Astrea, the studio and publisher behind a host of VR narrative experiences, including Spheres, Astra, and Mobile Suit Gundam: Silver Phantom, has released an interactive VR experience on Quest and PC VR headsets that lets you embody passengers on a train, and help them face pivotal moments in their lives.

Called The Passengers, the four chapter, 40-minute interactive experience allows you to become one of four characters, experiencing their internal monologues and interacting with the environment with both your hands and voice.

Developed by Canada-based studio Couzin Films […]

Meta revealed its Orion prototype last year to show the progress it has made toward compact AR glasses. Today the company talked more about the prototyping process, especially regarding the ‘compute puck’ that offloads much of the heavy processing into a device that goes in the user’s pocket.

One of the major reasons that today’s XR headsets are so big is because they need room for a lot of processing power, battery volume, and heat dissipation. But with Meta and the rest of the industry aiming […]

Rockstar Games announced it’s acquiring Video Games Deluxe, the Sydney-based studio behind L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files (2017) and the shelved Quest port of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004).

The details of the acquisition haven’t been made public, however Rockstar says in a press statement that Video Games Deluxe has now been renamed to ‘Rockstar Australia’, and will “continue [its] efforts to make the best games possible.”

In addition to those VR ports, Video Games Deluxe is best known for its work on hit detective […]

VR Games Showcase is returning next week, promising to feature 20+ VR games from over a dozen developers and publishers. The livestream, kicking off on March 11th at 12 PM ET, is slated to not only include updates to upcoming releases, but also new game announcements as well as exclusive peeks at gameplay.

Event organizers have already teased a few of the 15+ publishers taking part in the VR Games Showcase next week, which thus far is set to include Flat2VR Studios, Triangle Factory, […]

Tender Claws, the studio behind Stranger Things VR (2024) and Virtual Virtual Reality (2017), announced they’re debuting another patently weird VR experience at SXSW this week, which is all about swapping perspectives by making eye contact.

The VR experience, called Face Jumping, certainly sounds like another one of Tender Claws’ wildly inventive experiments into virtual reality, as it’s debuting the experience on Meta Quest Pro alongside a host of others in the XR Experience Exhibition at SXSW’s Fairmont location next week.

The 30-minute […]

Social Discovery Group, the company behind Dating.com and DateMyAge.com, announced it’s launched a venture studio that aims to “transform virtual intimacy into the new normal” by backing early-stage startups in AI-powered communication, XR advancements, and social discovery platforms.

Called SDG Lab, the group has pledged an annual investment of $20 million by providing a “straightforward” fundraising process, wherein entrepreneurs can secure seed funding for product development and additional capital for scaling.

SDG Lab’s most notable investments include virtual dating platform ‘VR Chat&Date’, and […]

Owlchemy Labs has been a powerhouse of top-selling VR games, so when the Google-owned studio released Dimensional Double Shift in beta last year for free, it wasn’t immediately clear why the studio behind Job Simulator (2016) was making its first stride into freemium territory. With over 500,000 downloads now though, it’s evident they saw the writing on the wall: free-to-play on Quest is more lucrative than ever thanks to Quest 3S.

Like Job Simulator and its sequel Vacation Simulator (2019), Dimensional Double Shift tasks players with […]

GORN (2019), the comically violent combat game from Free Lives, is getting a sequel that aims to bring a double dose of madcap melee mayhem, coming to all major VR headsets later this year.

GORN 2 is currently being developed by Cortopia Studios, with help from the teams at Free Lives and Devolver Digital. You might know Cortopia from its rash of VR games over the years, including Down the Rabbit Hole (2020), Escaping Wonder Land (2024), and Wands Alliances (2022).

Promising to […]

Batman: Arkham Shadow (2024) just got its ‘Game of the Year’ update that brings a host of new features, including three new maps, an ‘Extreme’ difficulty setting, and a new permadeath mode.

Camouflaj released the game’s 1.4 update to celebrate its recent Game of the Year win at the annual D.I.C.E. Awards last month, where it took home the Immersive Reality GOTY category.

Released in October 2024 shortly after the launch of Quest 3S, Batman: Arkham Shadow now has three new maps inspired by classic Arkham games, including Arkham […]

China-based Play for Dream, the company building a Vision Pro-like standalone MR headset, says it expects to adopt Android XR as its standalone operating system.

The Play for Dream MR headset has been called a “Vision Pro knock-off,” given its close aesthetic similarity to Apple’s headset. But people who have tried it say it’s more than just a cheap look-alike, including a former Quest engineer who gave the headset high praise on execution.

While the Play for Dream MR headset is currently running […]

Meta announced its ‘Meta for Education’ program is now out of beta, allowing schools and educational institutions from all over to fill their classrooms with Quest headsets and use a variety of education-focused XR apps and software.

Initially announced last April, Meta for Education is a comprehensive solution for educators looking to bring XR into the classroom, which includes Quest headsets, XR management solution subscriptions with education-tailored device capabilities suitable for the classroom, and a variety of tools and apps built for admins, educators, and […]

Sony today announced it’s permanently discounting PSVR 2 starting next month, bringing the PS5 and PC-compatible VR headset to $400.

Sony launched PSVR 2 nearly two years ago today at $550. Now, following little fanfare at its two-year anniversary—and no real mention during its State of Play two weeks ago—Sony is slashing the price of PSVR 2 to $400 / €550 / £400 / ¥66,980 starting in March.

Interestingly, the new $400 MSRP affects both its basic PSVR bundle, which includes the headset, two Sense controllers, and […]

Meta today revealed its next-gen smart glasses, Aria Gen 2, which the company intends to release to third-party researchers working on machine perception systems, AI and robotics.

The company revealed its first iteration of Project Aria back in 2020, showing off a sensor-rich pair of glasses which the company used internally to train its machine perception systems, ultimately tackling some of the most complex issues in creating practical, all-day augmented reality glasses of the future.

Since then, Meta’s first-gen Aria […]

Mannequin (2024), the VR game that brings a unique twist to prop hunt, is going free-to-play on Quest starting today—which could point to more developers opting to go the freemium route.

Launched last June on Quest and SteamVR headsets, Mannequin isn’t your typical shooter, nor is it your typical game of prop hunt, which usually involves a team of hunters shooting everything that moves, and their prey evading them by morphing into everyday objects.

Instead, two gun-toting Agents hunt three shape-shifting aliens, aka Mannequins, who can evade […]