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!
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