This news was first brought to our attention via a BlueSky post from Kyle Hilliard, the husband of one of the affected employees, Ashley Godbold.

Schell Games formally announced the layoffs with the following statement on LinkedIn:

We’re very sad to say that due to this challenging time in the game industry, Schell Games has found it necessary to lay off a significant number of employees in order to ensure a sustainable future for our studio. While this will enable us to stay stable moving forward, it is incredibly painful as we are losing some fantastic talent.

This is Schell's second round of layoffs this year. The first was in August, with an employee commenting at the time that the cuts were due to the industry 'hemorrhaging,' echoing the sentiments of Mighty Coconut founder Lucas Martell when announcing his company's second round of layoffs in 2026.

Among Us 3D Developer Schell Games Confirms Layoffs

Among Us 3D & I Expect You To Die developer Schell Games has laid off employees for the first time in its history.

UploadVRMike Johnson

2026 has seen a number of tenured VR teams either affected by layoffs or closing down entirely. Mighty Coconut, Kluge Interactive, Survios, Camouflaj, Schell, and Combat Waffle have all gone through layoffs while Sanzaru Games, Twisted Pixel, Armature, Polyarc Games, Vertigo Games Amsterdam (formerly Force Field Entertainment), and two internal studios within nDreams have all shut down.

Schell Games is currently developing Dragon Grove, a cozy 3D puzzler announced at Meta Connect expected to launch in spring 2027 for Meta VR Glasses and Quest 3. Its past projects include the I Expect You To Die series, Among Us 3D, Silent Slayer: Vault of the Vampire and Project Freefall.

Developer Othergate could have stopped at September's Tomb Extraction update and called that this year's spooky season content drop as the new realm type definitely fit the spirit of the season, but instead the team refused to rest on its laurels and dropped a proper Halloween update.

Here's a rundown of the highlights:

• The Stormgrave realm returns, this time for good. By popular demand, the rain and lightning-riddled realm is available permanently. With it comes a new chamber style, Deadwood Forest, filled with huge dead trees casting shadows over tombs and graveyards.
• The lobby and main menu get a Deadwood Forest-themed makeover.
• New monsters: the vampire is a miniboss in the Stormgrave realm, mummies replace the zombies in Sandstorm, and pumpkin head skeletons will run you down and explode into cluster bombs.
• The Keep chambers have several new variants added.
• A new Halloween Cosmetics Bundle DLC includes appropriately themed headpieces, accent colors, and wing cosmetics. It is priced at $6.99.

• Celebrating Dungeons of Eternity's third birthday, every player will receive a one, two, or three year trophy in their room depending on how long they have been playing.
• A new potion chest has been added to better organize your inventory between dungeon runs.
• Weapons can now be traded with other players in the vendor area of the outpost.
• If you fall into a pit, you now have to be pulled back up by a teammate. If they feel nice enough to do so.
• A teleporter has been added to the Outpost to move you from the Vendor area to the Crypt and back.

Dungeons of Eternity is available on Steam and Quest.

Triangle Factory has announced that its popular Battlefield-like 32-player FPS, Forefront, is coming to PlayStation VR2 on November 5.

The release comes with cross play between PC VR, Quest, and Sony users. The PS VR2 release naturally makes use of the great tech found in Sony's headset, including adaptive triggers and headset haptics, and Forefront runs at 90Hz on both PS5 and PS5 Pro.

The news of Forefront's PS VR2 port comes just after Triangle Factory released one of Forefront's biggest updates ever, which introduced a "Battle Pass" style progression system for unlocking weapons and cosmetics. The update, called "Operation: Sandstorm" also introduces a melee weapon, a new gun, a new game mode, and much more.

The full update details can be seen here:

Forefront Update Adds New Game Mode, Melee Weapon, "Battle Pass" & More

Forefront's latest update, called Operation: Sandstorm, adds a new game mode, melee weapon, progression-tied unlockables, and much more.

UploadVRJames Tocchio

Forefront is available today on Quest, Steam, and Pico, and it's coming to PlayStation VR2 on November 5.

The first game retails for $14.99 and the second is priced at $19.99. At the time of this article, we do not know if there is an 'upgrade' path for owners of the original games as we saw with 2024's Arizona Sunshine Remake. That said, developer Bit Planet Games has also released a bundle for $24.99, $10 cheaper than purchasing both new titles separately.

Ultrawings Remastered - Remaking A True OG

The first Ultrawings was released in 2017 for Oculus Rift, Steam, and PlayStation VR as one of the first open-world VR flight games to utilize the virtual stick, throttle, and cockpit controls as opposed to confining controls to the analog sticks and button presses. It was a launch title for the Oculus Go in 2018 and the original Oculus Quest in May 2019 with crossbuy for those who already owned the Oculus Rift version, meaning if you owned one, you got the other for free.

Remastered is, per Bit Planet, the original PC version of the game with some additional enhancements. All four planes and over two hundred missions return from the original with the Quest 3 enhancements bringing a new ocean, a wider variety of skies to fly through, better haptics, new music and upgrades to lighting and shadows.

Ultrawings 2 Gold Edition

Ultrawings 2 launched first for Quest 2 in February 2022 and jumped to PC VR on Steam eight months later in October. PlayStation VR2 followed in January 2024 with support for that system's adaptive triggers and headset haptics at a native 90Hz refresh rate. The sequel introduced new aircraft and competitive gameplay with aerial dogfights for up to eight players and ring races much to the delight of returning players looking for more action after the first game's more relaxed atmosphere.

We loved Ultrawings 2 when we reviewed it at release, calling it "the exact kind of VR sequel we’ve been hoping for, building upon the original’s modest beginnings with a massive increase in scope and variety whilst retaining its air-tight controls and level design."

The Gold Edition brings back the six aircraft from the original with a new dynamic weather system ranging from clear blue skies to lightning storms and a new full day cycle as you fly. The controller haptics have also been overhauled to take full advantage of Quest 3's TruTouch haptics system.

Both games being rebuilt for Quest 3 headsets also means a higher native render resolution and presumably better draw distance, which is important for a flying game with a visible horizon. Few things can break immersion in games like this worse than seeing islands and such pop in as you approach them.

Ultrawings Remastered and Ultrawings 2 Gold Edition are available now for Quest 3 separately or at a discount in a bundle.

Real VR Fishing Great Lakes & Oceans is the latest paid DLC for the popular VR fishing game. It introduces ten new fishing spots, including six locations on the Great Lakes of the US-Canada border, 30 new fish species including five freshwater monsters and three new sharks, new cosmetic items, and a new set of achievements and trophies.

Beyond the new locations, gear, and fish, the headline item in this DLC is the freshwater monster species. Up until this DLC release, the toughest battles in Real VR Fishing have all come when we hook a shark, and this has exclusively occurred only in saltwater (naturally). Now, freshwater monsters can bring that same battle to the game's lakes and rivers.

The way it happens is also pretty interesting. To catch a freshwater monster, you'll have to hook a regular fish and begin reeling it in. At times, randomly, and mid-fight with the smaller fish, a giant monstrous fish with shark-class power and difficulty will rise from the depths and steal your catch. From there, you've hooked a monster and the battle is on.

There are five freshwater monsters in this DLC, and each has a separate encyclopedia entry, its own trophy, and landing your first one unlocks a unique rod and reel set.

Real VR Fishing Great Lakes & Oceans DLC will be available on Meta Quest on November 10, and on SteamVR on November 11. The paid DLC costs $12.99, and the base game is priced at $19.99.

Here's the trailer:

Vaelorys features co-op multiplayer 'Diablo-style' dungeon crawling for up to eight players, an arena mode where you combat hordes of enemies, over thirty unlockable gesture-based spells, a progression system with multiple classes and builds, and owing to the Diablo roots, lots of loot to be found during runs.

Developer Spellbound Studio is still conducting playtests and seeking feedback to shape future updates with features players would like to see added. A low launch cost of $4.99 was likely priced to entice players to take a chance on the game.

Fans of the Diablo series have not had a lot of choices for VR, with the best available options being Dungeons of Eternity and Legendary Tales. A Township Tale developer Alta cancelled its co-op dungeon crawler Reave earlier this year.

Vaelorys is available now for Quest.

The Elusive Target missions are a series of free limited-time missions featuring well known actors and entertainers. Previous Elusive Targets this year featured hip hop stars Wiz Khalifa and Snoop Dogg and actress Milla Jovovich.

Here's the trailer for The Host:

Jacksepticeye, real name Seán McLoughlin, is an Irish YouTuber with over 31M subscribers and 17B total views. In The Host, he plays Finn Colton, known online as Finnvictus, a controversial, yet popular content creator and former child star suspected of murdering a fellow content creator who has gone missing. A relative of the missing person is the client who hires Agent 47.

As depicted in the trailer, you go undercover as Agent 47 portraying a reclusive millionaire named Tobias Rieper who appears on Colton's Finn and Friends podcast. To play this special mission, you need to have previously unlocked the Hawke's Bay location.

Jacksepticeye had this to say of his role:

I’ve been playing HITMAN with my community for years, so getting to actually step into the World of Assassination is unreal. Finn is loud, paranoid, and completely obsessed with content, and playing him was an absolute blast. I can’t wait to see all the creative ways you take him down, so make sure you’re recording it!

The mission kicks off a new season of content, including five challenges, the returns of previous Elusive Target missions, a Twitch Drops campaign, and a paid themed DLC for The Host with new cosmetics and permanent access to The Host among other things.

Hitman: World of Assassination is available in VR on Steam and PlayStation VR2. The Host is a free add-on to the game available from October 29 until November 25. It is also included in the free demo for the game.

Forefront has just launched a new update known as Operation: Sandstorm which adds a new game mode, a combat knife (the game's first melee weapon), a new rifle, and a new progression system called "Operations" that's essentially a "battle pass" in all but name.

Operations offers players an opportunity to unlock free rewards, through gathering points from daily and weekly challenges. Operations also offers premium rewards, such as character and vehicle skins, weapon patterns, and more, if players choose to purchase the premium version of the Operation.

In addition, the update adds a new game mode called "Breakthrough" which is a mix between Conquest and Rush. The objective is for attackers to push and capture all points in a sector until they overwhelm the enemy and conquer the map, while defenders try to maintain control of their sectors.

The full list of changes is included here, pasted from the game's Steam update page. Enjoy!

Changelog | 7.0.171

Featured

• Added **Operation: Sandstorm!** Operations allow players to unlock new weapons, vehicle and character skins, player cards, charms, emblems, weapon patterns, and more!
• Added new gun, the **FMS** (Unlockable through Operation: Sandstorm)
• Added a **Knife** melee weapon (Unlockable through Operation: Sandstorm
• Added bHaptics support | Supported devices include TactSuit vests, TactSleeve, and the TactVisor.
• Added new gamemode: Breakthrough | Available on Tunnels, Siberia, Mauritania, and Fjord.
• Added Character skins and Vehicle skins (Unlockable through Operation: Sandstorm)

General

• Added daily and weekly challenges through which players earn XP, or points to spend on free or premium operation rewards
• Added more server performance improvements
• Added more network bandwidth improvements
• Added movement speed increase when only holding knife
• Added knife kills awarding extra score and making the victim “executed” (which blocks revives)
• Added giving a player ammo when killing someone with the knife
• Improved foveated rendering on Steam Frame
• Improved voice chat systems and its error handling
• Fixed an issue that resulted in players letting go of grabbed equipment at random times or even the equipment swapping hands
• Fixed an issue where player loadout wouldn’t save between matches due to changes including a new unlock
• Fixed claymores and anti-tank mine kills counting as air kills while parachuting
• Fixed voice restricted players not being able to hear others
• Fixed respawned character keeping the previous corpse ragdoll active
• Fixed getting softlocked during onboarding when closing the game while choosing username
• Fixed the whole party getting kicked from the game when the leader is getting errors
• Fixed controller rebinding being broken
• Updated whiteboard

Weapons & Attachments

• Added separate movement slow stats while firing for each weapon category (for example, SMGs will have less of a slowing effect than LMGs)
• Added gun mastery for the FMS (won’t affect the T5 and T6 unlocks for the base game guns)
• Added remembering the laser enabled state upon respawn
• Fixed the jitter on the Qilin reload animation
• Fixed players getting teleported when colliding with friendly vehicles
• Fixed LMGs Fire Rate Discrepancy Compared to ARs

Gadgets & Perks

• Fixed spotting inconsistencies with the drone
• Fixed an issue where knobs on Spawn Beacon couldn’t be turned 360 degrees
• Fixed detonating an enemy's C4 only giving the player an assist and not a kill
• Fixed C4 on a vehicle acting as a shield against tank or RPG shots
• Fixed Stim inconsistencies while inside transport helicopter
• Fixed stim gun reload mispredictions

Vehicles

• Fixed the crash sound for fighter jets not playing sometimes
• Fixed player being able to shoot through Little Bird body to hit the pilot from below
• Fixed unoccupied vehicles stuttering while they are still moving

Maps

• Fixed characters getting stuck on top of pillars on Karst
• Fixed various gaps and holes on Fjord
• Fixed players getting stuck on the water plane under the map on Oasis
• Fixed various places where players falling through the floor on a variety of maps
• Fixed idle vehicle damage on Paradise

UI

• Added sorting by unlock requirement for the My Soldier view
• Added melee weapon slot to the loadout menu
• Added vehicle and character skin selection to the loadout menu
• Fixed name tag above ragdoll not always showing when standing nearby
• Fixed fighter jet icon flying backward on the respawn map

Forefront is available now on Quest, Steam, and Pico. It's coming to PlayStation VR2 on November 5.

Exoshock, the 1-4 player co-op sci-fi PvE shooter built for VR is out now on Meta Quest 3 and 3S and PC VR via Steam. The game is also playable on flat screen PC and cross-play is active across all platforms.

A trailer has been shared to announce the game's EA release, included here:

Developed by PolarityOne, Exoshock is a 1-4 player cooperative sci-fi PvE shooter with a gritty dystopian setting. The FPS promises intense firefights as you enter active war zones, prioritizing squad tactics as you adapt and fight using customizable loadouts.

Exoshock has been previously playable by purchasing the "Founder's Edition," a pre-Early Access build which we went hands-on with back in April. At that time, our writer wrote, "Exoshock is shaping up to be one of the most exciting shooters VR has seen in a long time."

Exoshock - Hands On With The Founders Edition

Exoshock is a visceral, first person shooter that can now be accessed via the Founders Edition before it launches in Early Access.

UploadVRPete Austin

Exoshock is out now in Early Access on PC VR and Meta Quest 3 at a price of $19.99.

Adding to the growing list of VR games with spooky season updates, both games have limited-time updates for you to dive into.

Ghosts of Tabor

The popular extraction shooter has released a Halloween-themed bunker (pictured above) and launched a Twitch drops campaign running until November 2. If you are unfamiliar with drops, it is a collaboration between developers and Twitch, a livestreaming platform, wherein you can earn exclusive in-game rewards simply by tuning in to a livestream of the game. These have been quite popular on Twitch for some time, but speaking as someone who has livestreamed VR on Twitch for over five years, it is rare to see VR developers do drops campaigns. Tabor and No Man's Sky have been the most frequent users of these campaigns that I am aware of for VR.

To qualify, you'll need to have played Tabor at least once during this current wipe period and link your account online, which can be done here.

Ghosts of Tabor is available now on Quest, Steam, PS VR2, and Pico.

Knights of Fiona

Since launch, Knights of Fiona has been steadily adding new quests with special rewards for players. October 20 kicked off a new Halloween Event Quest that ends on November 12 with two new rewards: a pumpkin shield and a Halloween body (both pictured above).

This quest is free to all players, including those who did not purchase the Story Pass to complete the full campaign. To start the quest, go to the quest board in the Eftora Station, select 'battle' and 'special' to see the quest. This quest can be completed in co-op with friends.

Additionally, the Got 'Em Mall also has several pumpkin hat sets available as in-app purchases.

Knights of Fiona is available now free to play on the Meta Horizon Store and Steam. 

This update coincides with the iOS launch of the game. Here's the trailer:

The deep-space outposts, introduced in the Cosmos update this year, now have forsaken traders, new merchants who task you with retrieving haunting mementos from hulk wrecks in space, infested outposts, derelict freighters, and paleontological digsites. The mementos can be traded for special modules for corvette ships, a new ship type introduced in the Voyagers update, including new cockpits and biomechanical components.

You can also pick up new space courier contracts from deep-space outposts, tasking you to deliver important packages for high pay.

The Forsaken update also brings significant quality of life features, some of which have been requested by the community:

• The new minimal HUD mode minimizes the compass, hazard protection bars and mission notifications while hiding non-essential markers.
• The holo-arena battles introduced in this year's Xeno Arena update have been extended to deep-space outposts.
• Stars in nearby systems will now appear as targetable destinations that can be flown to directly while flying in a ship in deep space, bypassing having to navigate to them via the galaxy map.
• Off-planet bases can now be uploaded to No Man's Sky, allowing other players to visit bases that are not their own.
• The multi-tool now has a weapon select wheel for quick switching between modules instead of cycling through with a button press.

No Man's Sky is available on Steam and PS VR2. The Forsaken update is free to all players.

Sega Amusements has unveiled a new video, screenshots, brochure, and sales page for their upcoming VR arcade game House of the Dead Reawakened, giving us our first clear look at the game cabinet, VR headset, and (at least a glimpse of) gameplay.

House of the Dead Reawakened is a two-player arcade horror experience with a "terrifying gothic cabinet." The cabinet is themed like a decrepit manor, with two 43" vertical displays forming the manor's side windows, and a massive 85" display serving as the front door. While players play in their VR headset, the displays show the action happening on screen to arcade-goers and passersby.

The game has been developed in Unreal Engine 5 and uses DPVR E4C commercial-grade VR headsets. The guns feature haptic feedback and recoil.

Much of this information is included in the game's sales brochure:

House of the Dead Reawakened follows in the footsteps of the original The House of the Dead, which was first released in arcades in 1997 and then ported to Sega's then-current home console, Sega Saturn, in 1998.

Numerous mainline releases have followed in arcades, with standalone games and ports appearing on a wide range of home game consoles since. The series has also enjoyed several spin-offs, and at least one (fairly terrible) movie. A new film is currently being developed.

The most recent all-new release in the series was 2018's arcade shooter The House of the Dead: Scarlet Dawn, which was a more traditional arcade shooter that did not feature VR tech.

House of the Dead Reawakened makes its global debut at the arcade and amusement park trade show IAAPA Orlando in mid-November. A release date has not been confirmed yet, but it seems likely that these zombies will be haunting arcades in 2027.

As a fan of VR, I've often struggled with the state of the retail experience as it relates to VR. Last year I visited a large Best Buy store and was so disgusted by the Meta Quest display I found there that I was motivated to write an editorial about the experience.

Since then, Meta has upped their retail strategy significantly, opening several first-party Meta Lab locations around the United States. Additionally, it has aggressively pursued an expansion of the Meta Lab in-store retail experience at select Best Buy locations, called Meta Lab @ Best Buy, with over 50 locations planned by the end of 2026.

Both retail experiences feature the Meta and Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses, as well as the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, and Meta Quest VR headsets and related accessories.

After realizing my business travels would take me through New York City, I decided to visit both the Meta Lab flagship store in Manhattan, as well as a Meta Lab @ Best Buy location, and see how the experiences compare, and what they deliver to the general shopping public.

I made appointments for a Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses demo at a Best Buy in Westbury, NY and the Meta Lab in New York City. I received email confirmations and reminders for each appointment.

Meta Lab @ Best Buy

My first appointment was at the Best Buy in Westbury, NY. Walking in, the Meta Lab is off to the right, which is prime territory in retail space. The display was bright and modern, with Meta's signature blue branding contrasting with light wood tones.

I was greeted quickly by an employee who later told me that he's employed by Meta under a special arrangement with Best Buy. We confirmed that I was there for my demo and quickly walked to the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses area, where they had demo units charged and waiting. They had both sizes and colors available for the demo, and we determined that the standard size would fit me best. I chose to try the Sand colorway.

I was then fitted with the Neural Band that accompanies the Display glasses. Once we settled on size 3, it was time to start the demo.

And that's where things went sideways.

It turns out that Meta was rolling out a "software update" that rendered the Neural Band useless and limited functionality of the glasses themselves. The employee was apologetic and still delivered a high-quality demo using the right stem touchpad controls to navigate the UI, to the best of his ability given the circumstances.

Despite my disappointment at being unable to fully demo the glasses and Neural Band, I was impressed by the employee's knowledge, directing the demo from memory, unable to see what I was seeing in the monocular display.

He asked me questions to help guide his presentation. How would I envision using this function? Would I see myself doing this or that? His enthusiasm for the product came through. I asked him how long he's been working there and he told me only two months - pretty impressive training, I thought to myself.

The challenge and friction I encountered was technological, frustrating yes, but I came away from the demo feeling positive about the experience, mostly due to the employee who did such a nice job in non-optimal circumstances. If I were actually going to purchase these glasses, I would not hesitate to go back for a full demo once Meta's "software update" was completed.

While there, I also decided to demo a Meta Quest VR headset to see how they were being presented and sold.

My original employee had to go attend a training session, so I was handed off to a second employee. He quickly brought me to the Quest display. I asked about the differences between the Quest 3 and 3S, and he explained them competently. Again, I was impressed by the enthusiasm of the employee. He also asked me questions about my experience with VR and how I would be using the headset.

The Quest 3 I tried was pre-loaded with several games that demonstrate some of the most accessible standalone VR and MR experiences. Beat Saber, Golf+, First Encounters (mixed reality experience), and Cubism are the games I can recall, among others. Also notable is the "Streaming" experience which loads up a large virtual screen and displays TV and movie content.

The employee gave me the option to sit if I was uncomfortable. When I told him I was going to remain standing, he made sure I was positioned in a safe space, and I could hear him tell other customers to steer clear of my flailing hands.

After playing a bit of Beat Saber and trying the Streaming experience, I thanked the employee for the demo and took some time to look around the space at how these devices were being merchandised.

Compared to the horror show I encountered last year, this was VR retail nirvana. The shelves were stocked with headsets, accessories, and gift cards. There was digital signage highlighting some standout experiences and comparing headset models. The display table had both Quest 3 and Quest 3S mounted face-down, to better enable customers to compare the pancake and Fresnel lenses.

It's impossible to miss the space given to the AI glasses, with large rows of models available to try on, and digital signage that includes a camera for virtual try-ons as well.

Overall I came away from the Meta Lab @ Best Buy experience feeling like I was treated with care by the employees, and served with respect by the merchandising and space design. Unfortunate as it was to have my demo affected by a software issue, I felt that it was time well spent, and as a customer I would be very comfortable buying in this environment.

Meta Lab Flagship Store - New York City

Walking down 5th Avenue, it's hard to miss the Meta Lab, with its deep cobalt blue painted frontage, extending three stories up.

Upon entering the Meta Lab store, you enter a curated space that is trendy yet warm. AI glasses dominate the displays on the walls, with some Quest headsets on display as well in the main floor showroom. I was directed to take the elevator to the second floor and check in at the demo desk for my appointment.

I was asked to sit at a nearby table. Within what felt like 20 seconds, an employee approached with Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses and Neural Bands. After introducing himself, he fit me for the frames and Neural Band, and we commenced the demo.

This time I got to fully experience the Display glasses as intended, using the Neural Band to navigate the UI on the monocular display. I used maps to navigate to a nearby location, scrolled an Instagram feed, and took photos and videos. During the demo the Meta employee could follow along on a phone app, seeing what I was seeing to help guide the experience.

Throughout the demo we chatted about how interesting AR technology is. He was very clearly a tech enthusiast and transmitted his excitement openly. He delivered the demo professionally, asking me questions about my anticipated use cases, and also allowed me time to freely navigate around the UI without narration.

At the conclusion of the demo I was offered snacks and refreshments. A Meta manager approached to ask how I enjoyed my demo. I gave my feedback and also complimented the employee for doing a great job. There was zero sales pressure.

I asked about doing a demo of a Quest, and was directed back to the first floor. At this point the Meta Lab experience started to show cracks. The first employee I spoke to wasn't trained on Quest demos, so they summoned a second employee who could set me up with a Quest. The second employee was barely trained on Quest, but was able to take me to a room in the back where there was room for a VR demo. I requested a Quest 3S this time.

A third employee, who was apparently more trained than the first two, now came to take over the demo. She struggled to put the Quest into a demo experience, and instead loaded me into a VR 360 Space video touring a space station and floating on a spacewalk.

This content was completely inappropriate for a demo where the employee never bothered to ask my experience level with VR or my comfort level with potential motion sickness triggers. Though seats were available in the room, it was not suggested that I sit for this experience.

I asked the employee if this was the usual demo, and they said yes. I asked about Beat Saber or First Encounters, and was told that those are available, but was not offered a way to launch those experiences.

Upon finishing my demo, I asked the employee if they enjoyed using VR, and they told me they don't use it. They were pleasant enough, but you could tell they had no passion for the product. They were much more enthusiastic about the AI glasses, which we talked about as we walked together toward the front showroom.

They did take time to point out that the Meta VR Glasses are coming in the spring, and that they hope to have a unit on hand for training early in the year. They seemed much more excited about the VR Glasses as a product, so perhaps that's a good sign for the future.

I had another look around at the myriad AI glasses available, and also noted the steady foot traffic in the store. There seemed to be a mix of locals and tourists visiting the store.

Overall my experience at the Meta Lab Flagship Store was a study in contradictions. The Display glasses demo was outstanding, with a knowledgeable and enthusiastic employee as my guide. The Quest demo found me passed around before a disinterested employee drew the short straw and threw me into a vomit-inducing 360 spacewalk video.

Conclusion and surprise

I was skeptical that the Meta Lab @ Best Buy could deliver an experience equal to the first-party Meta Lab experience.

On the Display glasses demo, I believe that if the Best Buy units were fully functional, I would have experienced an equally impressive demo experience as I did at the genuine Meta Lab in New York City. Both employees were enthusiastic and knowledgeable.

For the Quest demo, Best Buy wins hands down. The headset was in demo mode, with the menu of experiences ready to try. The employee was interested in my needs and had at least a passing interest in VR.

The Meta Lab Quest demo experience fell woefully short of what I expected to find, especially at their "flagship" store. Perhaps it's a training issue, or a matter of hiring people with interest in VR. It will be very interesting to see how Meta Lab employees are trained to present the VR Glasses.

My hope is that I caught the Meta Lab on a bad day for Quest demos.

So for now, it seems there's some genuine improvement to the state of VR retail, and the heavy lifting is being done by the Best Buy version of the Meta Lab experience.

Post-Visit Survey

For both demos I was sent a thank you email with a link to a survey to give feedback on my experiences. I was eager to provide both positive and negative feedback. In both cases, clicking the link opened a web page with this message:

"This survey has reached its quota and responses are no longer being solicited."

I might have to write another editorial.

Before game's end, you're not just puzzling out how to balance planetary ecosystems, grooving to a phenomenal soundtrack by Swedish electronic duo Carbon Based Lifeforms, and interacting with a lovely cast of wonderfully voiced robots and aliens, you're also considering what it means to be homeless and grappling with who gets to decide if people have a healthy place to live.

And while the developers never beat you over the head with the game's deeper message, its last hour does hint at harder conversations about ecology, greed, and the potential destructiveness of progress, all while thankfully maintaining a wry sense of humor and an engaging gameplay loop.

Terry's What?

In Terry's Terraforming, you play as a new hire at the titular company and spend your working days turning dead or dying planets into habitable worlds for alien clients. You'll warm atmospheres, lift mountains from the sea, dig life-giving rivers, prod volcanoes into bursting, and grow lush forests, all to shape the ecosystems of the planets to best suit the aliens who wish to live there.

Each alien species wants something different: this one may need tropical beaches to live, while another may need a frozen tundra or a dry desert. Crafting the perfect world isn't easy. You'll need a veritable tool chest of gizmos to make each world just right, and each tool may be used only at a cost (literally - Terry's Terraforming is a for-profit venture, after all). The goal for much of the game's five-or-so hour playthrough is to achieve the ideal planetary conditions as quickly and cost-effectively as possible.

Before long you learn that you're not actually terraforming worlds, but rather creating expensive simulations for the alien clients. And a meeting with your company's mysterious CEO (sitting in his perch at the highest point of our orbiting space station) confirms the true ambition of Terry's Terraforming; to make money.

By the end, your interactions with the bereft aliens and rapidly diminishing coworkers (budget cuts) put you in a bit of a pickle. Do you follow the CEO's commands to the detriment of your coworkers and clients, or do you take the honest route? I know which one I picked, and earned a pretty satisfying ending for my trouble. Which path you'll walk is up to you.

Playing God

Of course, Terry's Terraforming is a video game, and to be successful, it must be fun to play. Thankfully, it is.

The gameplay loop is essentially this: you'll hit Terry's reception desk, chat with the friendly robots there, collect your assignment, and then head up to the lab to terraform a world into shape alongside your friendly floating computer, Sprout.

In the lab you'll find the terraforming station. Sprout gives you a briefing on the world to be terraformed, and the aliens who hope to live there while a display shows you the "sweet spot," a zone somewhere within two axes that the alien clients will feel is "just right" for them. You'll then try to make the planet hotter or colder, wetter or drier, covered in oceans or dense with forests, depending on the aliens' needs, by using a selection of tools.

These tools are all effective showcases for VR tech. For example, a cheap way to flatten mountains or destroy islands is to grab an asteroid from orbit and slingshot it into the planet's surface, and a quick way to heat up a planet is to use the blowtorch to start a forest fire. Each of these interactions feels distinctive and immediate, and as is the case in all the best VR puzzle games, Terry's capitalizes well on the tactile nature of the medium.

There are fifteen tools in total, and each is unique and interesting in its own way. Furthermore, some tools are non-usable at various points in the adventure (budget cuts, again?), which adds a little wrinkle to the otherwise fairly straightforward gameplay.

In addition to the terraforming, which makes up the vast majority of the gameplay, there's also a tool called "Sweet View," a play on Google Street View. Using this tool teleports you down to the surface of whatever planet you're currently creating. Here you can freely teleport in any direction, exploring on foot and snapping photos and videos with a special camera. These you can save for your own use, or to be shared with your alien clients (indeed this changes some of the interactions in interesting, if minor, ways). It's neat, but somewhat underdeveloped. After a few moments on the surface of the planet there is a distinct feeling of, "Okay, now what?" At the same time, it's interesting to see just how greatly your terraforming actions impact things on the ground level, and the photo geek in me does love making virtual photos, too.

Between terraforming sessions you'll chat with your robot colleagues and with the visiting alien clients. There's an observation deck with a translation machine that lets you chat with the aliens, and while some of these interactions are fairly innocuous and shallow, others are surprisingly affecting. It is this emotional content that spurs you on to the game's surprising conclusion, one which will almost certainly have you reflecting on conditions found in our own real world.

Terry's Terraforming Review - Final Verdict

Terry's Terraforming surprised me. It's a tactile and funny job simulator with great VR bones and some interesting mechanics. It also tells a surprisingly earnest story about who gets a home, and who gets to decide who gets a home. It never lectures, but it certainly has something to say. The fact that it can speak this way while also remaining fun and funny is a real testament to the creativity and heart of the people who made it.

Terry's Terraforming is available now on Meta Quest 3. It's coming to Steam at a later date.

UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines.

I do not talk about this often, but I do 'maintenance checks' on VR platforms on a regular basis. I'm a bit of a nerd for data like this, so I read the PlayStation blog every month to see if there is any new blood in the PS VR2 top monthly downloads. Same with Valve's hardware survey, where I check for any changes in VR headset usage for PC VR. Every Friday and Monday, I check the weekly 'Top Selling' category on the Meta Horizon store. As you can imagine, this due diligence is often fruitless as these lists rarely show anything significant unless there's a sale with a game riding a huge discount to the top of the charts, like the infamous Max Mustard 90% off sale in summer 2024 and Alien: Rogue Incursion on PS VR2 earlier this year.

Which brings me to Fishy, Enver's massively multiplayer online fishing game that launched officially on October 15. At the time of this article, Fishy sits at number ten, pushing Wooster Games' popular Animal Company out of the top ten into the eleventh slot. With its success, Enver currently occupies three of the top ten slots for Quest along with its own hit Scary Baboon and ContinuumXR's caveman sandbox UG, a title Enver helped to fund and market alongside fellow top ten title Yeeps developer Trass Games. Building off the success of UG, Enver and Trass announced a joint initiative earlier this year to fund more social VR projects.

To my knowledge, the only other teams to have two or more games in the top selling list simultaneously were New Folder Games with I Am Cat and I Am Security soon after the latter released and Owlchemy Labs' Vacation Simulator and Job Simulator in years past. I Am Cat, by the way, was also the number one downloaded game for PS VR2 in September.

Amidst the constant barrage of free-to-play so-called "slop" that hits the Quest store on a weekly basis, the top ten remains remarkably consistent. Besides Fishy, SigmonVR's Hero x Hero, a free-to-play action-shooter is the only other 2026 title on the list, currently at number one at the time of this article.

With free to play games dominating the charts, another 'check' I do is filtering out the free to play games and looking over the paid charts. This top ten also rarely changes, but chaotic prison sandbox Bad Inmate, released earlier this month, cracked the 'paid' top ten at number five.

The physics-driven sandbox Voxel Playground is now available on Steam for the first time. The new release includes all the content that was recently added to the Quest version of the game, including an all-new Bank Heist Map, community mod support, overhauled gore and destruction, seven sandbox maps, and survival mode.

The new Bank map features a full heist sandbox; a bank, a vault, and plenty of ways to pull off the perfect heist. The Bank map joins previously released maps like Prison, Night Club, Construction Site, and Bloodmoon.

Voxel Playground is a physics sandbox playable in VR (it's also playable on flatscreen) in which every in-game object is built from tiny, destroyable voxels. Players build, fight, play, and experiment with chaotic weapons and mods across an ever-expanding collection of sandbox maps.

Voxel Playground is in Early Access, and according to the game's developer, a multiplayer update is planned for the game's "Christmas update" this year.

Voxel Playground released in Early Access on Quest at the very end of 2025, and holds a 4.8 out of 5 stars rating based on nearly 5,000 user ratings. The game is now available on PC VR via Steam.

I've played several of these Dead Space-like VR adventures in the past like Memoreum and By Grit Alone, both of which were ambitious efforts that came up short in one way or another. Rustmourne, due out in early 2027, nails one crucial element of Visceral Games' classic formula: a single enemy is enough to unnerve you.

VR games can oftentimes get caught up in ensuring you feel empowered and with survival shooters, that often amounts to throwing scores of easily defeated enemies at you. That very premise flies in the face of the Dead Space formula, where for all but the most elite of players, combat feels like a struggle. The first two enemy types you meet in Rustmourne have no legs and crawl towards you with long robotic arms. Despite that, even with one of them literally being blind and tracking you by sound, they are more intimidating than anything else I've faced in VR recently.

You wake up in some sort of chamber in a futuristic warehouse of sorts, impaled with a piece of metal piping that you have to remove. You quickly learn to use your gravity gloves to grab objects from afar or move them out of your way and proceed deeper into the facility until you meet your first blind one, the aforementioned crawling automaton that introduces itself by dropping a body right in front of you. Message received. This thing is no joke. With no way to defend yourself, you're forced to employ the classic stealth game trope of 'distract the enemy with a noise opposite the direction you want to go.'

Over the next hour or so of the demo, you are led through the facility by a disembodied voice, gain the ability to flick objects at great force to attack enemies and break through barriers, and acquire your first weapon: a gun that is a dead ringer for Dead Space's plasma cutter. As soon as you acquire these new defenses, the game ramps up by dispensing with feeding you one enemy at a time. Stand your ground with three crawlers bearing down on you if you dare. Simply backing up won't work because the crawlers are faster than you.

It's all wonderfully realized and presented in a dirty, grimy, visually stunning industrial environment. Sound design, a crucial element of games like this, is on point, giving you reason to pause every few steps and go "what was that I just heard?" In terms of story, precious little is offered up here and that's fine. Your unknown guide hints at enough to keep you intrigued.

I can't really say much more because there is not a lot of game here. It is very much an extended tutorial. I died often enough to get the very clear message that this game will challenge me and refuse to let me feel at ease at any point. Rustmourne is expected in early 2027 and after playing this demo, it comfortably sits atop my list of most anticipated VR games for next year.

OpenXR is the open standard API for AR/VR/MR app development and runtimes. It's managed by Khronos, the same non-profit industry consortium that manages OpenGL, Vulkan, and WebGL.

The ideal of OpenXR is that developers can build apps that run on any headset, without needing to use vendor-specific core APIs for different hardware. Almost every headset, engine, and runtime supports OpenXR today, except for Apple Vision Pro and PlayStation VR2 on PS5.

Spatial Containers

Spatial Containers extend OpenXR beyond fully immersive apps and allow developers to build apps that can move between multitasking and full-space experiences. Apps can have multiple Spatial Containers, each capable of switching between:

• A bounded display mode, suitable for simultaneous multitasking across multiple apps.
• A full-screen immersive display mode.

A Spatial Container's position is controlled by the system. This allows you to choose its preferred location or enables the system to have a Spatial Container that follows you during movement.

The initial Spatial Container extensions that have been ratified and published in the OpenXR Registry are as follows:

• XR_EXT_spatial_container: Core functionality that allows apps to create and manage Spatial Containers.
• XR_EXT_spatial_container_self_rendering: Enables apps to render into Spatial Containers using OpenXR composition layers.

The Khronos OpenXR Working Group says that it is also actively building extensions to enable apps to leverage a system-provided renderer that is optimized for the particular hardware that an app is running on, from high-performance headsets to lower-power devices.

In essence, Spatial Containers allow for apps broadly similar to those enabled by the core concepts of visionOS on Apple Vision Pro, where the "Shared Space" architecture and RealityKit framework allow for both windowed and volumetric 3D apps to run alongside each other in a system-managed environment and transition into "Full Space" immersive experiences.

Notably, Pico OS 6 on the upcoming Pico Space Pro is also built around this concept, using a new system-level compositor with a unified rendering architecture called the Pico Spatial Engine to allow both 2D and 3D apps to run alongside each other, with either a virtual environment or passthrough as the background.

Pico's Next Headset Has 4000 PPI Micro-OLEDs, Powerful New Chip & Next-Gen OS

ByteDance's Pico announced the key display and compute specs of its next headset, coming later this year, and detailed the revamped XR operating system it will run.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

This is in stark contrast to the current state of Google's Android XR and Meta's Horizon OS, which allow for 2D app multitasking but only support running a single 3D app at a time.

That could change soon, however, as Google XR platform and SDK lead Jared Finder stated in Khronos's official announcement for the extensions that the company is "excited to bring Spatial Container support to Android XR."

While Meta did not explicitly commit to supporting the extensions in its statement, they interestingly present an opportunity for the company to ship a revised version of the effectively cancelled "Augments" app category announced for Quest 3 at Meta Connect 2023.

Quest 3 Augments Are Persistent Digital Objects In Your Space

Meta will introduce a series of spatially-aware digital objects to your living space next year on Quest 3.

UploadVRHenry Stockdale

Augments would have been system-managed 3D apps created in Meta Spark Studio, a now-defunct Windows and macOS app for making smartphone AR filters and experiences for the camera in Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger. Spark Studio supported importing and animating 3D assets, and implementing advanced functionality with JavaScript.

In June 2024, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth revealed that the Augments feature was being rebuilt from scratch as the original approach "wasn't good enough," and then in August 2025 he reiterated similar points, adding that the company was in the process of rebuilding the system from the ground up.

Given that recent updates to Horizon OS and developer tooling have centered on overhauling spatial window management and improving spatial apps, it's possible the company will leverage the Spatial Container extensions to deliver on the original vision of Augments, but that remains to be seen.

Meta Expands SDKs To Boost Spatial Apps On Quest & VR Glasses, Including NBA, Disney+

Meta announced several new SDKs and features to enhance spatial apps on Quest and Meta VR Glasses, alongside major spatial updates for the NBA and Disney+ apps.

UploadVRLuna

The extension specs and sample code for OpenXR Spatial Containers are out now, and the Khronos OpenXR Working Group says it expects implementations to start rolling out across the OpenXR ecosystem this year.

Developer DreamVR, whose previous VR projects were in location-based entertainment (LBE) venues, had one goal with The Rifted Skies, its first consumer VR offering: get people moving their arms again. While playing the demo in my barely five-meter-by-five-meter space, I immediately felt the desire for more space or a VR treadmill. It felt both like a throwback to older, more roomscale-friendly VR titles and a rarity for a platform that has increasingly been turning to more stationary controller-focused experiences.

I am not knocking games that lean in that direction, but nowadays when a game dares to demand more physicality out of you, it stands out. The physical, rhythmic combat in Batman: Arkham Shadow was arguably its best feature. Arm-based locomotion popularized by games like Gorilla Tag has become a VR subgenre unto itself and games that adapted that system for more narrative-centered projects like No More Rainbows and Outta Hand stood out in a very crowded field of single-player VR adventures. Games you can comfortably play while only needing to move your arms to point at an object.

The Rifted Skies demo introduces you to Derwish, a young man greeted by a yellow wisp who speaks of his nebulous lineage and the need to outpace the titular rift swallowing his world whole. It's the fastest bit of world building I've ever seen done in a fantasy game before you're off and running. The responsiveness of the arm swinging here should be commended. I have played other games where you can swing your arms to run and thrust them in the air to jump like Joyway's Stride, none of which felt this fluid. The tradeoff here is the margin of recognition for "the player swung their arms" is so wide that it occasionally triggers when I didn't want it to. At one point I lifted my right arm to adjust the volume in my headset and the game thought I was trying to run. I didn't lift it quickly either. If you are doing anything other than actively playing the game, like reaching for a drink or adjusting your headset, I would suggest pausing the game.

Besides running, you also squat to slide under low hanging obstacles and thrust your arms in the air to jump. I should note here that these actions in the game have controller equivalents in the settings, so though DreamVR built The Rifted Skies to be played with your body, you can press A to jump and pull back on the right analog to squat down. Those of us with bad knees champion this bit of accessibility, but like the run motion, the squat recognition is generous enough that I opted for that over the controller-mapped option anyway.

The combat is pretty perfunctory. Your sword, the first weapon available to you, can be used for standard hack and slash melee, to deflect projectiles back at enemies, or be charged and flung at the ghostly creatures that periodically portal in to attack you. That said, it needed to be simple because, again, you're on the run from the Rift, so you need to be able to dispatch enemies quickly. I fell into a pattern of throwing my blades at enemies that were charging up a projectile to stun them, then sprinting to their location and slashing them.

The magic in The Rifted Skies is when you get into a flow state: sprinting, jumping, gliding on air currents, and cutting enemies all in what feels like one continuous motion. Once you get moving, it is hard to stop even when you go down thanks to the generous checkpoints. You only stop when you reach the end of an area to select the bog-standard roguelite power ups. DreamVR nails its mission statement, creating an entertaining romp that remained compelling to play well beyond when my arms started to fatigue. The demo does an excellent job of presenting its core gameplay, even if I was left with questions by the end.

Visually, the world of The Rifted Skies is bright and colorful, but quickly started to feel repetitive as I recognized specific chunks of landscape several times already in my couple of runs. I'm curious if the full game will bring new biomes and environments to keep things fresh. In terms of fidelity, the environments are nothing to write home about and definitely feel more optimized for standalone headsets, but there is hardly any time to stop and stare at the details to begin with. I'm curious if it has more variety to offer deeper into the game.

Another question is, narratively speaking, what type of roguelite is this? Many roguelites have hinted at deeper lore at the onset of the action, only to quickly ignore any semblance of a narrative once you are settled into the action. Personally, without leaderboards, collectibles, or persistent rewards, those tend to run thin for me. Then there are games like Underdogs with a full story to tell and enough replayability to run it back repeatedly. The gameplay loop is rock-solid with no major complaints. The longevity is the question and a demo cannot truly answer that.

For now, The Rifted Skies is absolutely worth a wishlist and continued monitoring for more details.

Version 1.0 adds multiple new features and content, including one that Flat2VR Studios' Elliott Tate teased to me in our interview earlier this year: first-person vehicle ejections. Anyone willing to test their VR sea legs in Stunt mode or crashes in races (like me) is free to do so with a first-person camera instead of the Early Access method that shifted to third person view in such cases.

Here's a list of the new additions:

• An overhaul to the multiplayer system redesigns the lobbies to be faster to get into a race. You can also now join active sessions, fill out your lobbies with AI racers and spectator functions including passenger ride-alongs.
• AI settings to tweak the behavior of non-human opponents. The opponent AI has also been improved overall.
• Support for bHaptics, motion rigs, and additional steering wheels.
• New options for FlatOut 2 physics.
• New vehicles, including multiple cars and a motorcycle.
• Updated UI and menu interactions, bug fixes, and performance optimizations.

The new price now matches the original FlatOut 4's cost. The VR port was originally $19.99 in Early Access. Price increases out of Early Access are not uncommon in gaming. Just to name a few examples, Forefront VR did the same earlier this year and Beat Saber went from $19.99 to $29.99 in 2019 when it went to full release. Pavlov Shack was a free-to-play beta for over two years on App Lab before its official release on the Meta Horizon Store when it shifted to a $19.99 cost.

FlatOut is the first release under Flat2VR's Spark program, an initiative pairing experienced VR modders with game developers. The second Spark release was I Am Your Beast VR last month. I shared my impressions of FlatOut 4 at release and said it was "a joy to play." Since release, it has received multiple updates to add support for 'hundreds' of wheel-and-pedal accessories before its Early Access exit.

FlatOut 4: Total Insanity VR Impressions - A Rough Ride In The Best Possible Way

Flatout 4: Total Insanity VR brings chaotic, destructive, demolition derby style racing to VR in Early Access.

UploadVRMike Johnson

FlatOut 4: Total Insanity VR is out now on Steam for $29.99.

Joy Way, who previously developed Red Flowers (later, Catana: Red Flowers), Stride and Stride: Fates, have announced their VR zombie survival shooter Fading Light is coming to Quest on November 12. A price has not yet been announced, but the game can be wishlisted now.

A trailer has been released, showing off the game's blend of parkour movement, survival shooter sensibilities, and base-building and crafting mechanics.

In Fading Light, you will play solo or team up with up to three additional players to explore a zombie-infested open-world city, gather resources, craft gear and build bases to survive the zombie hordes together.

Movement is described as "fast, physical VR parkour" that will have you running, jumping, climbing, and navigating the city to escape zombie masses. There are also Time-Run challenges in which you can compete to set the fastest time.

Fading Light is coming to Quest on November 12, and you can wishlist the game now.

VRChat has technically supported Eye and Face Tracking for years over OSC (Open Sound Control) and the community-made VRCFaceTracking (VRCFT) app. However, avatars did not natively support full facial tracking, and instead needed to be configured with add-ons. Without them, avatars could only natively use Eye Tracking data for basic gaze and eyelid movement.

Now, VRChat's latest Open Beta client on Steam and Avatars SDK Version 3.10.6-beta.1 and higher bring support for SDK-level authoring of Face Tracking. Initially described as "High Fidelity Face Tracking," the feature allows creators to set up facial expressions for an avatar via a new dedicated section in the Avatar Descriptor component.

The new system maps facial expressions to blendshapes and animator parameters, supports the Unified Expressions standard from VRCFT, and integrates with VRChat's audio-driven visemes, eye look, and eyelids. It does not currently support Blended Shapes or Simplified Parameters.

Even further, the system allows for network-synced Face Tracking without contributing to the avatar's synced parameter budget. On paper, this should mean a reduced synced parameter load for the avatar, more visually consistent facial expressions for other users, and better performance.

VRChat's native Face Tracking supports OSC methods like VRCFT (in its latest beta release on Steam) as well as VRChat's Selfie Expression feature, which allows you to mirror facial expressions to an avatar on desktop PC and Android via a webcam or front-facing camera.

VRChat says that the functionality has been in closed beta testing for a while, and that the company has been gathering feedback from prominent community members and creators such as Hash, the VRCFT team, and many others.

Creator and developer Hash has updated several of their popular Booth avatar packages with beta variants that take advantage of the new SDK functionality, and you can make the switch if you own them.

Few headsets currently have both the hardware support and third-party APIs for Eye Tracking and camera-based Face Tracking. The most popular options are the Pico 4 Pro and Enterprise, Meta Quest Pro, and Samsung Galaxy XR, though there are also open-source and community-built solutions for other headsets such as the Meta Quest 3 and 3S. VRCFT is also able to pass data from headsets and add-ons that only support Eye Tracking, such as the Bigscreen Beyond 2e.

Bigscreen Beyond 2 Has Clearer, Wider, Adjustable Lenses And Optional Eye Tracking

Bigscreen Beyond 2 starts shipping next month with significantly upgraded & adjustable lenses, and Beyond 2e is coming in May with eye tracking too.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Notably, the upcoming Meta VR Glasses feature hardware support for both Eye and camera-based Face Tracking, using dedicated sensors for the eyes and capturing facial signals through the same downward-facing cameras used for Hand Tracking.

However, as spotted by dataminer and programmer Nori, Meta will not give third parties API access to the visual Face Tracking data source at launch as it did with the Meta Quest Pro, where apps including Steam Link and Virtual Desktop are already able to forward abstracted tracking data to OSC apps such as VRCFT. Instead, developers will only have access to Eye Tracking and must rely on the audio-driven data source, known as Audio to Expressions. Camera-based Face Tracking will be limited to first-party usage, such as the new realistic Hologram avatars.

This restriction has been met with some frustration from developers, and Meta Developer Advocate Dilmer Valecillos stated the feedback would be passed along to the appropriate teams.

A feedback post on the Meta VR Developer website requesting a camera-based Face Tracking API for Meta VR Glasses is currently the fourth most-voted investigation, and is marked as "Backlogged - A team has this on their backlog to address in the future."

Imagine if the charming Border Bots met an extraction shooter like Ghosts of Tabor somewhere in outer space and had a baby. That's RAID VR in a nutshell. You take on the role of a pseudo-intergalactic customs agent, scanning ships at a checkpoint for potential contraband. If a scan reveals a ship carrying illegal goods, you board the ship and remove the offensive cargo by force.

The Next Fest demo starts you at rank 4 and ends when you reach rank 6, which took me a hair over thirty minutes to do. Also, note that the demo only supports two-player co-op whereas the final game will support four players.

At the start of your shift, spaceships line up in multiple lanes that you can switch between with your control panel. You have a list of icons representing illegal goods to check for, varying by type and color. After the scan completes, you have a limited amount of time to decide to let the ship pass or intercept it. Choose to intercept and the ship is tractor-beamed to you to board and engage in combat with the smugglers. All of this works very well, with an intuitive control panel that all makes sense on first sight. The colorful cel-shaded art style, as it usually does, looks fine in the headset and the sound design complements the gameplay well. There is a concerted effort to make everything in the game, including the options menu, a physically immersive action, so points for that.

The issue for me starts when you intercept a ship. Rather than a dynamic roomscale shootout, you are limited to moving around a rectangular border at the front of the room, dispatching robotic foes from a distance and fending off any sword-wielding bots. This immediately felt far too restrictive. After defeating the smugglers in less than a minute, you use a telekinetic grab system to pull contraband to you and drop into a vortex just below your original standing position. It's fine, but could be so much more if you had full freedom of movement around the room. I also could not help but think about this part of the game with four players. That rectangle felt small for one, so I hope it scales up for four.

That said, the action is designed this way for a reason. All of your shifts are time limited and you have to process as many ships as possible. Every second counts, even when you watch them tick away while the ship is pulled to your station and docked. To help with this, some intercepted ships don't have combat. You enter to some collectible loot, seize any contraband, and you're out in maybe half a minute. It was admittedly deflating to get hyped for a shootout and not get the payoff, though it does save on time. It would've been nice to have the option to walk around and maybe nab hidden bonus loot, even if I was choosing to sacrifice time to do so.

The weapons mostly feel fine to use and have some fun designs, like a rocket launcher that fires off tiny aliens. I laughed every time I used it, though two-handing it came with a fair amount of jank. Some weapons and your shield have a timed reload, so you can't go dual-wielding guns blazing all the time, lest you get stuck doing a Matrix-style dodge to avoid return fire. This will be hit-or-miss for most. I did not mind at all, but run-and-gun shooter fans that prefer manual reloading may yearn for more, particularly considering your loadout is chosen for you shift by shift.

Besides the scanned intercepts, you will also see a smuggler ship warp in that needs immediate attention. These are full ship raids with multiple rooms, some of which are locked and require you to acquire key cards to access. The raids make the checkpoint interceptions even more confusing. It is clearly possible to move around a full room in the game, so after completing a raid, going back to the scanned interceptions felt even more restrictive.

Lastly, the walking speed feels slow and doesn't have a sprint option. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, the smugglers are also slow as are their bullets, making them easy to dodge. I play a fair amount of VR shooters, so this may be experience talking, but I never felt threatened playing RAID VR, even with upwards of four bots shooting at me at once.

RAID VR feels like a game trying to be as accessible as possible, but in the process stripping some of the excitement out. You want to move faster and be more dynamic than the game allows you to be. The gameplay loop itself is easy to learn and mostly fun, but the action can use some tweaking. It feels a bit too safe and easy for its own good, though I did enjoy my time in the demo. The question is whether that fun will be fleeting across longer sessions. At the very least, RAID stays on my wishlist and I look forward to the full release, which is all a good demo needs to accomplish.

I was playing as Lila and my UploadVR colleague, Mike, was playing as Ghost, and together we'd spent the previous hour working our way through the cooperative puzzle game's unwieldy two-player puzzles. We'd manipulated odd dials to free a caged prisoner, dunked a strange seed into a bucket of water to destroy a punitive pyre and postpone the church's ability to burn a man at the stake. Now, I was staring at a caterpillar.

This fragmented and seemingly dissonant range of activities speaks to the bigger problems in Daumier. The entire game is confused, lacking logic and cohesion, and at times, it feels like it was designed by five or six people who never once talked to each other.

But let's get back to the caterpillar puzzle.

We were standing in a garden where three painters were painting a woman under the tutelage of their master, "Vinci." I don't really know why, nor how this was connected to the first chapter's plague-ridden medieval city and its bloody, torturous ending, but swathes of NPC-delivered exposition between chapters did hint at... some connection, possibly involving vampires.

But anyway, there we were in the garden, where we soon learned that Mike (Ghost) had the power to advance and rewind the seasons so that a tree in the center of the garden would pass through its cycles; green vines in spring, fruits in summer, golden leaves in fall, and barren boughs in winter.

Running through the cycle caused a leaf to fall (this leaf was oddly enormous), which I was able to successfully feed to the caterpillar. Once full of leaf, the caterpillar could be made to form a chrysalis through Mike's advancement of the seasons once more. Back to spring, and the caterpillar emerged from its silken bed a beautiful butterfly. That makes sense.

What doesn't make sense is that at some point during all of this "gameplay," two shimmering orbs of liquid light had materialized at the edge of the garden. I couldn't approach them, (because the game doesn't allow you to move freely in its world, rather only to teleport points), and I couldn't interact with them in any way. I didn't know then, nor now, what these two shimmering balls of light were, where they came from, or what their significance was, if any. But once hatched, the butterfly flew over and hovered around them.

Okay. Now what?

I fumble-bumbled around a bit, teleporting back and forth between the few teleport points available to me, while Mike "Hmm-ed and Umm-ed" over a solution. After a few minutes, the only real action that was available to me or him was that I could pick up the leaf, which the caterpillar had earlier chewed a hole through. Okay, what's the point of that. I fumbled a bit longer, until for no memorable reason, I held the leaf up to my face and realized, "I can look through this hole."

But why would I ever do that? For what reason on earth or in heaven would I ever look through a hole in a leaf, and what would ever make me consider that doing so would generate any sort of response from anyone or anything in this or any other universe? Nevertheless, for lack of anything else to do, I peered through the leaf hole and said, "Uh, Mike, I can look at stuff through this le-," and stopped dead.

I'd pointed my leaf mask at the orbs of shimmering light (remember those?), and immediately the puzzle was solved. The scene changed, and we moved on to the next riveting puzzle.

Mike was confused. "Wait, what happened? How did you do it?"

I replied with confidence. "Well, obviously, Mike, I looked at those balls of light through the leaf hole the caterpillar had chewed."

"Ah," he said. "I see."

But he didn't see! And neither did I.

After our two hour play session, Mike and I agreed that the puzzles (and overall gameplay and presentation, too) in Daumier: Lila & Ghost are undercooked and unintuitive. While the game has a good central premise, that being "Solve co-operative puzzles with your friend by using communication and your brains," the execution falls far short. The narrative and story didn't sufficiently motivate me to keep going, either. It was convoluted, presented in a disengaged way, and felt dark and unappealing.

Too many of the game's puzzles involve one partner finding a solution while the other stands there waiting. And while some puzzles do indeed require actual communication and teamwork, none of the ones we encountered ever felt truly wondrous, like we'd done something cool, or interesting, or smart, or fun.

The physical puzzles are finicky and rough. Manipulating objects in the game spaces often works, but just as often it feels tricky and annoying. Animations are subpar, subtitles have typos, and the voice acting bounces between stilted and grandiose caricature which the House of the Dead 2 fan in me appreciates in a way. Gameplay mechanics are never explained (indeed, the game's hint system and an ephemeral paintbrush that can be used to communicate were only discovered via random button-pressing), and movement and exploration are virtually nonexistent due to the game's forced teleportation system.

It never feels good to be harshly critical of a game. I like the idea of Daumier: Lila & Ghost, and some of the puzzles Mike and I encountered were interesting to experience. But I can't say they were interesting in the way that puzzles in Zelda or MYST are interesting. In games like those and other great puzzle games, the puzzles make you feel clever and reward you for working through them. Daumier's puzzles just make me feel confused and slightly bored. For a puzzle game, that's not good.

Daumier: Lila & Ghost is available now on Quest, and those who buy it in the first month of release will get a free copy for a friend after joining the developer’s Discord server.

Finnish indie VR publisher VRKiwi (Pirates VR: Jolly Roger, Cave Digger 2: Dig Harder) has already put out a short demo on Steam, even though the full release date has yet to be announced.

You take on the role of Helen, an archaeologist who is suddenly transported to an ancient Aztec chamber during a dig project she doesn’t remember signing up for. The voice of the Aztec Sun God Tonatiuh calls to her from a gemstone on her gauntlet, urging her to explore the land around her to find more jewels and to save the world from a mysterious threat.

The Sunstone of Time demo is comprised entirely of the first room you encounter after being sent to the past, and tasks you with mixing different colored powders in a bowl, placing objects on matching pedestals, moving a green stone along a maze using arrow panels, and unlocking a treasure chest by dialing in symbols on a padlock after translating them with a decoder wheel.

You’re largely left to solve these puzzles on your own using the visual clues around you, and you should expect to be stumped until that eureka moment hits. Honestly, I was genuinely stuck on a few of these, but the solutions are all in your environment – even if a few of them are things you normally wouldn’t think to check until you’ve used up virtually all other options.

Interacting with your environment is as easy as moving around with the right joystick and grabbing items with the controller triggers. You can also crouch with the B button. The controls are all pretty responsive, even though I did find myself bumping a larger object against a wall or getting a hand stuck in a box on occasion.

Sunstone of Time’s visuals are bright and colorful, with vibrant chambers that bring The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to mind. There are also plenty of interesting tidbits about ancient Aztec mythology and its deities, with most of the demo's puzzles being centered around Tezcatlipoca, the god of destruction and the night sky. The audio is mostly quiet, allowing you to think about the puzzles around you, and lending the game a somewhat creepy atmosphere.

Once you’ve solved the last puzzle and unlocked the door to escape, the demo ends on a cliffhanger, teasing the greater adventure ahead. So far, Sunstone of Time looks very promising, offering up fun brain teasers and a fascinating look at Aztec mythology. With some more polish, it could end up a compelling archeological VR romp.

Zenith: The Last City was actually the original version of the game when it launched. Citing a declining player count amidst the server costs, the game pivoted to a free-to-play model in early 2024 with a new free co-op game mode called Infinite Realms. The Last City became a paid DLC, staying at its original price of $29.99. Developer Ramen VR announced the end of active development in summer 2024, but vowed to keep the servers online as long as possible. The Last City DLC would get a permanent price cut to $9.99 and the final update for the game shipped in August 2024.

VRMMO Zenith Receives Last Update And Permanent Discount

VRMMO Zenith: The Last City and the Infinite Realms mode received its last update and a permanent discount.

UploadVRCallum Self

Zenith had a lot of excitement when it was first revealed. Its initial Kickstarter raised over $200,000 and Ramen raised another $10M in funding to grow its team in preparation for launch. Zenith officially launched in Early Access in January 2022 and after notable early success, Ramen raised another $35M in funding and planned to double the size of its team to maintain and grow the game.

Zenith Review: VR's Best MMO Is A Rough But Real Achievement

Zenith is an inarguably rough but undeniably massive achievement for the VR industry, and already the best VR MMO.

UploadVRJamie Feltham

That said, Zenith's biggest criticism, as we noted in our launch review, was a general lack of content with repetitive dungeons and quests, a low number of classes, and missing features players craved like crafting. MMORPGs in general are very difficult to pull off, requiring a lot of ongoing content to maintain one of the most dedicated and ravenous fanbases in gaming. This is a genre where people will merrily grind and go on raids with their friends for hundreds if not thousands of hours, but the content needs to be there to support that amount of playtime. Comparatively, the core campaign of the game at launch was up to forty hours, a pittance by comparison.

The Celestial Throne update in summer 2022 was the first major post-launch update, adding a slew of new quests, dungeons, armor sets, weapons and a new matchmaking system to pair players coming without a group to play with. Pets were added in late 2022, PvP gameplay was introduced in 2023, and ongoing 'named' updates with new content like Skyward Summit, Legends Untold, Rings of Ruin, Might and Mastery, and Ascension continued to ship.

Zenith: Celestial Throne Update Available Now, New Details Revealed

The Celestial Throne update is available now for VR MMO Zenith: The Lost City, adding a wealth of new content and minor changes.

UploadVRHarry Baker

Despite all this, the aforementioned declining player count and revenue forced Ramen into the pivot to free-to-play with Infinite Realms a season-based procedural action-adventure built around co-op gameplay and social aspects. This is also when the in-game currency, Zennies, was introduced in the hopes of bringing the game back to profitability after running at a loss for some time. Infinite Realms got four seasons ending with Golden Isles, the final content update for the game.

Zenith: Nexus Rebrand Gives VRMMO A Free-To-Play Mode

Zenith: Nexus splits the game into two modes, adding a new free-to-play co-op RPG alongside the existing paid The Last City VRMMO.

UploadVRHenry Stockdale

That brings us to this week's announcement of the servers shutting down. Per Ramen, sales of The Last City and Zennies ceased on October 21. The free version of Zenith will remain available to download on its available platforms until November 18. After that date, existing players will still be able to download and play the game until the servers close for good on December 18 at 10:00am PST. Ramen has said there are no plans for an offline version or community-hosted servers.

As someone who has tried a VR horror game and quit at the first jump scare (looking at you Exorcism of the Legion!), I was apprehensive about experiencing the Fear Arena. Horror and terror are really not my preference in VR.

Fear Arena introduces what Liminal calls "recreational fear" - that is, fear that provides a level of enjoyment or thrill, like watching a horror movie or riding a roller coaster.

The introductory video explains how fear can create different emotional and psychological reactions, from anxiety to excitement, and finally relief.

"The aim of the Liminal Fear Arena is not maximum fear. It's finding that sweet spot where fear and fun come together," the company explains in the video.

I explored Liminal's initial offering in the Fear Arena, titled Wander. Liminal says Wander places the user amongst "the eerie sights, sounds, and scares in a dark and mysterious forest".

Without giving too much away, I found the experience to be just the right mix of spooky environment and elements. I did have a few moments of unease and a jump scare, but I encourage even those like me, with a low tolerance for scary material, to explore it. It really strikes the right balance and the ending provides a satisfying conclusion.

When I relayed my experience to Liminal co-founder Nick Busietta, he told me that was the balance they were seeking for Fear Arena. “We don’t want to terrorize people at the end of the day,” Busietta explained.

He also told me that their design philosophy places user safety and well-being at the center of what they do. Busietta recalled a prototype experience for Fear Arena that they ultimately decided not to release because it didn’t cross the threshold of what they consider to be a beneficial user experience.

It’s easy to scare, but much more difficult to balance the appropriate level of thrill and fear with a satisfying resolution that leaves the user feeling better than they did coming in.

Busietta said they are working on additional content for Fear Arena, with more expected to be released this fall.

He says he also sees the Liminal platform as capable of hosting a broader range of entertainment experiences, expanding beyond its psychological and neuroscience-based roots.

Liminal is available to download on Meta Quest. An annual subscription is $34.99 for full, unlimited access to their content, with a selection of experiences across their Arenas unlocked for free-tier users.

Per developer Singular Perception (Epyka), the Steam demo was designed specifically to onboard new users with a tutorial and three sectors to explore. The Steam launch will include every post-release update from the Quest version including a unique in-game roadmap where players can vote on updates and features they would like to see next. The first new fan-voted feature is a crafting system to transform undesirable loot into ship upgrades that will launch either with the Steam version or shortly thereafter.

At the time of this article, we did not see a new trailer for the Steam launch. Here is the Quest launch trailer:

The game is built around an interactive spaceship designed for three players working three different positions: pilot, gunner and engineer, with communication and coordination required to explore, fight other ships, and salvage structures and planets to repair and upgrade the ship. Singular Perception is still developing a bot system called Automa that will automate some ship functions to support solo and two-player crews, but as we noted in our Early Access impressions, right now this is a game meant for a full trio of players.

Sol Protocol Early Access Impressions: A Sol-id Foundation

Sol Protocol in Early Access on Quest has a good foundation of co-op teamwork and exploration, but the limited scope has a lot of room for growth.

UploadVRJames Galizio

Sectors in the game are procedurally generated and can be chosen for travel via an interactive 3D map that gives information on the sector's potential hostility and potential rewards. PC VR players who want to see more of the game after playing the demo can sign up for a playtest planned for the end of this month via Discord.

Sol Protocol is available now in Early Access on Quest and comes to PC VR on November 11.

The team of 15 people behind the re-launch of Supernatural includes all of the fitness coaches who were with the prior iteration, as well as some of the design and support staff.

As recently reported by UploadVR, the app is launching with "thousands of workouts". Users of the previous, Meta-owned "legacy edition" can "transfer their points, start date, streaks, favorites and badges from the original app through Dec. 3", according to Supernatural.

In an email to users who registered for the new version, Supernatural provided details on how to transfer history by visiting a dedicated page on their website.

“It’s not every day you get to make a comeback, but thanks to the Supernatural community, that’s exactly what we’re doing,” said Supernatural CEO James Senior in a press statement. “Early Access gets Supernatural back into members’ hands now, so we can build what comes next with them. We’ll be adding new workouts every week, bringing back more music and building features like Supernatural Together and a new mobile app. This is just the start.”

Supernatural says its future roadmap includes adding more workouts and music, reintroducing multiplayer workouts, new enhanced environments, and a new mobile companion app to track workout progress and heart rate.

I was able to download the new app today and confirm that there are many workouts already available from the previous app's catalog. The UI is slightly updated and a bit more colorful in places. Gameplay appears identical. I will do a deeper dive as new features launch and bring you those impressions here.

The new Supernatural is available to download today on the Meta Quest store. A subscription to the service is $19.99 monthly or $199.99 annually.

I love puzzle games, especially in VR, where the ability to reach out and physically touch the mechanisms and toy-like worlds of the best puzzlers becomes even more effective and rewarding.

Traffix XR: Cities of Tomorrow is the latest such game to take over my Quest headset, and its blend of relaxing vibes and genuine challenge makes it a truly great puzzler. However, it can also be frustratingly difficult, and this stubborn difficulty combined with occasionally finicky controls mar what would otherwise be an almost perfect experience.

What is Traffix XR?

Traffix XR was developed by Infinity Games, who (among many other projects) have previously released a flat screen traffic management puzzle game called Traffix for Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS, and PC. While the earlier Traffix was presented with a simplistic and stylized aesthetic, and with gameplay in which you literally direct traffic by tapping on traffic lights, Traffix XR: Cities of Tomorrow takes a different road.

In Traffix XR: Cities of Tomorrow, you build miniature roadways to connect points of interest on a map in mixed reality or virtual reality (the latter of which places you in a generic and sparsely decorated living room). Connecting two points on the map will allow traffic and people to flow from one to the other, and back again, essentially activating these points of interest. Along the way, buildings will pop up as your city grows. New points of interest appear, and these too must be connected to the roadways, until all of the map's points of interest are connected successfully.

The challenge comes from the difficult terrain of the given maps, and the limited resources available to you. In each stage, you're provided a limited number of road tiles and a limited number of road types, and each map is typically arranged so that you must puzzle out the perfect routes that will link all points using only the number of tiles and road types available to you.

You can erase road tiles and redraw your route at any time, but obstacles, such as boulders and forests, rivers and lakes, will block your roadways. And even though you have bridges available to you, they aren't unlimited. The sum total of all of this is that you're going to have to think long and hard about how to get from Point A to Point B, and beyond, if you've any hope of success.

Those familiar with popular games like Mini Motorways will immediately understand what Traffix XR is doing. Those who have never played a traffic management game will pick it up pretty quickly, too, since its gameplay is intuitive and the built-in tutorial teaches everything you'll need to know in about ten minutes.

Get in We're Going Puzzling

There's a lot to like about Traffix XR. Its miniature worlds are charming and rich with detail. Its soundtrack is smooth, playful, and relaxing. Its gameplay is built on a central mechanic that's truly engaging. It has a vast quantity of maps, from a variety of interesting biomes to keep things interesting, and a custom map maker is also included for those who want to build and share their own creations.

But there are potholes, too.

The game can be played with hand tracking or controllers, and while each has their strengths and weaknesses, neither feels totally perfect. Grabbing roads with the controller or fingertips is sometimes equally unreliable. Erasing roads and linking roads you've already laid down with new ones can be troublesome, too. Even selecting a stage to play, which is done by rotating a mass of floating islands that surround you, is kind of annoying. Sometimes, triggers are used to grab things, while other times it's performed with the grip buttons. It just feels like there's not a lot of cohesion in the design language used for the game's controls, and in a game like this, where natural control is so important, it's a problem that slows the flow of the game considerably.

Then there's the difficulty. This game is simply hard. By the fifth or sixth level, you'll be scratching your head, struggling to find the perfect route through a cantankerous wilderness using only the tiles (and their configurations) available to you. When you manage to find the correct route, it all feels great. The citizens of your mini city get where they need to go, the city sprouts up like crabgrass in summer, and you clear the level (usually a three-stage affair).

But I'd be lying if I said this game didn't frustrate me with its rigid demand that each stage be solved in exactly the way the developer intended. I could be wrong, but it seemed to me like many of the game's puzzles could only be solved one way. For a traffic management game in which you spend the entirety of your playtime building creative roadways, this seems incredibly limiting.

Traffix XR: Cities of Tomorrow Review - Final Verdict

Traffix XR's pieces come together into something charming, fun, and engaging (if flawed). It's the sort of game that works perfectly in a mixed reality headset, with its cozy little worlds coming to life in your living room, and in VR, it works nearly as well. What holds it back from greatness, however, is the rigidity of its solutions. Too many stages feel overly difficult or solvable by only a single route, and its controls are a bit finicky. All that said, Traffix XR is a good game, and puzzle fans looking for a new puzzler on Quest will find much to like on its miniature motorways.

UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines.

As we previously reported, Zero Caliber 2 will come to PS VR2 with the 'Remastered' edition that launched on Steam in October 2025 instead of the original Quest version.

XReal Games previously clarified that the port will run at a native 90 frames per second instead of 60 frames reprojected to 120. It will also utilize the headset's haptics, adaptive triggers on the controllers, and launch with native support for bHaptics products. We have reached out to ask if the co-op will be cross-platform with Quest and Steam. In the time since we last covered the game, the co-op campaign remains, as far as we're aware, restricted to same-platform players.

The first Zero Caliber launched for PS VR2 in December 2025 and currently has a 4.1 rating from 630 ratings. We reviewed the original Quest launch for the sequel, giving it a 4 out of 5 star rating.

Zero Caliber 2 can be wishlisted now for PS VR2 ahead of the November 5 launch.

Titan Isles launched in September 2025 with four suit types and developer Psytec Games (Windlands) has not expanded that number since then. In the game, you select one of these suits for your gameplay session, with each suit having its own specialized weapon loadout and traversal method. The fifth suit, Cage, flies through the large scale environments with anti-gravity rotors and engages in combat with laser-guided homing rockets and charged power shots. Cage is available as part of a free update that also adds a new encounter, Scrapspine Ridge, in the seventh campaign and a new look for the breakable loot boxes spread through the game's environments.

Titan Isles Review: Colossal Co-Op Fun, And Solo Too

Titan Isles is an absolute blast in both co-op and solo play, offering a strong VR action adventure worth exploring.

UploadVRHenry Stockdale

Here are the other suits you can choose from:

• Storm is similar to Marvel's Iron Man with a jetpack, wrist-mounted thrusters, and twin plasma pistols that combine into a long range rail gun.
• Hunter moves more like Spider-Man with a grappling-and-swinging movement system and a laser arrow bow.
• Goliath is a tank of a suit with an explosive cannon, a defensive shield (the only exo suit with a shield) and burst jets for enhanced mobility.
• Blink has a phase dash ability (hence the name), can air jump, and fights with homing bolts.

We reviewed Titan Isles at launch, saying it "delivers a compelling action adventure that's equally enjoyable in co-op and single-player."

Titan Isles is available now on Quest, PC VR, and PS VR2.

Meta VR Layout SDK & Gaze SDK

Historically, 2D apps on Horizon OS were largely restricted to tablet-style interfaces. Although multiple windows were supported, developers could not integrate floating or spatial elements into their UI without turning their apps into immersive experiences using the Spatial SDK.

The Meta VR Layout SDK changes that.

The Meta VR Layout SDK allows developers to add spatial components and windows around the main window of a standard Jetpack Compose or React Native Android app. The app remains non-immersive, can coexist with other open apps, and retains its existing activity and UI architecture. Developers do not need to switch to the Meta Spatial SDK.

The NBA app is one of the first apps to take advantage of this SDK, using it to improve the UI and support multiple views.

In essence, the Layout SDK enables window layouts similar to those in visionOS. However, it does not allow developers to spawn 3D objects or control the environment. Those capabilities still require the Spatial SDK.

The Meta VR Layout SDK is fully supported only on Horizon OS 2.7 and later. Meta says that on releases earlier than 2.7, the SDK falls back to its non-spatial behavior instead of placing spatial windows. The main window remains available while each spatial window component uses its developer-configured fallback.

Meta VR Gaze SDK

Alongside the Layout SDK, Meta will also be shipping a new Gaze SDK for Jetpack Compose, React Native, and Android Views.

Meta VR Glasses use a "Look and Pinch" input scheme by default, leveraging the device's Eye and Hand Tracking. This works well for most layouts, but highly customized components can have elements that the system misclassifies. Developers can use the Gaze SDK to provide the hints the system needs to understand their layout, as well as customize hover behavior.

The Gaze SDK is in early access and is compatible with Horizon OS 2.7 and later. However, it cannot be used in a shipping app until it leaves early access. Developers can request access through the developer support portal.

Meta VR UI Set SDK

In October 2024, Meta released the Horizon OS UI Set, a UI kit for Unity, Figma, and later the Spatial SDK.

Meta Finally Released A Quest UI Kit For Unity

Meta finally released a Quest UI kit for Unity, meaning developers can easily build interfaces that feel cohesive with Horizon OS.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

When developing for other operating systems such as iOS and Android, developers have access to high-level UI frameworks that help their apps feel cohesive with the operating system.

Before Meta introduced the Spatial SDK and the Horizon OS UI Set, developers building apps for Meta's VR devices often relied on game engines, such as Unity or Unreal without a first-party UI framework specifically tailored to Horizon OS. As a result, most apps used entirely different UI solutions, many of which were custom-made or repurposed from asset stores.

The Horizon OS UI Set was Meta's solution to this problem, providing developers with the components needed to build interfaces that feel cohesive with Horizon OS.

However, the Horizon OS UI Set was not a standalone SDK. This meant that its assets and frameworks were largely impractical to adapt for standard 2D Android apps, which is a major reason why most 2D apps on the platform still use their own implementations.

The Meta VR UI Set SDK aims to address this problem.

The Meta VR UI Set SDK is a Jetpack Compose design system for apps on Meta VR devices. It provides dark and light color schemes, semantic colors, typography, icons, component dimensions, and interaction feedback. It works with Jetpack Compose apps.

This makes the SDK relatively easy for 2D Android app developers to adopt, and Meta notes that it is optimized to be implemented by an AI coding agent. The company says that it is the successor to the Meta Horizon OS UI Set in Spatial SDK.

In practice, this could mean that many more 2D apps on the platform will adopt a consistent visual style and interaction patterns that match the rest of the system.

Disney+ Overhaul

The Disney+ app on Apple Vision Pro was custom-built with a unique spatial UI and launched with several immersive environments, with more released in the months that followed.

The app then launched on Quest in December 2025, with support for up to 4K resolution with Dolby Vision HDR. Disney+ Premium subscribers also had access to Dolby Atmos immersive audio in supported titles, a feature added to Horizon OS in v71, and could download content for offline viewing.

Quest Now Has A Disney+ App With Downloads & Dolby Atmos

Quest headsets now have an official Disney+ app, with support for downloads and Dolby Atmos immersive audio — but not for 3D.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

However, unlike the visionOS version, the Quest Disney+ app did not support 3D content and was limited to 2D media. It also lacked the custom 3D environments that could be used as virtual cinema spaces.

Now, Disney plans to take advantage of updates to Horizon OS and Meta's developer tools to bring many features of the visionOS version of the app to the platform. These include recent improvements to the Spatial SDK that enable enhanced audio, interactions, and more.

In November, Disney+ will receive a major update that overhauls its UI and makes the experience more spatial. The update will also add support for 3D media and introduce several of the 3D environments available in the visionOS app.

This update is expected to arrive around the same time that Meta adds the ability to rent or buy "hundreds" of movies on Quest in the US later this year. The company says that this catalog will eventually expand to "thousands" of titles available internationally by the time Meta VR Glasses launch in 2027.

Meta VR Glasses Officially Announced, Shipping Spring 2027 For $1300

Meta VR Glasses have 2.4K micro-OLED displays, weigh 100 grams, and are powered by a tethered puck with Qualcomm's Snapdragon Reality Elite chipset.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

This is another in our series of spooky season articles this month. If you are seeking more content, check out our list of horror game recommendations and upcoming horror games.

Our Favorite VR Games For Spooky Season 2026

Halloween is just around the corner. We've picked ten of our favorite scary VR games for spooky season 2026.

UploadVRMike Johnson

Updates are listed in alphabetical order by game title and we will update this article as new updates are released. The developers of Convrgence, Hard Bullet, & Ghosts of Tabor are teasing updates on social media we are keeping an eye out for and some of these updates tend to drop late in the month, so check back closer to Halloween for new entries.

If you know of any others, drop them in the comments below and we will add them in a future update to spread the word.

Here's our current rundown:

Ghosts of Tabor

The popular extraction shooter has released a Halloween-themed bunker (pictured above) and launched a Twitch drops campaign running until November 2. If you are unfamiliar with drops, it is a collaboration between developers and Twitch, a livestreaming platform, wherein you can earn exclusive in-game rewards simply by tuning in to a livestream of the game. These have been quite popular on Twitch for some time, but speaking as someone who has livestreamed VR on Twitch for over five years, it is rare to see VR developers do drops campaigns. Tabor and No Man's Sky have been the most frequent users of these campaigns that I am aware of for VR.

To qualify, you'll need to have played Tabor at least once during this current wipe period and link your account online, which can be done here.

Ghosts of Tabor is available now on Quest, Steam, PS VR2, and Pico.

Knights of Fiona

Since launch, Knights of Fiona has been steadily adding new quests with special rewards for players. October 20 kicked off a new Halloween Event Quest that ends on November 12 with two new rewards: a pumpkin shield and a Halloween body (both pictured above).

This quest is free to all players, including those who did not purchase the Story Pass to complete the full campaign. To start the quest, go to the quest board in the Eftora Station, select 'battle' and 'special' to see the quest. This quest can be completed in co-op with friends.

Additionally, the Got 'Em Mall also has several pumpkin hat sets available as in-app purchases.

Knights of Fiona is available now free to play on the Meta Horizon Store and Steam. 

Breachers

Tactical 5v5 FPS Breachers gets into the spirit with a limited-time game mode: Infected. Teams break up into Enforcers tasked with killing any infected in sight or the Infected whose goal is to either take down Enforcers or choke them out with toxic gas grenades. The Infected mode is only available until November 9.

Alongside the temporary game mode, developer Triangle Factory has released Breachers' first character skin DLC pack, the Enforcer's hazmat suit Quarantine skin, for $9.99.

Additionally, the Hideout map, a fan-favorite, gets a Halloween makeover with a nighttime setting and spooky-themed decorations like pumpkins, coffins, and cauldrons.

Medieval Dynasty: New Settlement

Medieval life sim Medieval Dynasty: New Settlement kicked off its annual Halloween Event on October 14. If you haven't done it before, head to the swamps area to find a mysterious grave that starts a hunt for the gravesites of the Spectral Games team. Find them all to unlock a special skull-themed xylophone and new musical track to play as you explore the map. The event also reskins the main menu and several of the settlements in the game, and replaces the birds in the air with bats.

Spectral has also teased additional Halloween surprises before the event ends on November 14.

Phasmophobia Crimson Eye

Phasmophobia's Crimson Eye event is back for a third year. The limited-time special runs through November 1 marked by a red sky lit by a blood moon, cultish markings, and candlelight on the map of investigations. During Crimson Eye, the game ramps in difficulty with faster, more aggressive ghosts, but those brave enough to take on hunts get a bonus percentage of cash and XP.

The event kicked off on October 8 with a Twitch drop campaign to earn an exclusive T-shirt. From October 15 to October 22, you get double experience points and extra rewards. Finally, from October 26 to November 1, Phasmophobia hosts Ghost Hunts 4 Hearts, a crossover event with the American Heart Association with special rewards for participants.

Puzzling Places - Halloween Event

The 48th monthly pack for 3D puzzler Puzzling Places is available now with six new puzzles to dig into, all pictured below:

• Lonely Forest Cabin (up to 400 pieces)
• Farmer’s Market Stall (up to 400 pieces)
• Finnish Farm (up to 1,000 pieces)
• Povrly Blacksmith (up to 1,000 pieces)
• Family Dinner (up to 400 pieces)
• Halloween Mansion (up to 400 pieces)

Monthly Pack #48 is available on Quest and Steam for $5.99.

Real VR Fishing

The free Halloween-themed update for Real VR Fishing adds five maps, including three brand new locations and two returning favorites from previous Halloween events. Each map features a new fish species (some of them quite spooky), while virtual anglers can also catch returning Halloween fish like the Zombie Shark and the Haunted Goblin Shark. Last year's Halloween fish and all 12 fish from the game's sixth-anniversary event will also return.

Real VR Fishing Gets Into The Halloween Spirit With New Free Update

A new update for Real VR Fishing arrives next week, bringing spooky maps, haunted fish, mixed reality features, hand tracking, and more.

UploadVRJames Tocchio

Table Troopers

Table Troopers is a mixed reality turn-based combat strategy game for up to four players. The $4.99 Halloween Pack includes three new maps, two new trooper types, and four new weapons. The maps are permanently added to your catalog and when you get together with friends, only one person needs to have the new maps for everyone to play.

Virtual Skate

Virtual Skate, a realistic skateboarding sim, has added a special Halloween-themed scavenger hunt. If you are able to locate all six pumpkins in SoCal Night, you will unlock a special 'hellish' portion of the map.

Developer Fast Travel Games confirmed the date and launch price of $24.99 in a press release and new trailer you can see here:

Aces High is a spinoff of the popular series of heist shooters from developer Starbreeze. James Tocchio and I played in the August closed playtest of Aces High with some of the Fast Travel team and came away eagerly awaiting more. That build only had one heist available while this new offering comes with two. All participants will receive a special kitty mask at launch for helping Fast Travel collect data and feedback in the final days before release.

Payday: Aces High Could Be The Next Go-To VR Shooter To Play With Friends

We went hands-on with Fast Travel Games' Payday: Aces High, and we think it could be the next go-to VR shooter to play with friends.

UploadVRMike Johnson

The demos can be acquired from the Steam and Quest store listings. Payday: Aces High releases on both platforms on November 5 for $24.99.

Next Fest is a chance for players to go hands-on with anticipated upcoming games while developers get a boost in visibility, potential wishlists, and invaluable feedback to help shape their projects as they approach a release date.

Some of the participating games released demos prior to the start of Next Fest, like Rustmourne, The Rifted Skies, Drifters: Blackout Crew, and RAID VR. Co-op heist shooter Payday: Aces High will have a demo available with two playable heists after its closed playtest in August.

Please note that this list was provided two weeks ago by Valve and is subject to change. Developers can drop out of Next Fest if their demo is not ready or release a demo on short notice.

For now, here are the demos we are aware of.

Ancient Duel - Note: This is a flatscreen game with VR support. At press time, we do not know if the demo will support VR.

Arcane Architect

Archery Pro VR

ASMBL

Atlas Proxima Tether - Note: This is a flatscreen game with VR support. At press time, we do not know if the demo will support VR.

Bad Grip Club

Be A Chameleon

Board of the Future

City of Hunger

Cloud JourneyVR

Cute & Dead

Dance of Drauganna

Dark Trip

Drifters: Blackout Crew

Ghostly Late Night Show - Note: This is a flatscreen game with VR support. At press time, we do not know if the demo will support VR.

Halls of the Deep

Hyperlane Highway

I Am Octopus

It's All Ogre

Liminal

Long Trip

Low Level Hunters - Note: This is a flatscreen game with VR support. At press time, we do not know if the demo will support VR.

Magic Color Merge Puzzle VR

Moly

My Nuclear Octopus 2

Off The Top Rope!

Orb Rush VR

Outlander VR

Paranatural - Note: This is a flatscreen game with VR support. At press time, we do not know if the demo will support VR.

Parcel Panic

PatchWorld

Payday: Aces High

Plonk! A 4D Puzzle

Project Sever

Rec Room: A New Semester

Rustmourne

Saddlebow

Sapphobos

Sol Protocol

Stuffed: Two Foot Hero

Sunstone of Time

System Critical 3

The Evidence Cleaner

The Last Frame

The Rifted Skies

Undead Development 2 - Note: This is a flatscreen game with VR support. At press time, we do not know if the demo will support VR.

Voxel Playground

VR Cop Simulator

Wake

Wurst and Glory

Created by solo developer Paulo Cunha, Loony Laps is an upcoming toy car racing game that brings the magic of die-cast racing and elaborate toy tracks into mixed reality and VR. It's coming to Quest on December 15 and will cost $12.99. The game can be pre-ordered now.

The game's developer was originally targeting release on only Quest 3 and 3S, but they have now made the game available on Quest 2 and Quest Pro, as well as 3 and 3S.

We've embedded a trailer below which shows off the game's many wacky races.

Loony Laps features 29 handcrafted tracks designed to bring out maximum chaos and laughs. The tracks feature loops, jumps, magnetic hazards, branching paths, mobile obstacles and ridiculous gags. The cars are made to look like little die-cast toys and can be customized with paint, wheels, materials and other cosmetics.

The game is playable in VR, where players race within a dedicated miniature environment, and in mixed reality, where the wacky racetracks appear inside your physical space.

The game will launch with three play modes including Championship, in which progression unlocks cars and tracks, Quick Race, which lets you jump right into a chosen event, and Time Trial, which has you focusing on beating your best times. The game is built around short, replayable arcade sessions.

Loony Laps is coming to Quest on December 15 and it's available for pre-order now.

Shababeek Labs, a small game studio based in Abu Dhabi, recently announced their upcoming VR game Good Morning [Employee Name] VR. The announcement comes alongside a trailer, which scratches the Severance itch that we've all been unable to scratch since season 2 of Apple's breakout series wrapped.

We've embedded the trailer below.

Ahmad Abdallah, Shababeek Labs' founder, explained the game's premise in a bit more detail.

"Good Morning [Employee Name] VR is a seated VR narrative game [in which] you play as a new hire at Consolidated Dynamics, a 1960s company in a world where technology developed differently," they explain. "Over your working days you rotate through desk stations guided by handlers on the phone and a PA system that has a training film for everything. It's a slow-burn psychological mystery, rather than horror."

The entire game can be played seated, no locomotion is required, and it has a runtime of four to six hours. The story takes place over the first twelve days of your employment at Consolidated Dynamics, where everything seems nominally fine, if not a little strange and somehow unsettling.

The developers of Good Morning [Employee Name] VR are targeting release toward the end of 2026 on Quest and PC VR via Steam, where it can be wishlisted now.

The collaboration between Virtuix and Meta expands on the successful launch this past June of Omni One for Quest, an omni-directional treadmill made to work with Meta's Quest 3 and 3S headsets. The Omni One treadmill is currently compatible with more than 75 available and upcoming Meta Quest games, and over 100 PC VR games.

Virtuix has also announced that Omni One sales have increased "approximately 3X" compared to the same period last year following the release of Omni One for Quest.

Omni One for Quest is a full-body VR treadmill that allows players to physically walk, run, crouch, and move backward in 360 degrees inside compatible VR games. In addition to immersing players in virtual worlds, it's also often positioned by Virtuix as a great tool for fitness (they call it "Peloton for gamers").

The Omni One for Quest treadmill costs $2,595 without a headset. Bundling the kit with a Quest 3 or 3S adds $599 or $349, respectively. A PC VR Bluetooth adapter opens up PC VR connectivity, and adds $49 to the final price. Omni One Core is also available for PC VR players who already own a headset and controllers, and this costs $2,495.

You can browse the full line of Virtuix gear at their online shop.

Blackout Crew is the latest project from Salmi Games (Sweet Surrender), a co-op PvE FPS where you and your friend have to venture into a foreign world to get resources for your dying mothership and unlock or upgrade your weapons and tools.

Salmi has been conducting regular playtests for months, improving performance, adding new features and overhauling the weapon system as detailed in a recent developer blog on its YouTube channel. Personally, I'm looking forward to trying the flamethrower.

Blackout Crew was first revealed at the VR Games Showcase in June, showcasing Salmi's signature cel shaded art style and sci-fi aesthetic that carries over from Sweet Surrender. We had a chance to speak with Salmi Games founder Yacine Salmi in an episode of the UploadVR Gamescast.

Drifters: Blackout Crew's demo is available now on Steam.

Arvore is best known for the Pixel Ripped trilogy and also developed bullet-hell roguelike Yuki and this year's The Boys: Trigger Warning.

Fabula Rasa's comedic story is told through real-time conversations with AI-driven NPCs, using Large Language Models (LLMs) to dynamically respond to you as opposed to traditional pre-written branching dialogue systems that games and experiences like this have typically employed. We saw a similar experience to this in AstroBeam's sci-fi experience Stellar Cafe.

Here's the trailer:

You play as a prisoner trapped in a cage at the center of a medieval town trying to save yourself from being dropped to your death in the monster pit below. To free yourself, you must convince nine locals to assist you. Everything about the story including your crimes and the responses of the townsfolk is shaped by your choices to ensure no two playthroughs are the same.

To further incentivize multiple playthroughs, Fabula Rasa has a mix of different costumes to help spark your interactions and prompt different responses from the NPCs. The team at Arvore also consulted with improv comedians to help shape the LLMs driving the NPCs.

Fabula Rasa won this year's XR Experience Audience Award at the SXSW Film & TV Festival and the Best of Tech award at Miami Filmgate Interactive.

You can wishlist Fabula Rasa for Quest now ahead of its November 12 release.

The new levels are played from the viewpoint of the COI (Covert Operations Initiative), the antagonist organization of the game. Support Group features COI agents who managed to survive encounters with the game's protagonist, retired agent Alphonse Harding. The agents recount their overexaggerated stories of Harding's seemingly unreal abilities as you play the scenarios out in real time. This same story expansion was added to the original game in 2024.

I Am Your Beast VR Review-In-Progress: I Am A Speedrunning Badass

I Am Your Beast VR is a fast-paced cinematic action thriller that willingly sacrifices VR-specific elements for speed and efficiency.

UploadVRMike Johnson

After playing I Am Your Beast VR, I called it "gleefully entertaining with a specific action thriller vibe that everything in terms of visuals, music, level design and interactions plays into" in my current in-progress review and heartily recommended it for action-lovers. The Support Group update is available now.

Other Updates

In addition to Support Group, another patch posted on October 12 added a few new features and adjustments:

• Official support for bHaptics products, specifically the TactSuit Pro & Air, TactVisor, and TactSleeve.
• An online leaderboard showing your global rank after completing each level. Note: the leaderboards are not retroactive, so your times and scores previous to this update will not post
• Four new in-game achievements
• All level ranks have had two additional seconds of time added, making the time-limited levels more equitable for VR gameplay without ruining the game's core challenge

I Am Your Beast VR is available now on Steam.

What Convrgence actually is in practice is a roguelike shooter with extraction elements. Pick a location, build your loadout, then embark on an excursion through your zone in question - following your wristwatch's directional navigation to the exit, while keeping an eye out for enemies and gear along the way. Each run is randomly generated, offering a different layout; in order to take on a run in each map, you'll need to complete a raid in the previous map either during the day or night.

Raids during the day are easier, not least of all due to not having to worry about your flashlight. Raids at night, conversely, require you to make wider use of your kit. Your weapons, flashlight and backpack all are strapped to different parts of your body. Ammo can be stored in pouches at your waist, offering easier access for reloads instead of having to constantly grab your backpack. While it's not particularly noteworthy on its own, there are a few wrinkles such as how you'll have to count your bullets manually - with many magazines being somewhat transparent, allowing you to verify whether it's worth stashing from an enemy or not.

For the most part controls work well, but I would say at least while using a PlayStation VR2 on Steam, I did notice some trouble accessing my inventory, with many cases where the game would go for one of my equipped guns. During the tutorial, I also ran into a bug that necessitated me skipping a step, which certainly leads me to a few questions regarding the existence of a button to skip tutorial steps built into the menu. While the game is ostensibly released out of Early Access, this along with a lack of distinct graphical settings makes me wonder if the game was fully ready for that 1.0 version number.

At least in terms of gameplay, the game's a bit mixed. The team nails the VR interactions for reloading and tinkering with your weapons; crafting in between missions is satisfying enough, too. But levels being mostly linear and procedural means it's lacking a lot of what makes proper extraction shooters interesting - doubly so when you always know exactly the direction to go. Enemy AI feels pretty lacking at this point, too; as interesting and well constructed as the weapons are, I can't help but feel a bit disappointed when it takes so long for them to feel meaningful.

Levels do get more complicated the further along you go, but they remain linear regardless, and it's hard to care too much about alternate paths when you'll find plenty of loot whichever way you go. The base level gameplay feels a bit too basic to start and your German Shepherd companion doesn't get enough utility; you can whistle to give him short orders, but with enemy AI being as basic as they are, it's trivial to pick them off one by one, even without your pup. To that end, it's hard to say you'll ever need to bring more than one gun in when you'll inevitably loot another off an enemy's corpse before long.

I suppose there's a chance that things will click for me eventually, but for now I'm feeling thoroughly whelmed by Convrgence. It's not a complete skip, but I can't exactly share a glowing recommendation for it, either. Maybe I'll feel better about the game with a few more updates under its belt, but that's the last thing you want to say about any game right out of Early Access. We'll see if Monkey-With-a-Bomb can win me over in the long run.

In addition to the new song, the spooky update also brings limited time changes to the Spin City home stage and play stage. Bats flap their shadowy wings against the spooky night sky, while neon bloom and flash effects hit standalone headsets.

The update is out now on Quest, PlayStation VR2, and Steam.

Watch the trailer here:

This latest update follows recent news of Synth Riders adding hand-tracking support to Quest 3 and 3S. With hand tracking, Synth Riders is positioned to support Meta's recently announced VR Glasses from day one, a trend we expect to see other developers experiment with to keep in line with support on the latest XR hardware.

Synth Riders is available on Quest, PlayStation VR2, Apple Vision Pro, and Steam.

According to Supernatural, Early Access users can expect to find "thousands of workouts from day one, including your favorites, remastered, with brand-new workouts dropping every week." Also they say there will be new environments included, with new "higher-definition" environments expected in the future.

In a move sure to please their existing users, Supernatural says users will be able to "bring your Supernatural history with you, including points, streaks, favorites, and badges." This is a major win for the Supernatural user community, and has been a concern of users who have amassed streaks and points totals that they use as a measure of their personal progress.

In a new development, Supernatural will offer in-game collectibles. They say Founding Members will receive "...your Founding Member custom bat from day one, with more Founding Member rewards dropping regularly over the coming weeks." This is a new level of customization for Supernatural, which previously had a single type of bat and boxing glove for all users.

Supernatural says that they are working on many future enhancements, including music licensing deals, a new multi-player workout mode, and a new mobile app to "track your progress and heart rate, and stay connected on the go".

Early Access will be launching "soon" according to Supernatural, and will be open to everyone, regardless of Founding Member status. However, those users who register as a Founding Member prior to the Early Access launch will secure their discounted first-year rate, plus the new digital collectibles. Once Early Access launches, Founding memberships will no longer be available.

As reported by UploadVR, Supernatural was put into maintenance mode by Meta in January 2026, after being acquired in 2023. Coaches and staff were laid off, and no new content was to be produced, though users could use the existing workout library.

In June 2026 it was announced that Supernatural would re-launch as part of a new, independent company called Supernatural Health, with all of the existing coaches and some of the previous design talent joining the new venture.

The app is available on the Meta Quest store, with the subscription for content available for $20 per month or $200 per year ($180 for Founding members' first year).

We played Spymaster in Early Access, finding that Innerspace's signature charm from their previous titles carried over to this new spy-themed adventure. You control multiple spies in sandbox-like missions with a goal of getting each agent to the mission's end.

Here is a clip from my Early Access play:

If you screw up, as in the above clip where I get shot multiple times, this is where the quirkiness comes in. A device on your wrist called the C.A.S.S.E.T.T.E. allows you to rewind time and replay snippets of the mission from either agent's viewpoint, allowing you to fix mistakes in a run, complete secondary objectives, or simply fine-tune the run.

It's a novel concept that encourages replayability to perfect a run without any anxiety-inducing tension. Basically, having a veritable reset button means you can find your own path at your own pace. I will be revisiting Spymaster to complete the campaign and will have a final review in a future article.

Spymaster is available now on Quest and Steam.

Payne's Valley is the first in a planned series of five Big Cedar Lodge courses coming to the popular golf sim in the next few weeks. The others will be Buffalo Ridge, Ozarks National, Top of the Rock, and Cliffhangers.

Here's the narrated trailer for Payne Valley:

The southwest Missouri-based course was named in memory of golfer Payne Stewart, a Missouri native who won one PGA Championship in 1989 and the 1991 and 1999 US Opens before passing away later in 1999. Woods designed the course to be accessible to golfers of every skill level, with wide fairways and tight runoffs. It also features a bonus par-3 nineteenth hole designed by Johnny Morris, the owner of Bass Pro Shops who partnered with Woods and others on the overall course.

Payne's Valley is available now for $11.99. Players can also subscribe to the GOLF+ Pass service for $9.99 a month (or $99.99 per year) to get access to all courses.

Immersive Putting To Spin Off To Its Own App

The mixed reality Immersive Putting mode, which allows you to use a real putter and golf ball in your own play space with a virtual green overlaid on your floor, is being spun off to a separate app alongside the main game. Any players who have the current GOLF+ Pass subscription service can rest assured it will carry over to the new app. All stats, handicaps, and medals will also carry over.

This allows players to choose different courses to separately choose which courses to download for full rounds of golf versus ones just designated for putting. It also will negate the need to switch from controllers to hand tracking, depending on the selected mode. The new app is targeted for early November.

GOLF+ is out now on Quest for $29.99 and comes with three original courses. It is also available as part of Meta's Horizon+ subscription service. It can be wishlisted on Steam now ahead of its upcoming release on that platform.

We will have a full list of every PC VR demo when Next Fest starts next week, but multiple developers have opted to release their demos ahead of time, so if you are looking for something to check out on PC VR this weekend, consider these demos.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Most of these are games we learned of in VR games showcases earlier this year.

Rustmourne

We first revealed this Dead Space-like sci-fi first person shooter at the summer edition of our UploadVR Showcase in June. It has since racked up over 20,000 wishlists as of the end of August. Rustmourne launches in early 2027.

Get the Rustmourne demo here.

The Rifted Skies

The Rifted Skies was born out of developer DreamVR's desire to see more physical, player-driven movement in consumer VR games similar to the location-based-entertainment (LBE) experiences the company has previously built. The action-roguelike involves outrunning a world-consuming rift with arm pumping movement and parkour. It was first announced at the VR Games Showcase earlier this summer.

Get The Rifted Skies demo here.

RAID VR

R.A.I.D. stands for Rapid Assault & Interception Division where you serve as an intergalactic border patrol agent of sorts, inspecting ships and intercepting any that flag as suspicious. When you spot any red flags, you board the ship and engage in an action-packed shootout to defeat the criminals and seize the ship's cargo. The co-op roguelite is being developed by FusionPlay and will be published by Impact Inked.

Get the RAID VR demo here.

Board of the Future

Another from summer's UploadVR Showcase, Board of the Future is the spiritual successor to 2019's hoVRboard. The futuristic hoverboard rider can be played at a leisurely pace with multiple tricks to learn, unlockable stages, and new boards with different characteristics. The demo features a limited selection of boards and maps with 'some features still under development.'

Get the Board of the Future demo here.

Hyperlane Highway

Hyperlane Highway is another futuristic hoverboard experience, albeit one with combat and a roguelite game loop. You steer your board by physically leaning left or right. The demo has one class, three environments, one boss fight, and a cap on playtime and runs.

Get the Hyperlane Highway demo here.

Stuffed: Two Foot Hero

Stuffed: Two Foot Hero is a cooperative VR wave shooter where you play as the stuffed teddy bear owned by a little girl. You must fend off hordes of enemies to defend said little girl from her nightmares. The demo supports multiplayer with one map and a full arsenal of weapons to choose from.

Get the Stuffed: Two Foot Hero demo here.

Crashland

Editor's discretion here because I learned this game was coming to Steam when I checked the available demos. Personally speaking, sci-fi wave shooter Crashland is one of the hardest VR games I have ever played. You play as the worst spaceship pilot ever who inexplicably keeps crashing on hostile alien planets. You are forced to fend off an onslaught of aggressive creatures until your rescue ship arrives. New weapons and temporary power ups are airdropped to you periodically and believe me when I say you will need all of them. Between worlds, you can add perks to increase your chances of survival. The Steam version is a hybrid game with redesigned controls for flatscreen players, but the demo supports VR.

Get the Crashland demo here.

Interlocked: Puzzle Islands

We reviewed Interlocked: Puzzle Islands when it launched on Quest, saying "In a medium that often prioritizes excitement, tension, horror, and dopamine drip, Interlocked: Puzzle Islands feels radical in its serenity. It reminds me of what makes games like Lumines and Echochrome so impactful, not just as puzzles to be played and solved, but as experiences." At the time, we noted that a Steam release was in the works. This is a hybrid release with mouse and keyboard support, but the demo is VR supported.

Get the Interlocked: Puzzle Islands demo here.

Look for the full list of Steam Next Fest PC VR demos when the event begins on October 19.

The approximately 24-minute experience (27 minutes, including credits) invites you into the story that takes place in 19th-century London, to both witness and feel what it is like to be haunted. 

Remnants is a beautifully shot live-action ghost story. The limits of what you can see in its 180-degree immersive video and use of some traditional film techniques actually make the experience feel more unnerving.

You Do Not Feel Safe, Even As a Witness to What Unfolds

The Remnants experience does not give you a role in the story. You are invited back in time to witness what takes place. With no character to embody, West presents a wide range of views for you to take in, from extreme close-up moments with the characters, to bird’s-eye views of inside and outside the castle. The range of shot choices feels similar to a traditional film. 

During the slower introductory scene ahead of the visit to the haunted castle, the angles and quick cuts between the dialogue place more emphasis on the filmmaker than the ability to feel present with the characters and the story. But as the eerie experience unfolds, the selected perspectives start to feel intentionally unsettling. You are not able to choose where you appear or what you hear or are faced with within the 180-degree views. You are trapped in a slightly different way than the main character, Eleanor. The direction is a clever method to reduce the sense of control that you have in an experience that is already not interactive.

You Are Almost Like a Ghost

Throughout the experience at the castle, the fear, intriguing visuals, spatial sound and score make you feel present. The characters do not engage with you though, and you do not see your shadow or reflection. At moments, especially during some of the smooth longer shots I felt like I was floating and could have been a ghost. But this was not consistent throughout and does not seem like West’s intent. Even without a role, and frequent cuts to a range of perspectives, the way that you experience the story still makes it seem as if you are there with Eleanor and there is reason to be afraid.

A Haunting Story, Not Just A Series Of Scares

At approximately 24 minutes, Remnants is among the short list of longer Apple Immersive videos currently available. This gives enough time for the narrative to unfold which is helpful in building the eerie feeling of being in it. You are given the luxury of being able to take in the details of the environments in the story, which adds to the experience. This is not just a haunted castle visit with a series of jump cuts.

Did I scream at possibly more than one surprise? Absolutely. There were also a few moments I had a hand on my headset, ready to exit to reality if needed.

Beat Games has announced the latest shock drop for Beat Saber. Ghostbusters by Ray Parker Jr. brings the title track from the 1984 blockbuster film Ghostbusters to the VR rhythm workout game.

Who you gonna call? Beat Saber!

Anyway, here's a trailer.

An update released to coincide with the Shock Drop fixes a number of bugs across several environments, and upgrades the game's Level Editor. The complete list of updates can be seen here.

This spooky season-themed Shock Drop joins previous songs released this year, including "APT" by ROSÉ and Bruno Mars last month, Yungblud's "Zombie" in June, Bad Bunny's "Me Porto Bonito" in February and "Stressed Out" from Twenty One Pilots in March.

The game also added three new free original songs in May for its eight-year anniversary, and Meta announced the game's biggest update ever is adding a new gameplay mode called Flux, full hand tracking support and a new progression system. This update will launch in spring 2027 to coincide with the recently revealed Meta VR Glasses.

Ghostbusters for Beat Saber is available now on Quest and PC VR for $1.99.

The new chapter will be available to all players who purchased the $18.99 Story Pass add-on at no additional cost. When I reviewed Knights of Fiona at launch, I said the story was arguably the best part of the game and almost managed to overcome what I felt was unsatisfying combat, a nearly unbearable number of loading screens, and multiple issues with audio dialogue cutoffs and translation.

Developer Character Bank has taken player feedback from players and addressed many of the stated issues with three patches since release, including the following:

• A reduction of up to 80% in loading times
• Skippable tutorial and opening sequences
• Streamlined party fanfare and boss introductions when a quest is replayed
• Fixes for bugs that blocked the completion of certain quests
• Raising the level cap from 40 to 45

I will revisit Knights of Fiona when chapter six is added next week and offer my updated thoughts in a future article.

Stuffed: Two Foot Hero, first revealed at August's VR Games Showcase, is the successor to developer Waving Bear Studio's Stuffed, which released on Xbox in 2023 and Steam in 2024.

In Two Foot Hero, you take on the role of a stuffed teddy bear protecting a little girl from her nightmares in what fans have called "Call of Duty meets Toy Story."

The Steam demo features one full map, the full array of weapons, some cosmetics, and a 'taste' of the progression system. It also supports multiplayer. At the time of this article, we do not know if progression from the demo will carry over to the full game at launch. The full game will have six maps at launch and, like the original, supports four-player co-op gameplay.

Stuffed: Two Foot Hero launches for Quest and PC VR on November 3.

Sandisk describes this as a partnership with Meta and says it will be the "exclusive provider" of next-generation flash storage solutions for Meta VR Glasses when they launch in spring 2027.

The lineup includes microSD Express memory cards and USB-C flash drives, which Sandisk describes as "official Meta-tested" products. The company has not announced specific storage capacities or prices.

Meta's recently announced VR Glasses will ship with 128GB of internal storage and feature an expandable microSD card slot in the compute puck, a first for the company's VR products and a move likely intended to ease rising memory costs.

Alongside this, Meta has been gradually improving support for external storage in Horizon OS. Recent additions include the ability to browse and manage connected drives directly in the system Files app. An "Open With" menu also lets you open files in compatible 2D apps, including the system Media Player for supported media files.

In Horizon OS 2.9 PTC, the Settings app also now recognizes and lists external storage locations alongside the system's internal storage, allowing you to manage data across the device in one place.

Sandisk's new storage offerings will be the latest in a long line of accessories sold under Meta's Made for Meta label. The program allows third parties to build products "authorized by Meta" that meet its quality and compatibility standards. This includes notable hardware accessories such as the Logitech MX Ink.

Daumier: Lila & Ghost is a co-operative, story-driven VR puzzle game designed for two players. A second free copy of the game will be provided for every player who buys it during the first month of its availability. This free copy can be shared with anyone the buyer wishes.

In Daumier: Lila & Ghost, two players explore the same narrative adventure through different timelines by solving co-operative VR puzzles together. Clear communication and teamwork will be critical to solving the game's mysteries and completing its story.

A trailer has been released showing the game's beautiful visuals and co-operative mechanics in action.

In order to claim the second free copy of the game, players who purchase during the first month following the October 15 release will need to join the designated channel in the official Daumier Discord server.

In July, we were able to run through the first area of the game during an Alpha test with the game's community manager. We found it to be a gorgeous game with interesting puzzles, and an experience that left our writer eagerly awaiting the game's release.

We'll have a full review posted just after launch.

Daumier: Lila & Ghost is available now on Quest.

The original flatscreen version of Titanfall 2 leveraged an innovative combination of free-flowing movement, precision shooting mechanics, and mech-based combat to make you feel like the most powerful force on the battlefield.

While certain aspects of Titanfall 2 are more effective in VR, others get lost in translation. In the end, though there are frequent moments throughout its campaign that remind you the original game was not made with VR in mind, the Titanfall 2 VR Mod is still one of the best VR mods I’ve ever played.

What is Titanfall 2?

Titanfall 2 was one of the more interesting games released in the 2010s. It was made by Respawn Entertainment, at the time a new studio comprised of developers who had previously worked on the Call of Duty series, and it served as a follow-up to that studio’s highly anticipated first game, 2014’s Titanfall.

While the original Titanfall was well-regarded as a game with incredible mechanics that truly innovated the formulaic first-person shooter genre, with critics citing its parkour-infused run and gun combat and the ability to pilot enormous mechs in ever-fluid combat scenarios as major strengths, it was a multiplayer-only experience that landed prior to a time when multiplayer-only live-service games were an established force in the industry. As such, Titanfall left many reviewers and players wishing for a single-player campaign.

In 2016, Titanfall 2 addressed those wishes, launching with a single-player campaign that many critics and reviewers praised as an instant classic.

In Titanfall 2, you play as Militia rifleman Jack Cooper, who aspires to be a Titan Pilot. When a battle on the planet Typhon goes horribly wrong and Cooper’s commanding officer is mortally wounded, he spends his dying breath to transfer control of his Titan, BT-7274, to Cooper. Now, with the help of BT, Cooper must avenge his fallen comrade, stop the enemy from using a superweapon to destroy the Militia’s home planet, and earn the right to call himself a Pilot.

The game’s great gameplay hook was its mobility. This wasn’t a slow-paced FPS or a lumbering shooter. In Titanfall and its sequel, players sprint and wall-run and double jump with the help of sci-fi tech. In addition, the player often jumps into the cockpit of their faithful Titan, battling other Titans and infantry as a super-powered mech warrior. The relationship between Cooper and BT takes center stage, too, resulting in an incredibly evocative and affecting story of battlefield comradeship.

Though Titanfall as a series has been dormant since Titanfall 2’s release, its 2019 spin-off, Apex Legends, has become one of the most successful free-to-play battle-royale shooters of all time.

And What is Titanfall 2 VR?

Last month, a modder known as CircuitLord released a full conversion virtual reality mod for Titanfall 2’s single-player campaign. It features 6DOF movement, tracked motion controls, and fully articulated hands with finger tracking support. Established VR shooter norms are here, too, such as manual reloads and realistic weapon handling in which you physically eject magazines, grab fresh ones, and cock weapons by hand.

The VR port retains the fast-paced parkour mechanics of the original game, allowing you to double-jump, wall-run, and sprint slide independently of weapon aiming. You’ll also physically jump into your mech, using hand gestures to activate weapons and abilities, and like its source, the VR game is visually arresting and stunningly beautiful.

The mod launches with an incredibly simple installer that automatically detects your game files and works with any VR headset capable of connecting to a PC. We covered the noteworthiness of the mod's ease of use in another article, and it really is impressive.  

Power Fantasy? Or Presence?

So, that's Titanfall 2 in VR. But is it any good?

The bones are solid. The mod launches quickly and easily, the game runs great, and through the full campaign playthrough, I experienced zero bugs and no crashes. As far as mods go, there’s technically nothing to complain about. It looks great, sounds awesome, and feels nice.

But that’s not to say that Titanfall 2 VR is intrinsically better than Titanfall 2 on flatscreen devices. In some ways, it's true. In others, it’s not.

The best part of Titanfall 2 on flatscreen platforms was the power fantasy. You were a Pilot with a legendary companion in the Titan, and whether piloting BT or running and gunning on foot, after the campaign’s first half hour, you were the most fearsome soldier on the battlefield.

In VR, this is no longer the case. The gunplay is slower, the combat occasionally awkward. No matter how much you practice, every now and then you're going to fumble with weapons or screw up a reload. And nothing makes you feel less like a super soldier than dropping a mag in the middle of a reload or accidentally lobbing a grenade six feet shorter than you intended.

There are many design elements in the game that make it obvious that the original developers did not intend for Titanfall 2 to be played in VR. Weapons are complex, with critical parts, like bolts, which are a little too small to grip easily. Weapon swapping itself is cumbersome and clunky. Aiming down sights takes a lot of getting used to.

Similarly, the flatscreen game's legendary mobility is less effective in VR. While wall running and sprint sliding are still here and super useful, there's just not as much fluidity, speed, or effortlessness. Part of this comes down to the simple fact that you're standing while playing, moving your body around to get where you want to go, physically crouching or weaving. For some, this will be extremely engaging. For me, someone who's played over 500 hours in Apex Legends (a game that's grown out of Titanfall 2's movement mechanics) it's just kind of clumsy.

But I'm being intentionally harsh. I love Titanfall 2, and the original game on which this mod is based is one that is legitimately among the best games ever made in the FPS genre. Can its VR mod possibly measure up?

The truth is that in Titanfall 2 VR, unlike in the game’s flatscreen progenitor, you are not a super soldier and gunplay and mobility are far from the best parts of the game. Instead, the best parts of Titanfall 2 VR are the parts with heart.

The relationship with BT, which has arguably always been as important as the game's mechanics or game feel, is even more captivating than ever here in VR. BT is enormous, towering over you in virtual reality. He exists in real space, leaps into battles and smashes enemies; he picks you up in the palm of his hand and famously javelin throws you across the void. He struggles with you and succeeds with you, shoots you thumbs-up, which you can shoot back. He lives and dies on the battlefield with you, and the sense of connection with your larger-than-life mech is frankly powerful in VR.

So, the question is: what’s more important? Feeling powerful, or feeling connected?

Because, while the Titanfall 2 VR mod is a great mod, it isn’t perfect and it’s not a native VR experience. There’s jank, jitters, and flaws that don’t exist in the flatscreen game. And some other VR shooters play better.

But Titanfall 2 VR is a special experience, a must-play, just not for the same reasons it was a must-play on flat. It's more interesting than that. As BT says, "Trust me."

UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines.

Quality magic is not a series of tricks. It is the real feeling that audiences get when they witness an engaging performance that feels like the impossible took place. Being present in a live-captured immersive video magic performance offers a special opportunity because not only can you watch several unedited performances take place, but you can also choose to re-experience the moments and watch the feeling of magic take over the audience members close to you, as well as magician Siegfried Tieber’s reactions. 

The experience is split into two stand-alone episodes that are about 20 minutes each. They include different performances and some quick insights into several elements that are important to magicians when performing... without giving away secrets of course. Both episodes are now available free to Fovii subscribers or to rent or buy on the app. They are also available for purchase on Front Row.

Small Spaces Force a Sense of Presence

Most performance spaces at The Magic Castle are designed for smaller audiences to get up-close with the magic. The proximity to the magician as well as other audience members makes you feel like a part of the show, instead of a spectator. 

In You Are Here: At the Magic Castle with Siegfried Tieber, you are invited into the Close-Up Gallery, which is often the toughest room to get into, and the Library Bar. You are at most a few feet away from the magic being performed while viewing the show from an audience seat, and in some cases you are right next to Siegfried Tieber. The natural but abnormally close camera placements make you feel present at the show. The magician sometimes glances at you as a member of the audience (and a possible method of controlling your attention). You are also able to take in the range of ways that audience members transition from possible disbelief to absolute shock and awe, along with you.

A Simple Setup Serves The Performance

The production has at most two cameras capturing Siegfried Tieber in the Close-Up room, and simpler captures elsewhere. But that is all that is needed to let you take in the experience of live magic up-close. Jumping back and forth from too many locations would have created an unintended distraction, and the magic is good enough to let you pause, rewind and rewatch uninterrupted shots without catching on to any methods. The switches happen at just the right times.

Live capture is valuable for this type of magic. In a digitally created environment, the story of an impossible moment could be dismissed as something programmed to happen. As I learned creating Magicians in VR, the first live magic show and event in VR, mentalism is the best type of magic to leverage in digitally created environments. Penn & Teller’s VR experience blended digital and real worlds. There is close-up magic as well as mentalism performed in You Are Here: At The Magic Castle.

Storytelling Invites You Into The Castle And The Art of Magic

In addition to the performances, I appreciate that the narrative in the experience layered in some of the history of magic and The Magic Castle, along with what it is like to be a magician. 

It is more than just an immersive magic show; it is a visit to one of the most significant magic destinations. Locations like The Magic Castle, David Copperfield’s International Museum and Library of the Conjuring Arts and even private magic collections like those owned by David Blaine are not highly accessible. Immersive access lets you watch the planned story unfold, while also controlling your experience in a small way by looking around to take in the details that interest you. The show is about more than the effects.

The shots of Siegfried Tieber speaking to camera that took place in a venue outside of the Magic Castle were the only elements that felt disjointed from the experience. It made more sense when his non-performance shots were in the Close-Up Room or the bar inside the entrance of The Magic Castle.

Combined, parts 1 and 2 of the experience are about 40 minutes and while they are not written in a manner that directly connects the narrative between the two, I recommend watching them both to get up-close with the range of magic performed.

Strategy games are almost perfect for VR - positioning a player like a gamemaster above the board, from which you can make your moves and witness the action all around you in the most immersive way possible. In the case of BattleGroupVR2, a space-faring strategy game sequel now available in Early Access, this takes the form of assuming your role as the captain on the bridge of a spaceship, controlling both your own ship and a fleet of allies in dogfights and traversal through deep space.

With the vastness of space at your fingertips and deep tactical gameplay, it’s a tantalizing proposition, one which propelled the original title into becoming a VR success story. There’s nothing quite like dictating the action of intergalactic warfare like pieces on a chessboard, only to see the action take place on a grand scale around you in real time. Even in the first game, the execution on this idea was already great. The promise of this sequel is to build upon the foundations of that game, not to necessarily transform them. Which feels accurate based on first impressions of my first few hours with the game in Early Access, though there are a few notable changes alongside a host of familiar ideas given a dose of polish between the first and second games.

For one, BattleGroupVR2 has received a rather spiffing visual overhaul. Jumping into the game’s tutorial, the vastness of the adventure ahead of you feels immediately apparent. A hologram of your ship sits in front of you as you look on at both the crew of your space vessel and the deep space beyond. Using a mix of the grips on the controller as well as the analog sticks to rotate and zoom both your ship and the miniaturized representation of the solar system you exist within, this serves as a virtual approximation of your surroundings from which you can point to a location in 3D space to command your ship in that direction.

A lot of time will be spent merely traversing through this vast expanse, which makes it helpful that the game can be sped up 5x or even 10x during long downtimes of moving through asteroid fields. Things get more interesting when you enter combat. Not only do you have full control over your own ship and the others in your fleet, you can influence battles by tactically moving ships behind debris for cover, choosing where to aim your assault, or strategically shifting power between a ship’s weapons, shields and engines in order to prioritize their offensive or defensive capabilities. All to most effectively counter and defend against enemy assault.

There’s a granular control to each area of your ship and skirmish that provides the depth of gameplay hardcore fans of the genre will desire, all while introducing these ideas in a way that won’t overwhelm newcomers. It helps that more attuned players can simply increase map size or difficulty to cater to their abilities and playstyle. It avoids situations where the difficulty curve can feel too steep for a game to reach mainstream appeal, with my only issues being that I occasionally found the controls in more congested moments featuring more enemies and allies clunky to navigate as pointers would snag against incorrect allies or enemies.

It’s effective overall, feeling dynamic yet also catered to your approach to each scenario, making any narrative journey through space or idle battle thrilling as you become attuned to implementing complex strategies and ideas on the fly amidst the game’s real-time combat.

BattleGroupVR2 is also a visual upgrade over the first game, yet there’s certainly an overwhelming sense of familiarity with the package being offered here. The narrative Open World mode is very similar in concept to the first game’s campaign, though this game at least does a strong job of attuning an educational journey through the game’s mechanics to an ever-growing sci-fi story.

You start off your adventure looking for allies in the galaxy, a quest that sends you warping between familiar and unfamiliar areas collecting supplies and defeating scavengers to eventually build a fleet that can assert themselves in a fight for dominance. While the separate tutorial is a necessary on-ramp even for veterans, this is a great way to fully come to terms with everything this game has to offer, wrapped in something more purposeful from a story perspective as it wraps lessons on supply management within the context of a universe.

For those who prefer to focus on the dogfight action, skirmish mode focused solely on these conflict moments is an option, though also feels remarkably similar to the original game’s skirmish mode in its current form. Gauntlet mode is new, but feels more like a variation on this tried-and-tested skirmish as opposed to something unique. Multiplayer is available for those who wish to duke it out with friends or opponents, and an endless mode is neat in the sense it allows for competitive leadership building and encourages a focus on ship parts and builds to survive the longest.

Yet it’s Conquest mode that will likely be the most tantalizing feature the more that the community builds around BattleGroupVR2, and already shows early signs of exciting emergent gameplay in this current form. This is a shared online galaxy where players can find allies and factions while contesting for control in a shared universe where everyone competes for dominance. It’s the sort of end goal of tactics gaming where everyone intimately familiar with these ideas is forced to face each other, and is already intriguing even in this early state. As with any long-running persistent strategy match, the true test of the game will take months to reveal itself as rivalries and alliances entrenched over months begin to assert themselves.

It’s the closest to truly being a commander of a space army when you can build long-term plans, including betraying your friends, for the goal of ultimate control, if it all plays out long-term, but it’s interesting even in this current state.

Letting the game down is the voice acting. At this stage, all voices for all characters were created using AI speech synthesis with a grating-sounding output. It should be noted the team plans to replace these with human actors by the time the game is ready to leave Early Access, but their inclusion here is a major detriment to the audio experience of the game. Everything important appears in textboxes that can also be read by the player, meaning it would have been just as effective if not more so to simply leave out voices altogether rather than having grating-sounding AI.

It’s a downer on what is otherwise an engrossing sequel and a great example of why these sorts of games feel so at home on the platform. Being able to pick a ship in 3D space and command it like a commander at the battlefield, watching it fly by or witnessing the results of my attacks, or making a decision to go to warp speed and physically taking that journey, is wonderful to experience and truly unique in a way no other platform can replicate even if it feels like a polished version of the familiar.

I'm sure plenty of us have taken a spoon, pencil, or any other kind of stick-like object and pretended to draw a motion in the air like we're trying to cast a magic spell - at least after we've watched Harry Potter. The Magician VR: The Cursed Wand lets you do exactly that and actually have a fireball shoot out afterward - though the path to being a master wizard is quite a challenge.

Spain-based developer Master Crowd Games entered the stage of VR with its musical title Rock Invasion, and now it looks to perform a magic show with its latest shooter, The Magician VR: The Cursed Wand. This mystifying VR experience was first announced back in January before finally emerging in time for the Halloween season.

You take on the role of a disgraced stage magician who comes across a magic wand enchanted by a mysterious spirit. Said spirit allows you to perform real magic spells, and the magician hopes to use this to find his missing twin brother. However, the world is currently being invaded by an undead army from another dimension called The Remnant, and it falls to you to use your newfound powers to blast these creatures back to the grave by finding the pages of the spirit’s lost spellbook before they take over your abandoned theater hideout.

The Magician VR: The Cursed Wand has a haunting, gothic atmosphere thanks to its grim visuals and haunting music. The world around you is a ruined place, and your adventure will carry you through grimy sewers and abandoned towns aflame. The spirit of the wand communicates through glowing, floating writing like a ghost in a horror movie, and the enemies crawl toward you with decaying flesh and sickly green eyes. I wouldn’t say the game's too scary, though.

Once you’ve collected the corresponding spellbook pages, spells are performed by holding down the upper right trigger and drawing the required gesture in the air before letting go. These spells run the gamut of mystical energy bolts, shields made of playing cards that can block a few enemy attacks, and icy winds that can freeze foes to buy you more time to focus on another group.

It can be tricky to aim at first, as the small targeting reticle is rather easy to miss. The motion controls are fairly intuitive, even if the gestures themselves can be difficult to pull off when surrounded by enemies. Luckily, you can project which gesture you need to perform with a button press, and switching between them is as easy as pressing another button.

Battles take place in closed off areas that you access via a map in the main hub room. The objective is to defeat all of the enemies without dying yourself. On your left hand is a health/mana gauge that keeps track of how many hits you’ve taken and how much magic you’ve used. Take too many hits, and you will fail the battle and be sent back to the hub room. Each wave of enemies is headed toward the theater, and if you die during an attack there, the game ends.

Luckily, if this happens you can start a new run with your unlocked spells and upgrades. Be prepared to grind through the first few days of the game before building enough health and stamina to survive the more challenging later battles.

Clues about what happened to your twin brother come in the form of “Echoes,” which are earned from completed waves. When you collect enough Echoes, another clue unlocks in the theater. These take the form of mementos that appear on a shelf, each one a cryptic piece of the ever-expanding puzzle.

If you wish for an even greater challenge, you can try Nightmare mode, which streamlines the game to a fixed number of battles against stronger and longer waves of enemies. Here, one death will restart the campaign, no matter where that death occurs.

The Magician VR: The Cursed Wand - Final Verdict

The Magician VR: The Cursed Wand is an intense challenge, but it's also a lot of fun. If you've ever wanted a VR Harry Potter game where you can wave a magic wand to perform all kinds of powerful spells, this is about as close as it gets. The motion controls are easy to pick up, yet difficult to master, and the story contains a creepy mystery to keep you moving through multiple playthroughs.

UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines.

Called the "Thank You, Recruit! Update," it drops on October 15, bringing a whole slew of changes to the well-reviewed game.

First and foremost, the game has received a massive behind-the-scenes upgrade to its core engine, from Unreal 4 to Unreal 5.7. On the content-side, the game gets two new modes: Ascension Mode offers an ever-increasing difficulty to test your skills, while Daily Mode offers new leaderboards and wacky modifiers to present "unique and sometimes ridiculous challenges and surprises."

The new update also brings optional hand tracking implementation to Quest platforms. Hand tracking is auto-detected, allowing for seamless transition between hands and controllers, plus a new tutorial has been implemented to familiarize players with the new hand tracking controls.

The addition of hand tracking likely was spurred by Meta's recent announcement of its upcoming VR device VR Glasses, which can play all Quest games but does not ship with controllers. Every game that Meta spotlighted during its most recent Connect, during which VR Glasses debuted, emphasized full hand tracked control schemes. Mothergunship now joins their ranks.

Lastly, the developers of Mothergunship: Forge are keen to mention that the update brings "a ton of polishing, balancing fixes, bug fixes, and connecting issue fixes that we've been wanting to tackle over the last couple of years."

We reviewed Mothergunship: Forge back in 2022, describing the game as "an outrageous amount of fun."

Mothergunship: Forge can be found on Quest, where it's rated 4.7 out of 5 stars, and on Steam, where it has earned a Very Positive rating.

Mothergunship: Forge Review - Ridiculous, Riotously Fun Roguelite

Mothergunship: Forge isn’t a roguelite revelation, but its central hook makes for an outrageous amount of fun. Here’s our full Mothergunship: Forge review. I named him Goliath and I loved him. He was fitted with a chaingun at the front that ripped apart any that dared stand in

UploadVRJamie Feltham

Pico and TikTok owner ByteDance first mentioned the existence of its next headset during a presentation in November 2025, revealing some key specifications. The company then publicly teased the device back in March, calling it 'Project Swan'.

Pico said the headset will have micro-OLED panels with 4000 pixels per inch (PPI), a dual-chip architecture with a self-developed coprocessor for computer vision and image processing, and a new main processor that will have twice the CPU and GPU performance of the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 in today's Pico 4 Ultra and Meta Quest 3 headsets. It also detailed many of the visionOS-like features of Pico OS 6 and the RealityKit-like Pico Spatial Engine.

Pico’s Next Headset Has 4000 PPI Micro-OLEDs, Powerful New Chip & Next-Gen OS

ByteDance’s Pico announced the key display and compute specs of its next headset, coming later this year, and detailed the revamped XR operating system it will run.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Pico simultaneously opened applications for a "Global Early Access Program" that provided closed beta access to Pico OS 6 and the Project Swan headset.

The company said it would choose "a select few with deep expertise across XR platforms" to join the program, and wanted "rigorous feedback" on the hardware and software before a wider release.

While the company showed a stylized silhouette of the headset, it did not show an actual image or render, nor did it give any details at all about the design.

Then, in June, videos depicting the design were found to be present in a public Pico SDK.

The Design Of Pico’s Next Headset Leaked Via SDK Videos

The design of Pico’s next headset leaked in videos from a public SDK, and it looks like a cross between Apple Vision Pro and Samsung Galaxy XR.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

The clips showed a headset that is clearly inspired by both Apple Vision Pro and Samsung Galaxy XR, with a rear strap almost identical to the former's Solo Knit Band and a visor and forehead pad strongly resembling the latter. They also showed an external tethered puck.

In August, the company announced a launch event for the device via Asia-region social media channels, and also revealed the product name to be Pico Space Pro. However, just days later, the company abruptly announced the cancelation of the event, and noted that the device would be delayed to Q4 2026.

Then, in September, Pico Space Pro appeared to have received FCC certification the day before its originally planned launch event.

Pico Space Pro Appears To Receive FCC Certification Following Delay To Q4

A new Pico device, highly likely the upcoming Space Pro, received FCC certification following a delay to Q4. Filings reveal a tethered compute and battery puck.

UploadVRLuna

The filings list a "Mixed Reality Computer", with separate entries for the headset and external tethered puck under FCC IDs 2A5NV-AA1Z0 and 2A5NV-B3110, respectively. Their labels describe the two components as a "Mixed Reality Headset" and a "Mixed Reality Main Unit", respectively, with B3110 as the model number for both.

Now, Japanese regulatory filings have surfaced with images that show the physical device.

The documents are listed under certification number 202-JWM032, and the device carries the same model number, B3110, as the US FCC filings. Its overall design matches the SDK renders, including the rear strap, visor, and forehead pad.

However, this unit's color scheme and finish differ from the SDK renders, instead resembling those of Vivo's Vision headset, an Apple Vision Pro competitor that was announced and demonstrated in 2025 but has yet to fully launch commercially.

The documents also include teardown images of the device, offering a look at its front camera and sensor array, optical modules, and a central cooling fan.

The filings do not show a direct look at the external tethered puck. However, a test-setup photo shows a camouflaged version of the headset on a desk, with a similarly camouflaged box-like object directly behind it.

It remains to be seen exactly when Pico Space Pro will launch, though the company says it is now targeting Q4 2026. The short-term confidentiality period for documents in the US FCC filings is set to expire on February 28, 2027.

Terry's Terraforming was originally announced back in May under a different name, Janet's Planets. The game has been renamed and now has a release date, October 22, and price, $14.99 with a limited-time pre-order discount to $9.99.

Terry's Terraforming is a new VR terraforming space adventure about saving worlds. Your job is to transform dying planets and make them fit for new life. You'll meet all sorts of strange aliens, learn what makes them tick, and tailor worlds to fit their needs, all while a charming sci-fi story unfolds over a six-hour play time.

You'll also be able to use "Terry's SweetView" to instantly travel to a planet's surface, experiment in Sandbox mode, and take on daily challenges with global leaderboards.

Terry's Terraforming is being developed by Really Interactive, an indie developer based in Stockholm, Sweden that has previously created the original VR titles Toran (a short, and fantastic sci-fi puzzle game) and Virtuoso (a musical sandbox).

Terry's Terraforming is coming to Meta Quest 3 on October 22, and Steam at a later date.

James' Picks

When it comes to games, I'm a coward. I've said it enough times on our podcast that listeners will know I'm not usually interested in scary games. Still, over the years I've had quite a few gruesome and frightful experiences in a VR headset that are simply too good to resist.

Here are five of my favorite frightening VR games.

The 7th Guest VR

My first recommendation is probably the least outright terrifying game on the list, but that doesn't make it any less spooky. The 7th Guest VR is about as Halloween-y as it gets.

The game drops you inside the infamous Stauf Mansion, where you'll explore its haunted halls, uncover its buried secrets, and solve a collection of puzzles, all while supernatural forces make their ominous presence increasingly apparent.

The 7th Guest VR is a VR re-imagining of the classic point-and-click adventure The 7th Guest which first debuted on MS-DOS in 1993. As such, the new version has a delightfully old-school atmosphere. With full motion video actors playing the parts of the ghostly guests, and the haunted mansion itself acting as the star of the show, The 7th Guest is both nostalgic and unsettling.

The 7th Guest VR is available on Quest, PlayStation VR2, and Steam. Note: Purchasing the VR version will grant you access to the flat screen Remake, and vice versa, on PlayStation and Steam.

Dread Meridian

This atmospheric horror story has all the trappings of the best spooky fiction: abandoned research stations, frozen wastelands, and the uncomfortable feeling that you're seeing things no mortal was ever meant to see.

Released in January 2026 on Quest and Steam, Dread Meridian is a VR survival-horror game inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, specifically his 1931 penned cosmic horror novella At the Mountains of Madness. You play as Daniela, searching for her missing twin on the frozen island of Oglanbyen, only to instead find mutated researchers and twisted nightmares.

True to its name, Dread Meridian is all about building dread. Its isolated setting and ominous atmosphere, plus the literary roots of its inspiration, give the game a particularly haunting feel while tropes like puzzle-solving, scavenging rare supplies, and dispatching hostile creatures with limited weaponry add that classic survival-horror touch.

Dread Meridian is available on Quest and Steam.

Metro Awakening

Dreadful horror games are nice. But every now and then you want one that makes some concessions to action. Metro Awakening is as scary and creepy as the best horror games, but it also lets you blast things with an arsenal of cobbled weaponry.

You play as a doctor searching for his missing wife (and the medicine she needs) in the underground Moscow Metro in the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse. You'll navigate tunnels filled with radiation, mutants, bandits, and supernatural nemeses.

The VR format takes the series' trademark survival mechanics and makes them considerably more immersive. You'll physically manage your weapons, ammunition, gas mask, and flashlight. When your resources start running low, so too will your nerves, as the darkness in VR becomes even more intimidating.

Metro Awakening is available on Quest, PlayStation VR2, and Steam.

MADiSON VR

If ever there was a game that made me regret putting on my headset, it's MADiSON VR. Remember when I said I'm a coward? This game may be the reason.

MADiSON VR is the VR version of MADiSON, a flat screen game that's often described as the scariest game ever made available upon any platform. It's a psychological horror game with extremely oppressive environments, violently disturbing scenarios and imagery, and an unshakable feeling of constant dread. In VR, it's the most disturbing game ever made.

You'll explore terribly frightening environments with nothing but a supernatural instant camera that allows you to capture but a glimpse of the nightmares lurking in the shadows. Of all the games on this list, this is the one for people who are seeking nothing but pure terror. It's a game for horror sickos (complimentary).

You can get MADiSON VR on Quest, but it's a definite downgrade over its PC VR and PlayStation VR2 counterparts. Grab it on PSVR2 or Steam if possible.

The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR

Switchback VR is less terror and more spooky fun. It takes the concept of a haunted house theme park attraction and turns it into a VR rollercoaster.

The premise is simple: you're strapped into a roller coaster and sent hurtling through a series of horror scenes inspired by The Dark Pictures universe. Rather than slowly wandering through a creepy environment, or wrestling with hordes of zombies, Switchback is all about sudden scares and spectacle.

The game has an interesting blink mechanic, where things can change in the split second that your eyes are closed. This unique mechanic will have you questioning your sanity, something horror games have always attempted, but few can accomplish.

If you're looking for a game to pass around and play with some friends, something designed to make someone jump and yell with a VR headset, this is the easiest recommendation on the list.

You can get it exclusively on PlayStation VR2.

Mike's Picks

I could simply fire off popular games that most VR gamers are familiar with like Madison, Phasmophobia, and the excellent Resident Evil VR ports, but I'm going to go off the beaten path with my suggestions and dig up some older games.

James and I limited ourselves to five games each, but I want to give an honorable mention to my would-be sixth pick, Alien: Rogue Incursion, an excellent action-horror game from the now-defunct studio Survios marred by early performance issues and the unreasonable expectation of not being an official port or carbon copy of cult classic Alien: Isolation.

That said, here are my picks:

Cosmodread

One thing horror games can struggle with is replayability. Once you know where the proverbial landmines are, the game loses most of its appeal. Roguelikes are, by design, built to avoid this issue and Cosmodread is one of the few horror roguelikes out there. It is also the first horror game I ever 'noped' out of, though I did later go back and finish it.

You play as a scientist on a dying spaceship and have to repair, reboot, and refuel systems to escape to Earth in an escape pod. Complicating this is the near constant need for oxygen, delivered in one-shots from masks scattered around the ship. That and the crafting station you have to utilize for weapons and resources to defend yourself give you a reason to scavenge every nook and cranny of every room in the procedurally generated map. Visually, the game weaves grotesque flesh throughout the ship and the excellent sound design alone should have won an award.

Cosmodread is available for Quest and Steam.

Hinge

There are games that masquerade as psychological horror games while really just being yet-another jump-scare compilation and then there is Hinge, a total mind-word-I-can't-say-in-an-article of a psych horror experience I can barely begin to describe without giving away the plot. The no-spoiler synopsis is you investigate a mysterious 1920s hotel while trying to piece together your fractured memories.

From a gameplay standpoint, it plays out as navigating a series of interconnected hallways with the occasional trip into an unnerving alternate dimension. Hinge refuses to hold your hand and requires a fair amount of patience and attention to detail to progress. Action lovers should stay away, but if you want a game that challenges you mentally and can scare the hell out of you, Hinge is worth a look.

Hinge is available on Steam.

Edge of Nowhere

Before they were busy making nine-figure-budgeted Marvel games for PlayStation, Insomniac Games used to develop VR games for Meta's abandoned Oculus Rift store, including the Lovecraft-inspired Edge of Nowhere. As I write this, I am starting to realize how much I prefer psychological horror games, but this entry offers a lot more action than Hinge.

Based on H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, you play as Victor Howard, an explorer searching for his fiancée who was lost on an expedition to Antarctica. It's a relatively short game, clocking around three hours, and is played in third-person with a controller, so this is very much an acquired taste. If none of those caveats bother you, Edge of Nowhere is a great experience.

Edge of Nowhere is, sadly, only available on Meta's PC VR storefront.

Lies Beneath

The trailer for this Meta-exclusive action-horror FPS from developer Drifter, who also did the Quest port of Epic Games' Robo Recall, should be convincing enough for horror fans. Lies Beneath invokes a comic book aesthetic that looks fantastic in the headset, long before more well-known IP like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Men In Black did the same. Also, your 'health meter' is represented by an accumulation of literal blood on your hands, an incredibly clever and effective VR interpretation of a common video game feature.

You play as the survivor of a car crash near your hometown and set out to locate your missing father. In the course of your search, you face off with multiple grotesque creatures, including the creepiest VR quadrupeds this side of Half-Life: Alyx's headcrabs. Very little of this game is what it appears to be on the surface and the story that unfolds is equal parts riveting and disturbing with great VR action to boot.

Lies Beneath is available for Quest.

Propagation: Paradise Hotel

Okay, maybe I have a thing for hotels in horror games too. I'm going to be straight with you: I am bored with zombie shooters in VR and have been for years. So it takes an exceptionally well-designed title to engage me in the very notion of blowing off scores of zombie heads again. Propagation: Paradise Hotel pulls this off with an excellent combination of sound and level design. You play as Emily Diaz, a bartender at the titular Paradise Hotel who starts the game barricaded in the hotel kitchen with security guard Owen. A zombie outbreak has ravaged the hotel and surrounding city. In spite of warnings to sequester yourself to avoid infection, you set out to rescue your sister who is trapped elsewhere in the hotel.

The thing Paradise Hotel does really well compared to other zombie games is make them feel threatening. You do have weapons, but ammo is in short supply, so every shot counts and errant aim will leave you injured or worse very quickly, even if only faced with one assailant. Most of the hotel is blacked out, forcing you to light your way with a flashlight powered by batteries you constantly have to find and replace during your journey. That limited visibility adds to the tension and walking past a downed body always carries a feeling of dread that it will rise and attack you. I watched a friend livestream this game on Twitch and he was so unnerved he shot a wall that scared him when he turned around and ran into it. Paradise Hotel also doesn't lack for jump-scares, but they are sparingly used and never come off gratuitous.

Propagation: Paradise Hotel is available for PS VR2, Steam, and Quest.

And those are just ten of our favorite spooky VR games. Was your favorite included? What did we miss? Please share your favorite Halloween-y game in the comments section below!

Most horror games ratchet up the frights with clever sound design, low lighting, and a musical score that rises and lowers at opportune times to disturb you. Shil goes the total opposite direction, stripping the world down to next to nothing in a two-tone art style that is disturbingly effective. You are often times looking straight at seemingly nothing, but you know something is there. You can feel it. No screenshot or video I can add to this article can put the feeling of playing this game across. It has to be experienced to be appreciated.

I may be alone here, but one of the worst situations you can put me in is leaving me alone in a room with nothing but my thoughts. This is a crude metaphor, but playing Shil felt like sitting in a doctor's office waiting on test results. My mind kept going to the worst-case scenario. I got that same feeling of dread walking through Shil's world. Fear of the unknown can be very powerful, particularly in an environment with precious little available to distract your mind other than the path ahead.

You are trapped within the recesses of your shattered mind, tasked by an AI guide to reclaim your lost memories. This plays out as a series of rooms where you have to get from one end to the other by forging a path, defeating unseen enemies and manipulating available objects in the room to continue forward safely. Along the way, you pick up memories replayed in voiceovers to flesh out the story and make you question the intentions of your character, the AI guide, and other figures in your life. It sounds simpler than it is and you will breeze through the first couple of rooms, but then the amazing sound design and simple-but-effective obstacles will start to ramp up and make you pause and second-guess your next move.

Case in point, one of the first kinetic obstacles is a giant pistol on either side of you firing one-shot-kill bullets. Due to the aforementioned two-tone art style, said pistol is either black like the path, doorways, and pillars in front of you, or the other color in the room, say yellow for instance. You have a ball launcher that you use to recolor the yellow pathways in front of you. This launcher also works on the pistols, but turning the guns black for better visibility also turns the bullets black, meaning they completely disappear when over your walking path. So you either rely on the sight of the bullet crossing in front of you to know when to safely walk past the gun or make the pistol visible and trust your sense of timing to know when the path in front of you is bullet-free. Sounds simple enough, right? Add four to six guns all firing in different timings on both sides of your path and a simple concept becomes more complex. Moving enemies are also two-toned, allowing you to barely see their silhouettes fast enough to eliminate them.

Each portal to a new room tells you how many portals (i.e. path branches) and memories are available in it and the overall map lays out just how much you are missing as you progress. Along the way, you'll pick up additional tools and weapons aside from the primary, path-creating ball launcher you start with. Magnets manipulate objects like pulling floating platforms towards you for safer traversal and temporarily freezing the giant chopping knives. Yes, giant chopping knives. Slingshots help you fight enemies and move pillars to block traps.

Shil wants you constantly on edge, evaluating everything around you and questioning every step you take. Some trippy challenges, like an outlandish roomscale version of the classic game Minesweeper, give you a palpable sense of satisfaction when you complete a room. The game also has seven endings depending on which of the winding branches you take to the end, so this is a game to return to several times to see every room and recover every memory. At the time of this article, I have not seen every single room yet, but I absolutely will. Depending on your speed, you can finish a full run in about an hour, but with the different endings and paths, the playtime quickly adds up.

Shil - Final Verdict

Shil is a testament to the power of great game design, more concerned with tasking your mind and nerves than simply overloading it with disturbing visuals and in-your-face audio. It is akin to a more horror-leaning version of Superhot VR, another game that plays more complex than its simple aesthetics would have you believe. It is not outright scary, but the way it constantly messes with your head is consistently distressing.

UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines.

Here is the full text of the announcement on Steam. An identical developer post is on the Meta Horizon Store, save listing the correct storefront:

We want to let our players know that we’ll soon be retiring online multiplayer support for Ultimechs and will transition the game to a single-player-only experience. You’ll still be able to jump into the arena and enjoy Ultimechs in single-player mode after multiplayer services end on October 20, 2026. On that date, the game will also be delisted from the Steam Store alongside the Ultimechs Spectator, which will no longer be able to spectate any matches. In preparation for this, in-app purchases have been disabled in the game, but you will still be able to spend any UltiCoins you have purchased already, even after multiplayer services have ended. Thank you to everyone who has competed in the arena with us over the years. Keep those GauntJets flying!

Ultimechs Is Resolution Games New Mix Of Rocket League And Mechs In VR

Demeo And Cook-Out developer Resolution Games has revealed its next VR title, Ultimechs.

UploadVRJamie Feltham

Ultimechs first launched free-to-play in September 2022, with a free and paid battle pass progression system to unlock new cosmetics. The game featured three different types of mechs, each with its own specifications and special abilities. It currently has a score of 4.2 from 767 ratings on Quest and a 'Very Positive' rating from 153 reviews on Steam.

This is not the first multiplayer VR title to be retired in 2026, joining Rec Room, Inverse, Firewall Ultra, Hyper Dash, Larcenauts, Skyworld: Kingdom Brawl, Frenzies, A Township Tale and Quantaar as multiplayer applications closing up shop this year. Additionally Zombie Army VR shut down its co-op gameplay mode earlier this year, though that was tied to a change in Unity services.

A Township Tale developer Alta's latest project, co-op dungeon crawler Reave, was canceled before ever releasing as were Triangle Factory's Breachers: Outbreak and The Binary Mill's Survive The Night, both of which were 'shelved indefinitely.'

Simply put, multiplayer servers cost money and that cost increases with higher player counts. For games with dead servers, at a time when studios are looking to save every penny in a struggling economy, it is an expense deemed not worth keeping on the books.