Whoever said VR has no games?
True, the medium isn’t overflowing with 100-hour RPGs and lavishly-produced shooters, but there are absolutely more than enough titles out there now to satisfy a wide variety of gamers whether they like online sports, mind-bending puzzles or walking simulators. The fact is that whether you own an Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, PSVR or otherwise, you’ve got plenty to play. But where should you spend your hard-earned cash?
Every day this week we’re going to list 20 VR games that we believe are absolutely worth playing, piling them up until we have 100 mentioned right here by Friday. Note that we’re not talking a ranked ‘Top 100’ list, at least not yet. This is about highlighting games that are fighting the good fight for VR, trying to shine a spotlight on some of the stuff you may have missed and championing the absolute essentials that everyone should play.
And, to be clear, these are strictly games, not experiences. We may or may not be working on another list to cover the latter category for later on and there may or may not be some overlap between the two, but for now we wanted to directly recognize the game developers doing great work in this emerging medium.
Land’s End
Platforms: Gear VR, Oculus Go
Developer: Ustwo Games
One of VR’s first true games also remains one of its best. Developed by the minds behind Monument Valley, Land’s End is a visually arresting adventure in which you explore the remains of an ancient civilization. The game does a terrific job of immersing you in its world, making you marvel at the sheer scale of a cliff face one moment and then cower as you stand atop it in the next. The stunning art direction, meanwhile, still makes this one of the most convincing VR worlds to visit. Don’t sleep on lands end if you have access to Oculus’ mobile VR suite.
To The Top – Read Our Review
Platforms: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Windows VR, PlayStation VR
Developer: Electric Hat Games
Many people can’t spend more than a few minutes moving inside a VR headset without starting to feel sick. Amazingly, though, To The Top combines a fast, fluid locomotion system with intuitive tricks to not only enable you to move in VR but also run, jump, glide and climb across massive obstacle courses. By using motion controllers to essentially gallop through levels, Electric Hat has created one of the most liberating games in VR, in which negotiating your way through virtual jungle gyms feels hugely rewarding.
A Chair in A Room: Greenwater – Read Our Review
Platforms: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive
Developer: Wolf & Wood Interactive
Getting a jump scare out of you in VR is easy. There’s a lot of cheap experiences out there that have earned YouTube stardom using lackluster techniques. That makes the restraint Wolf & Wood shows in slowly building the intense, dread-filled horror of A Chair in a Room all the more impressive. This a chilling, intelligent psychological experience that is more interested in playing with your mind than it is screaming in your face at the most unexpected moment. It also makes great use of room-scale technology, if you have space. This is the thinking man’s horror game.
Archangel: Hellfire – Read Our Review
Platforms: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive
Developer: Skydance Interactive
VR loves mechs, and it’s not hard to see why. The experience of sitting inside a cockpit, realistically interacting with your controls and unleashing a barrage of missiles or lasers is unbeatable. Nowhere is that more evident than with Skydance’s multiplayer expansion to Archangel, which gives you full control over a war machine of your choosing. An intuitive control scheme that makes great use of motion controllers and expansive maps that allow you to play out cinematic battles make this a blockbuster VR game you shouldn’t miss.
Statik – Read Our Review
Platform: PlayStation VR
Developer: Tarsier Studios
Making puzzle games that take full advantage of VR is hard, but Tarsier sets the bar with Statik. This is an adorably odd game in which your virtual hands are bound to various contraptions that need to be tampered with in order to progress. There’s some gloriously inventive brain-teasing in the mix that will see you controlling RC cars, surveying CCTV footage and more, though it’s sharing scenes with the game’s world-weary scientist, Dr. Ingen, that really stands out. Even if you don’t like puzzles, exploring this mad world of ambiguity makes Statik worth a look.
Superhot VR – Read Our Review
Platforms: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Windows VR, PlayStation VR
Developer: Superhot
Few action games have demonstrated such an impressive grasp on what makes VR tick like Superhot. This spin-off of the first-person shooter in which time moves only when you move has you doing your best Neo-impression as you methodically pick off enemies using whatever’s at hand. Superhot understands that fast-paced action can often be overwhelming in VR, and slows things down to the point that you can perfectly capture your inner-Hollywood hero. Every level is a nerve-shredding exercise in fast-thinking and slick execution. If there’s one game that proves VR can elevate one of the industry’s most popular genres, it’s this.
Tiny Trax – Read Our Review
Platforms: PlayStation VR
Developer: FuturLab
Did you know the developers of the incredible Velocity series made a PSVR game? Well they did, and it successfully captures the devilishly dense finger-knotting gameplay of its arcade tributes and applies it to… a Scalextric game? This is a miniature racer with a strong learning curve that rewards the time and effort you put into it with one of VR’s most refined gameplay systems. Not to mention you can share it all with friends to bring your playdates back to virtual life. Tiny Trax was criminally underlooked when it first launched. If you can get a friend to try it out with you, it’s well worth picking up.
Eclipse: Edge of Light – Read Our Review
Platforms: Google Daydream
Developer: White Elk Studios
When it first released last year we confidently proclaimed Eclipse was Daydream’s best game. That still stands; this is a rich, immersive exploration game that leads you on a compelling tale of a doomed planet. The game uses environmental storytelling to unearth some genuinely memorable moments that make great use of VR. Amazing environments, enlightening jet pack traversal and well-paced platforming also help to establish this as an utterly engrossing journey from start to finish. If you have a Daydream-ready phone, it’s worth getting a View headset to play this alone.
Sparc – Read Our Review
Platforms: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, PlayStation VR
Developer: CCP Games
A lot of people compare jumping into a VR headset to when the characters of the Tron series lose themselves in their own virtual worlds. CCP Games’ Sparc takes that comparison a little more literally, creating a VR eSport that’s an actual sport, much like what can be seen in the classic movies. It’s as much fun to play as it is to watch; Sparc will have friends working up a sweat as they try to best each other in futuristic competitions in which you need to tag the other player with projectiles. It’s playing games like Sparc that really remind you this is the future of entertainment. What a shame CCP itself has pulled out of it for now.
Island 359 – Read Our Review
Platforms: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive
Developer: CloudGate Studio
We might not have a full-fledged Jurassic Park for the VR age just yet (sorry, Ark Park), but CloudGate Studios’ Island 359 comes close enough for now. This is a hugely entertaining survival game that lets you live out your dino dreams (that is if your dino dreams including shooting a t-rex in the head). Not to mention Island 359 has become an impressive hotbed for VR experimentation, being one of the few games to embrace Vive’s Trackers peripherals to bring full-body tracking into VR.
Brass Tactics – Read Our Review
Platforms: Oculus Rift
Developer: Hidden Path Entertainment
Leave it to the developers that brought us games like Age of Empires II to deliver probably the best real-time strategy game seen in VR thus far. Brass Tactics takes a delightful twist on the genre by fusing fully animated battles with a tabletop gaming arena that’s best shared with friends in multiplayer. Motion controls make the game incredibly accessible and the ability to drag yourself over the board can really lose you in its miniature battles. Brass Tactics delivers on the strategy dreams many of us have had for years now.
Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV – Read Our Review
Platforms: PlayStation VR
Developer: Square Enix
Whilst E3 2016’s action-oriented FFXV VR demo never materialized for PSVR owners, we did get, uh, a spin-off fishing game. But wait! It’s actually a good fishing game, making clever use of the massive JRPG’s expansive world and pitting you in stand-off challenges with massive monsters that you’re definitely not going to find in this year’s Fishing Simulator game. Not to mention the game’s cast puts in another appearance here, and the chance to feel like you’re really hanging out with Noctis and co is worth a look for any fan.
Wayward Sky – Read Our Review
Platforms: PlayStation VR
Developer: Uber Entertainment
Wayward Sky’s whimsical mix of third-person diorama-style gameplay and first-person interactive moments still make for one of the most comfortable, active experiences in VR. You explore a floating fortress, solving puzzles and overcoming obstacles as you search for your captured father. Examining the gorgeous visuals from third-person is a pure delight, but it’s the more intimate moments of first-person interaction that really make the game sing. This is one of VR’s most underrated adventures for sure.
Edge of Nowhere – Read Our Review
Platforms: Oculus Rift
Developer: Insomniac Games
Ratchet and Clank creator Insomniac Games took us to dark places with its first VR game, which remains as close to Dead Space and Resident Evil 4 as you’ll yet find in the Rift. Edge of Nowhere takes you on both an Arctic expedition gone wrong and a descent into madness as you journey through frozen wastes in search of a lost team. This isn’t necessarily the type of game that couldn’t be done outside of VR, but that doesn’t change the fact that playing it inside a headset amplifies the pulse-pounding scraps. A treat of a more traditional game.
Knockout League – Read Our Review
Platforms: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Windows VR, PlayStation VR
Developer: Grab Games
Boxing is one of the most immeadiately-obvious things to do with VR’s motion controllers. Fortunately, Knockout League understands that it helps to go beyond reality, too. The game’s rock solid mechanics are a great foundation for some truly whacky battles that aren’t just intended for sports fans. As such, it’s Knockout League achieves that rare thing for a sports game, appealing to more than just a core audience. This is something any fan of VR action should look into. Did I mention you fight an octopus?
Gorn – Read Our Impressions
Platforms: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive
Developer: Free Lives
There are those of us that believe VR is a force for good in this world and that it should be used for the betterment of mankind. We couldn’t agree more, and Gorn is a shining example of that. Okay, really this ultra-bloody gladiator game probably isn’t something you should be showing to any classrooms anytime soon but it does legitimately boast some of VR’s best melee combat, with slapstick battles that have a surprisingly low tolerance for any panic on the player’s part. Gorn is frantic, freeing fun and we wouldn’t change a single drop of its silly bloodshed.
Onward – Read Our Coverage
Platforms: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive
Developer: Downpour Interactive
What’s even more amazing than Onward’s overnight, solo-developer success story is how Downpour Interactive has maintained its lead since. Onward still delivers one of the best multiplayer military combat experiences in all of VR, pitting players in realistic battles in which teamwork and communication is a must. Update-by-update Downpour manages to bring something new to the game that keeps many of its competitors a step behind. If you’re looking for VR’s most intense multiplayer firefights, this is your one-stop shop.
Floor Plan – Read Our Review
Platforms: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Windows VR, PlayStation VR, Oculus Go, Gear VR, Google Daydream
Developer: Turbo Button
Arguably the best game from one of VR’s best new developers, Floor Plan is an eccentric mix of multi-floored puzzling that sees you interacting with a colorful cast of characters. It’s a glorious throwback to the LucasArts heyday of adventure gaming, with outlandish solutions to bizarre puzzles that will often leave you laughing just as much as scratching your brain. It’s a little on the short side, but Floor Plan captures the random delights that VR can provide.
Sacralith: The Archer’s Tale – Read Our Impressions
Platforms: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive
Developer: Odd Meter
Who doesn’t like using a bow and arrow in VR? The answer must be no one because practically every game out there lets you unleash your inner-Legolas. Sacralith: The Archer’s Tale is one of the better archery games on the market, though, with a full campaign that gradually teaches you mastery of your techniques. We’re particularly impressed with the game’s emphasis on story, which puts you in direct contact with a lot of NPCs characters. That’s not something many developers are brave enough to do in VR’s early days.
Tagged with: gear vr, google daydream, htc vive, Oculus Go, oculus rift, PlayStation VR
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