It has been nearly 4 years since the first commercially available VR (Virtual Reality) headsets such as the HTC Vive, the Oculus Rift and the PlayStation VR were released. Despite all of this time, it still feels like VR gaming is niche and has yet to break into the mainstream. 2020 is poised to be an important year for VR and I felt like having a discussion of why I’m excited about VR while, at the same time, pointing to some of the problems that must be sorted out.
Let’s begin by explaining what VR gaming is. Pretty much all VR headsets feature a screen for each eye and the goal is to make you feel immersed in the world of the game. Beyond that, the headsets differ in how they track the movement of your body, whether they use a console, PC or other device and what controllers they use.
2016 felt like we were on the verge of a gaming revolution. The first VR headsets became commercially available and we began to see YouTubers and streamers showing off VR games. Many of these games felt more like tech demos than proper games but, even so, we saw many interesting titles such as Job Simulator, Space Pirate Trainer, Superhot VR and more.
My only personal experience with VR occurred when I was at a con in Dublin. In the gaming area, there was a man with an Oculus Rift who was letting people wear it. I got the opportunity to wear the headset and and experience a “game” called Don’t Let Go! If you wish to see what I experienced, here is a link to a video. Don’t Let Go! was nothing more than a simplistic tech demo but, even so, experiencing VR in the flesh felt so different from watching it on a screen.
I can remember talking to people about VR and saying how it needed a killer app to move more headsets and to create a healthy enough ecosystem for developers to create larger, more grandiose games. While many interesting games have been released for VR since then, none of them, not even the highly successful Beat Saber, have felt strong enough to drive demand for the platform and overcome the high price of entry.
That may change with the announcement of Half-Life: Alyx, a VR only prequel to Half-Life 2. The announcement caused a surge in the sales of the Valve Index as well as other PC VR headsets. I remain sceptical that a single 20 hour game will be enough to justify the spending of hundreds of dollars, euro, etc on a headset but there can be no doubt that Half-Life: Alyx is the closest we have yet seen to a killer app for VR.
As for myself, I am fully expecting to eventually possess a VR headset. Looking at my VR games on Steam, I can see a mix of games that feature VR support but are perfectly capable of running on a normal monitor such as Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Subnautica and the Sega Mega Drive Classics Collection (an interesting choice for VR). At the same time, I have picked up Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin when it was 80% off even though it requires a VR headset and I recently picked up a Humble Bundle of VR games.
While I have seen a lot of pessimism around the future of VR gaming, I remain cautiously optimistic. It’ll be interesting to see if VR as a whole gains traction throughout this year. I would love to hear of your VR experiences, whether you own a headset or not and what you think of VR overall.
Thanks for reading and if you wish to seek any of the titles I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs! Also feel free to follow my curator page on Steam “JRPG Reviews” for thoughts and opinions on any JRPGs that I play and my YouTube channel “Victory Achieved Gaming” where I guide my friend through challenging games.
I never tried a VR though I had the chance, just had to wait in the line for quite a bit… Actually, there’s a VR place that it’s gonna open soon here in my city so I might just drop by someday. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna get motion sick, or whatever is called, and that kind of puts me off a bit. Sometimes I get that with a few games, so I can only imagine playing VR.
For now, the market still has to blow up but to be honest, I don’t think it will anytime soon. Overall, these machines are still too expensive and even though PS VR sold quite well so far, and they are happy with it, t could be way better. Its like you say, we need a killer app and Half-Life: Alyx could be it. If they put that through PS VR in the future, then something might change in the VR game. However, one game is not enough to make this go wild with the mainstream audience, we need more.
There are rumours that PS VR 2 will not ship with the PS5, due to high cost. There are some people who would buy but not everyone cant afford a £400 console or more, plus a VR that might go again for the £300 or more. There’s no way Sony would do this but we’ll see in the upcoming weeks. PS5 reveal should happen anytime now so let’s just wait. I digress. xD
Anyway, I prefer to play games with a controller and I don’t see that change. 🙂
To be fair, all I did in that demo was sit at a table so I didn’t get the chance to see if I might get motion sick. Let me know how it goes when you try that VR place.
Yeah, the cost is definitely off-putting and it feels like now would be the time that some companies should be releasing cheap VR headsets to help drive VR adoption.
It will be interesting to see what Sony decided to do with VR next generation. Considering that they are the market leader when it comes to the number of headsets sold, it would be quite a blow to VR if they decide to not do anything with the PS5.
I don’t think VR should ever replace traditional gaming. There are many genres that I cannot imagine working well with VR. All I can hope is that the 2 might work side by side to make better games.
Yeah even though PS VR sold quite well, maybe the situation right now is not as good as they thought it would be. The “VR explosion” still has to happen and a cheap version it the only way to trigger that. I don’t plan to buy a VR ever and the actual prices also doesn’t help. Its just not worth it with the content that is available. If it doesn’t blow up in the next 2 to 3 years, then I think that’s it. The power is there to make good games but if there isn’t a market for it, what’s the point? We’ll see. 🙂