One of the co-creators of Thumper (2016), an acclaimed rhythm action game that eventually got VR support, has announced a new VR-first game called Thrasher with some totally unique-looking gameplay.
While Thumper was a flatscreen game first with an eventual VR mode, the upcoming Thrasher will be the reverse—Thrasher is being built with motion controls in mind and will launch first as a VR-only game on Quest and PC VR next year, with a flatscreen version coming at some point further down the road.
It’s a bit hard to tell exactly how the gameplay will work from the initial trailer, so here’s some context going in:
THRASHER is a mind-melting cosmic racer and an essential audiovisual experience. Swoop, dash and thrash across the void, taking on wild bosses in a race for survival that begins at the dawn of time.
Immerse yourself in a dazzling adventure across space, where music, visuals and gameplay mesh into one transcendent experience.
Thrasher is being developed by indie studio Puddle, which is comprised of Thumper co-creator Brian Gibson and Mike Mandel (Rock Band VR, Fuser, Fantasia: Music Evolved).
From what we gather, players will guide the ‘eel’ around using their motion controller, almost like waving a ribbon around on the end of a stick. It doesn’t sound exactly like a rhythm game proper, but something of an audio-visual extravaganza.
We love seeing creative VR gameplay and Thrasher certainly looks intriguing!
LEGO Bricktales may not be a VR-native, as it was first released on flatscreen last year, but this Quest-exclusive port makes a pretty solid case that lego brick-building not only works in VR, but is something anyone can do for hours on end—even in the face of a pretty kid-focused story.
LEGO Bricktales Details:
Available On: Quest 2/3/Pro Reviewed On: Quest 3 Release Date: December 7th, 2023 Price: $30 Developer: ClockStone STUDIO Publisher: Thunderful Publishing AB
Gameplay
LEGO Bricktales isn’t just a big box of lego in VR where you can go wild—there is a sandbox mode for each bespoke puzzle, however no ‘free for all’ blank sandbox space to build whatever you want. The emphasis with Bricktales is definitely on building all sorts of functional things with one-off lego sets, such as bridges, furniture, statues and more, and doing it amid some classic RPG worldbuilding that includes a ton of linear quests and puzzles to solve.
The kid-friendly story will have you spending a lot of time engaging with characters via text-based dialogue and figuring out how to help out each of the little inhabitants in the world, all of which (if it matters to you) comes with zero combat.
Image captured by Road to VR
After all, you’re here to help restore the world by fixing things, and making everyone happy so you can… for some reason… fix your grandpa’s theme park with the power of happiness. Ok, that part is a little clunky, but it’s all in the name of honest, squeaky-clean fun that’s hard knock.
So, Bricktales is family-friendly fun, and it’s been largely admired for its light puzzling elements thanks to its clever block-building function. But how does that translate to VR? I would say surprisingly well—and that’s despite the inherent lack of tactility. When you’re prompted to build a model, you’re transported to a building space where you can grab pieces from a pre-set pile that you’ll need to attach to specific starting points. The objective below is to build a bridge from the blue arrow to the flag. Build it too wobbly, and it won’t past the stability test, making you reassess your design before going back to the world map.
Image captured by Road to VR
While picking up and using fiddly little pieces sounds like a nightmare in VR, the digital lego pieces thankfully only go in one specific orientation, so snapping them into place is satisfying, and rarely ends in a miss. Browsing pieces with the tips of your controllers, which are blue orb-like cursors, you can pick up blocks, place them, and highlight to remove pieces from models. To snap them into a different orientation, you can either physically move the piece, or hold it and use the right joystick to change positions.
The only thing missing really is a quick reset button for when you’ve completely screwed up a model, which instead requires you to dismantle and throw lego bricks off the map to reset them into their little hoppers. That’s pretty tedious, especially if you want to build something from the ground up again.
There are a good array of puzzle styles ranging from bridge builder-style affairs, like the one above, to fulfilling one-off tasks, like constructing a perfectly balanced perch for a giant bird or building a racecar. Watch out though, because you can’t just plop down whatever you want. Each building prompt comes with a few prerequisites. Here’s how a typical puzzle might go for a little helicopter you need to build:
Attach the seat
Attach the rotor on top
Reach the finish line
Nothing may break
Image courtesy ClockStone Studio
From there, you can build anything your imagination can handle (within the translucent wire cage), or equally just stick to the bare bones task to get past the hurdle. While none of the tasks are particularly hard (on flatscreen the game is suggested for kids 8+), all of them are gratifying in their own way, as they typically provide enough decorative pieces so you can not only build something functional, but embellish it with plenty of flair.
While fun in spurts, Bricktales also undoubtedly relies a ton on the cute factor of its little lego dioramas, all of which feel true to life. You can’t resize maps, which can either float in your living room thanks to mixed reality, or float in an unobtrusive skybox when played purely in VR. You can however twist and turn maps to get a better view for hidden pathways and so many easter eggs that you’ll be obligated to come back after the story is done, if only to see why that weird tree-man needs 20 chameleons. Seriously? Is what is he going to do with them??
Ok, as far as reasons for searching around the entire game for collectible extras goes, that’s fairly obtuse. Still, the “rated for ‘E’ everyone” age rating definitely means it’s geared towards kids, but snappy enough for adults to play too. Beware though, it’s not going to be the most engaging story, albeit harmless enough to act as sufficient narrative scaffolding that took me around six hours to complete. That’s just the story mode, so you can spend a lot more time rebuilding models and searching out the game’s many (many) collectibles, avatar skins, etc.
Image captured by Road to VR
One of the definite misses with LEGO Bricktales is the lack of a dedicated sandbox. You can unlock a sandbox mode once you complete a bespoke construction spot. This lets you improve your model and also build with a growable selection of bricks from different biomes you explore along the way, but the true ‘sit down and build whatever’ feature would be great when you’re just looking to completely space out and build something of your own design.
Immersion
As you’d imagine, the whole word is made of lego, which is just so damn charming on its own. As a slightly-modified VR port of the flatscreen version, much of the praise you’ll find out there for Bricktales is also true here, but visually the Quest version has a definite leg-up on monitor versions. There’s something about the density of detail in the little dioramas that feels like really playing a game from the future.
Image captured by Road to VR
Both Quest Pro and Quest 3 have color passthrough, which can be more immersive than playing in straight VR, which features a pretty innocuous skybox. On the spectrum of gimmick to absolutely essential though, the mixed reality in Bricktales is much closer to the gimmick side of things, as it’s just a plain passthrough and no real mixed reality implementation that would make it more immersive (i.e. logo dudes knowing where you couch is or busting through your walls). Still, it’s a pretty great gimmick, considering the little lego pieces are all accurately sized to their real-world counterparts. It’s difficult to at least marvel once or twice that you’re remote-controlling a little lego dude on your living room floor.
That said, there are less VR-specific interactions than I would have hoped, as most of the time you’re hunched over at the model controlling your dude like an RC car with your left thumbstick. Here’s the only other ‘immersive’ control scheme in the game: a rotary valve that can turn things like statues, water valves, etc.
Substantively, the only other VR-specific adaptation from the original is your wrist-worn UI which clumsily lets you toggle through specific powers, leave the map to return to the overworld, and go through regular menu stuff.
Comfort
My first instinct was to hunch over and play the game like some sort of demigod looking over my little realm. The game is super approachable, and is designed for long playsessions, however it’s easy to lock into bad neck and back positions. Because VR headsets add extra weight that your neck has to overcompensate for, hunching over to play will fatigue your more quickly than doing the same action without the headset.
Granted, you can dynamically reposition the map to your liking at any point, so it’s more of a warning for players than a flaw as such. Otherwise, LEGO Bricktales is a very comfortable VR game since it lacks any sort of artificial locomotion, presenting you with an entirely static space.
‘LEGO Bricktales’ Comfort Settings – December 6th, 2023
Steam VR Fest is in full swing, offering deep discounts on PC VR titles that may just give you another pretty valid reason to stay indoors this winter.
While you won’t be able to nab Half-Life: Alyx (2020) on the cheap this time around, there are a host of top games on sale to buy or gift to a friend for the holiday season.
That’s great news if you have a PC VR headset, but even greater news if you have a VR-ready PC and Meta Quest thanks to the new dedicated Steam Link App which makes playing Steam games on Quest even easier.
Valve highlighted some immersive games in the latest VR Fest hype video, although there are a ton more on sale to check out. Here’s some of the standout titles on sale from now until December 11th.
Jonathan Blow, the creator of one of indie gaming’s fomative successes, Braid, has begun hiring a team to develop his first VR game.
Before Fez (2012), before Limbo (2010), and before Minecraft (2009), Braid (2008) was one of the breakout successes in the formative years of indie game development and distribution.
Braid is a fairly basic 2D platformer, but with the twist of intriguing time-manipulation mechanics which made it play more like a puzzle game than a typical side-scroller. The game was widely praised and its success helped indie game development become… well, a thing. Braid is getting an Anniversary Edition next year.
Jonathan Blow, the creator of ‘Braid’ and ‘The Witness’
Now years after his 3D puzzler followup, The Witness (2016), creator Jonathan Blow is ready to try his game design chops in the VR realm with a focus on pure roomscale gameplay.
“This game has a boundary-pushing design and is made for untethered, roomscale play, with none of those game-ruining concessions for seated or stationary play,” says Blow.
Lead development of a new VR game, starting the game from scratch, using our in-house engine. This game has a boundary-pushing design and is made for untethered, roomscale play, with none of those game-ruining concessions for seated or stationary play.
Lead one other programmer and work with others at the company to build this game on a relatively rapid timescale. We’re looking for someone very motivated who can build high-quality technical systems without micromanagement.
Experience shipping VR games is a huge plus. Experience with Android and Vulkan rendering are a substantial plus (but it’s not a dealbreaker if you are fluent in some other rendering API). No C# Unity programmers please (unless you just happen to know C# and are better in a systems language than you are in C#).
Our engine and gameplay code are written in the in-house programming language created by Thekla. It is a modern systems language with high-powered features that do not cost runtime performance; we recommend looking into the language before applying.
Given the job description (“tetherless,” “Android,” etc), it sounds like the game is very likely to target Quest as a first priority, though Blow hasn’t confirmed any specific platforms of release.
Speaking to Road to VR Blow said that although this will be his first VR game, he’s dabbled in the medium before.
“I have been interested in VR for a long time. We had The Witness running on Valve’s pre-production hardware [prior to HTC Vive]. But the time was never right for me to do a game,” he said.
As for why he’s looking back toward VR now? He says the hardware is ready.
“It is just more about hardware having reached a certain threshold that is pretty good now, so it will only get better from here.”
Blow says development of his new VR game is expected to begin in earnest starting in 2024, so it will be some time before we see a formal announcement.
Something Random, a new studio founded by the creators of Superhot VR (2017), announced a pint-sized train simulator game simply called Toy Trains.
The miniature track-building game is all about connecting up disparate pockets of tiny people on the map with a variety of pieces, providing both basic and specialized bits so you can chug your way around or over obstacles.
Here’s how project lead Marcin Jóźwik describes it:
“At its core, it’s a game about making connections. On the gameplay side, we pair little houses with construction sites in order to build meeting places for inhabitants of that world – Railies. On the story side, it’s about the need to uphold connections with other people, even when it proves hard. The theme radiates even outside the game itself. Our goal was to make something that can connect various generations. A title that can be enjoyed by kids, their grandparents, and everyone in between.”
While it’s set to be Something Random’s first game as a studio, the team’s founding members all previously worked at SUPERHOT.
“The design principles in both games are basically the same,” explains Cezary, the team writer/designer. “We’re always laser-focused on delivering gameplay that is easy to understand, fluent, devoid of any unnecessary fluff. If the player is not having fun within the first 15 seconds of the game – we failed at our job.” The other thing that connects those games is that both of them make time stop – but in a very different sense.
Toy Trains is set to launch on Quest 2/3/Pro via App Lab, PSVR 2, and SteamVR headsets on January 16th, 2024. You can download a free demo now on Steam for PC VR headsets.
Update (9: 00 AM ET): A previous version of this article didn’t include info on the planned Quest release.
Valve today released its first-ever application on one of Meta’s VR platforms. Steam Link allows users to quickly and easily connect their Quest headset wirelessly to SteamVR to play PC VR or flatscreen PC content.
Oculus Link / Air Link has for years allowed any Quest headset to connect to a PC to play PC VR content, but it requires users to install and use the long-outdated Oculus PC software. In many cases, that ends up just being a bothersome extra step to finally ending up at SteamVR which has a much more active library of VR apps and users.
To streamline this process, Valve today released the Steam Link app on the main Quest store (which means it has been given Meta’s official blessing). Using Steam Link, the app makes it dead simple to connect Quest directly to SteamVR without the Oculus PC software as a middle layer.
All you need to do is have a capable PC running Steam on the same network as your headset. Then launch the Steam Link app in your Quest and you’ll be greeted with a pairing code. Enter the code on your PC and… voila, you’re looking at your SteamVR library.
And it isn’t just PC VR games—you can also play any game from your Steam library on a big screen in front of you. Again, this has all been possible before, but Steam Link makes the process easier than ever.
To use Steam Link, Valve says the minimum requirements are:
Wi-Fi: 5 GHz minimum, wired connection to PC
GPUs: NVIDIA (GTX970 or better)
OS: Windows 10 or newer
Headset: Meta Quest 2, 3, or Pro
There’s indications that Steam Link on Quest may also support eye-tracking and face-tracking for those using Oculus Pro, but we haven’t had a chancre to test it just yet.
Beloved UK comedy show Taskmaster is getting its own VR game soon featuring the Taskmaster tyrant himself, Greg Davies (and of course Little Alex Horne).
Targeting a 2024 launch on Quest 2/3/Pro and SteamVR headsets, the single-player game puts you in the hotseat of your very own series of Taskmaster.
And as you’d expect, Taskmaster VR takes you to the titular Taskmaster House, the show’s humble abode that regularly plays host to the game’s plethora of madcap missions. That means the full suite of unassuming locales: the house, the lab, the kitchen, the caravan, the garden, everything.
“Mastering tasks requires skill, patience, precision and grace. And if all that fails, maybe just throwing things around and hoping for the best will work out! Just get it done within the time limit and use the plethora of ordinary and not-so-ordinary items at your disposal. Grab, smash, balance, throw, magnetise, fry, pierce – do whatever you need to do to complete the task.”
Voiced by the Taskmaster himself, Greg Davies, and his long-suffering assistant Alex Horne, the ultimate goal is to complete all the tasks, thereby winning the show’s iconic bronze bust. And don’t punch a wall, or anything else you don’t want sufficiently punched.
There’s no exact release date yet, however you can now wishlist it on Steam and the Meta Quest Store.
With such an alluring price point on Quest 2 during the Black Friday period, it makes sense the headset would sell more than Quest 3. But what will it mean for the company’s effort to make mixed reality the main selling proposition of its headsets?
Twitter user JustDaven pointed out that Amazon reveals some coarse sales figures in certain cases, including for Quest 2 and Quest 3. We thought it would be interesting to look at all of the major Amazon territories where Quests are sold to find out what the numbers look like.
Across all major Amazon territories (just one of many places where the headset is sold), we found that Meta has sold some 240,000 Quest headsets. What’s more interesting than the raw number however is that Quest 2 is outselling Quest 3 nearly 3:1.
Even though Quest 3 is the hot new model that’s getting all the marketing, it’s not surprising how this happened.
The Quest 2 had a pretty stellar Black Friday discount with a sticker price of $250, including a $50 gift card (pricing it effectively at $200). Compare that to the lowest sticker price for Quest 3 which was $500, including a $15 gift card and a copy of Asgard’s Wrath 2 (pricing it effectively at $425).
Considering the Black Friday sticker prices ($250 vs. $500), people will naturally ask: “At twice the price of Quest 2, is Quest 3 twice as good?”
What It Means
In any case, the cheaper headset appears to be the clear winner so far this holiday season. But what does this mean for Meta—which has been trying to pivot from pure VR to mixed reality with its last two headsets?
Demeo Mixed Reality mode | Image courtesy Meta
Meta has pushed mixed reality as the primary use-case for both the Quest Pro and Quest 3. But while developers still need time to build killer apps and use-cases for mixed reality, a fresh surge of Quest 2 users is about to hit—a headset which just barely supports mixed reality experiences with a grainy black & white view.
This creates a difficult decision for developers: build for the new-fangled headsets with their greater power, better visuals, and much improved mixed reality capabilities? Or cater to the much larger audience of Quest 2 users?
This is of course always the case when game developers need to choose when to shift their focus to a next-gen game console. But this is different.
Between PS4 and PS5, for instance, there is no significant difference between the consoles that compares with the difference in mixed reality capabilities between Quest 2 and Quest 3. For PS4 and PS5, it’s comparatively easy for developers to build a single game and tune it to run well on both systems.
That’s arguably the same case for Quest 2 to Quest 3, but only if we’re talking about pure VR apps.
But a great mixed reality game built for Quest 3 is really going to struggle to provide a good experience on Quest 2; not only because of the lower resolution and black & white passthrough view, but also Quest 2’s lack of depth-sensor—a critical component for creating reasonably accurate maps of the player’s environment to truly mix the virtual and real worlds.
Quest 2 is already three years old. That’s not long for a typical console generation, but it is in the much faster moving landscape of standalone VR headsets.
A new surge of users for the last-gen headset will inevitably slow the transition to the next generation. That means developers will stay focused on the broader Quest 2 audience for a longer period, leaving Quest Pro and Quest 3 with less content that truly takes care of their main differentiator of higher quality mixed reality.
Image courtesy Meta
Ever since Quest Pro, Meta has focused its Quest marketing very heavily on mixed reality, giving customers a sense that there’s lots of great mixed reality content for the devices. But that’s far from the truth as things stand today. Mixed reality games and apps are still barely gestating, with most simply attaching a passthrough background to an existing game. Sure, that might make those games better in some cases, but it doesn’t really make use of the headsets’ mixed reality capabilities.
So while Meta would apparently like to see developers accelerate their transition to Quest Pro and Quest 3’s unique capabilities, the market is incentivizing them to decelerate that transition. That puts the platform and its developers at odds, with customers stuck somewhere in the twilight zone between.
Meta paused shipments of its Elite Strap with Battery for Quest 3 amid widespread user reports of a charging fault that renders the battery useless. Meta says it’s now manufacturing new battery straps that fixes the defect, and that replacements are being handled on a case-by-case basis.
We reported earlier this month that the Elite Strap with Battery was facing serious reliability issues among its users. For some, the $130 accessory, which provides around two hours of extra playtime and better ergonomics than the stock strap, simply refused to charge Quest 3 after a certain point, rendering it largely an expensive counterweight.
At the time, Meta Support told Road to VR that replacing faulty units with a fresh one “may not necessarily resolve the problem,” which ostensibly pointed either to a hardware fault or an issue with the Elite Battery Strap’s firmware.
Quest 3 Elite Strap with Battery | Image courtesy Meta
A Meta spokesperson has now confirmed with Road to VR that it has temporarily paused sales of the device while it manufactures new ones without the fault, which the company says was indeed related to the device’s firmware.
Meta says it’s not recalling the device as such, but rather replacing affected units on a case-by-case basis, and that it’s working with retailer partners to stock new units “as soon as possible.”
In the meantime, official Meta retail partners Target and Best Buy have completely removed listings for the device. Listings are still available on a few retailers, including Amazon and directly through Meta, albeit marked as ‘out of stock’ with no indication when new stock will ship. We’ve reached out to several major retailers for a quote on availability, and will update this article when/if we hear back.
For now, you may still find the odd Elite Strap with Battery for Quest 3 still on the store shelves at places such as Best Buy, although some Reddit users have reported being unable to actually buy units in-person as late as last week, as stores weren’t allowed to sell them. Until new stock arrives, users should be aware they potentially have a faulty unit.
That said, many users haven’t experienced the fault at all, so it’s still not clear what behavior can set it off. Whatever the case, US consumers have a one-year warranty to replace Meta devices, while EU consumers have two years to do so. If you have issues with your Elite Strap with Battery for Quest 3, the company suggests reaching out to Meta Support for troubleshooting and/or replacement.
This isn’t the first time Meta faced manufacturing issues with the Elite Strap line. Released for Quest 2 in 2020, both the Elite Strap and Elite Strap with Battery suffered premature breakage due to design issues that caused the device’s plastic struts to spontaneously crack. Meta extended the warranty of both Elite Strap variants once it unpaused sales in late 2020, or around two months after the company initially halted shipments of faulty units.
Dungeons of Eternity (2023), the VR hack-n-slash adventure, has big plans for post-launch content, as developers Othergate announced its roadmap for the next year.
Released on Quest in October, Dungeons of Eternity includes both co-op and solo gameplay, pitting you against ever-changing dungeons with up to three other players.
The game’s randomly-generated dungeons also include multiple game modes and realms, featuring stuff like combat arenas, puzzles, trap rooms, secret chambers, and more—basically everything you’d expect from a DnD-style VR game.
At any rate, that’s what the game launched with a little over a month ago, but now the studio says it has a bunch of new content on the horizon, as the studio released a roadmap projecting clear out to the end of next year. Check it out below:
Image courtesy Othergate
Studio co-founder Ryan Rutherford also says in a recent Reddit AMA that the team has a “precise vision of creating a long-lasting VR experience you can enjoy with your friends or by yourself,” noting that the studio is entertaining a host of other improvements beyond those mentioned above.
You can find it on the Meta Store for Quest, priced at $30. At the time of this writing, Dungeons of Eternity is sporting a [4.65/5] user rating.
DAVIGO, the asymmetric VR/PC battle game in testing since 2020, is getting ready to release on Quest and PC VR headsets starting next week.
The David vs. Goliath-inspired combat game lets VR players take on the role of a massive giant who must defeat up to four pint-sized PC players armed with rockets. The little knights can run, fly, shoot, and block incoming missiles. Meanwhile, the VR headset-using Giant can pound the ground, rip trees and stones from the earth, and throw everything.
Now indie developer Davigo Studio say it’s coming November 29th, with the latest version set to expand on previous alpha releases. This includes updated art, four game modes, seven official maps, mod.io support to download custom maps created with the Davigo Editor, and a range of new mechanics for more balanced, competitive play.
What’s more, PC players will be able to play for free by downloading the Davigo Knights Pass, which will be available on Steam.
Davigo is set to launch on Steam Early Access for PC VR, and through the official Meta Store for Quest. The studio isn’t considering next week’s release the “full version” of the game however, which is said to come sometime in early 2024.
The food coma is fast approaching, but you probably still have some fellow Americans to entertain on this holiest of holy feasts. What better way to liven up the post Turkey Day frivolities than popping your brand-new VR headset on a noggin or three?
Keep in mind: some of the best results we’ve had over the years tend to be with very noob-friendly games and apps. Your Thanksgiving Day guests probably won’t have enough time (or inclination) to learn complex mechanics, and keeping things quick and simple is usually the right way to go to make sure everyone not only gets involved, but doesn’t have to wait around a bunch either.
Above all, one of the best ways of getting everyone gawking is by making sure you can see the action on a TV screen or monitor, which you can do easily with any headset out there. It’s fairly straight forward on SteamVR and PSVR 2 since you already have a monitor/TV hooked up. For Quest, you can mirror your view to your Meta App-connected phone, or cast to a smart TV.
Now, let the arm flailing and requisite safety briefing begin!
Beat Saber
What: This incredibly addictive and easy to pick-up game is one of the best entry points for VR firstimers, but has enough depth to appeal to anyone along their way on the pro VR gamer skill tree.
Who: Everyone will want to get up at least for a song to slice blocks to the beat. Thankfully there’s plenty of difficulty settings to satisfy even the most musically disinclined.
Howlong: 5 – 15 minutes per person
Why: Most songs last around five minutes, but you’re bound to encounter failures along the way, and also family members that just can’t help themselves for a second go at another song.
What: Like Beat Saber in addictiveness, but instead of slicing blocks to the beat, you’re shooting dudes John Wick-style. It’s all very stylized, so there probably won’t be much, if any pearl-clutching.
Who: Older kids, teens and adults of all ages.
Howlong: 5 – 10 minutes per person
Why: Like Beat Saber, most songs (called ‘scenes’) last around five minutes. Remember to lower the difficult to easy mode so most anyone will get to the end of the level.
What: CREED: Rise to Glory (2018) is a highly polished arcade boxing game that puts you in the shoes of Adonis Creed, the protagonist of CREED (2016) and CREED II (2018). Punch, punch, punch, block and dodge.
Who: Everyone with some caveats. Make sure your family member is physically fit enough to go the distance for a full match, and kids may have problems hitting their much taller targets.
Howlong: 5 – 10 minutes
Why: Freeplay matches against AI can last anywhere from 2 – 5 minutes, but depending on how much fun everyone is having, this might be a good opportunity to let your family members really flaunt their dodging and punching prowess for a few sessions.
What: This room-scale is a free-to-play shooter that puts you in a ring to go 1v1, giving you multiple weapons to shoot and dodge around. While online matches are great for seasoned players, pop into single player mode for some quicker and easier human vs. AI action. Also, if you have two headsets, you could set up 1v1 duels!
Who: Everyone will want a turn, as they see you grabbing guns and Matrix-diving out of the way of oncoming bullets.
Howlong: 5 – 10 minutes
Why: Individual matches can be shorter than 5 minutes, although you may want to dedicate more time to each player, as they quickly build expertise with the game’s various weapons.
What: This VR version of the hit mobile game Angry Birds is exactly what it says on the tin, putting the slingshot in your hand to take the fight to the evil piggies, who hide in increasingly elaborate wooden structures.
Who: Everyone should find this one an easy choice; it’s dead simple and super fun to smash blocks and knock down stuff. Serious name brand recognition should also perk up an ear or two with the older crowd.
Howlong: under 5 minutes
Why: It’s easy to get lost in this one, as you trudge ahead to harder levels, or continuously retry a level to get the best score. Pass this one around the room quickly and keep the masses snacking.
What: Puzzling Places brings relaxing and wholesome 3D jigsaw puzzling to VR, letting you put together hyper-realistic miniatures of beautiful places from around the globe.
Who: Everyone. While it doesn’t have a ton of crowd-pleasing wow factor, this is great for quieter moments where you want to show off how ‘neat’ VR can be, especially to older family members.
Howlong: under 5 minutes
Why: Keep difficulty low to get people through fast enough
What: It’s like Google Earth for Quest. Browse an immersive, 360 Street View photospheres, or look down at a tinker toy map of 3D cities. It’s social, but you can also do private single-player sessions so people don’t have to deal with multiplayer.
Who: Everyone. We’ve all had places from our past that we either haven’t or physically can’t return to. This gives you and your loved ones a trip down memory lane that is sure to set off some long conversations and stories.
Howlong: 10 – 20 minutes per person
Why: You can easily spend hours alone revisting places, but make sure to set the expectation early on that not everyone can hog the headset. Ask someone to show you their childhood home, or favorite vacation spot and move on to the next person.
What: Insanely stylish, easy to pick up and play, Superhot VR (2017) tosses a little time-bending cartoon violence your family’s way that shouldn’t receive too many odd glances from the older generation.
Who: Younger, more game-savvy players are sure to love the concept, letting them live out their dreams of being an action hero. The concept is simple and slow enough to get anyone in the mood to punch some red crystal dudes in the face.
Howlong: 5 – 10 minutes
Why: A single stage can go by pretty quickly. It may be best to do a round-robin style match that lets everyone have a go when one player fails a level, or relegate a person to two to three of the smaller sections a piece.
What: Walk the plank! Literally! Get a wooden board from your garage and line it up with the game’s virtual plank to really scare the bejesus out of people as they teeter over perilous heights.
Who: Everyone, with a few caveats. Make sure the person is healthy enough to take a self-induced tumble. Tell kids they can’t jump off the ledge and skydive, because… floor.
Howlong: 5 minutes per person
Why: This is a classic experience that will have everyone watching and wanting to take a go themselves, putting your VR headset at the center of attention.
Who: Older kids, teens, and adults. Although speeds can be excessive, the driving experience is comfortable enough for most anyone.
Howlong: 5 minutes per person
Why: You can easily put someone in the corner with this one, as they progress to more difficult tracks, although it’s an easy game to pass around as people get the immersive feel of driving faster than they ever have in real life.
Quest Intro Apps – Oculus First Contact, First Steps, and First Encounters (Quest 3) are great ways to ease in newbies if they’re looking to learn more about the headset and common control schemes. Not a ton of crowd wow factor, but it might be just the thing for a smaller gathering with more dedicated neophytes.
Space Pirate Trainer – Pew pew pew. It’s fundamentally just a wave shooter, but it’s by far one of the best looking and best feeling out there. Find it on Meta Store (Quest, Rift), Steam, PlayStation Store.
Half-Life: Alyx – It’s not going to be the easiest to show off, since you’ll need to have a specific safe state in mind to drop players into, but it’s tough to beat if you’re looking to wow anyone with the best-looking VR games out there. Find it on Steam.
Red Matter or Red Matter 2 – Again, story-based stuff with a ton of tutorial-worthy VR control mechanics won’t be the easiest to show off, but if you happen to have a good save state, it can’t hurt to pop a non-believer into this extremely polished adventure game. Find both on Steam, PlayStation Store, Quest, and Rift.
Mossor Moss 2 – Try plopping the kids down into this family-friendly puzzle platformer that will have you awwwing to nearly the same degree as Astro Bot. Find both on Steam, PlayStation Store, Quest, and Rift.
Google Earth VR – This PC VR-only app is a good replacement for Wooorld. Giving a loved one the opportunity to travel, especially if they aren’t physically able, is going to really be a special moment. Travel the sights and revisit distant places you never thought you’d see again in the flesh. Find it on Steam and Rift.
ASTRO BOT Rescue Mission– Maybe not great for the crowd-pleasing wow factor, but after you show off some of the fan favorites above you might park a few more of your curious family members in a chair and let them experience the best platformer PSVR has to offer. Find it on PlayStation Store (No PSVR 2).
The Lab – Valve’s PC VR-only collection of mini-games and photogrammetry scenes isn’t really the “future” of VR anymore, but kids and adults alike will love the app’s snackable mini-games Longbow, Core Calibration, and Xortex. Find it on Steam.
We love seeing creative VR gameplay and Thrasher certainly looks intriguing!
