

Skydance’s BEHEMOTH is every bit Shadow of the Colossus as you would expect if you know anything about the game's premise. Climbing a colossus of an enemy is satisfying in a unique way that only such a feat could possess. I only fought one Behemoth in my nearly hour-long demo on PSVR 2 but was told it was the smallest Behemoth in the game — something I didn't quite expect, given that it was as tall as a five-story building.

The game's developer aims to deliver a satisfying action-adventure game, and while it borrows some key mechanics from the team's previous two Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners games, it stands on its own in look and feel.

In fact, while it shares some of the same stamina, health, and weapons physics ideas as those two Walking Dead games, the team had to rebuild everything from scratch because it's developed in Unreal Engine 5. That allowed them to rethink how they want Behemoth to feel instead of just feeling like another Walking Dead game set in a snowy landscape, and boy does it ever seem to deliver.

Action at the forefront

While The Walking Dead S&S games were both survival sandbox titles, Skydance’s BEHEMOTH aims to be a much more straightforward game. Like the team's previous games, levels are visited via a home hub where players can use the experience they've earned to upgrade weapons via skill trees and craft important healing items for missions. Unlike The Walking Dead, however, players shouldn't expect dozens of crafting recipes or a collectathon.

Rather, crafting is devised as a way to use herbs and other scarce small items you'll find along the way, limiting your ability to heal and challenging your strategic skills. You'll find save points along the way through each of the game's twelve levels - each level culminating in a Behemoth to fight - and some of these act as Dark Souls-esque campfire warp points. But there's no weapon durability factor that'll see you breaking weapons during battle or needing to constantly craft new ones.

Instead, the game lets you take weapons and shields off any enemy you dispatch along the way, and there are plenty of them to find. There's not even a complicated inventory system like you'll find in TWD S&S. You'll still drop herbs and other collectables into a pouch on your back, but you won't be reaching over your shoulder to check your inventory at any time.

Rather, a single slot at the front of your belt will grant you healing items as you need them — so long as you have some in your inventory, of course — and four weapon slots on your body make it easy to quickly swap between your favorites.

During the hands-on, I found it easy to juggle several types of weapons, although I found myself using a bow on the left slot on my back, the hero sword on the right back slot, a shield on the left of my belt, and an axe on the right.

Weapons all have various specializations that come in handy. An axe will shred wooden shields without effort, while a sword might be handy for stabbing into a particularly defense-heavy enemy.

The physics-based combat system felt great, and while it's similar to games like Asgard's Wrath 2 and Until You Fall, I found that it wasn't as obvious with giving you visual cues as some other more hand-holding titles are.

Many combat situations will see you blocking and parrying attacks, but you can also use a variety of environmental hazards to dispatch your foes. All of the traps I found were activated with the grappling hook on your left wrist, which is shot by aiming and pressing the trigger.

Once the grappling hook sinks its teeth into a target, you can grab it and reel it in or yank it in one direction to activate it.

These types of environmental hazards are present throughout the entire level but vary in their scope and style. One trap was a scraggly old tree that I could pull down, and activating your superhuman strength — done by pressing two specific buttons at the same time — will allow you to whip it in any direction you want.

Likewise, activating your superhuman strength will let you cleave enemies in two, either by throwing weapons at them or in melee combat.

The grappling hook also comes in handy for climbing, and just as in Horizon Call of the Mountain, it’s likely you’ll be doing a lot of climbing in this game. Of course, climbing living Behemoths is a little different from just rappelling up the side of a mountain, which is at the heart of what makes the game extra special.

You'll play through the eyes of Wren, a purposefully chosen androgynous name that allows each player to select from a vision of what they might expect the character to look and sound like as they attempt to take on twelve giants - or Behemoths - who have brought a terrible curse to the land.

Surprisingly enough, it's not just your spouse and children or your village mates that are afflicted. Wren is also afflicted by the curse and is fighting against time to rid the land of these Behemoths, as it’s thought that eliminating them will rid the land of the curse.

As I battled my way through the single level I played — one that won’t be in the final game, I’m told — it culminated in fighting the massive Behemoth previously described. While this particular Behemoth didn’t require me to climb its entire mass in order to slay it, there were key times throughout the battle when I was given the opportunity to climb its legs to deal critical damage.

Defeating the Behemoth required me to eventually use an environmental hazard to weaken it enough to climb up to its head, and from there, I could tear out its essence and remove it from existence.

When the final game comes out, defeating Behemoths will give you a boost to your HP, stamina, and other factors, but there’s no specific leveling system to get tangled up in.

Players that enjoy more endless waves of combat can jump into the game’s “Combat Gym” mode that tosses enemies at you in waves, giving you the ability to use each arena’s special traps and weapons to your heart’s content.

Behemoth launches on Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3, PSVR 2, and Steam VR later this year at a currently undisclosed price. The game’s lead developer, Skydance Games, told me the team is hoping to add to the world of Behemoth over time, but there are currently no concrete dates for DLC or anything like that.

As it stands, Behemoth looks to be one of the VR behemoths releasing later this year and should give gamers a good excuse to don their VR headsets more often.