It’s been hard to keep up with VR games in 2024, and that’s a good thing. The Batman Arkham series got a great new entry, Batman: Arkham Shadow, exclusively on Meta Quest 3. Metro Awakening introduced itself as a VR rendition that acts as a prequel to the Metro series, while Skydance’s Behemoth is betting on dark fantasy, building upon the ideas of the underrated The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners games. The psychedelic Thumper got a spiritual successor with Thrasher, and there’s even been a quality remake of an old VR game, Arizona Sunshine, after a sequel in 2023.
From the outside, VR seems to be going through a pivotal period. If you look at 2023, the space was already gearing up for this momentum with Asgard’s Wrath 2, Assassin’s Creed Nexus, and the VR version of the Resident Evil 4 remake releasing in the latter half of the year. But these are all big bets considering that the space remains a niche market; motion sickness continues to be one of multiple issues. Though some games have been better at offering more accessibility options, the platform is far from suitable for disabled players.
While game releases have been a highlight, the same can’t be said for the companies behind them and the headsets themselves. Sony reportedly paused production for the PSVR 2 in March to clear a surplus backlog of units, and PlayStation London Studio (which was behind the likes of Blood & Truth and PlayStation VR Worlds) was shut down in May. Meanwhile, Meta laid off workers within the Reality Labs division; shut down multiple games since last year, as well as the studio behind Echo VR, which the company acquired four years ago; canceled plans for an Apple Vision Pro competitor; closed down the augmented reality studio Spark; and put the VR version of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on hold indefinitely.
It’s unclear how long Meta will continue to fund VR game development, which could be a meaningful hit to the industry, given its publishing branch was responsible for games like Among Us VR, Rock Band VR, and Batman: Arkham Shadow. With Sony reportedly cutting back on investment in VR development, with only two first-party titles in the pipeline, it’s uncertain whether or not a release calendar like 2024’s will happen again, or if we’re witnessing a swansong in disguise.
Aces of Thunder, Hitman: World of Assassination, and Zombie Army VR are only a few games that were delayed to 2025. Throughout 2024, there have been numerous examples of not only delays but generally rough launches. Bulletstorm VR was deemed unplayable until a series of patches improved anything from physics to visuals and enemy AI. Two anticipated horror games, Madison VR and Phasmophobia, were delayed multiple times. For the latter, reviewers have advised avoiding it until the port quality improves–in a similar fashion to the likes of Hitman 3 VR Reloaded.
In an interview with Inverse, developers pointed out some of the issues VR developers face: engine-compatibility issues with games originally built in certain versions of Unity, the use of reprojection to artificially boost frame rates at the cost of image quality (leading to blurry visuals), and demanding VRC processes (a virtual reality checklist of technical requirements that each game must pass during certification). Even QA testing is more taxing than usual. In interviews with Game Informer, testers mentioned the process is physically demanding, while it can take a while to get used to testing in VR, especially for longer periods of time, with one former developer saying he’d often feel “detached from reality” for the first two weeks at the job.
Looking ahead, some studios continue to show active investment in the space. In an interview with Game Informer about the VR rendition of the Resident Evil 4 remake, producer Masato Kumazawa said that one of the reasons for releasing VR versions of Village and RE4R for free is to help expand the VR market.
“VR also matches with the Resident Evil franchise really well,” director Keisuke Yamakawa said. “I would like VR to get much more popular with the public. Since headsets can still be quite expensive and heavy, I would love for the kits to continue getting lighter and more affordable to make it more [approachable] to the general audience.”
Headsets are indeed getting lighter, but the cost of entry is still high. The Meta Quest 3 256 GB model costs $499, in contrast to the PSVR 2 at $549 and the Pico 4 Ultra at €600 (around $630). Out of the three, the PSVR 2 isn’t wireless, and it originally required a PlayStation 5. Sony launched a PC adapter back in August priced at $59. If you have a decent PC that can run VR games, the catalog is greatly increased, and so is the longevity of the headset as a result. Speaking of which, there are a number of PC-specific headsets out there, such as the Valve Index ($999) and the Vive series (starting at the $600 to $700 price range). But the aforementioned headsets are by far the ones driving the mainstream interest at the moment. (The Apple Vision Pro, starting at $3,499, is undoubtedly not targeted at the average consumer, so I’m not counting it here.)
There’s also market fluctuation to consider. Meta Quest 2 and Quest Pro are ceasing sales by the end of 2024. So is the Meta Quest 3 128 GB model, which has already been selling out online. The company hopes to replace these gaps with the Meta Quest 3S, released in October at the price of $299. However, this model has some hardware compromises, such as using the Quest 2’s per-eye single-display setup, as opposed to the Quest 3’s dual-display setup, resulting in a lower resolution and bulkier lenses.
In terms of games, the occasional oddities, such as Triangle Strategy presenting its campaign as floating dioramas in mixed reality, continue to surprise. Smaller studios deserve attention, too–The Exit 8, Sushi Ben, and Umurangi Generation VR all stood out in 2024. Genres like rhythm games continue to thrive, with more studios betting on adaptations, like Metal: Hellsinger VR and Spin Rhythm this year, and existing games receiving ongoing updates.
Beat Saber continues to get both free and paid songs, and Synth Riders has a mixed-reality mode on Quest 3. But it’s hard to look at the landscape to find that many of the games that fiddled with genre novelties couldn’t withstand the passage of time. Rock Band VR, Audica, and Dance Central, all Harmonix joints, haven’t had official support for years. Sure, Just Dance VR was released back in October, but new games feel more like fleeting replacements rather than new entries in emerging subgenres.
With 2025 around the corner, the future is uncertain. Meta seems more invested in the so-called metaverse aspect of the headset, pushing an ecosystem that’s more suitable for meetings and networking, with avatars for jumping on “got a minute?” calls or built-in calendar apps that can be synced with Google and Outlook, or using your headset during flights or train rides, rather than video-game experiences.
Community efforts like Flat2VR continue to innovate by adding VR support to a plethora of games. The modding team started with highlights like the Half-Life 2: VR mod, and has since formed a studio working on licensed adaptations in an official capacity, such as Trombone Champ: Unflattened. The modding scene, particularly on PC, continues to be a standout. You can now play Halo: Combat Evolved in VR with full motion controls, while other people have been working tirelessly to achieve the opposite, such as a flat version of Half-Life: Alyx.
VR might still have a niche audience, but the interest in its future isn’t fading. Games like Gorilla Tag have amassed over 12 million lifetime players and maintain a million daily active users, with the game’s interest being spearheaded by Gen Alpha kids. We can only hope that future development focuses more on video games, for both adult and younger demographics, rather than digitizing even more daily-life aspects, especially with work as the focus. As the PSVR 2 and Meta Quest 3 get closer to two years in their life cycles, I hope more studios can look back at 2024 as a bar to surpass instead of a ceiling that will forever be out of reach.
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