The emulated version of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017) is getting an unofficial mod this week that will bring full 6DOF PC VR support to the game.
The News
Created by ‘Crementif’, the BetterVR mod for BotW promises to bring fully stereo-rendered, 6DOF VR support to the Cemu emulated version of the game, including full hand and arm support for things like wielding weapons, torches and Bokoblin arms.
Notably, the mod is designed for the Wii U version of BotW, which comes with the usual provisos of requiring a legal copy of the game—no game files are supplied in the mod. Additionally, because it’s using Cemu, the popular Wii U emulator for PC, the VR mod also boasts a large list of mod compatibility.
“While I put a lot of effort into this mod, not everything works. Expect some jank that’ll be resolved over time,” Crementif says. “AMD graphic cards might not be supported (at launch at least). During testing we could not get it to work on an AMD system due to a driver bug.”
Crementif notes that performance will “not be as good as a native VR title due to CPU-heavy emulation,” additionally saying that frame interpolation made it “very playable” on a few test systems quoted below:
i9-13900K, RTX 4090, 32 GB RAM, Pimax Crystal Super
Ryzen 7600x, RTX 3060 12GB, 32GB RAM, Meta Quest 3
BetterVR is releasing as an open source project on December 30th, and will be freely downloadable from Crementif’s GitHub.
My Take
At least from test footage, the VR mod for BotW predictably appears to suffer from a few of the same issues seen in emulations of the game on flatscreen, notably jumpy frame rates and inconsistent texture loading. I’m excited, but definitely keeping my expectations in line with whatever weirdness pops up inherent in the emulation process.
Still, by the looks of it, VR interactions in BotW look pretty magical: things like cutting down trees, slicing Bokoblins, and shielding yourself from incoming strikes all seem to be great fits for immersive interactions.
Don’t get your hopes up for a VR adaptation of Resident Evil Requiem, the next survival horror from Capcom. The studio says it currently has “no plans” on the subject.
The News
As mentioned in a Q&A with the game’s producer Masato Kumazawa (Minimap, via Reddit), Resident Evil Requiem isn’t aiming to release on VR headsets like it has with earlier entries in the series.
“At this time, there are no plans to bring any parts of Resident Evil Requiem to VR platforms,” Kumazawa said. “However, the game can be played in a first-person perspective, allowing players to feel immersed in the experience. We also have not yet shown much of Leon’s gameplay yet, and we plan to share more details in the future.”
Resident Evil Requiem is expected to release on February 26th, 2026 across PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X and Series S, and Windows PCs.
My Take
Capcom’s successive Resident Evil VR modes seems to suggest a pattern. As PlayStation 5’s best-performing titles, all of which come with free VR modes, this is about the clearest picture we can get of the headset’s respective adoption rates, suggesting that VR player numbers on the platform have dropped significantly from PSVR 1 to PSVR 2:
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017): original PSVR mode released concurrently with the game’s launch on PS4, attracting 1.25 million confirmed VR players. Never ported to PSVR 2.
Resident Evil Village (2021): PSVR 2 mode released nearly two years after launch. No public numbers available, although Capcom said shortly after release a “large majority” of PSVR 2 owners played.
Resident Evil 4 Remake (2023): PSVR 2 mode released eight months after launch, attracting 244,000 confirmed VR players to date.
While it’s impossible to know whether Sony actively funded long-time partner studio Capcom to create those VR modes—and could possibly be refusing to do so with Capcom’s next RE title—it’s pretty clear Capcom isn’t making the same sort of bets on PSVR 2 that it once made on the original PSVR.
Photo by Road to VR
And it probably has a lot to do with Sony’s lack of content support after the launch of PSVR 2. The only major Sony-funded exclusives for PSVR 2 were Horizon Call of the Mountain (2023), Firewall Ultra (2023), and Gran Turismo 7, which includes a VR mode. Not much else.
Granted, the platform has managed to attract many of the same games playable on Quest and PC VR. That, and the once-difficult purchase proposition at its $550 launch price isn’t nearly as bad nowadays; it can be purchased for $400 or less when on sale. Not a bad deal if you own a PS5 already.
Still, I don’t expect to see anything resembling Sony-led push to promote PSVR 2 ever again, and the fact that the company’s closest allies aren’t either is nothing short of damning.
Personally, the final nail in the coffin was how Sony untethered PSVR 2 from its PS5 console ecosystem. An optional wired adapter now allows headset owners to play SteamVR games—a pretty clear sign that Sony is no longer interested in funding, supporting, or promoting PSVR 2 in any capacity.
Nearly a decade after consumer VR took its first real steps—driven by headsets like the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR—the medium has outgrown its novelty phase.
Those early platforms reshaped not just how players experienced games, but how studios thought about presence, interaction, and scale. Today’s VR games and experiences walk along that groundwork—and are also judged against it.
With expectations higher than ever, this year’s standout titles aren’t just impressive in isolation. They’re the ones that meaningfully build on what came before—and that’s what this year’s awards aim to recognize.
Without further ado, here’s Road to VR’s 2025 Game of the Year Awards:
Fireproof Games is one of the most trusted names in VR puzzle-adventures for a reason: it’s the very same behind The Room series—arguably one of the best puzzle-adventures on any platform, VR or otherwise. And Ghost Town feels like the most impressive to come from the studio, which is saying a lot.
From its inspiring and immersive environments, to its well-animated characters, to its engaging story, Ghost Town seems to nail all of the most important factors in how to transport players to a different world—one that feels alive, carefully considered, and visually cohesive.
Crucially, Ghost Town’s puzzles aren’t the most difficult, although they’re always approachable and satisfying, encouraging observation and light experimentation. They’re sort of temporary safe havens from the dark, moody atmosphere Ghost Town so effortlessly exudes.
While the game looks absolutely stunning on Quest and PSVR 2, Ghost Town doesn’t treat PC VR as a second class citizen, offering up dynamic lighting, reflections, fog, detailed particle effects, and higher resolution textures throughout—easily making it the version you should play over all others.
Deadpool VR isn’t just a highly polished, multi-hour VR experience that features a name brand superhero. Or a game that lets you slice dudes in half, slow-mo kick them and explode their heads. Or a never ending barrage of fourth wall-breaking banter that isn’t afraid to motor-mouth a ton of dick jokes at anyone, alive or dead. It’s more.
Okay, actually, that’s basically all it is, but that’s more than enough!
Jokes aside, Marvel’s Deadpool VR is a milestone for VR production quality. Outside of the fun gameplay, interesting dialogue, and great graphics, Deadpool VR pushes the envelope by serving up some of the best voice acting ever—VR or otherwise.
Neil Patrick Harris is a natural fit as the ‘merc with a mouth’, but you might also be surprised to know the game features John Leguizamo, Dolph Lundgren, Kal Penn, and Tom Cavanagh among many others. All of it makes for a cinema-quality experience, which is such a refreshing change of pace.
Arken Age is a single player adventure that was clearly designed by people who have closely studied the corpus of VR game design. Developer VitruviusVR smartly built atop the shoulders of giants, learning from the best immersive mechanics of pioneering VR games like Stormland (2019), Lone Echo (2017), and Robo Recall (2017).
But they did more than just copy. They adapted and advanced what came before, while making their own contributions that are worthy of future study. And they put in the work to give Arken Age its own identity with a unique visual design, interesting weapons, and gameplay that’s all its own.
We were particularly impressed with Arken Age’s highly diegetic design. So much of the game feels ‘hands-on’ in a way that many VR games do not.
Combat features a spread of ranged and melee weapons, allowing you to make your own playstyle. And when it comes time to upgrade them, you don’t just click a button in a menu. Instead, the studio designed a full ‘upgrade station’ to make weapon upgrades and modding into an immersive experience.
Healing syringes need to be stabbed into your body, but that’s table stakes in 2025. The clever part is the way you actually craft the syringes. First you need to collect fruit from certain trees. Then when you find a crafting station you use a torch to pop the fruits off the stem and collect them into a little funnel. It’s ultimately arbitrary work, and yet so much more satisfying and fun than using a laser pointer to click a button to craft the syringes.
All of this attention to diegetic design makes Arken Age one of the most embodying and fun VR games of 2025, earning our award for PSVR 2 Game of the Year.
Building games with meaningful gameplay that adapt to arbitrary real-world spaces is an exceptionally difficult design challenge. Laser Dance is one of the few mixed reality games that feels like it actually pulls it off. It’s a genuinely fun little game and a very clever way to approach the problem of adapting gameplay for arbitrary spaces.
Laser Dance asks players to do something simple: move from point A to point B. But between you and those two places is a grid of lasers that you can’t touch without being reset back to point A. The game starts easy with static lasers to get players into the groove. But later levels introduce moving and flashing lasers which significantly increase the challenge.
Laser Dance isn’t just fun, it’s also incredibly easy to play. Even people who have never tried a VR headset can grasp the gameplay in 60 seconds or less. This is aided further by the game’s use of controllerless hand-tracking, which means nobody needs to learn how to use controllers to have fun with the game.
The successful ‘adapt to any room’ design, quick setup, and ease-of-play make Laser Dance a perfect game to share with friends. Just be sure to ‘cast’ the headset’s view to a nearby TV so everyone can enjoy the antics of the person in the headset crawling across the living room floor while dodging invisible lasers. And you might as well play the Mission Impossible theme for the cherry on top.
Reach is built atop a foundation of fun movement that makes the game fast-paced and fun, while also remaining quite comfortable. The game makes a seemingly small tweak to the usual ‘Press A to jump’ formula, and instead asks players to hold down the A button and then do an upward arm swinging motion to initiate a jump. This alone makes jumping feel a lot more embodying, and it complements the game’s movement-centric gameplay which has players running, jumping, and climbing.
Developer nDreams took things a step further still, giving the player interesting and immersive movement tools. The player gets a shield which can be thrown into specific magnetic slots in the game, creating a temporary handhold and platform. Players can also shoot arrows into special surfaces that solidify the arrows into climbable handholds. It’s a neat idea that I wish saw even more interesting use in the game.
To top it all off, players gain access to a grappling hook later in the game which allows them to pull themselves toward special poles, and to carry their momentum while swinging from one pole to another. While Reach is far from the first VR game to have a grappling mechanic, we appreciated that its particular design kept things comfortable while still enabling a sense of daring movement across large gaps, as well as an extra way to move around quickly during combat.
No Man’s Sky
Developer: Hello Games
Available On: PSVR 2, PC VR
Release Date: August 9th, 2016
We could spend the next few sentences glazing Hello Games for not only completing No Man’s Sky’s redemption arc years ago, but continuing to give VR players a front-row seat to one of the best space sims that seems to never stop giving.
We could start a second paragraph, and talk about how studio co-founder and CEO Sean Murray seemingly made it a spiritual mission to make No Man’s Sky the game it should have been when it launched in 2016.
Or even a third, talking about the game’s recent updates, which offer mind-boggling expansion to the universe, including deeper ship and multiplayer systems, franchise-level settlement management, fun exploratory mechanics like fossils, and ongoing fixes that keep improving the base experience.
But we don’t do any of that. Suffice it to say: No Man’s Sky could have received this award multiple times over by now. And at this rate, it just might in the future.
We couldn’t recommend anyone earnestly attempt to play Hitman in VR before its big PSVR 2 and PC VR update earlier this year. On the original PSVR, input was abstracted to the point it just didn’t feel immersive. On PC, it was an absolute mess. We’re not even going to talk about the standalone game for Quest.
But then developer IO Interactive got wise, and finally fixed the issue for its big PSVR 2 release of Hitman World of Assassination, finally making it a VR adaptation of the game that actually didn’t feel like a half-hearted attempt.
What’s more, those improvements eventually came to the PC version in September, adding Freelancer mode, Elusive Targets, and a host of more content, putting the PC VR version as the definitive way to experience Hitman in VR, but only by a hair.
Cave Crave is like if The Climb decided that falling from a cliff face wasn’t scary enough. It needed to be more dangerous, more claustrophobic. More real.
And there’s something uniquely immersive about Cave Crave’s enclosed spaces. Although a majority of the game’s cave systems are entire works of fiction, featuring interesting biomes and different climbing challenges to players, in September the studio introduced its first map informed by a real-world cave: the Nutty Putty Cave system.
It’s the very same that was permanently closed up after the death of caver Jon Jones in 2009. Some may construe it as exploitative, but we don’t think it is. The free update to the game is remarkably well-informed and actually treats the tragedy with due reverence.
What’s more, the Nutty Putty update was largely informed by rescuer Brandon Kowallis, who not only gave pointers to the studio on cave design, but also included an audio guide companion that plays as users explore the now-closed cave system. In all, there’s something just a little more gripping here than your run-of-the-mill exploration game. Something that lasts with you well after you take off the headset.
We don’t always reserve our Indie Development award for single-person projects, but when they’re especially impressive, and especially fun, we simply can’t help ourselves.
That’s Quantum Void, a space sim from single dev team Tactical Nounours that we could have sworn was developed by a whole team of seasoned VR veterans.
Yes, the game is still in Early Access, but it’s extremely impressive so far; it includes multiple endings, offering up multiple hours of gameplay so far in a full-realized universe that’s actually worth exploring and scrounging through. As it is today, it’s a very polished and ostensibly finished experience, which makes it even more exciting to follow.
Note: Games eligible for Road to VR‘s Game of the Year Award must be available to the public on or before December 19th, 2025. Games must also natively support the target platform as to ensure full operability.
What’s likely to be the best sale on Quest 3S this holiday season comes bundled with enough goodies to drop the effective cost of the headset to an unheard of $91.
Best Buy now has what’s likely to be the best sale on Quest 3S (128GB) that we’ll see this holiday season, and one of the lowest effective prices we’ve ever seen on a brand new Quest of the latest model. Below you’ll also find the best holiday sale on Quest 3S (256GB) and the higher-end Quest 3 (512GB).
Best Meta Quest 3S (128GB) Holiday Sale: Best Buy – $50 discount + $159 in bundled value
Quest 3S (128GB) is usually $300. This deal drops the base price to $250, and on top of that includes $159 in bundled value, making the effective sale price just $91, which is a whopping 70% discount.
Note: Quest’s VR controllers aren’t compatible with Xbox Game Pass. If you don’t already have a wireless gamepad, you’ll need to get one in order to make use of the Game Pass Ultimate subscription. The included $75 gift card conveniently covers the cost of a brand new Xbox controller from Best Buy.
Best Meta Quest 3S (256GB) Holiday Sale: Best Buy – $50 discount + $149 in bundled value
If you’re looking for the 256GB Quest 3S model, the deal is nearly as sweet.
Quest 3S (256GB) is usually $400. This deal drops the base price to $350, and on top of that includes $149 in bundled value, making the effective sale price $200, which is a 50% discount.
Best Meta Quest 3 (512GB) Holiday Sale: Amazon – $154 in bundled value
For those wanting the best Quest experience, Amazon has a great last minute deal on Quest 3 (512GB).
Netflix announced it’s acquiring Ready Player Me, the avatar creation platform, which the streaming giant hopes to leverage soon with the rollout of user personas across Netflix Games.
The News
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, according to TechCrunch. It’s said however the Estonia-based startup’s team of around 20 people will be joining the company.
This won’t include three of the four founders: Haver Järveoja, Kaspar Tiri, and Timmu Tõke though. Only CTO Rainer Selvet is moving to Netflix, a spokesperson told TechCrunch.
“Our vision has always been to enable avatars and identities to travel across many games and virtual worlds,” Ready Player Me CEO Timmu Tõke said. “We’ve been on an independent path to make that vision a reality for a long time. I’m now very excited for the Ready Player Me team to join Netflix to scale our tech and expertise to a global audience and contribute to the exciting vision Netflix has for gaming.”
Image courtesy Ready Player Me
Additionally, Ready Player Me announced its taking avatar creation services offline starting January 31st, 2026.
Founded in 2014 in Tallinn, Estonia, Ready Player Me has allowed for users to create and export avatars across a variety of Web2 and Web3 platforms, including VR social platforms such as VRChat.
Over the past decade, the company has raised $72 million from venture capitalists a16z, Endeavor, Konvoy Ventures, Plural, and various angels, including the co-founders of companies like Roblox, Twitch, and King Games. Its most recent investment was in 2022, when the company closed its $56 million Series B.
My Take
Netflix hasn’t intimated it’s getting into XR gaming yet, so it’s pretty safe to say the Ready Player Me acquisition and subsequent shutdown is more or less a blow to one specific group of people: namely, VRChat users.
VRChat beginners looking to make their own avatars over the years were almost always pointed to Ready Player Me, with the platform even allowing users to upload a personal photo and generate a cartoony persona that was easy to mix-and-match with a variety of parts.
And while they weren’t always the most original avatars out there, it’s difficult to argue with the platform’s ease of use, as the web-based tool basically got you a (mostly) unique avatar that was not only cross-platform, but also already rigged for VRChat.
For now, VRChat only points users to two platforms: Ready Player Me and MakeAvatar. In addition to diving into make suites like Blender, those in the community also tend to get avatars by buying or finding them directly in-app, or finding them for free on platforms like VRCMods. Others rely on maker spaces like Gumroad and Booth for commissioned and pre-made avatars.
BattleCrafter is all about restoring the weapons and armor of old, letting you get a closer look at everything from ancient swords to modern rifles, and learn about them too.
Developed by VR Factory Games, the studio known for Bartender VR Simulator (2018) and Workshop Simulator VR (2025), BattleCrafter VR puts in the shoes of the galaxy’s top restoration specialist who is tasked with bringing humanity’s greatest battles back to life.
Using futuristic tools, you’ll rebuild weapons, armor, and war artifacts, then showcase them in Mars’ massive War Museum domes.
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Image courtesy VR Factory Games
Image courtesy VR Factory Games
Image courtesy VR Factory Games
Missions require you to restore four key historical artifacts and install them inside massive multimedia domes that recreate iconic battles.
The better your craftsmanship, the higher your reward, which you can reinvest into advanced workshop upgrades like 3D printers, magnetic assembly platforms, and laser welding tools, the studio says.
You can find BattleCrafter VR exclusively on the Horizon Store for Quest 2 and above, which is priced at $20. At the time of this writing, pre-order is still available, which brings it to $14, a 30% discount.
The Disney+ video streaming service is finally available on Quest. While better late than never, it’s actually missing out on a few key features for now.
The News
The Horizon Store finally has it own dedicated Disney+ app, which supports Quest 2, Quest 3 and Quest 3S. The app lets you stream the full catalogue of 2D videos on Quest and also download and replay them when offline.
While most content is served up in 1080p, the app also includes select titles in Dolby Vision 4K HDR on Quest 3/S (streaming only), as well as a limited selection of content from Hulu and ESPN.
There a few caveats though. For now, the app is US-only; Disney says it will rollout international availability in early 2026. What’s more, it’s lacking the ability to stream 3D film, like the Apple Vision Pro app does, which came to the headset in 2024 as a launch day feature.
Disney notes that “all content is only available to stream in 2D on Quest devices at this time,” which does seem to leave some room for hope in the future though.
Notably, on Vision Pro, Disney+ subscribers can stream a variety of recent films, including Avatar: The Way of Water, Avengers Endgame, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Frozen II, Star Wars Episode VII, and Encanto.
My Take
There doesn’t seem to be any real downside to Disney eventually allowing its 3D films on Quest, which could mean it likely comes down to a few scenarios: Apple may have timed exclusive rights to 3D movies from Disney, or maybe the films have been specifically mastered in a Vision Pro-specific format that can’t be streamed directly to Quest. There’s no saying for now.
Either way, Disney has definitely hit the nail on timing by bringing its (mostly) full app to Quest; new Quest users will likely be looking for all of the same apps they might find on a smart TV, which Quest sadly doesn’t really have yet though, giving Disney some more visibility over competing platforms.
For now, Quest users looking to stream from Netflix, Hulu, Max, Paramount+, or Apple TV need to sign in and stream in Quest’s built-in Internet browser. Native XR video streaming apps include Amazon Prime Video, Peacock, PlutoTV, Starz, and YouTube.
