Vertigo Games finally revealed the release date for its upcoming sequel to Arizona Sunshine (2016), which is set to bring us back to the dusty post-apocalyptic desert for another tango with the undead hordes. Also: the first gameplay trailer.
Arizona Sunshine 2 is slated to launch on all major VR headsets on December 7th, which the studio has confirmed will include a co-op mode as well as single player campaign at launch.
We’ve also got our first look at actual gameplay, which admittedly doesn’t look terribly far off from the previous CG trailer released back in May. There seems to be plenty of opportunities to blow up, dismember, and roast the hell out of the shambolic enemies—all in the search of ‘Patient Zero’, which is supposedly the game’s main objective.
Coming to Quest 2/3/Pro, PSVR 2, Pico and SteamVR headsets, you’ll find Arizona Sunshine 2 is also now available for pre-order as a Standard Edition and Deluxe Edition, with each edition including exclusive digital items. Here’s the breakdown:
Standard Edition ($50): Pre-orders include the Biker Bark Vest, Worker Watch, and Ducky Weapon Charm in-game exclusive bonuses.
Deluxe Edition ($60): Available at a 10% pre-order discount. Includes everything in the Standard Edition, plus the Freddy Hands Skin, Doggy Weapon Charm, and Undead Buddy—turning your loyal four-legged friend into an undead killing machine.
Better keep a tight grip on that wallet—the next month and a half will see the launch of a flurry of anticipated games for Meta Quest 2 and Quest 3 (and a few which are also coming to PSVR 2 and PC VR). Here’s what should be on your radar.
If you’ve been looking for something new to play, you’re about to have some decisions to make. Here’s a chronological breakdown of new Quest games coming before the end of 2023, starting with five that are already available but shouldn’t be missed!
Hack-n-slash takes on a new meaning in VR: swing swords, throw axes, use bows, wield magic staffs, and more to make it out alive. With the power of VR, you will be immersed in a fantasy adventure like no other.
COOP OR SOLO PLAY Band together for an unforgettable cooperative experience with up to 3 players, or delve into the dungeons yourself.
EVER-CHANGING DUNGEONS Explore randomly-generated dungeons across multiple game modes and realms – no dungeon run is the same. A vast array of chambers await, from combat arenas, puzzle, and trap rooms, secret chambers, and more.
FEEL THE DUNGEONS Hack-n-slash like never before with a visceral physics-based combat system and realistic interactions with the game world.
ENDLESS ARSENAL Every weapon is randomly generated, offering nearly endless loot within the dungeons. You will discover many weapon types, including swords, bows, magic staffs, and more.
PLAY YOUR WAY Craft your playstyle and appearance through loadouts, upgrades, and a diverse set of character customization options.
The classic game that chilled you to the bone in the 90s has been brought back to life, with cutting-edge VR technology that delivers an atmospheric story like no other.
Six guests have been welcomed to the foreboding mansion. But something sinister is at play. The wealthy recluse and toymaker, Henry Stauf, hides in the shadows, and there is a dark power here, shrouded in mysteries. Who is the 7th Guest? What does Henry want with them? And who will live to tell the tale?
As you explore the eerie mansion, the puzzles become increasingly challenging, and there are dangers lurking around every corner, with every shadow, creak, and flicker of light adding to the haunting tension.
Unlock new rooms and uncover hidden secrets, all while trying to keep your wits about you against the eerie horrors. The 7th Guest VR is the ultimate adventure for fans of mystery-puzzle games and those seeking a new and terrifying VR experience.
Team up with friends and become a Ghostbuster in this made-for-VR adventure.
Immerse yourself in the thrills and fun of bustin’ ghosts like never before on the Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest 3. Quash a Mini-Pufts invasion in your own home in the exclusive game mode, Mini-Puft Mayhem – featuring the Meta Quest 3’s unique mixed reality capabilities.
In this VR app, you explore the worlds within worlds around you from inside your mobile scale lab as you travel to five levels of scale – molecular, bacterial, insect, human, and mountain. You’re joined by STEVE, the lab’s AI assistant, who shows you the different effects of biology, physics, and chemistry in each realm. Together you’ll scan objects, find hidden ducks, and observe science in action. You will complete four missions around giant ants, a tardigrade, a protist, and giant fungi that have accidentally been scaled up by using scientific concepts and scaling objects up and down yourself.
In addition to the base game, there is a Multiplayer Theater where players can invite their friends and watch Kurzgesagt videos together in VR. There’s also a Mixed Reality Sandbox where players can bring objects and creatures they’ve unlocked in the game into their home.
It’s been almost two centuries since Hari Seldon predicted the fall of the Galactic Empire and forged a Foundation to mitigate the chaos and destruction that would come.
You are an agent with the Commission of Public Safety, a shadowy organization that maintains order in the Galactic Empire. What begins as a mission to investigate deserters in the Periphery quickly becomes a battle for control of all humanity. With your superior officer in your ear, and the esteemed governor’s daughter at your side, you must journey to Foundation.
In this immersive roleplaying adventure, you decide who will rise and what is lost to the fires of anarchy. Disguise, hack, and blast your way through Asimov’s groundbreaking sci-fi universe using the most advanced tools the Galactic Empire has to offer.
The Foglands is an atmospheric 3D roguelike shooter where you’ll discover new paths, and uncover old secrets. Run into the unknown, fight monsters, scavenge loot, and try to make it back before you are swallowed by the Fog.
EXPLORE THE FOGLANDS – Play as a Runner, heroes of a sparse community living underground. Adventure from the wrecks of long-dead technology to the undiscovered depths where you’ll run, jump, sneak, and fight your way through the Fog.
ROWDY BAR-FIGHT ACTION – In a mysterious, fog-infested world, dangerous forces lurk in the shadows. Punch, throw, shoot, and smash through each run as you go toe-to-toe with strange, malevolent monsters and vicious, roving factions.
A MYSTERIOUS TALE – A great creature reawakens in the Fog. With the survival of your community in peril, you must strike a deal with a mysterious stranger in this sci-fi-western-horror story. Follow the network of tunnels to learn the long-buried truth and remember, sometimes the best way to move forward… is to look back.
SCAVENGE AND GROW – Scavenge precious items, unearth hidden secrets, and collect powerful abilities that can mean the difference between victory and death
Become a vampire. Strike from the darkness and drink the blood of your prey. Use stealth, persuasion, and an arsenal of upgradable abilities to sneak past enemies undetected or punish the guilty in the seedy backstreets of Venice.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Justice is an open-ended, narrative Adventure RPG set in the World of Darkness universe. You have the power to strike fear into the hearts of criminals as an untraceable shadow, picking off targets one-by-one.
STEALTH IS YOUR WEAPON Shadows are your ally. Take to the rooftops and seek new paths away from enemy eyes. Use Shadow Traps to snatch up unsuspecting prey and drag them into Oblivion. Activate Cloak of Shadows and slip unseen through enemy defenses. In Vampire: The Masquerade – Justice, stealth is your weapon.
BECOME A POWERFUL VAMPIRE Punish the guilty with brutal abilities. Launch yourself towards opponents with immense force or boil their insides with Cauldron of Blood. Sink your fangs into their necks to stock up on blood. Load your crossbow with special bolts to kill, distract or knock out guards from afar. Dish out Justice with a vengeance
LEVEL UP AND EXPLORE The dark skies of Venice provide ample opportunity to level up powers and build a character suited to your playstyle. Tackle side-missions to earn more experience. Convince NPCs to aid your quest, solve puzzles, uncover collectibles and test yourself with optional tasks in each mission.
Enhancing everything players love about the freerunning nature of STRIDE, the full-fledged sequel ‘Fates’ pushes the parkour action formula even further with new gameplay and a story-driven campaign.
MEET YOUR FATE
Raised in the slums of dystopian Airon City, at the very bottom of the food chain, you got a golden ticket out.
To survive and climb the ladder in elite police forces of SkyChase, you will have to deal with power shifts in gangs, dirty family feuds, corporate secrets, forbidden tech and much more. Your fate is bound with other motley characters in this story. Will you accept the destiny or fight against it?
FEEL LIKE A PARKOUR SPEC-OPS OFFICER
Climb buildings, vault through windows, and slide down cables with lightning speed.
Explore open-world locations under the watch of snipers and drones.
Feel the thrill of close-quarters combat with tactical shooter gameplay.
Use your gadgets and hacking skills to outwit thugs and corporates.
Welcome to the arena! Demeo Battles is a competitive turn-based strategy game for 1-4 players, featuring:
Turn-based Tactics – Battle your opponents in dungeons, forests and more as you square off against your enemies in grid-based action combat across 10 maps tailored for intense PvP competition — but don’t fall victim to “The Burn”
Monstrous Minions – Assemble an army of chaotic critters to fight alongside you — from rats and goblins to cave trolls to giant slimes — a rotating cast of 37 creatures to pick from at launch, all with a mind of their own!
Heroic Teamwork – Bring two champions to the battle in every match and leverage their synergies; control both heroes directly or partner up with another player to defeat competitors cooperatively
Play Your Way – Choose a champion to match your play style from 7 classes — hunter, sorcerer, assassin, guardian, bard, warlock or barbarian — to unleash magic, melee mayhem and more, with 89 possible cards to pick from when raining fury down on your opponents
Bespoke Builds – Spend your coins wisely when you enter the arena to build a unique loadout in every game, choosing from a randomized selection of action cards and monsters
Speedy Strategy – Challenge yourself to battle after battle with average matches lasting just under 20 minutes
Cross-Play – Play with your friends across all supported devices
Embody three legendary Assassins in this all-new full-length Assassin’s Creed action-adventure game. Experience firsthand the thrill of parkour, the rush of combat, and the tension of stealth as you become the Assassin like never before. Uncover new memories from Ezio Auditore, Kassandra, and Connor as you work to stop Abstergo from gaining the power to manipulate people’s beliefs.
PARKOUR: Feel the exhilaration of parkouring freely across expansive open maps. Explore Renaissance Italy, Ancient Greece, and Colonial America. Immerse yourself in history as you engage with NPCs and interact with historical figures like Leonardo Da Vinci.
COMBAT: Deploy your Hidden Blade with a flick of your wrist. Use your hands to block, parry, counterattack, and duel a variety of enemies. Immerse yourself in the action with weapons including bow and arrows, swords, throwing knives, the tomahawk, the crossbow, the Hidden Blade, and bombs, all of which attach to your full-body avatar.
STEALTH: Sneak up on a target from behind or surprise them with an air assassination. Evade enemies by blending into a crowd or distract them with objects in the environment.
Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR features all of the iconic gameplay from the series, including the dazzling Leap of Faith. You will become the Assassin, choosing how to achieve your missions as you sneak, traverse, and fight your way through open maps in an unforgettable campaign.
Ironstrike – November 16th ($20)
From the Developer:
Ironstrike is a co-op VR fantasy roguelike combat game developed by E McNeill. Players can go at it alone or party up with friends with a wide array of character classes to choose from to dispatch waves of challenging enemies. Utilize a wide array of weapons as a ranger or become an arcane mage to use magical spells to buff teammates or compromise opponents.
Take on the role of the deadly assassin Kenshiro as you travel across feudal Japan to defeat the Six Oni of Iga, a bandit group spreading chaos across the land. Through a wide variety of weapons, tools, and techniques, you’ll infiltrate conquered castles and outwit your enemies as you hunt down each Oni.
With the innovations of Next-Gen VR hardware, immerse yourself in the ultimate shinobi fantasy. Leap from rooftop to rooftop, hide in shadows and perform lethal sneak attacks, survive impossible odds in sword combat, and vanish from the scene just as quickly as you arrived. Heightened graphical fidelity and carefully tuned controls make each new battle more engaging than the last.
Each castle you conquer is capped off with an exciting battle against one of the Six Oni. Each bandit leader is a unique combatant both in style, personality, and abilities, putting your mastery of the sword to the test. Prove yourself against these fearsome foes as you hone your skills with each new encounter.
Your mission for justice is not one you take alone. With your canine companion Haru by your side, praised for her advanced AI and usefulness, Arashi brings a unique sense of companionship not found in other VR titles.
Customize your arsenal as you see fit before each mission with blades, grenades, mines, arrows, blowguns, pistols, and more! Whether you want to make it through unscathed and unseen, or want to face your enemies head-on with style, your choices are always supported.
Awaken, Cosmic Guardian – The fate of reality lies in your hands. Travel across vast realms inhabited by the gods in pursuit of the Trickster God Loki, who threatens to undo the threads of the universe. It’s up to you to battle gods and monsters alike as you take on one of the biggest and most epic scale Action RPGs ever experienced in VR.
Alongside legendary Egyptian gods, you’ll fight deadly warriors and awe-inspiring mythical creatures through physics-based, visceral combat with unique weapons and playstyles. Possess unique mortal heroes and convert loyal animals into your own warrior followers as you explore a massive, free-roaming and living world and solve mind-bending god-scale puzzles.
What Didn’t Make it in 2023
While that’s a solid lineup before the end of the year, two big Quest games that we hoped to see this year won’t be out before the New Year.
Image courtesy Skydance Interactive
First is the highly anticipated Behemoth from Skydance Interactive, the developer behind the Walking Dead VR games. Original slated for a 2023 release date, the studio recently announced a major delay for the game until 2024. Also coming to PSVR 2 and PC VR.
Image courtesy Rockstar Games
And last but not least is GTA: San Andreas VR. Announced way back in 2021, we figured the game would be set for release not later than the launch of Quest 3… but with no release date set, it’s almost certainly not going to land in 2023. And with no recent updates on the game, we might not ever see it.
It’s been a while since we first busted ghosts in VR, but this time around veteran VR studio nDreams and Sony Pictures Virtual Reality are serving up an at-home co-op game for Quest and PSVR 2 that will finally let you strap on a proton pack and go head-to-floating-head with a good variety of belligerent specters. Check out our review below to see if it’s worth getting the whole squad involved.
Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord Details:
Available On: Quest, PSVR 2 Release Date: October 26th, 2023 Price: $35 (Standard), $55 (Full Containment Edition) Developer: nDreams Publisher: Sony Pictures Virtual Reality (SPVR) Reviewed on: Quest 2
Gameplay
Here’s the breakdown: you’re busting ghosts in San Francisco (as you do) and the Ghost Lord shows up to wreak havoc on the city. Work your way through a bunch of random missions and periodically report back to HQ for a few drips of the game’s narrative, presented via a TV screen where you’ll learn what happened to some obviously evil billionaire type who totally isn’t an evil Ghoul King, Specter Sovereign, Poltergeist Potentate, or anything of the sort. Ok, so it’s pretty clear the narrative isn’t the star of the show here, as it really only sets the scene for casual drop-in, drop-out co-op matches, which last anywhere from 10-15 minutes each.
Of course, you can go it alone in offline mode with the help of the game’s admittedly competent AI, or team up with friends or strangers for more fun and firepower. That said, you really should consider banding together with a few buddies (from two to four players) and tackling it all the way through together.
Image captured by Road to VR
It feels very much in the same vein as After the Fall (2021), which we called “VR’s best stab at Left 4 Dead,” although I think there’s an argument to be made for keeping pace with your friends in the game as you all earn successive upgrades, letting you form a real team that makes the most of each upgrade path. That feels more like Ghostbuster’s intended sweet spot, as opposed to randomly dropping in with whoever’s online, quietly grinding missions for money and maxing all upgrade paths indiscriminately, and then beating the titular Ghost Lord a bunch of times. There is some competition in there to get more points, but in the end it’s really a team effort.
Image captured by Road to VR
Although I compare it to After the Fall, this isn’t really the same sort of horde-based shooter, because frankly the proton pack isn’t really a gun. There’s also no ammo pickups and no loot to pick up besides some random ecto goo that gives you the ability to upgrade stuff later, such as unique weapon attachments for things like single-use shotguns blasts and short-lived turrets. You can fire your proton stream continuously if you want, and then lasso the poor ghosties forever too—provided you learn how to properly operate the thing. More on that below.
The game also doesn’t really expect you to fail that much either since anyone in your party can always revive you once you’re down with a simple high five. Instead, your main focus is earning cash by completing missions which are placed across seven massive and circuitous maps, each of which allow you to play a random mix of four mission styles: Exorcism, On the Clock, Giga Trap Retrieval, and Harvester. In order, it’s basically a wave mode with the same mini-boss, a timed wave mode, a bomb escort mission, and a wave mode with light puzzle elements.
The big question I always ask myself in these sorts of random mission-driven games is whether both the action and upgrades will be enough to bring me back for more on a consistent basis. I felt the game doled out an okay assortment of both, although it all feels like it’s missing an overall structural direction to keep me engaged in the long-term. You only get three missions to choose from at a time, which are then shuffled randomly again once you’re back at HQ, making it difficult to get a sense of how you’re progressing, save a computer screen that really doesn’t do a great job of making you feel like you’re moving toward an actual goal besides “DONE”.
Image captured by Road to VR
Despite the increasing mix of standard baddies as you move through to 100 percent completion, which means you’ve beaten 42 missions, about halfway through things start to feel a little samey. There just aren’t enough mini-bosses, and it just isn’t clear how long it will take to get to the main boss; you just have to keep playing random missions until the game decides you’ve had enough and can actually move forward.
That said, I generally liked the assortment of regular enemies, although I wish there were a greater variety of mini-bosses to provide a bump in difficulty beyond just having ‘more of everything all at once’. Normal enemies include a conventional assortment of ranged and melee types, with smaller types usually zapped into oblivion with a few seconds of the standard blast from the proton pack. The larger, more often ranged types require not only a constant blast from your proton pack, but also need to be lassoed into your handy dandy trap.
Melee types are typically smaller and weaker, and are mostly just annoying to deal with as you go in for the real ghosts worth nabbing in any given level.
Here’s how lassoing works, which is key to dispatching larger, more deadly ghosts: a shield bar on the right of ghosts depletes with a standard blast, while the health bar on the left indicates how much the enemy needs to be jerked around with your proton-lasso in order beat it unconscious and then drag it into your trap, which gobbles it up automatically. Wear out the specter, shoot out your trap nearby, and let the wonders of technology do the rest. This is actually pretty satisfying as a VR specific thing, as you wildly follow the ghost as he helplessly flails around looking for a hiding place to recover health. Springing the trap with your left hand and shooting the proton pack with the right is about as Ghosbusters as you can get.
Image captured by Road to VR
About an hour into playing, I also figured out I could just point my proton stream at the floor to spam the game’s most important tool: the boson dart,which is basically just a big blast that keeps your proton pack from overheating and being inoperable for a bit. Activating the boson dart didn’t feel intuitive at first—something I chalk up to some pretty aggressive pop-up messages in the early game that made it personally difficult for me to concentrate on the task at hand. I ended up just jogging through whatever was asked of me in the tutorial so I could figure it out later in my own time. Really. Pop-ups are so big and offputting.
I digress. Using the boson dart is actually pretty simple, although easy to ignore at the beginning since you don’t really need it until you meet the game’s main mini-boss, the Bruiser. Simply mash a button right before your proton stream overheats to activate a powerful blast that knocks ghosts down a bar or two on their health meter.
Once you get a handle on each enemy type, you start to see colored variants that have slightly different powers. Whatever the case, I found that strategy really only boiled down to constantly strafing around the map, keeping the trigger down, and blasting boson darts until everything—regardless of ability—was toast. Avoid shit flying at you and don’t stand in one spot too long. Everything else is gravy.
Image captured by Road to VR
Protip: If you like playing random missions every once in a while, and aren’t really concerned about getting to the final boss, you can probably just invest your cash in all of the upgrade pathways just to see what’s out there. If you’re looking for more focused playsessions though, it’s probably better to pick one specific upgrade style and max it out from the onset.
Once all is said and done in a mission, and all of the ghosts are trapped or otherwise zapped to dust, your only choice is to keep playing random missions, or maybe the single-player mixed reality mini-game, Mini-Puft Mayhem, which is a fun little boss battle against a giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. It’s worth a few minutes of your time, if anything just to see a giant marshmallow rip the ceiling off your house, but not integral to the rest of the game.
Again, if there were any such game, Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord would definitely be the one you and a few other friends would buy and exclusively play together—not because you really need a bunch of active communication to play, but that the game is pretty random enough without having a good buddy by your side to give you a reason to drop back in, and keep grinding until you get to the massive Ghost Lord battle.
Image courtesy nDreams, SPVR
Immersion
Is Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord perfect? No. It has enough variety and fun, provided you’re with a good group of people. Playing alone is the worst-case scenario though, and probably isn’t advisable if you don’t want to hit a wall halfway through when missions start to be a little bit a trudge. Still, it’s actually a pretty solid basis for what could be some interesting DLC, which I hope will help minimize some of the weaker points I mentioned above. So don’t get me wrong: Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord is basically a fun and well-made game that just lacks a little bit of scaffolding and boss variety to be a real winner.
One thing it definitely has out of the gate though is looks. Even with the humble Quest 2, the game is pretty dang awesome looking. It has a swath of dense and richly decorated set pieces, and character animations are expressive, feeling straight out of a cartoon. Ok, so there’s no Slimer, but there are Slimer-adjacent characters that mostly do the job.
Image courtesy nDreams, SPVR
It’s more than looks though. You’d be surprised how many VR multiplayer games there are out there that really don’t understand that players instinctually want to interact with other people naturally, like, say, handing something to someone without having to throw it on the ground first, or being able to give them a high five for a job well done. That’s all here and then some. Playing in co-op mode, Road to VR’s Ben Lang stepped into something of a mine in the form of a Stay Pufft mini-marshmallow bag that explodes the little buggers everywhere when you get close, rendering your equipment inoperable until you pluck away the pests.
He still had three on his proton pack still jumping around and squeaking about. My first instinct was right. Just grab the little suckers and toss them away like picking lice from a fellow chimp! Or crush him with an iron fist and hear revel in their tiny, diabetic lamentations.
A small-ish sore spot is the games avatars, each of which only have three unlockable looks a piece, with no individual customization as such. I would have also liked to see a more customizable HQ, which would make hosting a game much more immersive since you could show off trophies or decorations to your friends when you invite them for matches.
Comfort
As a veteran VR studio, nDreams knows the score. Offer everything, including snap-turn, quick turn, smooth turn, teleportation. The list is below. It has it all. The only advisory I’d give is the game naturally makes you strafe a good deal, so if you’re particularly susceptible to motion sickness, experiment with the game’s variable blinders to make this less jarring.
