The best VR games are already here, but The Talos Principle VR is now on our radar.
Despite the fact that the latest PlayStation VR headset offers but incremental upgrades while Microsoft continues to avert any questions surrounding Xbox One X compatibility with the format, there’s never been a better time for the best VR games than right now.
Now because Facebook is about to kick off the fourth Oculus Connect VR event where it’s expected to reveal a $200 headset that doesn’t require a connection to a PC. Now because we’re also expecting to find out more about the Santa Cruz headset teased back in April.
Through even VR’s earliest phases, we’ve made it our duty to highlight all of the best VR games you can buy right now, with 25 of them making our rankings so far. From the team-based Star Trek: Bridge Crew to the action-packed Raw Data, here they are.
Though it was oft-overlooked when it originally launched in 2014, VR has breathed new life into The Talos Principle, a story-driven puzzle game developed by Croteam and published by Devolver Digital. Coming from the same creators as the 2017 Serious Sam VR, you may be concerned that The Talos Principle VR would suffer the same rudimentary fate.
Luckily, early impressions would suggest they’ve learned from their mistakes. Repeating textures have been retooled in The Talos Principle VR, while the game as a whole has been slowed down to further immersion. Environments are much more reciprocative as well, mainly as a result of the motion controls. There are several different modes of transportation as well.
It may be over thirty years old, but the Elite franchise is still alive and kicking, thanks to creator David Braben’s fight to reacquire the license.
Drawing elements from the first game – e.g. trading, exploring and engaging in combat within a massive, procedurally-generated universe – Elite: Dangerous is an Elite game for the 21st century crowd. It’s even represented as such in its depictions of our galaxy in the future.
Oh, and did we mention the gameplay is massively-multiplayer? Navigating the next frontier has never felt so real and connected. Elite: Dangerous is a game best experienced online and in VR.
Assuming you know somebody generous enough to print the 23-page manual, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is the new Mario Party, at least in the sense that it will make your friends hate you. Developed by Steal Crate Games, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes requires careful attention from a recommended 2 to 6 players. While one player works to defuse a bomb, the others have to provide clear instructions on how to do so.
Demanding some intense cooperation from your peers, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a fun game with the right group of people, and it’s even more enjoyable in VR using either a Samsung Gear VR or Oculus Rift headset. Keep in mind that while a gamepad is optional with the Gear VR version, the Oculus Rift version must be paired with a controller.
In the year 2050,21st century careers – like «chef» and «mechanic» – naturally, no longer exist, having been replaced years prior by the likes of programmers and the AI they create. Job Simulator takes it upon itself to transform the jobs of the modern day into museum exhibitions to be experienced as simulations by the player.
Of course, this means the museum, which doubles as a theme park, is operated by robots who can’t quite recall things accurately. As a chef, for example, pizza is made by microwaving a slice of bread toppled with a block of cheese. In total, there are four jobs to select from: Office Worker, Gourmet Chef, Store Clerk and Auto Mechanic, each seasoned with a uniquely sardonic twist.
Mechanically, Rick and Morty Simulator: Virtual Rick-ality is very similar to Owlchemy Labs’ previous VR game, Job Simulator.
But beyond the simple puzzle-come-adventure-game mechanics of combining objects in your environment to solve puzzles is the same razer-sharp wit that makes Job Simulator such an essential VR experience, and now it’s even better thanks to the voice-acting chops of Rick and Morty star Justin Roiland.
Whether Virtual Rick-ality is an essential experience will depend entirely on whether you’re a fan of the show or not. If you’ve ever enjoyed the cartoon then you owe it to yourself to try the VR game, but if you’ve yet to give it a watch, or if you’ve done so and aren’t a fan of its irreverent brand of humor, then the Rick and Morty Simulator might be one to miss.
With most of even the best VR games being bite-sized, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is a breath of fresh air, even if it’s a simultaneously horrific one. Despite the ability to play it otherwise on PC, Xbox One and PS4 proper, this is the first installment in the Resident Evil series that you could say was designed with virtual reality in mind. That’s because, unlike the entries before it, Resident Evil 7 is played using a first-person perspective.
Don’t assume you can just run and gun your way through the game, however, as Capcom has taken Resident Evil back to its survival horror roots with Resident Evil 7. As such, you’ll have to think tactically about how you manage to survive encounters with the game’s freaky enemies. As Ethan Winters, a resident of Dulvey, Louisiana whose wife went missing three years prior, you’ll be tasked with exploring a creaky old deserted house in an effort to find her.
The silver lining is that there’s only one location throughout the game, so don’t expect anything too chaotic beyond a generous helping of jump scares.
Remember that early launch game on the Nintendo 64 where you soared through the clouds and jumped through both literal and figurative hoops to complete objectives? Eagle Flight is like Pilotwings but you play as a minimalistically rendered eagle instead of an uncanny caricature of a what a person should look like.
Available for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR, Ubisoft’s VR debut Eagle Flight gives players the chance to take to the skies and explore Paris like never before: 50 years after humanity has died out. Even better, pair up with a few buddies and you can engage in dog, err, bird fights in one of two multiplayer modes.
Though the franchise may have already concluded on conventional platforms, Batman: Arkham VR is the follow-up to Arkham Knight virtually none of us were expecting. Not long after Rocksteady Studios revealed its third entry in the Batman Arkham universe would be its last, the developer announced this exclusive to PlayStation VR that would later make its way to all three headsets.
Batman: Arkham VR is more of a self-contained detective story than a canonical sequel or prequel to the established Arkham mythos. You won’t be knocking goons unconscious with a VR-reimagined version of Rocksteady’s signature combat mechanics. However, what you can expect is not much more than a 90-minute, DLC-sized story mission at a fraction of the cost of a full-priced game.
Lengthy VR experiences are pretty thin on the ground as it stands, and that’s part of what makes Arizona Sunshine such an enjoyable experience.
The game, which sees you exploring a zombie-infested Wild West, is a refreshingly lengthy experience that you can really sink your teeth into, which contrasts with the more arcade-like experiences offered by other games.
Movement is handled by teleporting yourself around the environment which handily allows you to cover great distances without motion sickness, and you reload and change weapons by moving your weapon to your ammo belt.
Out of any of the experiences we’ve played so far, Arizona Sunshine feels like what VR games might eventually become once developers have the time and money to craft full-length virtual reality experiences.
But in the short term searching old mine shafts with a six-shooter in one hand and a blinking flashlight in the other is just plain cool, even if you’ll have to keep your play sessions to half an hour at a time just to hold your nerve.
Like Alien Isolation, Surgeon Simulator 2013 is also centered around aliens. Instead of fleeing from them, though, you’re chipping away at their insides. Similar to objectives in Job Simulator, Surgeon Simulator 2013 banks on your incompetence at performing advanced surgical procedures, such as heart and brain transplants, exacerbated only by the unique interface of a VR headset.
The game supports VR natively with Oculus Rift, though it requires a pair of Razer Hydras to attempt heart transplants. A separate version, entitled Surgeon Simulator VR: Meet the Medic, is available as a free Steam download for HTC Vive.
Although it’s merely in early access for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, Gunheart is a co-op shooter built specifically with VR headsets in mind.
Clearly drawing inspiration from Borderlands, in Gunheart, you and your friends will blast alien bugs in the face in order to collect loot and upgrade your arsenal of weapons and upgrade abilities. Featuring hours of insect-riddled combat, Gunheart ditches the reluctant teleportation mechanics seen in other VR games in favor of a thrilling way to fast-travel.
Complemented by heavy concentrations of ordnance including everything from auto-locking SMGs to laser crossbows, Gunheart is every bit as much about transportation as it is bloodshed. Portraying a group of robotic bounty hunters, your squad of teammates can move quickly and surreptitiously either to avoid attacks or inflict them faster.
It’s official: the world’s most popular block-’em-up has finally arrived on VR. Minecraft Windows 10 Edition is now out on the Oculus Rift, but you won’t need to splash out $599 / £499 / AU$649 (the cost of the Rift) for the experience. That’s because it’s also available on the Samsung Gear VR, with all of the Oculus version’s features in tow. What’s more, there’s even a theater view in case it makes you sick just thinking about 360 degrees of lego brick terrain.
We’re not sure what excites us most about exploring Minecraft in VR — legging it from creepers in the dead of night or burrowing into the landscape like goggle-wearing, pickaxe-wielding mole. A bit of both, probably.
Hover Junkers started revving our VR engines when its first gameplay videos surfaced a couple of years ago. Its story makes little sense: Earth has nearly run out of water, so naturally everybody is pelting it around on crudely made hover barges firing rounds into each others’ heads.
