Hand-tracking support came to PSVR 2 back in December, letting developers update their games to use the headset’s on-board tracking cameras for controller-less interactions. And it turns out casting magic is one of the most immersive things you can do with your bare hands.
Studios COVEN and ALBYON have released the long-awaited hand-tracking update for Masters of Light (2024) on PSVR 2, letting you blast beams of light, summon shields, and control energy as you combat against dark celestial enemies.
“Every flick of your wrist, every precise movement, translates into real-time spellcasting, making battles feel more intuitive, immersive, and exhilarating than ever,” game director and Coven co-founder Celine Tricart says in a PS blogpost.
While the game now has feature parity with the Quest version, which launched on Quest 2 and above last May, it wasn’t as simple as flipping a switch, with Tricart calling the game’s latest feature “an incredible challenge, but also a dream come true.”
To bring hand-tracking to the PSVR 2 version of Masters of Light, Tricart credits porting team VR Monkey, which has worked on a number of ports, including Into the Radius, Ghosts of Tabor, Vendetta Forever, and Synth Riders to name a few.
VR Monkey says it took two and a half months to accomplish, owing to Unity’s lack of PSVR2 ’s hand-tracking support, which required the studio to create an in-house plugin—likely a big contributing factor in why we’re not seeing many hand-tracked games on PSVR 2 today.
To boot, besides Masters of Light, there’s only one other hand-tracked game on PSVR 2. Aldin Dynamics was the first to enable hand-tracking on its PSVR 2 version of spell-casting game Waltz of the Wizard back in February. And we’re still waiting to see whether other studios will follow suit.
In the meantime, you can find Masters of Light over on the PlayStation Store for PSVR 2, and on the Horizon Store for Quest 2 and above, priced at $20. It’s also slated to arrive on Steam “soon” for PC VR headsets, where its currently available to wishlist.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 supports PC VR headsets, although you’ll also need a pretty beefy rig to even run it. Now, players are getting the much-requested fixed foveated rendering feature, saving on compute and boosting performance.
Microsoft Flight Sim fans have been waiting for native support for foveated rendering for some time now, and now developer Asobo Studio has pushed its ‘Sim Update 2’ beta which brings both fixed foveated rendering to the game.
Foveated rendering is a technique that lowers the resolution in your peripheral vision, reducing your GPU’s workload and upping frames per second (FPS) you can render. When activated in the VR Settings menu, it uses Quad View rendering, which can add to your CPU overhead, the studio warns.
Image courtesy ‘IceManDBB’
While fixed foveated rendering is available to all PC VR headset users who opt-in to the beta update today, there’s no word on when to expect dynamic foveated rendering, which allows users with eye-tracking even more performance gains.
Dynamic foveated rendering does this by only rendering where you’re looking at the highest quality, leaving all else outside of your focal vision to be rendered at low resolution. Of course, a PC VR headset with eye-tracking is required for this, which in similar applications can double performance.
It does seem to be in the works though, as Asobo says in the settings screen above “it can be used with Eye-Tracking when available for best use,” although the company hasn’t provided a timeline when it will turn on the feature.
That said, Asobo is working with Pimax, which has been an official peripheral partner for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 since November, to bring this and other VR-specific features to game.
Notably, we haven’t seen mention of any of this in the official Sim Update 2 changelog, so we’ll be keeping an eye on YouTuber ‘VR Flight Sim Guy’, who regularly dives into MFS2024, and was also one of the first to report the new fixed foveated rendering feature. You can check out his video below showing off the new performance gains.
Ace Virtual Shooting, the studio behind shooting simulator Ace (2023), announced it’s partnering with Swiss firearms manufacturer SIG SAUER to release a Meta Touch controller peripheral that replicates the weight and feel of a real SIG pistol.
Ace and Sig Sauer are releasing licensed replicas of two 9mm handguns, the Sig P320 X-Five Legion and P365 X-Macro Comp, which clip into Quest’s right Touch controller and are meant to be used with the studio’s subscription-based Quest app, Ace.
Supporting Quest 2 and above, and priced at $19 per-month ($14 when billed annually), Ace lets users go through a host of real-world shooting exercises and courses, letting you track training, compete against other players, and review real-time analytics of speed, accuracy, and precision.
This also now includes the a virtual version of the SHOOT SIG competition series as well as in-game models that match up with the real-world Sig pistols, including optics such as SIG ROMEO3MAX red dot.
Notably, all of Ace’s officially licensed Touch peripherals—including Staccato HD P4 and Staccato P 2011—are designed to replicate the frame, weight, and trigger of their real-world counterparts, aiming to appeal to first responders, competitive shooters and hobbyists alike.
“The realism of the Ace Virtual Shooting environment is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced,” says Max Michel, Team SIG Captain & World Champion Professional Shooter. “It’s incredibly fun and parallels the live fire drills I shoot with my SIG P320MAX when I am training.”
While pricey for a VR controller peripheral at $199, Ace’s replicas are actually cheaper than 1,000 rounds of the sort of manufactured 9mm ammo you might use over the course of a few range days, according to price data from Midway.com.
You can find all of Ace’s replicas, including those from SIG SAUER and Staccato, over on the studio’s website, which also includes headset bundles and more info on Ace’s subscription.
In Inside XR Design we examine specific examples of great VR design. Today we’re looking at the details of Half-Life: Alyx and how they add an immersive layer to the game rarely found elsewhere.
Editor’s Note: Half-Life: Alyx has been hailed by many not just as the ‘best VR game’, or ‘best Half-Life‘ game, but even one of the ‘best games ever’. Five years after its release, the game holds the 24th spot on Steam250’s list of the best rated games on all of Steam. In celebration of the game’s fifth anniversary, we’re republishing our Inside XR Design episode which explores the details that have cemented it as one of VR’s seminal titles.
You can find the complete video below, or continue reading for an adapted text version.
Intro
Now listen, I know you’ve almost certainly heard of Half-Life: Alyx (2020), it’s one of the best VR games made to date. And there’s tons of reasons why it’s so well regarded. It’s got great graphics, fun puzzles, memorable set-pieces, an interesting story… and on and on. We all know this already.
But the scope of Alyx allows the game to go above and beyond what we usually see in VR with some awesome immersive details that really make it shine. Today I want to examine a bunch of those little details—and even if you’re an absolute master of the game, I hope you’ll find at least one thing you didn’t already know about.
Inertia Physics
First is the really smart way that Alyx handles inertia physics. Lots of VR games use inertia to give players the feeling that objects have different weights. This makes moving a small and light object feel totally different than a large and heavy object, but it usually comes with a sacrifice which is making larger objects much more challenging to throw because the player has to account for the inertia sway as they throw the object.
Alyx makes a tiny little tweak to this formula by ignoring the inertia sway only in its throwing calculation. That means if you’re trying to accurately throw a large object, you can just swing your arm and release in a way that feels natural and you’ll get an accurate throw even if you didn’t consider the object’s inertia.
This gives the game the best of both worlds—an inertia system to convey weight but without sacrificing the usability of throwing.
I love this kind of attention to detail because it makes the experience better without players realizing anything is happening.
Sound Design
Note: Make sure to unmute clips in this section
When it comes to sound design, Alyx is really up there not just in terms of quality, but in detail too. One of my absolute favorite details in this game is that almost every object has a completely unique sound when being shaken. And this reads especially well because it’s spatial audio, so you’ll hear it most from the ear that’s closest to the shaken object:
This is something that no flatscreen game needs because only in VR do players have the ability to pick up practically anything in the game.
I can just imagine the sound design team looking at the game’s extensive list of props and realizing they need to come up with what a VHS tape or a… TV sounds like when shaken.
That’s a ton of work for this little detail that most people won’t notice, but it really helps keep players immersed when they pick up, say, a box of matches and hear the exact sound they would expect to hear if they shook it in real life.
Gravity Gloves In-depth
Ok so everyone knows the Gravity Gloves in Alyx are a diegetic way to give players a force pull capability so it’s easier to grab objects at a distance. And practically everyone I’ve talked to agrees they work exceptionally well. They’re not only helpful, but fun and satisfying to use.
But what exactly makes the gravity gloves perhaps the single best force-pull implementation seen in VR to date? Let’s break it down.
In most VR games, force-pull mechanics have two stages:
The first, which we’ll call ‘selection’, is pointing at an object and seeing it highlighted.
The second, which we’ll call ‘confirmation’, is pressing the grab button which pulls the object to your hand.
Half-Life: Alyx adds a third stage to this formula which is the key to why it works so well:
First is ‘selection’, where the object glows so you know what is being targeted.
The second—let’s call it lock-on’—involves pulling the trigger to confirm your selection. Once you do, the selection is locked-on; even if you move your hand now the selection won’t change to any other object.
The final stage, ‘confirmation’, requires not a button press but a pulling gesture to finally initiate the force pull.
Adding that extra lock-on stage to the process significantly improves reliability because it ensures that both the player and the game are on the same page before the object is pulled.
And it should be noted that each of these stages has distinct sounds which make it even clearer to the player what’s being selected so they know that everything is going according to their intentions.
The use of a pulling gesture makes the whole thing more immersive by making it feel like the game world is responding to your physical actions, rather than the press of a button.
There’s also a little bit of magic to the exact speed and trajectory the objects follow, like how the trajectory can shift in real-time to reach the player’s hand. Those parameters are carefully tuned to feel satisfying without feeling like the object just automatically attaches to your hand every time.
This strikes me as something that an animator may even have weighed in on to say, “how do we get that to feel just right?”
Working Wearables
It’s natural for players in VR to try to put a hat on their head when they find one, but did you know that wearing a hat protects you from barnacles? And yes, that’s the official name for those horrible creatures that stick to the ceiling.
But it’s not just hats you can wear. The game is surprisingly good about letting players wear anything that’s even vaguely hat-shaped. Like cones or even pots.
I figure this is something that Valve added after watching more than a few playtesters attempt to wear those objects on their head during development.
Speaking of wearing props, you can also wear gas masks. And the game takes this one step further… the gas masks actually work. One part of the game requires you to hold your hand up to cover you mouth to avoid breathing spores which make you cough and give away your position.
If you wear a gas mask you are equally protected, but you also get the use of both hands which gives the gas mask an advantage over covering your mouth with your hand.
The game never explicitly tells you that the gas mask will also protect you from the spores, it just lets players figure it out on their own—sort of like a functional easter egg.
Spectator View
Next up is a feature that’s easy to forget about unless you’ve spent a lot of time watching other people play Half-Life: Alyx… the game has an optional spectator interface which shows up only on the computer monitor. The interface gives viewers the exact same information that the actual player has while in the game: like, which weapons they have unlocked or equipped and how much health and resin they have. The interface even shows what items are stowed in the player’s ‘hand-pockets’.
And Valve went further than just adding an interface for spectators, they also added built-in camera smoothing, zoom levels, and even a selector to pick which eye the camera will look through.
The last one might seem like a minor detail, but because people are either left or right-eye dominant, being able to choose your dominant eye means the spectator will correctly see what you’re aiming at when you’re aiming down the scope of a gun.
Multi-modal Menu
While we’re looking at the menus here, it’s also worth noting that the game menu is primarily designed for laser pointer interaction, but it also works like a touchscreen.
While this seems maybe trivial today, let’s remember that Alyx was released almost four years ago(!). The foresight to offer both modalities means that no matter if the player’s first instinct is to touch the menu or use the laser, both choices are equally correct.
Guiding Your Eye
All key items in Alyx have subtle lights on them to draw your attention. This is basic game design stuff, but I have to say that Alyx’s approach is much less immersion breaking than many VR games where key objects are highlighted in a glaringly obvious yellow mesh.
For the pistol magazine, the game makes it clear even at a distance how many bullets are in the magazine… in fact, it does this in two different ways.
First, every bullet has a small light on it which lets you see from the side of the magazine roughly how full it is.
And then on the bottom of the magazine there’s a radial indicator that depletes as the ammo runs down.
Because this is all done with light, if the magazine is half full, it will be half as bright—making it easy for players to tell just how ‘valuable’ the magazine is with just a glance, even at a distance. Completely empty magazines emit no light so you don’t mistake them for something useful. Many players learn this affordance quickly, even without thinking much about it.
The takeaway here is that a game’s most commonly used items—the things players will interact with the most—should be the things that are most thoughtfully designed. Players will collect and reload literally hundreds of magazines throughout the game, so spending time to add these subtle details meaningfully improves the entire experience.
Indie XR studio The Binary Mill announced its space-faring mining adventure Into Black (2024) is finally making its way to PSVR 2, bringing its Deep Rock Galactic-style action out of Quest exclusivity soon.
Initially launched on Quest back in October, the single and four-player co-op game is all about scavenging resources, upgrading tools, and repairing your ship. Along its 20+ levels, spanning multiple unique biomes, you’ll battle against all manner of foe as you gather enough parts to blast off from the dangerous alien world.
In addition to the campaign, the PSVR 2 version is also launching with the ‘Singularity’ PvPvE mode, where you face off against up to 11 other players an online competitive mode.
“Forge uneasy alliances as you navigate an ever-shrinking maze. Gather as much loot as you can, but get too greedy and you may not make it out at all,” the studio says, describing its ‘Singularity’ mode.
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Image courtesy The Binary Mill
Image courtesy The Binary Mill
Notably, Into Black is also being overhauled for PSVR 2, including remastered environments, enhanced lighting effects such as dynamic lighting and shadows, HDR and eye-tracked foveated rendering, and more advanced haptics thanks to PS Sense’s adaptive triggers and PSVR 2’s headset rumble feature.
There’s no word yet whether this will include cross-play with Quest, although we’ve reached out to the studio for more information.
We’re also still waiting on a proper trailer to show off the game’s full PSVR 2 enhancements, although the studio did throw out a few images (above) and two gifs (combined below) to showcase what PSVR 2 players can expect.
There’s no release date yet, although The Binary Mill says we can expect it “soon”. In the meantime, you can wishlist Into Black over on the PlayStation Store for PSVR 2.
ILM and Lucasfilm announced it’s developing another immersive Star Wars game called Star Wars: Beyond Victory – A Mixed Reality Playset.
Coming exclusively to Meta Quest 3 and 3S, Star Wars: Beyond Victory – A Mixed Reality Playset is slated to take place around the same timeframe as the Han Solo prequel Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018).
While information is still thin on the ground, it seems there may be a good slice of podracing to look forward to. ILM says players will be able to meet podracer “Volo Bolus as they join forces with the legendary podracer pilot Sebulba in this heart-pumping and engine-thrumping mixed reality experience.”
Considering it’s called a ‘Playset’, it’s also likely we’ll get a smattering of mixed reality mini-games, although ILM hasn’t confirmed anything beyond the quote above.
That said, ILM usually does a controlled, slow-drip of information for all of its XR games, meticulously revealing characters and specific bits of the game leading up to launch, which for now still doesn’t have a specific release date or trailer.
We’re sure to learn more soon though, as Meta says attendees at ‘Star Wars Celebration 2025’ in Tokyo, Japan (April 18-20) will get a first hands-on with the game. Over a dozen demo stations will be available there, where Meta will additionally show off demo versions of the studio’s previous VR games, Vader Immortal and Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge.
But why mixed reality? Jose Perez III, Director of Star Wars: Beyond Victory, says “mixed reality has opened several fascinating doors from an immersion standpoint and allows us to literally bring a galaxy far, far away right into the comfort of players’ homes in a way that’s unlike anything we’ve done before.”
It also can’t hurt that Meta is likely bankrolling the mixed reality game, as it did with ILM’s Star Wars VR over the years.
Gorilla Tag studio Another Axiom announced Orion Drift is getting its first big update since early access launch last month, bringing to the sprawling space station a new mini-game called ‘Capture the Beacon’ (CTB).
Like capture the flag, CTB is all about moving a rod-shaped beacon to your team’s base, although the twist is Orion Drift isn’t capping player numbers, and sets no time limit to the game, meaning anyone can jump into the action at any time.
The studio says there is “a ton more to this update,” although they haven’t revealed exactly what else is coming alongside the new mini-game. We’re sure to learn more when the update drops tomorrow, March 28th at 10AM PT (local time here).
Released on Quest in early access for free in late February, Orion Drift leverages Gorilla Tag’s locomotion, letting players move throughout the sprawling space station by physically pumping their arms, propelling them forward.
Outside of CBT, the game already has a number of activities, including its flagship game ‘Drift Ball’—essentially the spiritual successor to now-defunct sports game Echo VR, albeit more similar to a low-gravity game of handball.
There are other mini-games across the station’s various districts, including a parkour for Gorilla Tag-style climbing, practice arenas to hone your Drift Ball skills, golf and basketball mini-games, and lounges to watch ongoing matches across multiple arenas.
At this point, the game supports up to 75 players per-server, although Another Axiom says it’s aiming to bump that number to 200 players eventually. Filling out its selection of mini-games feels like a big step in that direction, although it’s still early days for Orion Drift.
While largely following Gorilla Tag’s playbook of offering engaging, drop-in social games, Orion Drift still hasn’t garnered the same sort of viral success as its predecessor. At the time of this writing, the free game has only generated around 3,300 user reviews, and also hasn’t managed to break the 50 top-selling Quest games; the top three are Animal Company, Yeeps, and Gorilla Tag.
Apple announced its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is kicking off on June 9th, which is expected to include news on Vision Pro’s next big operating system update, visionOS 3.
The event is taking place online from June 9th to 13th, although the big keynote livestream on June 9th is slated to include Apple’s usual deluge of all things software related.
Apple hasn’t confirmed what updates it’s specifically announcing at WWDC25, however the annual event typically features major software releases for each of its platforms—including iOS, macOS, watchOS, and visionOS—usually including early developer access and then public releases in the Fall.
While there’s no telling what visionOS 3 will include, a Bloomberg report earlier this month maintained Apple is planning a “feature-packed release.”
Like with visionOS 2, which was announced at WWDC24, it’s a safe bet we’re getting a host of more productivity-focused features, although it’s also possible Apple could announce its rumored partnership with Sony to bring PSVR 2 controller support to Vision Pro.
Apple’s $3,500 mixed reality headset notably shipped without motion controllers, which has forced developers to focus on either adapting existing XR apps to Vision Pro’s hand and eye-tracking capabilities, or starting new projects from the ground-up.
As in years past, WWDC25 will be free to developers and students, although Apple is also hosting an in-person event on June 9th at its Cupertino-based Apple Park, which will include access to Apple experts and special activities. Space is limited, so find out here how to apply.
Loco Motion, the studio behind superhero action sandbox Superfly(2022), and publisher Fast Travel Games announced some very Avatar: The Last Airbender-inspired action is coming to Quest and PC VR headsets next month in Elements Divided.
Launching on Quest 2 and above and PC VR headsets on April 23rd, Elements Divided lets you bend fire, water, earth and air in chaotic online combat and co-op.
By moving your controllers, you can summon attacks and defenses, and use your superhuman abilities to hurl yourself across arenas.
Just like in the Avatar TV series, each element has its own fighting style, making for around 60 attacks and abilities across the four core elements, such as casting fireballs, controlling the flow of water, summoning air shields, and building earthly barriers.
You can also level up your character for even more devastating abilities, not to mention customize your loadout as well as your individual avatar, which you can show off in PvP or co-op to take on hordes of enemies.
Elements Divided is slated to launch on April 23rd, priced at $10 on the Horizon Store for Quest 2 and above and Steam for PC VR headsets, where you can also wishlist the game.
In the meantime, you can sigh up for two of Element Divided’s upcoming free Beta testing weekends, taking place between April 11th – 13th, and April 17th – 19th. Spots are limited spots, and are operating on a ‘first come, first served’ basis. You can sign up over on the game’s Discord (invite link) for your chance to join.
Napster. Now there’s a name you haven’t heard in a few years… or more likely decades. Now, immersive web company Infinite Reality announced it’s acquired the brand for $207 million.
Having just closed a $3 billion investment in January, Immersive Reality says the Napster music streaming service will soon include a “social music platform” that will include branded 3D virtual spaces for virtual concerts and listening parties.
Additionally, the company says Napster will also sell both physical and virtual merchandise, exclusive digital content, and event tickets.
“By acquiring Napster, we’re paving a path to a brighter future for artists, fans, and the music industry at large,” said John Acunto, Infinite Reality co-Founder and CEO. “This strategic move aligns with Infinite Reality’s vision to lead an internet industry shift from a flat 2D clickable web to a 3D conversational one – giving all creators modern tools to better engage, monetize, and measure their audiences.”
CEO Jon Vlassopulos, formerly of Roblox, will continue leading Napster, noting he envisions a next-generation platform where fans can interact with artists in 3D virtual spaces, making music consumption more social and immersive.
Founded in 2019, Infinite Reality’s flagship product is iR Studio, an engine for building immersive websites, replete with social virtual environments and avatars. iR Studio sites support WebXR by default, meaning any XR headset that supports WebXR can access it directly through a web browser.
While the company hasn’t said as much, we’d expect Immersive Reality to leverage iR Studio in future Napster virtual concerts, which would ostensibly include support for Quest and PC VR headsets.
This isn’t the first time the Napster brand has changed hands since its 2002 bankruptcy, which was due to its platform allowing for unlicensed P2P sharing of music, attracting the ire of rock band Metallica. Over the years, the company has been acquired by a laundry list of companies that hoped to leverage the brand’s wide appeal, most recently turning the one-time music sharing platform into a subscriber-based music streaming platform.
Interestingly, Immersive Reality also isn’t the first XR-focused company to purchase Napster either. In August 2020, London-based virtual concert company MelodyVR acquired Napster for $70 million, which hoped to bring immersive video concerts to VR headset users. Prior to the Immersive Reality acquisition, Napster’s most recent owner was blockchain company Algorand, which hoped to decentralize music.
Another Vision Pro knock-off is coming to town, and this time it even has the ‘Vision’ name.
While not a household name, China’s Vivo is known for its sensible, mid-range smartphones, regularly ranking it in the top five smartphone creators by market share.
Now, at the Boao Forum for Asia in China’s Hainan Province today, the company showed off its first entry into the XR segment: Vivo Vision.
In a press statement, Vivo says the move comes as a broader push to pursue both robotics and XR devices, referring to Vivo Vision as “a significant milestone in vivo’s exploration of mixed reality technology.”
Image courtesy GSM Arena
While Vivo Vision is expected to be officially unveiled in mid-2025, specifics are still thin on the ground, with notable question marks surrounding the MR headsets specs, operating system, release date, global availability, price—pretty much everything besides the device’s externals.
A display model was present at Vivo’s booth at Boao Forum for Asia however, revealing the company is taking more than a few design cues from Apple Vision Pro, including its unique headstrap design, digital crown button, and magnetically-tethered external battery.
Notably, Vivo’s fleet of smartphones run modified versions of Android, with Funtouch OS used as its global-facing OS, and Origin OS used for those shipped in China.
As Vivo’s first XR device, it’s possible the company may attempt the same feat with Google’s upcoming Android XR OS, which is being launched with Samsung’s upcoming mixed reality, ‘Project Moohan’, which is said to release sometime this year, although that’s pure speculation for now.
This marks a growing trend of look-alike Vision Pros arriving from Chinese manufacturers, with the first notable arriving from Play for Dream; its MR headset not only stole the show at CES 2025 earlier this year, but also garnered high praise from former Quest engineer Amanda Watson, who called it “absolutely the best all around HMD demo I saw on the floor today.”
UNDERDOGS (2024), the physics-based mech brawler from Racket: Nx (2019) studio One Hamsa, is now available on PSVR 2, finally bringing its metal-on-metal violence and innovative locomotion to PS5.
Underdogs has been successful on Quest and PC VR headsets since its release in late 2024, where its garnered pretty much universally positive reviews, garnering both an ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ user score on Steam and a [4.9/5] user score on Quest. And it’s for good reason.
The single player roguelike isn’t just an engaging physics-based combat game, but it’s the sort of VR-native that really gets you into the action—in large part thanks to its intuitive arm-based locomotion. In fact, we liked it so much, we gave it both award for Excellence in Locomotion and Excellence in Indie Development in last year’s Road to VR Game of the Year Awards.
In Underdogs, you battle in the underground robot fighting scene against a nasty crew of robo-enemies, letting you gear up with 100+ items, including power tools like chainsaws and wrecking balls. Moving around is as simple as swinging your arms and flinging yourself forwards—but watch out, you need those arms to punch enemies too, making for a fun balance of movement and combat.
While it’s almost everything we wanted—the game even includes a new ‘Rampage’ mode for quick, non-stop brawling—One Hamsa said last year Underdogs could also get multiplayer at some point, although it’s not sure whether the update is still in the works.
GexagonVR announced its action flick-inspired shooter sandbox HARD BULLET (2020) is finally coming to Quest.
There’s no specific launch date yet, however Hard Bullet now has a Horizon Store page, which is marked as coming to Quest 3 and 3S sometime this Spring.
Initially released in early access on PC VR headsets in 2020, Hard Bullet is the sort of John Woo-inspired Hong Kong throwback that’s heavy on physics-based combat—and all the hyper-violence that goes along with it.
Similar to Blade & Sorcery before its big campaign update, the shooter-flavored combat sandbox doesn’t feature a story mode (for now), making it all about thinking up inventive ways to dispatch the hordes of oncoming baddies.
GexagonVR additionally announced a story mode is coming at some point in 2025 however, said to “unfold across multiple chapters, set in ever-evolving districts, each with its own atmosphere and encounters.”
“Our vision is to create a unique, immersive journey through a violent, sprawling megapolis, where each moment is intense and unpredictable,” the studio says, describing the upcoming story mode. “You’ll find yourself navigating chaotic city streets, facing brutal challenges, and engaging in high-stakes combat as you move deeper into the heart of the megapolis.”
Like the PC VR game, the Quest version promises 100+ weapons and various ways of making your own destructive loadout. And as you’d expect, there’s also ‘bullet time’ slow-mo, letting you really get into the John Wick-style shooting and martial arts action.
Bigscreen Beyond 2 orders flooded in last Thursday at a surprising pace. Now, the PC VR headset maker notes that its next slim and light headset outsold the original in 24 hours by an impressive margin, making its first day or sales equivalent to six months of what it did with Beyond 1.
We’ve already heard some impressive stats following Bigscreen’s launch for Beyond 2 orders. In 25 minutes, Beyond 2 outsold the first day of Beyond 1 sales. In the first hour, they doubled Beyond 1 launch day sales. Within 10 hours of launching orders, Beyond 2 sold more than the first four months of Beyond 1 sales.
In an X post on Friday, Bigscreen founder and CEO Darshan Shankar revealed the most impressive sales stat yet:
“In the first 24 hours, Beyond 2 has sold 10 TIMES as many Beyond 1s sold on its launch day 2 years ago. In the first 24 hours, Beyond 2 has sold as much as Beyond 1 did in its first 6 months of sales. That’s exceptional.”
Shankar says the company did this with zero ad spend, noting “[w]e didn’t pay influencers to pump our product. We didn’t pay an agency for an expensive video. No advertising.”
The company did however send a few early Beyond 2 units to reviewers, which Shankar says was “[l]ike 10 units,” which, among others, included Tested, Thrillseeker, MRTV and VR Flight Sim Guy.
While it’s packing in the same dual 1-inch 2,560 × 2,560 micro-OLED displays as the original Beyond, the biggest improvement overall is the headset’s larger field-of-view (FOV) and better clarity thanks to the inclusion of a new pancake lens design. This bumps Beyond 2 to a 116-degree diagonal FOV over the original’s 102-degree diagonal FOV, and also includes an adjustable IPD mechanism in a lighter 107g design.
Although the first batches were quoted to ship in April (Beyond 2) and May (Beyond 2e), at the time of this writing new orders of Beyond 2 and Beyond 2e are quoted to ship in June.
We’ve been waiting to hear about Samsung’s entrance into XR for a few years now, with the company’s still unnamed mixed reality headset ‘Project Moohan’ set to debut sometime this year running Google’s Android XR operating system. Now, a report from ETNews (Korean) maintains the South Korean tech giant may also have a pair of XR glasses up its sleeves.
Citing industry sources, the report alleges Samsung is developing XR glasses (noted as ‘smart glasses’ in the report—more on that below) with the goal of releasing them by the end of the year.
Samsung is reportedly now finalizing functions and specs of the device, which is said to be codenamed ‘Haen’ (‘coast’ or ‘seashore’ in Korean).
“With Apple’s Vision Pro already on the market, Samsung’s focus will be on providing a more advanced user experience,” an industry insider told ETNews.
Notably, the report doesn’t specify precisely what sort of device Haen is, which is why we’re simply calling them ‘XR glasses’ for now.
Samsung Project Moohan | Image courtesy Google
The report refers to the device as a pair of ‘smart glasses’ (machine translated from Korean), however this is sometimes used interchangeably to refer to two types of devices—AR glasses like Meta Orion, which blend digital images with the user’s physical surroundings, and smart glasses, which typically have a more simplistic heads-up display, like the now retired Google Glass. You can find out more about the differences between smart glasses and AR glasses here.
Since the report doesn’t specify Haen’s specific functions, we’ve referred to them as XR glasses for now.
While reports should generally be taken with a grain of salt, ETNews was the outlet that broke the news that LG was shaking up its XR product division, confirming that talks with Meta were going in a seemingly unplanned direction. Meta had tapped LG in February 2024 to partner on XR software and hardware, which at the time was rumored to include LG manufacturing a Vision Pro competitor for Meta. LG has since confirmed it’s closing its XR product division, instead focusing on long-term R&D.
Still, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard Samsung was getting ready to enter the XR glasses market. In 2021, Microsoft leaker ‘WalkingCat’ posted two leaked videos showing off futuristic AR concept devices from the company. Samsung has also filed a number of trademarks over the years, with its most recent ‘Galaxy Glasses’ patent filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
Then, a report from South Korea’s Yonhap News last year alleged Samsung would unveil a pair of XR glasses at the the company’s Unpacked product event in January, which unfortunately didn’t materialize. Small recompense: Samsung did show off a slide featuring XR glasses as a part of its future roadmap.
Image courtesy Samsung
The device mentioned in the Yonhap News report was said to include a payment function, gesture recognition, and facial recognition, noting that it was expected to launch around Q3 2025. Still, no mention of displays, or specific functions that would delineate it as smart glasses of AR glasses as such.
Whatever the case, Samsung seems to be gearing up to make the best use of its partnership with Google to integrate Android XR into its next big entry into the segment, Project Moohan.
Provided Samsung wants to make a splash, it could reveal the device at a number of venues: Google’s upcoming I/O conference in May, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit in October/November, or even a hypothetical special event dedicated to both Moohan and possibly its XR glasses efforts.
Five years after Half-Life: Alyx reshaped expectations for VR gaming, Valve remains a quiet yet critical force in the industry. Despite little fanfare, the company has continued to shape the VR landscape through steady updates to SteamVR, integration with standalone headsets like Quest, and whispers of new hardware and games. Now, as the fifth anniversary of Alyx passes, the question looms larger than ever: is Valve still all-in on VR, or is it slowly retreating from the frontier it helped define? Here’s what we know.
All it takes is one little global pandemic and—boom!—Half-Life: Alyx is five years old. Though it only felt like two or three years for many of us.
In fact, the pandemic nearly postponed the launch of the game altogether. Half-Life: Alyx launched in March of 2020—the same month that much of the US began issuing stay-at-home orders in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19. Many businesses were disrupted overnight; those lucky enough to have a business model that could be done remotely had to scramble to figure out how to keep the gears turning while business was anything but usual.
That included Valve Software, the developer of Half-Life: Alyx. Had lockdowns hit just a few weeks earlier, the company has said it very well could have disrupted the launch of the game. In fact, the pandemic led the company to cancel its only Half-Life: Alyx press preview event. Luckily the game still made it out the door on its scheduled March 23rd release date.
But Valve has done more than make one of the best VR games to date. The company’s ‘Index’ VR headset long stood as the premier choice for PC VR, and let’s not forget that Steam’s comprehensive VR support has made it the lifeblood of the PC VR industry in the last five years.
Despite having such an impact on the shape of the VR landscape, Valve has been very quiet about its plans for the category in the last few years. There’s been essentially zero official announcements of any major plans (like a new VR game or headset).
So then, what is Valve up to in VR—if anything? Here’s what we know.
What’s Next for Valve in VR
Image courtesy Valve
For one, we shouldn’t disregard that SteamVR has remained the singularly most important PC VR platform to date. The company has made slow but meaningful updates to SteamVR over the years. The biggest addition in recent years came at the end of 2023 when Valve unexpectedly launched the Steam Link app for Quest headsets, which made it more convenient for Quest users to play SteamVR games wirelessly from their PC.
And it sounds like Valve isn’t done with Steam Link. Recent datamining from reliable sources points to the company working to launch Steam Link on new headsets like the Vive Focus headsets from HTC and Pico headsets from Bytedance.
Further, it seems that Valve has more plans to improve wireless PC VR for standalone headsets. References found in recent Valve software point to a “SteamVR Link Dongle,” which is increasingly expected to be a USB device to create a dedicated wireless link between the user’s PC and headset.
Currently, when you use Steam Link, your headset needs to connect to your router and then your router needs to connect to your PC. If you’re playing within a room or two of the router, it’ll probably work just fine. But for people with subpar wireless setups (or those that want to crank their bandwidth to the max for the best quality), it’s not uncommon to see connection-related quality issues like stuttering or pixelation.
Assuming it works like expected, a SteamVR Link Dongle would create a direct connection between the PC and the headset. Not only would this cut out the middleman of the router, it would also mean having a wireless connection of known capability that would allow Valve to fine-tune things for the most seamless PC VR experience. Datamining suggests the dongle would use Wi-Fi 6E.
It’s unclear if the SteamVR Link Dongle would support third-party headsets like Quest, or if it’s being designed as an accessory for Valve’s long-rumored ‘Deckard’ headset.
Valve’s Next VR Headset
Based on images courtesy Valve
After the 2019 launch of Index, the first serious hints that Valve was working on a new VR headset came in the form of patents that filed in 2020. The patents envisioned several ideas from the company including a fully standalone headset and a number of ergonomic designs.
It’s been five years since those patents were first published. And despite no definitive announcement that a new headset is in the works, a drip of clues from Valve itself and datamining efforts suggest the company is still actively working on a new VR headset, even if it is happening on Valve Time.
It was just a few months ago that a 3D model of previously unseen VR controllers—believed to be designed for Valve’s next headset—showed up in recently updated SteamVR files. The controllers didn’t just provide fresh hope that Valve was still at work on a new VR headset, they also hint toward the way the headset will be positioned.
Valve’s ‘Deckard’ headset (which may be branded as ‘Index 2’) is thought to be a standalone headset that primarily streams content from a host PC running SteamVR. This is essentially the same thing that anyone using a Quest headset and Steam Link uses today.
But the layout of the leaked Deckard controllers—which has a traditional layout with a D-pad on the left side and four face-buttons on the right side—suggests that Valve could position the headset for both VR games and playing flatscreen VR content on a huge virtual screen.
After all, SteamVR already supports playing flatscreen games on a big virtual screen. But because almost all VR controllers today don’t quite mirror standard gamepads, input compatibility isn’t guaranteed. Which means if you want to go from playing a VR game to a flatscreen game on a virtual screen, you may need to set down your VR controllers and pick up a gamepad.
If the Deckard controllers stick with the traditional gamepad layout, it could be much easier for players to move between VR games and flatscreen games and back again.
While we can’t independently verify that claim, there’s at least some evidence that it might not be a total farce.
Brad Lynch, a dataminer who has established himself over the years as a reliable source of Valve-related info, uncovered newly added references to “Deckard EV2” in the latest release of SteamVR just last week.
EV2 likely refers to a second “Engineering Validation” device, which suggests the headset is getting closer to production. There could surely be an EV3 or EV4 to come, but according to Lynch, Valve’s Steam Deck OLED handheld reached EV2 before heading to production. Further, he says “I’m very confident [Valve’s next headset] will be revealed this year.”
Valve’s Next VR Game
Image courtesy Valve
Half-Life: Alyx launched back in early 2020 to near universal acclaim. Five years later it remains one of the largest and most polished VR games ever made. Even so, it’s unclear if the company was happy with the sales performance of the game compared to the time and resources required to make it.
Whether or not Valve will commit to making another VR game of that scale is still an open question. But here’s what we know.
Last month, the same Valve leaker that claimed the Deckard headset would launch in 2025 also claimed the company is nearly set to ship games or demos “that are already done,” specifically for Deckard.
This aligns with details from Tyler McVicker, a long-time Valve dataminer who previously unearthed significant details about Half-Life: Alyx in the years leading up to the game’s launch.
McVicker believes the game will be an asymmetric co-op game where one half of the game is built for a flatscreen player on PC and the other half for a VR player.
“The computer player would always be Gordon Freeman, while the VR player would be Alyx Vance. The idea was that these two characters would interact, with the VR player experiencing Alyx’s story and the PC player experiencing Gordon’s story, both having cooperative elements between them,” he said.
Perhaps Valve envisions this game as a cohesive experience to unite its two latest hardware projects: Steam Deck and Deckard?
For Valve’s part, the company isn’t ready to confirm or deny its work on a new headset or VR game. We reached out to the company to ask if it had anything to share about its future VR plans at the five year anniversary of Half-Life: Alyx.
“We don’t have anything new to share right now but […] we’ve really enjoyed seeing all the cool experiences that folks have created and uploaded to the Half-Life: Alyx Workshop,” a spokesperson told Road to VR.
Valve is Unlike Almost Any Other Company
Valve head Gabe Newell wears an unidentified prototype headset | Image courtesy Valve
There’s something worth understanding about Valve that puts everything above into context. The company has a novel ‘flat’ management structure that’s not shared by any peer in the same weight class as Valve. Compared to most companies, Valve gives its employees significantly more freedom to decide what the company builds and releases.
As described by the Valve Employee Handbook, it’s largely up to employees at the company to choose what projects to take on, and to inspire others to join them. If an employee wants to work on something but can’t inspire others to help build it, that project probably won’t go anywhere.
But when a project does get traction, the group building it is generally comprised of people who genuinely believe in what they’re building. Aside from having the coffers to pay for world-class talent, this is a major reason why Valve punches far above its weight class despite having a relatively small workforce compared to industry peers.
Valve may not be releasing new headsets or VR games every year, but the steady improvements to SteamVR—and the occasional hints of something brewing behind the scenes—suggest there’s still a group within the company that genuinely believes VR is worth building.
