The best VR games available right now, interweaving levels around the player and using scale to disassemble and meet your expectations, is quite different from any of the best VR games you've played before. The franchise may be over thirty years old, but age doesn't stop the Elite franchise from being home to one of the best VR games to date, thanks to creator David Braben's fight to re-acquire the license. This comedy game is from the Squanch Games team, which was founded by Justin Roiland (the co-creator of Rick %26 Morty). Because of that fact, this game looks like a space adventure Rick %26 Morty, but with different characters, which we think makes it one of the best virtual reality games.
While it may not be the most mind-blowing offer on this list, Walkabout Mini Golf doesn't deserve its place here any less: it's without a doubt one of the best VR games we've ever played and you should try it out. To find the best virtual reality games, your choice will depend mainly on your preferences. Only you know if you find shooting games or space exploration games or mystery puzzle games fun to you. But there are other factors to consider as well.
Playable on Steam, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, PSVR. If you like music and movement, Beat Saber is worth exploring. However, keep in mind that Beat Saber isn't a game you can play while sitting down; it's a very active experience. Get ready to cut blocks of music with energy, while playing to the beat.
Blade and Sorcery combines great physics with intuitive action to give each of your punches, weight and feedback without making you feel too restrictive or realistic. Add to that a telekinetic ability to summon weapons, throw debris with cannon force, or shoot lightning with your hands, and you have an exciting, hilarious, and absolutely satisfying combat simulator to enjoy in VR. The game has extensive mod support that keeps things fresh. Elite Dangerous has a deep ocean level, offering what is essentially a spaceship simulator, with all the challenges and nuances that flying a complex ship entails.
This makes it perfect for simulator fans who want to dive and cross the coast in the dark ocean of space. Everybody's Golf has a surprising amount of control and finesse, despite its eccentric golf locations and quirky caddies. Formerly known as Hot Shots Golf, Everybody's Golf VR is the series' first entry into the virtual reality space, and it's doing great. With it, you play on several courses together with a virtual caddy, or practice your skills on the putting green or on the driving range.
The game is compatible with the PlayStation Move controller for more dynamic golf action. You play as the titular Ghost Giant and help a young cat named Louis by solving puzzles, lifting objects and manipulating the game world. You can also interact with the other villagers in the fictional town of Sancourt or explore the game's settings, shaped like a diorama. Ghost Giant's cartoonish aesthetics and endearing character design are sure to win over players of all ages.
You play as an AI entity named Jack who is tasked with helping your captain unravel a dangerous mystery. Lone Echo is set on a space station that orbits the rings of Saturn and features photorealistic images, free-form movement and perfectly tuned virtual reality controls. It also has interactive dialogue options to shape the narrative. If you combine Beat Saber and Superhot, you would get something similar to Pistol Whip.
This musical combat experience doesn't require you to combine a certain rhythm with your shots, but rather it gives you the freedom to take down enemies however you see fit. Get ready for frantic action with an energetic soundtrack and bold, colorful graphics. Zenith is the new kid on the block and, right now, people are really excited about it. And it's easy to see why; it's easily the best bet on a VR MMO to date, with an extensive level system, a huge world to explore, and lots of great social interactions.
Plus, the game's sword fighting and cooking elements combine with the strengths of VR in ways you wouldn't expect. So why not more? Well, in a nutshell, Zenith isn't finished. In fact, it's literally labeled early access on PC. There is an ocean of bugs to fix, not to mention there are many more to add in terms of classes, missions, systems and locations.
This is just the beginning of the road for Zenith, but it's definitely off to a good start and, for fans of the genre, one of the best VR games out there. PCGamesN has you and your eyes covered with our picks of the best VR games, including Thumper and Superhot VR What are the best VR games? Or, to get better, what are the best games on Oculus Rift, Valve Index, and HTC Vive? There are already plenty of VR experiences out there, and with headsets shipping to customers faster than ever, there's a lot more to come. The combat is truly grim, with weapons that get stuck in walkers, requiring you to start them, shake them and push them to get them out or through your enemies. There is a vague narrative built around helping the various actions of post-apocalyptic New Orleans, which keeps you taking to the city streets infested with the undead in search of new supplies.
But hand-to-hand combat is the real draw here, as it allows you to create your own melee auctions and leads you to a lot of ad hoc brutality. Instead of playing games and touching the keyboard and mouse, you lean over, shoot the thugs and physically recharge your classic Remington with HTC Vive controllers, and it feels invigorating. Connecting tenaciously in each case feels better in virtual reality. The heat of battle is much more intense, especially when you punch yourself in the face.
Rez Infinite is a double-stick musical shooter in which you face waves of enemies in the Tron style as you travel through the subsystems of a corrupt and far-future AI. The game is played in the third person and your character can “evolve” through several stages, each with its own peculiarities. It's a trance-inducing wonder of a game that was originally released for Dreamcast in 2001, but has since undergone iterative changes through several re-releases on its way to PC. You can fix up to eight enemies at once with your gun, releasing the trigger finger to launch a burst of gunfire, or spam the fire button for quick and unique shots, and each action contributes to the game's soundtrack full of bass.
Some enemies drop objects that allow you to evolve, while others grant a smart bomb that cleans the screen. At the end of each stage, a spectacular boss awaits you. While the entire game can be played in desktop mode, current technology transforms Rez Infinite into one of the best VR games available. The original game featured five areas, all of which are even better with headphones.
But a sixth area, called Area X, is the reinvention of the concept of VR by creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi. The result is an extraordinary journey through a thematic mix of underwater imagery and futuristic mechs, all filled with iridescent particle effects that glow around you as you traverse the clouds of debris left by recently downed enemies. Virtual reality is the perfect platform for this concept. Successfully defusing a bomb within the time limit, navigating the numerous modules full of colored wires, logic puzzles and Simon Says games is extremely satisfying when playing with friends.
If you can stifle the urge to high-five your deactivation partner after a successful round, you're unable to rejoice. Have you ever imagined yourself as a kind secret agent? I Expect You To Die is a virtual reality puzzle game in which you find yourself in dangerous situations. Maybe the car you're in is a booby trap. Maybe the submarine had a leak.
If you're lucky, you can even take an all-expenses-paid trip around India on a luxury train. If you're not lucky, a tank may appear outside your window and shoot in your cockpit. The sequel, I Expect You To Die 2, offers even more elaborate scenarios to get out of the puzzle, enhancing the original with even more immersive and hilarious missions. Even if it takes you several attempts to escape the danger you're in, you'll feel like 007 when you do.
First, gather three friends who, together with you, assume the role of Federation officers and determine the fate of your ship and crew with each fateful decision: it's a game that thrives in a crisis. You and your intrepid space band will boldly go to the unknown sector called The Trench to assess its potential as a new Vulcan homeworld. No matter how varied or complex the action is, your position is always at a fixed point, and that helps eliminate any potential for motion sickness. You can roll, throw and shake unfortunately (the latter happens often, we find) during extended gaming sessions at the mercy of Frontier's Newtonian flight model without the dizziness that occurs.
That's absolutely crucial to maintaining Elite Dangerous's appeal as a long-form game. The Cambridge studio has been one of the most progressive when it comes to VR compatibility, counting on every second you spend in the cockpit. Assetto Corsa is not only an exquisite racing game, but it is also one of the best virtual reality games on PC, thanks to the solid base physics model, attractive graphics, and fan-requested features. The latter naturally means that it is possible to play Assetto Corsa in VR.
It supports Oculus Rift natively, so there's no need to stalk the darkest corners of the Internet in search of a mod or middleware program. Conceptually, driving a sports car is one of the few classic video games that are crying out for adaptation to virtual reality. Third-person shooters need a serious rethinking to function as VR games, but games like Assetto Corsa thrive with a fixed camera point and the ability to look into mirrors, vertices, or opponents. It's also made with lasers, apparently.
If you want to take the idea of being somewhere else to the extreme, No Limits 2 is for you. The roller coaster simulation game from creator Ole Lange is a testament to the psychosomatic powers that only the best VR games can provide; your legs feel weak when you hurl through impossibly steep falls as if they were subjected to physical forces. The same goes for your bad stomach as you work your way through the corkscrews: as far as your body is concerned, you're on that roller coaster ride. And yet, No Limits 2 isn't the stomach-emptying motion sickness jamboree that could have been.
The fixed-point camera helps, and it's clear that developing the game specifically for VR minimized the chance of vomiting. A remarkable feat given the subject. With a reasonably advanced design tool and more types of roller coasters than you thought existed, No Limits 2 is the only game you need to visit if you want to experience a simulated theme park. Beat Saber is basically a Star Wars game with a liberal dose of Guitar Hero.
It's a rhythmic virtual reality game in which you wield two lightsabers to cut the bright cubes that approach and fly towards you to the rhythm of their elegant music. Each cube also has a direction arrow symbol that indicates in which direction to cut, adding that extra level of challenge. The color and light of Beat Saber give the game a futuristic feel. Each hit emits satisfying sparks on impact, and your colorful targets glow gloriously in the surrounding darkness.
Each cube matches the beat perfectly, so you'll want to pair your VR headset with a large pair of headphones to enjoy Beat Saber's powerful electronic soundtrack. When the creators of Genital Jousting and Broforce create a VR title, you can probably assume that it's going to be an exceptionally silly fighting game. Gorn is a violent first-person combat game in which you play as a muscular warrior and your only goal is to take your eyes off other muscular warriors. You can grab weapons, stop attacks, and keep an enemy still while hitting them in a crimson pulp.
The controls are fairly easy to understand intuitively, but Gorn's movement mechanics will take a while to get used to. Instead of teleporting or using the joystick to move, you swing your arms as if you were walking. The result is bloody combat with levels of clumsiness in bar fights as you and your enemies stagger from side to side desperately trying to throw punches. Gorn is pure silly fun and worth stumbling upon.
The immersive power of VR is its main selling point and you might think it's a difficult task for a magical storybook experience about a little mouse named Quill, but Moss handles it with aplomb. In Moss, you play a character called the reader. Your goal is to help Quill as he tries to overcome every obstacle and, in general, to be his guiding force as he navigates a dangerous fantasy world. However, Quill isn't just a creature to control, she knows you're helping her and she's always willing to thank you for your hard work, helping to form a bond between you that will last well beyond the four hours it takes to complete this enchanting VR adventure game.
Of course, it's not just about the movement. Lone Echo is a narrative adventure in which you play as Jack, a service android aboard a mining station above Saturn. You work together with the only human left, Olivia, to keep things going. Naturally, things go wrong, leaving us in charge of repairing countless mechanical flaws in a convincingly lightweight VR space game.
Lone Echo is a good story wrapped in a great control system, and it wouldn't be possible in anything other than virtual reality. Games and masochism go hand in hand, just look at games like Dark Souls, few genres show it more prominently than roguelike. In Death is a virtual reality roguelike whose sole objective is to kill you every time you play. This VR FPS game also has an incredibly active community that is dedicated to creating new content with Pavlov VR's extensive modification tools.
This is a game that is continuously evolving and becoming more interesting as time goes by. Those who fancy sneaking around a bit more with their first-person shooter action may want to strap on their headphones for budget cuts. The idea is that you are the only human employee trying to sneak in or shoot your way through robots with revolvers. If there's one thing that differentiates Tetris Effect from the many other Tetris games, it's the music and the great particle effects.
And if there's one thing that differentiates Tetris Effect VR from its standard counterpart, it's the sense of performance that comes with it. Each level of Tetris Effect is based on a different track, with the pace represented by how quickly the blocks fall. As the track progresses, you have to react to the change in tempo, changing how quickly you place each tetromino to keep up with the music. However, it's not just about keeping the rhythm, since the rhythm reacts to every movement and placement of the tetromino, incorporating new elements into the soundscape.
As this unfolds, you'll enjoy a light show that forms the backdrop of the Tetris whiteboard. From slow-paced pop framed by blue bursts of particles that form the outline of a dolphin, to a jazz track set against the backdrop of a city at night, with beams of light that flow across the board like a constant stream of traffic. The visual effects are impressive, and playing Tetris Effect in VR allows you to fully immerse yourself in them, as they completely surround you. Half-Life Alyx's “No VR” Mod Now Looks Like Half-Life 2 Meets Amnesia.
This DIY gaming PC case stows in a backpack and is ready for virtual reality. Beat Saber is the virtual reality game with a rhythm that has practically become the protagonist of virtual reality. With a saber in each hand, players literally trim the rhythms of several songs while avoiding obstacles in their path. The collection of songs is vast, ranging from pure rap, hip-hop to adrenaline-pumping EDM tracks.
The rhythms are block-shaped and color-coded, so you'll have to be careful which saber you use. It's not without its flaws: we're talking about a still-buggy review of a game from two years ago that was never designed for VR. Fortunately, affordable and powerful vr headsets entered the market, so developers are now creating first-hand games and improved ports that take full advantage of the single medium. But climbing the side of a mountain is still a fun and relaxing way to spend time in a virtual paradise.
VR games tend to be quite short, but this isn't the case with Skyrim, which is essentially as long as you want depending on how you customize your character and play. Even juggling in front of your teammates is fun, but the teleportation-filled paintball game is the real main course. Created by Lucasfilm, Vader Immortal is a virtual reality game full of combat with sabers while dodging various obstacles in your path. Because of this, Lost Recipes is an excellent entry point into the world of virtual reality games, but it still manages to entertain experienced users with its meditative game and historical curiosities.
The most obvious thing is to find out if the game you're watching works with your VR system. This VR adaptation captures the physical table of the board game, feels remarkably good, and even pops avatars around the table in the online game. But being able to fully immerse myself in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of Bethesda with a virtual Pip-Boy tied to my wrist is an absolute joy. Lone Echo and its sequel Lone Echo 2 are Oculus Rift games specifically designed to be played on the PC through the Oculus Rift headset.
This game was one of the first VR titles to achieve notoriety, and today it's even better thanks to an impressive library of DLC tracks that expand the selection of songs. If you're looking for a VR game that you'll revisit again and again, look no further than Until You Fall. . .
