Friday, 23 October 2026

Breaking Into China’s XR Market: A Starter Guide for Developers

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Guest Article By Antony ‘SkarredGhost’ Vitillo

Antony ‘SkarredGhost’ Vitillo is an AR/VR entrepreneur, developer, and blogger. Most people know him for his blog The Ghost Howls, which he uses to inform the community about the latest in AR/VR. Vitillo mainly considers himself an XR software architect though, with 12 years of experience working on projects such as Jean-Michel Jarre’s New Year’s Eve concert in VRChat and HitMotion: Reloaded, the first commercial mixed reality game for a standalone headset. He has also won various accolades, like the Webby Award or the Pico Spotlight Award. Vitillo is in love with immersive realities and the communities dedicated to them.

In the field of immersive realities, there are currently two countries leading: the United States and China. While much is known about the US, there always seems to be an aura of mystery when speaking about China, at least for us outside the Great Firewall. And since I travel to China regularly and have developed many connections over the years, often people ask me for insight into the country, its XR ecosystem, and also the possibility of doing business there. I get various requests from creators who are exploring the possibility of distributing their experiences in China. China’s 1.4 billion population, 870 million of whom are between the ages of 15-59, represents a real opportunity for talented teams with good content.

In this article, I’ll give you a basic overview of a few things you should know when you consider the idea of doing business in China as a VR developer. Some is generic advice, although here’s my point of view as an XR professional.

Choose your sources of information about China wisely

Some information floating around about China here in the West is wrong or incomplete, which means you should choose the sources you can trust wisely. Or better yet, go there and see for yourself. If you trust hearsay, you might end up having a completely wrong view of how things actually work there.

In these years, I’ve read many things which were definitely not true. One of the biggest (non-XR) examples is the infamous “social score system,” this fantomatic system where every citizen has a score that goes up for every good action and down for every action against the rules. This thing is very Black Mirror, and like Black Mirror, it’s largely a work of fiction. When I explain to my Chinese friends what the social score is, they look at me like I’m a crazy guy wearing a tinfoil hat.

And like the social credit score system, the Chinese metaverse you might have heard about in online articles, almost always from Western tech media, which was said to have been built on top of WeChat, basically the country’s super app; messaging, mobile payments, games, dinner reservations, everything…no one in China has ever heard about that either, not the people working in the metaverse in China, nor the people specifically working at WeChat.

That’s only a small slice of the sort of misinformation I’ve debunked myself firsthand. Now, after many years of back-and-forth travel to China, I mostly trust information I can verify myself, or with a personal circle of friends and professionals who actually live there. I even asked one of my VR contacts in China to fact-check this article to be sure I wasn’t spreading misinformation myself.

China never had its Quest moment

If you plan on selling content in China, you should know the VR games ecosystem there is completely different from here.

China never had its “Quest moment.” It’s more than the fact that Meta isn’t allowed to sell there. Effectively, no headset has ever managed to create that combination of a good content catalogue and affordable price that made the Quest famous here. The only company that attempted to replicate Quest’s success in the consumer ecosystem was Pico, but the company seemingly switched course a few months after the release of the Pico 4. The result is that there is almost no consumer VR market. So if you made your VR hit game à la Beat Saber and you plan on selling in China, you might need to consider a different release strategy.

What is successful in China, like in much of East Asia are arcades, the sort of out-of-home game rooms that are perennial fixtures in the many (many) malls across the country. They are, without exaggerating, basically everywhere; not just in tech hubs like Shenzhen, but in almost all big cities. You can often find at least one in any given commercial center. And all of them have VR attractions, which can range from something as simple as a big toy car with a VR headset to a VR area where you move around shooting zombies. They’re not always the most modern VR headsets and not even the best VR games, but they are surprisingly widespread.

Courtesy Antony Vitillo

One thing that’s gained in popularity in the past years has also been large-scale VR installations. Basically, these are large rooms where multiple people play VR experiences contemporaneously. And these VR arcade-goers aren’t playing together either: everyone is playing their own solo experience, just in the same physical room as everyone else. You walk around as you play your own room-scale experience, meanwhile dodging others who are shown to you as white silhouettes so you don’t bump into each other.

The B2B market exists there, too, and it is pretty similar to here, with VR training having its own unique importance in the market. A few years ago, there were also a number of disparate regional pushes to integrate VR into schools. Just like it happened here, though, while B2B remains a decent way to make money in VR, investment has noticeably cooled there, too, as hype around consumer XR and the metaverse has seemingly vanished.

Smart Glasses and AI are the new hotness

Exactly like here in the West, while VR headsets have lost a bit of investment prestige, smart glasses are on the rise. Many companies are working on smart glasses, including major companies like Huawei and Alibaba. When I attended the VR AR Expo China in May, the most interesting exhibitors were showing smart glasses of every kind: with or without a display; for AI assistance or watching movies; general purpose or for a specific use case (e.g., swimming). Established companies like Rokid or RayNeo are offering a big lineup of devices, but many new startups are coming with various products.

Some Chinese smart glasses definitely impressed me. The Huawei AI glasses surprised me with the quality of their photos and videos: thanks to AI enhancement, pictures always have wonderful colors and definition.

Trying Huawei AI glasses (2026) | Courtesy Antony Vitillo

Recently, Alibaba launched its smart glasses with eye tracking, which is a big innovation for the category because it allows AI to know exactly what you are looking at. But probably Rokid is the one that is ahead of the others in terms of creating a developer ecosystem, and so may offer opportunities for content creators.

Glasses are gaining relevancy because they work well with AI, which has exploded in China, too. The big corporations like ByteDance are trying to chase the frontier models of OpenAI and Anthropic: DouBao has become in China what ChatGPT is for us. And OpenClaw got super popular there, too.

For now, it’s not clear how developers can capitalize on the smart glasses push in China, although I think that’s pretty true for the West, too.

Find a local partner

If I had to choose one single suggestion to give to people looking to do business in China, I would go for this one: find a local partner, or a network of partners. A local partner knows the market, knows the regulations, knows the unwritten rules, and can help you a lot. I would avoid doing any serious business in China without having some local support. You risk too much: you may publish a type of content people don’t like; or you may go against some rules and be banned; or you may not be able to market your content properly. A local partner may also help you with IP protection.

There are companies which are specialized in exactly this: they can take your Quest VR game, modify it to please a Chinese audience, and help you distribute and market it inside Mainland China. This may require re-adapting your game to be used inside arcade rooms instead of home settings. It may also require modifying the game to satisfy the many regulations there are in the sector. In case your content gets plagiarized, these companies may help, too.

Various accelerators and incubators welcome Western entrepreneurs who want to open an office in China and help them navigate the complexities of the Chinese tech ecosystem. In some places, there are also regional funds and/or free/cheap office spaces for entrepreneurs who want to move their business to China. For instance, this year, when I visited the VR video studio FXG, company CEO Nikk Mitchell introduced me to a pretty nice incubator in Hangzhou that was very happy to help Western entrepreneurs wanting to move to the region.

You can’t do that alone, so look for local help. But be sure to find a partner you can really trust, so maybe ask someone you trust to introduce you to a potential partner they can vouch for.

The suggestion of having a local partner also extends to having a local network of people you know who can help you with every problem or can create opportunities. For instance, I’m always thankful to Nikk for having supported me with issues I had while there.

Nikk Mitchell (left), Antony Vitillo (right) | Courtesy Antony Vitillo

Mind localization

This may sound obvious, but it’s a question I field far too often. When you want to distribute your content in China, it had better be in Chinese. English may be the closest thing we have to a universal language in the West, but not in China. And that goes for every type of content: if you are making a game, distribute it in Chinese; if you are making a presentation, at least translate the slides into Chinese, and eventually bring a translator on stage; if you are making videos for social media, add Chinese subtitles.

For instance, when I wanted to share in China the interview I did with Road to VR’s executive editor Scott Hayden at Meta Connect, I did it with the support of VR AR World (a trusted local partner!), which added Chinese subtitles and then shared it on Chinese social media. Here’s that subtitled version which I re-hosted on YouTube:

AI is making communication with Chinese people easier. Events are adding automatic translations, for instance. But AI-mediated communication is still clunky and inexact (Apple Vision Pro was translated as “Apple WeChat Pro” during an event… and I’m not telling you what AI translated when the Pimax CEO went on stage saying he was looking for [business] partners…), so it’s still advisable to have someone who speaks Mandarin.

That’s especially true if you have a booth at an event, as having a Mandarin speaker is indispensable for the quick face-to-face interactions that would otherwise be slower and more awkward when translating through a smartphone. And as with all languages, in Chinese, communication isn’t only about translating sentences, but it’s also about knowing what to say and how to say it, interpreting feedback, and understanding what any given reaction actually means.

When I was showcasing the boxing game HitMotion: Reloaded together with my business partner Massimiliano Ariani in Nanchang back in 2019, our partner HTC kindly provided us with a Chinese volunteer who could help us tell people how to wear the headset and play our game. She was super valuable and helpful.

Massimiliano Ariani (left) & Antony Vitillo (right) in Nanchang | Courtesy Antony Vitillo

And it was even more helpful when a Chinese friend told us that we were doing everything wrong by showcasing the game with the full tutorial. In the beginning, I thought it was nonsense, because without a tutorial, the game was simply too hard to explain. But then I realized that she was right: people were getting bored pretty quickly by playing the tutorial, so we started skipping the tutorial and letting them just start punching stuff like Rocky Balboa. After this, feedback was much more enthusiastic. That day I understood how important it is to trust what a local is saying. As I’ve said, it’s not only about the language, but it’s also about the culture, tastes, and subtleties. A local friend or partner has this sort of knowledge on tap and can dispense it more easily and verifiably than ChatGPT…

A different market with different rules…

China is a market with its own rules. Competition is incredibly fierce: if you publish a successful product, cheaper clones popping up like mushrooms are sure to follow. And competition rules are also harder to enforce. IP protection in China is more complicated, and not something I can get into great detail here, but if you do something good, expect to have to fight to protect it. Again, a local partner is a key resource: while people in the West think there is no way to protect patents in China, you can see real results if you have a strong local partner who knows the ins and outs of Chinese intellectual property law and can especially navigate its legal system.

Competition is an integral part of Chinese society: usually when an interesting product comes to the market, there is an explosion of companies working on it, all trying to compete with the others to be the few that will “win” the market in the end. This is where we are now with smart glasses. An incredible number of companies are offering them, and many look the same and are functionally similar, too. In the end, very few will actually survive despite their best efforts.

There are also some practices which are common in China but not in the West. A few months ago, there was a “scandal” about Pimax promising perks in exchange for positive reviews of its headsets. Many people on Reddit were shocked by this practice, called “astroturfing,” which is even illegal in some states. In China, I would say it is pretty normal: in many places you can get a free drink or some other free gift in exchange for a five-star review. As an outsider, it’s not important whether you think this practice is wrong or right; it is what it is. And you have to adapt to the rules of the market if you want your business to survive. When in Rome…

… and a different speed

“One month in Shenzhen is equal to three months in Europe.” I heard this sentence in a TV documentary once, and I can say it’s basically the case. In China, speed is of paramount importance, and this is of course connected to the above point about competition. If you have many competitors and they are all going fast, you’d better have good tennis shoes if you don’t want competition to steamroll you.

Speed is endemic in everything in Chinese society. I always jokingly say, “In Italy, if I say ‘I’ll do it later,’ it may actually mean an indefinite period between two minutes and two years, while in China it must happen in the next 59 seconds.” Planning meetings, signing documents, delivering… everything should happen as quickly as possible. Conditions change fast, and you have to react. For instance, when we were launching HitMotion: Reloaded at the Vive Ecosystem Conference, we discovered that just the day before there was a firmware update that effectively broke our game. We had to operate very quickly to fix it, and only thanks to that rush did we manage to launch our game in time.

Different channels for your promotion

You have to resort to different outlets from the ones you use in the West. I’ll avoid the usual example of WeChat instead of WhatsApp to talk more directly about examples in our field.

If you want to promote your games or products, forget about Reddit or YouTube. You have to resort to DouYin (which is TikTok), which is incredibly popular, or videos on Bilibili, which is a video-sharing platform. Then, of course, there is WeChat and various other platforms dedicated to the Chinese market (Weibo, etc.). Not to repeat myself, but if you have a local partner, they can advise you which mix of platforms to use to promote your content.

There are a number of dedicated VR publications practically unknown outside China, such as Vrtuoluo, which is one of the leading publications there, VR AR World, or Yivian. Also, the VR influencers are not the ones you know here: for instance, a good friend of mine is DannieVR, a Chinese creator who also has a small presence on YouTube, but is mostly active on Chinese social media, and is known by essentially all of the major XR manufacturers there.

As for the events, I attend VR AR Expo China in Shanghai every year, which is strongly dedicated to XR. But there are other events about gaming, like ChinaJoy, where you can still find some VR attractions. Augmented World Expo (AWE) has an Asian chapter, which has just returned to China.

Different integrations required

While maybe not the main concern for XR devs looking to distribute their content in China, it’s also important to note that China has a world of different app integrations. For example, when I visited Alibaba in Hangzhou, I got a chance to try on the company’s Qwen smart glasses. When I inquired about their unique value proposition amid the flood of competition, I was told they had the best integration with the whole Alibaba ecosystem: Amap (Chinese Google Maps), Alipay (payment service), Taobao (Chinese Amazon), etc. In China, this is actually huge, because these are services that hundreds of millions of people use every day. If Alibaba wanted to release Qwen outside of China, that value proposition would evaporate.

Conversely, the value proposition of your app or hardware evaporates in China if you don’t integrate it with a variety of these services. For instance, you should make it easy to share videos on DouYin and to make payments through WeChat Pay and Alipay, and apps must absolutely have some sort of built-in QR code reader.

Regulations

China has a ton of regulations about games that you should know if you want to publish your game there. Beyond some of the more commonly known rules (for instance, you can’t show red blood or gore in general in Chinese games), player data also needs to stay in China.

That’s precisely why many service providers have dedicated servers there. When I was working on a VR platform for concerts years ago, I discovered that Photon, the cloud-based networking platform and SDK (widely considered the gold standard for multiplayer games) has dedicated separate servers for Chinese players.

Many platforms “hide” the difficulties of the various regulations by essentially acting as mediators: I published some minor VR content through Viveport in the past and never had issues. If there is something to change, it is the platforms that ask for it directly, although you should be cautious about publishing politically sensitive material, violence, sexual content, etc., as all of it could need changing as a result of Chinese National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA) rules. And very special care should be given to content for children, because the government wants them to study more and play less.

In general, a good local publisher can help you go through the regulation process more easily.

BONUS: Don’t trust Chinese on spiciness levels…

Bonus piece of advice: if you’re doing business in China, never trust a Chinese person on the spiciness of food. I was once having a one-on-one lunch meeting, and I clearly asked for non-spicy food. The other person ordered a bowl of soup for me, guaranteeing I would have loved it. When I started eating, I started crying and sweating because it was super hot. I told the guy, “Sorry, man, this is killing me; it is very spicy,” and he calmly answered, “Is it? I can’t feel it at all.” The guy could probably use a flamethrower on his tongue and not notice it.

The lesson I learned is this: just like deciding on what information you can trust or not, always verify the food for yourself first, too. Take a tiny bite first and see how spicy it is before committing to the whole bowl!

For Chinese standards, this is probably just a bit spicy | Courtesy Antony Vitillo

These are just a few things that I learned over the years and that you should consider if you want to launch your products, or even move your company there.

That said, there are a ton of other things, too, but this article is already dangerously close to becoming a book. If you want to go deeper and have some help with doing VR business in China, feel free to get in touch, and we may discuss it while drinking some (non-spicy) bubble tea.

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Thursday, 22 October 2026

Google VR Studio Behind ‘Job Simulator’ Unveils ‘Hyper Visor’ Arcade Blaster for XREAL Aura

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Owlchemy Labs, the Google-owned XR studio behind smash hit VR games Job Simulator and Vacation Simulator, today revealed Hyper Visor, a new arcade blaster arriving as a launch title for XREAL AURA.

As Google’s official AR hardware partner, Xreal Aura is the first pair of see-through AR glasses to run Android XR. Those are priced at $1,279 for the 256GB version with 12GB RAM, and $1,499 for the 512GB version with 16GB RAM.

Owlchemy Labs, which was acquired by Google in 2017, has also pledged to bring a number of its previous XR games to Xreal Aura at launch, including Job Simulator, Vacation Simulator, Dimensional Double Shift, Inside [JOB], and now Hyper Visor, which will be priced at $1.99.

While the glasses are currently in pre-order, there’s no shipping date yet at the time of this writing.

Here’s how Owlchemy Labs describes Hyper Visor:

Reality is breaking, and it’s up to players to blast it back into shape. Hyper Visor turns the player’s room into a reality-bending arcade, where a mysterious pair of living shades reveals vibrant fractures in reality hidden within their everyday surroundings. The player’s mission is to clear eight levels, seal the rifts, and set reality right for good.

With the stylish power of these slick shades, players unleash an energy stream straight from their hands to shatter targets, KO bosses, and repair reality one prismatic rift at a time. Each level comes complete with its own targets, challenges, and a boss standing between the player and a sealed rift, and every victory restores a little more of the Hyper Visor’s power ahead of the final showdown.

While the game is decidedly more 2D-based than a fully immersive game, Owlchemy Labs’ CEO Andrew Eiche says the game was “built to meet those players where they are, whether it’s their first time in XR or they’ve been playing for years,” as he notes one of the biggest barriers to entry has been the headset form factor.

“XREAL Aura is essentially a pair of shades, which makes XR far more approachable for anyone who may have been hesitant to put on a headset before,” Eiche added.

You’ll find Hyper Visor on the Google Play Store alongside all of the company’s hit VR games, which also work across Samsung Galaxy XR, the first VR headset to support Android XR.

Update (12:30 PM ET): A previous version of this article included a video, which was removed at the request of Owlchemy Labs.

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VRMMO ‘Zenith’ is Finally Pulling the Plug on Servers in December

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It’s been nearly two years since Ramen VR, the studio behind Zenith: The Last City (2022), announced it was ceasing development on the VR MMORPG due to difficulties in keeping users. Now the studio announced it’s finally pulling the plug in December.

Despite attracting hundreds of thousands of players over the years and securing tens of millions in funding, Zenith struggled to retain its audience, ultimately becoming financially unsustainable despite Ramen VR’s efforts to revive it with a free-to-play model.

In July 2024, the studio announced that Zenith wouldn’t be getting any more content updates, with the proviso that the studio wouldn’t kill off the game right away; shards for both the paid Zenith: The Last City game and free-to-play Zenith: Infinite Realms were safe “for the foreseeable future,” the studio said at the time.

Now, the studio announced Zenith servers are set to go dark at 10:00 AM PST Friday, December 18th, 2026 (local time here).

Effective since October 21st, Ramen VR has ceased sales of Zenith: The Last City, which was later configured into a paid DLC with the release of Infinite Realms, as well as its Zennies premium currency.

Infinite Realms will be available for download Wednesday, November 18th, 2026. After that, new users won’t be able to download Zenith, although existing players can continue playing until servers close on December 18th.

For the time being, you can find Zenith on the Horizon Store for Quest 2 and above and Steam for PC VR headsets.

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Wednesday, 21 October 2026

‘Gears of War: E-Day’ PC VR Mod is Coming with Support for Full Campaign

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Gears of War: E-Day (2026) has only been out for a little over two weeks now, and there’s already a PC VR mod in the works to get you up close and personal with the Locust Horde.

A free mod being created by ‘rockonthehill‘ is set to bring full VR support for the entire campaign.

Items already crossed off the list include full stereo rendering, full-body IK, manual reloads, manual weapon switching, two-handed aiming, the ability to fight from cover, and take on the gunner position when in the King Raven. Check out the video below to see it in action:

Notably, the mod is also only intended for the single-player campaign right now, and not online coop, rockonthehill says.

And the mod is admittedly still an early work in progress as well, so there’s no telling when we’ll see its GitHub repo, which is likely be a fork of Praydog’s UEVR mod for Unreal Engine games.

Still, there is active development going on, so all signs point to imminent release. Future updates are said to include Lancer chainsaw (no canned animations), physical melee, colliders for hands and weapons, and a real working scope for Longshot.

We’ll get to see all of that in its next feature drop video soon, rockonthehill says, noting the mod will be free when it releases at some point in the future.

This follows a veritable explosion of PC VR mods, many of which have been a direct result of AI-assisted vibe coding, which has helped modders tackle the complex work of bringing VR support to games never actually designed for it.

While you wait, check out how to find nearly every PC VR mod in one place, which includes free mods for games like Titanfall 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Metro 2033 Redux, and more.

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Snap Enlists Iron Man Star Robert Downey Jr. to Develop SPECS Experiences

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Snap announced that actor and producer Robert Downey Jr. will work alongside the company’s augmented reality team to develop original content, Lens experiences, hardware collaborations, and more for its SPECS AR glasses.

The News

Robert Downey Jr. has joined the company’s Specs team as honorary Chief Customer Experience Officer (CCEO), which the company says will help “guide customers to understand and imagine what’s possible with SPECS.”

The company says the Iron Man star will work across “different parts of the SPECS organization to explore new capabilities, shape new Lens experiences and develop original content.” Downey Jr. will also collaborate on hardware and in-person experiences, the company says.

Courtesy Snap

“Trying is believing. Having tested practically every wearable tech that’s come to market in the last 20 years, and been largely unimpressed, I was absolutely sold on SPECS within 40 seconds,” said Downey Jr. “The applications are endless. Families can share experiences instead of hunching over devices, skills can be honed, big business can streamline development. In short, it delivers on the promise of AR glasses made by a certain techno optimist superhero I portrayed. Life imitates art – imitates life! I’ve never experienced the confident, warm and creatively inviting atmosphere that Evan has cultivated at SPECS anywhere else in the tech sector. Wait’ll you see what we create for you to enjoy.”

This follows last month’s big Specs event, where the company unveiled a host of new software and partnerships for the device, chief of which was Specs Intelligence, an anticipatory AI service that surfaces contextual information.

Snap also revealed immersive entertainment streaming, Spotify, interactive Harry Potter experiences, NBA/WNBA training tools, multiplayer games, navigation, translation, and 3D shopping.

As the company’s first consumer-oriented pair of AR glasses, Specs is expected to ship sometime this fall in the US, UK and France starting at $2,195, with an optional cellular charging case bundle costing $2,395.

My Take

As reported by Mixed in June (via Skarred Ghost), Robert Downey Jr. was offered some $100 million in company stock to essentially try to make Specs look cool. The details of that report still haven’t been verified, and it wasn’t specified whether that included stock in Snap, or in the now-separate Specs entity.

Still, having played Tony Stark for nearly two decades now, Downey Jr. is in a unique position to relate to consumers and help them understand what augmented reality actually is, and what it isn’t. And let’s face it, ‘honorary CCEO’ really just means he’s a high-profile brand ambassador, or long-term marketing asset.

To boot, Downey Jr. launched a collection of short videos showing Specs in action, which the company debuted as adverts during the New York Knicks vs. Philadelphia 76ers game on October 20th, with plans to release more during Game 1 of the World Series on October 23th.

It shows him using Specs as a private screen, golf tutor, tracing guide for a portrait—the sort of not too far out things sport-watching middle America can latch onto. One fairly hyperbolic video though should raise some eyebrows at what the company, and Downey Jr., are ultimately trying to achieve with Specs:

While Specs may turn out to be the best AR platform consumers will be able to get their hands on in the near future, it’s far off from replacing one, let alone a table-full of devices Downey Jr. throws in the trash for his iconoclastic “this changes everything” moment.

I’m not old enough to have ever actually seen one before, but it all reminds me a bit of IBM Simon from 1994. Impressive, expensive, not really at all for consumers, and more of a precursor of things to come. I don’t think we’ll have to wait 10 more years for AR to have its iPhone moment, although I wouldn’t expect it from a first-gen consumer device either.

I get it though. Robert Downey Jr. can say almost anything (but the name ‘Iron Man’ or ‘Tony Stark’, since he doesn’t own the IP), and America will listen. Whatever the case, I’m just hoping the next spot doesn’t include any whales leaping out of gym floors.

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Tuesday, 20 October 2026

Steam Next Fest Hosts 40+ PC VR Game Demos Until October 26th

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Steam Next Fest is live, going from now until October 26th and serving up gads of PC VR demos to play.

We’ve counted 42 VR game demos currently available for download, and among the bunch are a surprising number of greats.

If you’re not sure where to start first though, you should definitely check out VR co-op heist game PAYDAY: Aces High from Fast Travel Games, town-builder strategy game Outlanders VR from Mucho Games, and co-op extraction game DRIFTERS: Blackout Crew from Salmi Games.

Below you find links for each game, including their respective release dates. You can also see the full list of Steam Next Fest demos here.

Steam Next Fest October 2026

Game NameDeveloperGenreRelease Date
RAID VRFusionPlayCo-op Sci-Fi Shooter, Action RoguelikeComing soon
Wurst and GloryYaga StudioCompetitive Dueling, Party GameNov 2, 2026
MOLYMoliesVR Simulation, PuzzleNov 1, 2026
Arcane ArchitectMayak StudioVR Tower Defense, StrategyComing soon
DRIFTERS: Blackout CrewSalmi GamesCo-op Extraction Shooter, PvETo be announced
Sol ProtocolSingular PerceptionCo-op Space Sim, RoguelikeNovember 2026
RustmourneRustmourne TeamSurvival Horror, Sci-FiTo be announced
Magic Color Merge Puzzle VRPixelbrain StudioPuzzle, CasualComing soon
SapphobosG.I.L.L.E.S.Psychological Horror, MysteryQ4 2026
Cloud JourneyVRYYExploration, Historical PuzzleOct 27, 2026
Dark TripiWorldsPsychological Horror, Escape RoomOct 29, 2026
The Last FramePatagoniartAdventure, Environmental PuzzleComing soon
Hyperlane HighwayRyality StudioAction Roguelite, Hoverboard Racing2026
Atlas Proxima: TetherAtlas Proxima Design StudiosCo-op Idler, ExplorationQ4 2026
Board Of The FutureTomyHorstRacing, Skateboarding SimulationTo be announced
Voxel PlaygroundCydreamPhysics Sandbox, Arena ShooterComing soon
Undead Development 2MasterstrikeZombie Survival, Base BuildingNov 3, 2026
MNOZ – My Nuclear Octopus 2Tea Monster GamesRetro Arcade, Shoot ‘Em UpQ1 2027
Orb Rush VRR-SVR Arcade, Score AttackNovember 2026
Dance of DraugannaYaga StudioRhythm, Dance, Narrative AdventureNov 2, 2026
The Rifted SkiesDreamVRVR Parkour, Action RoguelikeComing soon
LIMINALCole Heideman (Red Shed)Action Roguelike, Looter ShooterDecember 2026
Re:RedSekamiPsychological Horror, Walking SimulatorQ4 2026
PatchWorldPatchXRCreative Sandbox, Music, Multiplayer2026
City of HungerMVCAO StudiosVR FPS, Survival Horror2026
Halls of the DeepOne StudioAction-Adventure, Archery, ExplorationComing soon
PAYDAY: Aces HighFast Travel GamesVR Co-op Heist, FPSNov 5, 2026
Ancient DuelTree Web Solutions SRLTurn-Based Strategy, Card GameQ4 2026
Sunstone of TimeVRKiwiHistorical VR Adventure, PuzzleTo be announced
ASMBLCarbon Copy Labs LLCVR Sandbox, Building SimulationNovember 2026
SaddlebowSweetPulse GamesVR Archery, HuntingNov 2, 2026
Ghostly Late Night ShowMiltan Digital LtdStealth, Puzzle AdventureComing soon
CRASHLANDLAC Games LtdSci-Fi Arena FPS, SurvivalComing soon
Doodle FigureBinary Bit StudioAsymmetric VR, Party GameDecember 2026
Bad Grip ClubTheia GamesCo-op Climbing, Physics AdventureTo be announced
Long TripMusketeer StudioDark Fantasy Action RPG2026
Parcel PanicNaughty PigVR Arcade, Job SimulationNovember 2026
Pin CityStudio217, LLCVR Bowling, Sports ArcadeDecember 2026
Outlanders VRMucho GamesCity Builder, StrategyComing soon
ATTACK OF THE EVIL POOP VRAN GamesComedy, On-Rails ShooterComing soon
STUFFED: Two Foot HeroWaving Bear StudioVR Wave Shooter, Tower DefenseNov 3, 2026
System Critical 3Old FormulasVR Platformer, Shoot ‘Em UpComing soon

What do you think is worth playing? Let us know in the comments below!

The post Steam Next Fest Hosts 40+ PC VR Game Demos Until October 26th appeared first on Road to VR.



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OpenXR Takes a Page From Apple With New Cross-Platform Spatial Multitasking API

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OpenXR is an open, royalty-free standard which provides a single, unified interface for developing VR and AR applications. Most XR platforms support it—excluding Apple, which uses its own APIs for Vision Pro. While that hasn’t changed, OpenXR seems to have taken a page out of Apple’s playbook with a new multitasking spatial app framework.

The Khronos Group, which leads development on OpenXR, announced it’s set to roll out a set of extensions soon that include new “spatial containers.” Spatial containers are system-managed spaces where apps can display XR content, similar to how traditional apps draw 2D content within windows on a desktop.

As seen in the short clip below, this will essentially allow for apps to switch between a “bounded” mode for multitasking and an “immersive” mode that takes up the full screen, The Khronos Group says.

It’s admittedly very similar to how visionOS handles multitasking via its Shared Space function, which is basically a spatial desktop that allows multiple 3D applications to live side-by-side and be moved around by the user. Apple Vision Pro has had this feature since launch in 2024.

This comes in contrast to how multitasking works on Quest today, wherein only one spatial app can run at a time, albeit alongside system-level stuff, such as the dashboard, browser, and other multitasked 2D windows.

The Khronos Group says the new extensions have been ratified and published, with implementations expected to begin rolling out across the OpenXR ecosystem during 2026.

Granted, its release doesn’t mean all existing headsets will immediately support it, although it’s a good bet we’ll begin seeing implementations soon from the cadre of OpenXR-supported headsets, which thus far include Meta Quest, SteamVR-compatible PC VR headsets and Steam Frame, Android XR-based headsets, Varjo, Magic Leap, and XREAL glasses.

You can check out the full list here, which of course doesn’t include Apple.

The post OpenXR Takes a Page From Apple With New Cross-Platform Spatial Multitasking API appeared first on Road to VR.



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