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 […]

While the XR industry’s major hubs are concentrated on the West Coast of the US, the MIT Reality Hack hackathon has become a focal point for XR developers and entrepreneurs on the East Coast of the US. Now in its eight year, the event has expanded with new opportunities for industry discussion and networking thanks to the concurrently held EXPERIENTIAL Conference. Executive Director Maria Rice offers an overview of this year’s hackathon and winners.

Valve’s rumored standalone XR headset, codenamed ‘Deckard’, is practically the stuff of legend at this point, with speculation brewing since data miners first discovered mention of the alleged device in January 2021. Now, leaker and data miner ‘Gabe Follower’ maintains Deckard is coming by the end of 2025, priced at $1,200.

Gabe Follower, who also runs a YouTube channel, reports in an X post that “[s]everal people have confirmed that Valve is aiming to release new standalone, […]

HTC today launched VIVERSE Worlds, a 3D content platform that can be embedded on “any website for any device,” positioning it as a lighter, more flexible way of hosting and browsing 3D content across the web.

Unlike HTC’s existing Viverse metaverse platform—or Meta’s Horizon Worlds, for that matter—the key differentiator is Viverse Worlds focuses on 3D content distribution. Instead of requiring any sort of app download, the platform offers up a web-based interface for quick and easy 3D content browsing, supporting XR headsets and flatscreen devices […]

Meta released a new Desktop Editor for Horizon Worlds in preview, giving world creators a Unity-style game development platform for the first time. The PC-based editor is designed to be more robust, and make world creation easier and higher quality than its previous Quest-native VR editor, which Meta says it’s now deprecating.

Meta needs broader reach to make Horizon Worlds a success, which it ostensibly hasn’t found on Quest thus far. While the company made its metaverse platform accessible to mobile and desktop in 2023, bringing non-VR […]