VR Had A Great Year, But It Feels Like A Swansong

VR Had A Great Year, But It Feels Like A Swansong https://ift.tt/H6Iq8Pj

It's been hard to keep up with VR games in 2024, and that's a good thing. The Batman Arkham series got a great new entry, Batman: Arkham Shadow, exclusively on Meta Quest 3. Metro Awakening introduced itself as a VR rendition that acts as a prequel to the Metro series, while Skydance's Behemoth is betting on dark fantasy, building upon the ideas of the underrated The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners games. The psychedelic Thumper got a spiritual successor with Thrasher, and there's even been a quality remake of an old VR game, Arizona Sunshine, after a sequel in 2023.

From the outside, VR seems to be going through a pivotal period. If you look at 2023, the space was already gearing up for this momentum with Asgard's Wrath 2, Assassin's Creed Nexus, and the VR version of the Resident Evil 4 remake releasing in the latter half of the year. But these are all big bets considering that the space remains a niche market; motion sickness continues to be one of multiple issues. Though some games have been better at offering more accessibility options, the platform is far from suitable for disabled players.

While game releases have been a highlight, the same can't be said for the companies behind them and the headsets themselves. Sony reportedly paused production for the PSVR 2 in March to clear a surplus backlog of units, and PlayStation London Studio (which was behind the likes of Blood & Truth and PlayStation VR Worlds) was shut down in May. Meanwhile, Meta laid off workers within the Reality Labs division; shut down multiple games since last year, as well as the studio behind Echo VR, which the company acquired four years ago; canceled plans for an Apple Vision Pro competitor; closed down the augmented reality studio Spark; and put the VR version of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on hold indefinitely.

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