VR News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Meta reported its first quarter earnings after the close of trading yesterday, showing continued losses in its AR/VR Reality Labs division that were more then offset by growth and profitability in the rest of the business.

Meta today announced some changes to its virtual reality business to make it a more open ecosystem for developers and users.

Looking at Schell Games' recent output, it's pretty easy to spot a common thread. There's the VR puzzle franchise I Expect You To Die, the VR adaptation of social deduction game Among Us, the VR jumpscare horror game Silent Slayer: Vault of the Vampire…

The critically acclaimed VR game C-Smash VRS is getting a non-VR release on PlayStation 5.

The Oculus Quest launched back in 2019, just five years ago, but come May new apps released in the Quest Store won't be playable on the Quest 1. This isn't because the Quest 1 isn't powerful enough to play them anymore, but because developers will no longer be able to upload them and players won't be able to see them.

The modern era of virtual reality as we know it started around June of 2012, when John Carmack brought the Oculus Rift to the Electronic Entertainment Expo and showed it off to attendees with Doom 3 BFG Edition.

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

Sony Group has paused production of its PS VR2 headset until it clears a backlog of unsold units, according to people familiar with its plans, adding to doubts about the appeal of virtual reality gadgets.

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

Meta keep emailing me to tell me my Oculus account is going to be deleted on March 29th. It's only today, seeing other people talking about it, that it occurs to me: this is not personal. Meta is perhaps going to delete your Oculus account on March 29th as well, if you have one.

Update:

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

PlayStation VR2 is set to get support for VR games on PC this year, Sony has announced. The company confirmed Wednesday that it was testing the ability for PS VR2 to play PC VR games in addition to the already supported titles available via PS5. The PS VR2 launched in international markets in February 2023, and it made its India debut in December. The virtual reality headset is currently only compatible with the PS5 and does not support PS VR content from the previous generation.

The VR gaming genre is still present. It certainly feels, at least to me, that there was a more significant boom for VR in general a few years ago. However, it’s still an active community with developers launching new games and companies releasing more headsets into the market. Regarding console gaming, VR is mainly just featured for the PlayStation platform. However, Sony is working on bringing the PS VR2 support to PC this year. 

The PS VR2, Sony’s currently PS5-exclusive VR gaming headset, looks like it’ll be latching onto the faces of PC owners as well. Tucked away in a PlayStation blog post about upcoming PS VR2 games, Sony Interactive content communications manager Gillen McAllister confirmed that Sony are "currently testing the ability for PS VR2 players to access additional games on PC" and that the plan is have this extra support ready within 2024.

After a year on the market, Sony is now testing PS VR2 compatibility with PC.

Ubisoft co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot has called Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR sales “disappointing”, and stated that the publisher will not be investing too heavily on VR for now.

Akka Arrh is making the jump from the flat screen to virtual reality, via its upcoming arrival on PS VR2.

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

Consumer spending on virtual reality content reached $844 million in 2023.

is finally available for the line of VR headsets. While Cloud Gaming is still in beta, users can download the app from the Meta Quest Store. No TV or console is required, but users will need to sign up for a Game Pass Ultimate subscription.

The TCL RayNeo Air 2 XR is the latest pair of smart glasses to hit the market. Offering a 201-inch virtual screen, all housed in a pair of sunglasses, you can take a cinema experience on the go. They work surprisingly well, especially for Netflix and the Steam Deck. Retailing for $379, they’re on the affordable end and a good entry point to the personal cinema/big-screen gaming experience. 

Hitman 3 at 60% off. No Man's Sky at 50% off. Tetris Effect: Connected at 50% off. These are great games whether you play them in VR or not, so even if you don't own a headset you might want to check out Steam's VR Fest, which is live now until December 11th.

Asgard's Wrath 2, the sequel to developer Sanzaru Games' 2019 virtual reality ARPG, received a brand new trailer today ahead of its December 15th release on the Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3, and Meta Quest Pro VR headsets.

Both the 128GB and 256GB models are discounted by $50 and come with a $50 Amazon gift card.

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

At today’s Meta Connect 2023 event, the tech giant unveiled the. With enhanced mixed-reality features, a sleeker form factor, and a more powerful processor than the Quest 2, the headset represents a substantial upgrade from its predecessor. Meta promises that the Quest 3 will have over 50 brand-new games available before the end of the year. However, players hoping for exclusive titles will have to wait until at least 2024.

Get ready to play Xbox games in yet another place.

Polyarc, the VR dev best known for the Moss series, has announced its next title will be a live-service multiplayer game called Glassbreakers: Champions of Moss. Set inside the Moss universe, this is a «1v1 real-time battler» where you pick three fighters with their own unique abilities and you brawl it out to see who's best. Check out the trailer above for more context.

Team 21 Studio held a new Tavern Talk to respond to community questions on Ilysia , the beta tests, why they chose to head into beta now, what happened to Freeforge, and what’s ahead.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is teasing new VR technology that can turn any flat surface into a virtual keyboard. 

I don't think I've ever been quite so enamoured by a menu screen. Spinning wheels and pressing buttons to make selections. Picking up figurines with my hands to inspect them closely. Looking down at the dusty library below me from my cosy attic — a library Moss fans will certainly be familiar with.

It's often hard to track the success of VR in part because it straddles the line between ubiquity and obsolescence. You'll find VR experiences in shopping centers and event spaces around the world, yet the market beyond one-off experiences showcasing the worth of the tech as a viable medium for long-form experience and interaction remains low.

PlayStation VR 2 and horror fans rejoice! This Halloween, MADiSON will dial up the fear factor with an all new version designed for Sony’s new virtual reality headset as well as other PC VR devices.

Grimy underworld PSVR2 shooter Hellsweeper VR will feature a co-op mode at launch, with full crossplay across different headsets. Due out from 21st September, the co-op mode promises a “full roguelike experience” where you’ll need to strategize with your partner in order to make it through alive.

PlayStation VR 2 and horror fans rejoice! This Halloween, MADiSON will dial up the fear factor with an all new version designed for Sony’s new virtual reality headset as well as other PC VR devices.

Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery VR will launch for PlayStation VR2, PC virtual reality headsets via Steam, and Quest on September 14, publishers Akupara Games and Akatsuki Taiwan, and developer Silver Lining Studio announced.

Publisher People can Fly and developer Incuvo have announced that Bulletstorm VR is coming to PSVR2, Meta Quest 2 and PC VR through Steam on December 14. The game has also gotten a new trailer announcing the release date, which you can check out below.

With its fire-swept valleys, magical swords, old-school twin revolvers, and ghastly monsters, Hellsweeper VR asks in all-capital letters: DARE TO DESCEND TO HELL? I mean, I think I am. Tentatively at least. 

There's an argument to be made that Islanders is one of the best city building games out there. It is, at the very least, one of the most relaxing. This minimalist strategy game from developer Coatsink is all about good lo-fi beats to chill and build to, where you're able to sit back and gradually establish small cities on colorful islands. Well, now you're going to be able to do it in virtual reality. 

Acclaimed actress Lucy Liu has shared information about her new video game project, The Pirate Queen: A Forgotten Legend, in an interview during the Future Games Show at Gamescom.

Publisher Vertigo Games and developer Mixed Realms have released a new trailer for Hellsweeper VR introducing the game’s cooperative mode.

Bulletstorm VR is set to rain chaos down on us this festive period, with a launch date of 14th December. After all, nothing says winter joy like bombastic gunplay.

Back in 1993, developers Trilobyte made history when they released The 7th Guest, one of the first computer games to only be released on CD-ROM. An adventure game about navigating a haunted house and solving puzzles in order to solve a mystery, its use of full-motion video, 3D graphics, and its soundtrack by George “The Fat Man” Sanger helped it stand out and become a massive hit back in its day…even if by today’s standards, it can feel rather dated in certain areas. But now Vertigo Games are bringing back The 7th Guest, and to another revolutionary bit of gaming technology: VR. The 7th Guest VR was showcased at Gamescom Opening Night Live’s pre-show, and you can check out its trailer below.

Do you read me, Dead Echo? This is Ashley Nicollette, lead community manager at People Can Fly. We’ve been working hard with Incuvo to bring Bulletstorm into virtual reality. We’re proud to announce that we’re launching onto the PlayStation VR2 on December 14. Today I’m thrilled to tell you more about how we’ve adapted the game’s frenetic combat, especially for PS VR2.

Bulletstorm VR will launch for PlayStation VR2, PC via Steam, and Quest on December 14, publisher People Can Fly and developer Incuvo announced as part of Gamescom 2023: Opening Night Live. Pre-orders are now available.

The 7th Guest VR will launch for PlayStation VR, PC virtual reality headsets via Steam, and Quest on October 19, Vertigo Games announced.

Resident Evil 4 received a remake in March 2023 which brought Leon’s classic adventure to modern consoles. As was the case with Resident Evil 7 and Village, Capcom has promised a VR mode for the remake. We’ll get to see a little more of the VR mode at the upcoming Tokyo Game Show, which kicks off on September 21 and runs until September 24.

Capcom has announced its line-up for Tokyo Game Show 2023, with titles like Exoprimal, Monster Hunter Now, Resident Evil 4 Remake’s free VR Mode, Street Fighter 6 and Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy playable.

We’re happy to announce that Green Hell VR for PS VR2 is coming out on August 15.Are you ready to survive in the Amazon? Exciting challenges await.

Having delivered games like Bulletstorm, Gears of War: Judgment, and Outriders over the years, Polish studio People Can Fly has firmly established itself as a developer to keep an eye on, and interestingly enough, one of its next projects seems to be taking a more experimental approach.

After several delays that left many VR players in anticipation, Team 21 Studio has finally announced the launch of the Beta 1 testing phase for their virtual reality MMORPG, Ilysia. The delay was originally attributed to MagePortal updates, which had caused a stir in the community, but the developers have now resolved the bug that pushed the Beta back several weeks.

UK heavy metal group Tesseract has announced War of Being, a single-player sci-fi adventure tie-in to their latest album.

One thing I never tire of ranting about is the brilliance of the original Homeworld Mothership - both for its elegant crescent-moon design, and for its more practical function as a giant compass needle shoved into Homeworld's then-unprecedented 3D volumes, so that players can orient themselves and strategise. I admit, I was a little piqued by Homeworld 3's redesigned Mothership, which lies flat as a doormat - an act of blasphemy akin to flipping a crucifix upside down, or wearing a baseball cap backwards in your 50s. But I've come round to the new Mothership after reading Blackbird Interactive art director Karl Gryc's thoughts on its creation.

The next big thing in VR might not be higher resolution or more immersive sound, but an experience augmented by physical sensations or moving parts that fool your senses into mistaking virtual for reality. Researchers at SIGGRAPH, from Meta to international student groups, flaunted their latest attempts to make VR and AR more convincing.

Polyarc has announced that their next game will be Glassbreakers: Champions of Moss, another VR game from the studio, but one that is leaning into competitive multiplayer for the first time. A gameplay reveal will take place on 29th August.

Polyarc has announced that their next game will be Glassbreakers: Champions of Moss, another VR game from the studio, but one that is leaning into competitive multiplayer for the first time. A gameplay reveal will take place on 29th August.

We're thrilled to announce the return of GamesBeat Summit Next, hosted in San Francisco this October, where we will explore the theme of «Playing the Edge.» Apply to speak  here  and learn more about sponsorship opportunities  here . 

We're thrilled to announce the return of GamesBeat Summit Next, hosted in San Francisco this October, where we will explore the theme of «Playing the Edge.» Apply to speak  here  and learn more about sponsorship opportunities  here . 

The Ilysia team updated the community following the need to postpone the game’s previously-announced first beta weekend. The VR MMORPG’s beta was set to begin last weekend, but had to be moved when some issues popped up.

By Jay Peters, a news editor who writes about technology, video games, and virtual worlds. He’s submitted several accepted emoji proposals to the Unicode Consortium.

Meta has just launched a new game for Horizon Worlds called Super Rumble, and it's unlike any other game released for the social VR application. Previously known as Titanborne in beta, Super Rumble is the the first game out of Meta's in-house studio, Ouro Interactive. It could also herald a new era for the Horizon Worlds platform, one embodied by experiences with better graphics and more complex gameplay. Vishal Shah, Meta's VP of Metaverse, called the shooter "more than just a new world" and described it as "the next generation of Horizon Worlds" to Janko Roettgers of Lowpass 

Despite being billed as a spiritual successor to Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, rails shooter The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR was dismally disappointing at launch. While its gameplay was tired, it also looked surprisingly bad: low resolution and blurry, with bad textures across the board. Honestly, it didn’t feel like it was running on the superior PSVR2 hardware.

By Jay Peters, a news editor who writes about technology, video games, and virtual worlds. He’s submitted several accepted emoji proposals to the Unicode Consortium.

Ilysia, the upcoming VR MMORPG from  Team Studio 21, will hold its first beta weekend from July 28-30th.

Supermassive Games released update 1.06 for The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR last week. A massive patch weighing over 8GB, update 1.06 brought a host of improvements to the on-rail shooter game, substantially improving image quality, performance, and fixing many bugs.

The Meta Quest 2 is one of the most popular VR headsets on the market, but is it worth the price of admission? If that question has been plaguing your every waking moment, you'll be glad to hear that we've got the answer for you.

Supermassive Games have just released a big update for The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR, improving many visual effects and bettering performance for the PSVR 2 exclusive rollercoaster shooter.

Supermassive Games have just released a big update for The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR, improving many visual effects and bettering performance for the PSVR 2 exclusive rollercoaster shooter.

There’s a big update for The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR out now on PSVR 2, with Supermassive Games having worked hard to improve the virtual reality rollercoaster shooter since launch. They’re pretty proud of the improvements, so much so that they’ve gifted us a few game codes to giveaway!

A free PlayStation VR 2 upgrade is coming to The Room VR: A Dark Matter, developer Fireproof Games has announced. The game will officially launch fro Sony’s newer headset on July 27, 2023, with owners of the original PSVR version eligible for an upgrade, free of charge.

A free PlayStation VR 2 upgrade is coming to The Room VR: A Dark Matter, developer Fireproof Games has announced. The game will officially launch fro Sony’s newer headset on July 27, 2023, with owners of the original PSVR version eligible for an upgrade, free of charge.

Here's another win for PSVR2 users: the acclaimed first-person puzzler, The Room VR: A Dark Matter, is being ported to Sony's new headset. It launched for the last-gen visor back in 2020, but Fireproof Games is bringing it to the more modern PSVR2 very soon.