In Inwigo, players will explore haunted mansions to unlock gameplay mechanics, outsmart adaptive monsters, uncover treasures, and survive an interactive ghost story where choices and teamwork shape the narrative, according to Dirty Pearl.

Here's the trailer:

Each mansion has its own threat with different attacks. Per Dirty Pearl's press release:

Every house has its own supernatural threat. Some stalk you when you’re alone. Some are excited by your fear. Others turn the house itself against you. Learn how they behave, or become part of the house.

Additionally, no two runs are alike as treasures and secrets will shift locations and threats will adapt to players to keep the gameplay fresh. Like most extraction scenarios, all loot is lost if the players do not survive.

Following the playtest, Inwigo is currently planned to launch in Early Access on Meta Quest on June 23. It is available to wishlist now. The playtest is live now through June 7.

Note: The game is also listed on Steam. We've reached out to the developer to clarify if the Early Access launch includes Steam. The press release we were sent only specifies Meta Quest.

Vertigo Games was, until now, comprised of two different studios: Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The Amsterdam team was formerly Force Field Entertainment before becoming Vertigo Games Amsterdam in 2021.

This team had been together since 2015 with a portfolio including the following games and apps:

Metro Awakening (2024)

Easily Vertigo Games Amsterdam's highest profile title, Awakening was one of several planned VR titles in partnership with Deep Silver and Oculus Studios. Meta announced this deal at Meta Connect in 2021. The whole of Vertigo Games was acquired by Koch Media, also the parent company of Deep Silver, in 2020.

We reviewed Metro Awakening, saying "Vertigo Games has once again delivered a mesmerizing VR gaming experience. One that serves as a testament to the studio’s proven record of creating adventures geared to provide atmospheric immersion and deep storytelling."

Metro Awakening Review: A Mesmerizing Tale of Survival in Moscow’s Dark Underworld

Go deep underground into the Metro and experience the dystopian future of a post-nuclear apocalyptic Russia in Metro Awakening.

UploadVRDon Hopper

Time Stall (2019)

Time Stall is a time-manipulated physics based puzzle game published by Oculus Studios.

National Geographic: Explore VR (2019)

Based on the now Disney-owned company, Explore casts the player as a photographer sent to document and photograph Antarctica and Machu Picchu, Peru for National Geographic magazine.

Anne Frank House VR (2018)

Anne Frank House is an educational app exploring the life of Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl who hid in the annex of an old office building in Amsterdam with her family for 2 years during the Second World War. It remains one of the best historical apps in VR and is still available for free.

Coaster Combat (2017)

Originally a Samsung Gear & later Oculus Go VR title, this on rails target shooter was ported to Quest in 2020.

Combat Coaster Review: A Rollercoaster With More Downs Than Ups

Combat Coaster was one of the better games available on the Oculus Go back in 2018. So how does the newly released Oculus Quest version hold up in 2020? Have enough changes been made to give you exciting thrills, or is this a bumpy ride? Check out our Combat Coaster

UploadVRHarry Baker

Landfall (2017)

Landfall was a tactical shooter for Oculus Rift that has since been delisted.

Vertigo Games Rotterdam, the remaining studio, is the team behind the Arizona Sunshine games, The 7th Guest VR, After The Fall, Skyworld & Skyworld: Kingdom Brawl, and recently published Maze Theory's Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow. At the time of this article, there is no word on if the Rotterdam team has been affected.

This continues a rough 2026 of layoffs and studio closures in the VR ecosystem following Meta shuttering most of its first-party studios, the closures of two nDreams studios, layoffs at Polyarc Games, Cloudhead Games, Mighty Coconut, and Kluge Interactive, and Rec Room shutting down. Also, the aforementioned Maze Theory is currently in administration in the UK, a process meant to potentially rescue a failing business.

Creator Marc Zimmermann has spent years exploring that side of VR.

Zimmermann approaches VR from the perspective of an immersive filmmaker and environmental artist. His work focuses on mood, movement, sound, and emotional immersion rather than traditional gameplay systems.

That philosophy first took shape in his award-winning VR short film Conscious Existence (Meta Quest | Steam) before evolving into Realms of Flow, a highly customizable immersive experience built around meditation, breathing, spatial audio, and surreal environmental design.

After speaking with Zimmermann recently, it became impossible to see Realms of Flow as just another VR meditation app. It reflects nearly a decade of experimentation with immersive cinema, environmental storytelling, and emotional atmosphere in VR.

From VFX To VR

Zimmermann's path to VR began long before headsets entered the mainstream.

He studied animation and visual effects at the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg in Germany, where he developed a passion for digital environments, atmospheric filmmaking, and visual storytelling.

"I always loved to create my own personal projects and use environments to tell stories and create emotions," Zimmermann explained. "I want to create an atmosphere with a place, with a landscape, with a space."

At the time, he was more interested in traditional filmmaking and visual effects work inspired by large-scale environmental cinema.

"Like Lord of the Rings," he said. "Replacing green screens and creating epic landscapes."

VR only entered the picture near the end of his studies after experimenting with an Oculus DK1 headset sitting inside the school's R&D department.

Initially, Zimmermann attempted to adapt one of his earlier short films into VR before realizing the medium demanded an entirely different approach.

Instead, he created Longing For Wilderness in 2016, an early three-minute 360-degree VR experience designed to move viewers from a noisy city into a calm natural environment.

That project eventually led to Conscious Existence, the stereoscopic VR short film that would shape everything that followed.

Why Conscious Existence Still Connects

Even today, Conscious Existence remains one of the more memorable immersive experiences available in VR. What stays with you isn't interaction. It's the atmosphere, narration, movement, and the incredible sense of scale.

Zimmermann sees much of VR's emotional power in presence itself.

"There were a lot of users complaining about the non-interactiveness of the short film," he said. "But at the same time I saw there was an opportunity there to create dense atmospheres and emotional spaces."

When I showed Conscious Existence to my wife recently, despite her general discomfort with VR headsets, the experience immediately connected with her emotionally. The child narration, environmental scale, and sensation of floating through forests and landscapes created a surprisingly powerful reaction.

"I get messages from people saying they are tearing up or that a certain scene reminds them of something in their life," Zimmermann said. He hears it a lot.

Why Zimmermann Stepped Away From Traditional VR Design

After the success of Conscious Existence, Zimmermann attempted to move further into interactive VR through an Unreal Engine project called DeepStates (available on Steam, though development has ceased).

The idea was ambitious.

He wanted to combine high-end realtime environments with meditation systems, breathing exercises, binaural audio, and evolving environmental effects that transformed as users relaxed.

But eventually, the technical demands started crowding out everything he actually cared about.

"I noticed that working in Unreal Engine and creating these realtime optimized environments was 80% technical stuff and only 20% actual concept and art and sound design," Zimmermann said.

Users increasingly demanded deeper interactivity, gameplay systems, and exploration mechanics.

For Zimmermann, that was never the goal.

"I just want to create these dense atmospheres," he explained. "This kind of journey that you go into and get sucked into."

That realization eventually led him toward Realms of Flow.

Building Realms of Flow

Rather than turning Realms of Flow into a more game-like experience, Zimmermann intentionally moved in the opposite direction.

Realms of Flow builds directly on the atmosphere and emotional immersion of Conscious Existence. The same emphasis on movement, environmental immersion, and emotional pacing runs throughout the app. But this time, Zimmermann built customization systems around those experiences.

Breathing synchronization, humming exercises, spatial sound design, environmental depth adjustments, meditation timers, visual modulation, and interactive focus elements all work together to create highly personalized experiences.

The app can feel overwhelming at first because of the sheer number of available settings.

Zimmermann is aware of that.

"There's a lot of settings," he admitted. "But I try to hit the sweet spot between accessibility and allowing people to fine tune things for themselves."

What surprised me was how technically deliberate many of the visual decisions are.

Zimmermann uses 180-degree stereoscopic presentation instead of 360-degree video to maximize perceived image quality on standalone headsets like Quest 2 and Quest 3.

He also uses dark environments strategically.

Darker scenes allow video compression systems to dedicate more bitrate toward important visual details rather than wasting bandwidth on bright peripheral imagery.

Other visual tricks include slightly pushing environmental spheres farther away from the viewer to increase perceived clarity and dynamically modulating environmental depth based on breathing rhythm.

The result is an unusually sharp and visually convincing immersive experience on standalone VR hardware.

VR As Reconnection Rather Than Escape

The most interesting thing Zimmermann told me had nothing to do with any technical decision. Despite creating deeply immersive virtual environments, he does not see VR as a replacement for reality.

"You take the headset off and reality feels even more vivid afterward," he said. "You appreciate life even more."

For Zimmermann, the goal isn't to escape the real world. It's to help people experience it differently when they return to it.

Beyond Consumer VR

While Realms of Flow exists primarily as a consumer app today, Zimmermann has already started exploring broader wellness and commercial applications.

The app is currently being integrated into sensory pod systems created by Amsterdam-based company Sensiks, which combines immersive visuals with environmental effects like wind, scent, and temperature changes.

Zimmermann also described conversations involving hospital wellness programs and enterprise XR management systems.

"I hope more businesses will use it for hospitals, retreats, elderly homes, and wellness spaces," he said.

He's careful not to overclaim. He views it as an atmospheric tool, not a clinical one.

Looking Forward

Zimmermann says Realms of Flow is nearing completion, with only a small number of planned experiences remaining before he moves toward future projects.

He's not sure yet what comes next.

Marc Zimmermann is not particularly interested in chasing mainstream VR trends.

In a VR industry still largely driven by games and constant interaction, he's continuing to focus on atmosphere, emotional immersion, and experiences designed to slow people down inside the headset.

Realms of Flow is available on Meta Quest for standalone VR, as well as Steam and the Meta PC VR Store for PC VR.

A Fisherman's Tale put players in a matryoshka doll-like lighthouse controlling a small, medium, and large sized version of the titular fisherman simultaneously. Maskmaker brought interdimensional traveling by putting on and removing different masks. A Fisherman's Tale 2 (formerly Another Fisherman's Tale) allowed players to detach their head and parts of their body. Innerspace has always created unique games with mechanics not likely to be replicated in other titles. Spymaster's time manipulation system is another triumph for innovative gameplay with endless possibilities for mission scenarios.

Not surprisingly, I found Spymaster incredibly charming. The low poly art style, light & breezy voice acting, sound design, and the missions themselves all connote a world that doesn't take itself too seriously, even if the subject matter itself is serious. Much like the I Expect You To Die series, Spymaster wants you to smile and have a good time as you're saving the world.

The basic gameplay loop combines precision, time manipulation, situational awareness, and a bit of speed running into a tidy package that can be picked up and put down in short sessions. Each mission can be accomplished in just a couple of minutes, but expect to spend an extended amount of time fine tuning your run to hit all of the main objectives (and optional side objectives). The first couple of missions are admittedly very easy to allow time for the mechanics to settle in, then the game kicks into gear.

Spymaster has multiple characters, each with their own tools/weapons and personality quirks. You will hop back and forth between them, rewinding time via a wristwatch on the operator's (i.e. your) wrist to retake control at a point of your choosing.

As an example, a mission based in a Venice, Italy inspired location has multiple drones stationed throughout that will end the mission if either spy is in their line of sight for more than a few seconds. That alone means moving one spy, Tic, forward first to gun it down. This allows Mulligan, the second spy, to zip line to a building in what would have been plain sight of said drone. As Mulligan, you land from the zip line and race downstairs to zap two drones waiting in an alcove with your taser and another on a bridge over the canal.

Back to Tic, who has other guards to take out in a central building before lowering a drawbridge to let Mulligan into the room to secure a briefcase. Mulligan, briefcase secured, gets on a gondola for a gondolier to very slowly paddle towards the extraction point, while being attacked by drones on other gondolas and building patios. Back to Tic, who can either race from building to building to the extraction spot, or stop to take out all of the drones attacking Mulligan. Oh by the way, Mulligan's taser has unlimited charges, but a short range of effect and a cooldown time. Tic's pistol is more effective from range, but she has limited ammo.

This entire scenario can be completed in less than 90 seconds. I know because one of the side objectives challenges you to beat that time. I spent nearly a full hour in this mission, constantly rewinding and swapping characters to figure out which agent needed to take out which drone for maximum efficiency. I had Tic do most of the combat, which came back to bite me at the extraction point when I ran out of bullets and got killed. So I turned back time and made Tic pause long enough for Mulligan's gondola to arrive to tase the final drone. Dying isn't a threat here with the time rewind feature so much as an inconvenience. I thought I had the run figured out, only to have to make more adjustments.

After each mission, a cinematic replay of the successful run from multiple camera angles plays. This is a bit dicey in places because depending on your timing, there may be several seconds of no action because the spy is elsewhere at that time. It's an interesting presentation idea that needs more time in the oven before the final release. After this, it's back to the boat that serves as the spy team's hub for the next mission or to replay a previous mission to complete missing side objectives or get a faster time.

It's tough to put a gameplay time on this game because you could just as easily race through it in a couple of hours doing the bare minimum or spend upwards of eight hours if, like me, you are a bit Type A and care about efficiency.

Spymaster - Final Verdict

Innerspace's flair for eccentric, surreal gameplay continues with Spymaster. It's a fun romp of an espionage adventure that is not like anything I've played in VR. The formula also lends itself to expansions with new, more intricate mechanics and different spies. It lives and dies on the mission gameplay, which thankfully is executed very well.

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 an early access release, this review is unscored.

CleanSheet Soccer Pro, the follow up to the original goalkeeper-focused CleanSheet Soccer, launched as a training simulator with a subscription fee attached. James Stafford of developer Incisiv said this new entry was built in direct response to demand from the PlayStation community.

Here's the trailer:

The new game has been rebuilt specifically for PlayStation, removing the subscription fees and relaunched as a premium (read: paid) standalone experience. CleanSheet Soccer 2 features enhanced visuals, full trophy support, a retooled career mode, and interactive coaches that assign challenges based on how players perform.

The original CleanSheet Soccer is available on PS VR2, Meta Quest, and Pico XR. Per Stafford, the first two games have reached a combined 180,000 players.

CleanSheet Soccer 2 can be wishlisted on PS VR2 now ahead of its June 11 release.

CM Games has announced that they've lowered the price of their time-twisting VR puzzle game UnLoop, available now on Quest, SteamVR, and Pico. The price drops from $24.99 down to $17.99.

UnLoop is a VR puzzle game that tasks you with proceeding through a series of compact, room-based puzzles, each designed so as to be impossible to pass. At least, impossible on your first try.

Each time you die or run out of time, a ghost of yourself will appear and replay exactly the actions you took in the last life. You'll use as many lives as you need to choreograph sequences of interactions between your current self and past selves in order to clear the puzzle. Our hands-on impressions piece called it "a great premise for a puzzle game." At the new, lower price, it's an even better buy.

UnLoop Hands-On: Sci-Fi Puzzling On Repeat

UnLoop is a fresh, time-bending VR puzzle game from the creators of Into the Radius, launching you into a clever self-co-op experience with a dash of sci-fi espionage.

UploadVRPete Austin

UnLoop is available now for Quest, SteamVR, and Pico, at the new price of $17.99. At time of writing, SteamVR is offering an additional 20% off.

The official Vision Pro support for the two PC VR simulators leverages the OS-level foveated streaming feature Apple added to visionOS 26.4, a feature that Nvidia's CloudXR SDK leverages. Foveated streaming leverages eye tracking to maximize visual quality in the region of the display you're currently looking at.

To be clear, while the name CloudXR implies the PC is in the cloud, and this is Nvidia's primary focus for the technology, in the case of X-Plane 12 and iRacing, the visionOS client apps connect to your local gaming PC as the rendering source.

When the visionOS streaming clients for X-Plane 12 and iRacing were announced in March, it was thought that their major advantage over existing tools that let you stream PC VR content to Apple Vision Pro, primarily ALVR, would be the foveated streaming.

Since then, however, we've seen multiple tools released that enable this for your entire PC VR library, with the free and open-source Clear XR supporting OpenXR titles and $15 KRVR now supporting SteamVR content too.

KRVR Supports Apple Vision Pro’s Foveated Streaming For SteamVR Games

KRVR, a $15 visionOS app, lets you play any SteamVR game from your PC on Apple Vision Pro with foveated streaming.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Still, there are some advantages to the dedicated streaming clients for X-Plane and iRacing.

Both offer a simplified launch process, directly connecting to the simulator software on your PC with essentially no friction.

iRacing's client also automatically tracks your physical racing wheel and segments it out with passthrough, leveraging Apple's ARKit SDK. Meanwhile, the X-Plane client lets you manually mark out a passthrough cutout, as you can with KRVR.

You can find X-Plane Streaming Link and iRacing Connect on the visionOS App Store. Both apps are free, though you'll need to own the sims on your PC to connect to them.

The tradeoff of using Nvidia's CloudXR SDK is that every foveated streaming solution so far exclusively supports Nvidia's Ada and Blackwell GPU architectures, meaning RTX 40-series and 50-series graphics cards, and this is the case for X-Plane and iRacing too.

Supernatural was originally created by Within, the immersive technology company founded by Chris Milk and Aaron Koblin, before being acquired by Meta in 2023. The new company, called Supernatural Health, says it plans to launch a new Supernatural experience on Quest this fall. In its FAQ, the company describes the new version as retaining the “same coaches, same DNA, same mission” as the original service, while also making clear that the transition will not simply continue the existing Meta-owned platform unchanged. 

The announcement comes five months after Meta halted development of the service. In January, the company said Supernatural would no longer receive “new content or feature updates” as part of a restructuring that also saw multiple VR studios shut down. At the time, UploadVR reported that subscribers could continue accessing the existing workout library, but the coaches who helped define the service would no longer appear in new content.

While the existing workout library remained available, Meta's decision left the platform's long-term future unclear. UploadVR later reported that Supernatural continued ranking near the top of the Meta Quest charts even after Meta paused content updates and laid off much of the team behind it. The same report noted that Supernatural’s subscription model, brand recognition, and strong engagement made it one of the few clear consumer success stories in VR fitness, even as users began exploring alternatives.

Now, Supernatural Health says the platform is being rebuilt by original Within founders Chris Milk and Aaron Koblin alongside returning coaches and a small core team. The company says the existing Meta-operated version will remain available through December 3, 2026.

The return of the coaches addresses one of the biggest concerns raised by subscribers after Meta halted development earlier this year. When Meta halted new content earlier this year, UploadVR noted that subscribers could still work out with Supernatural’s existing library, but only through archived coach recordings. The coaches, who had become a defining part of the platform’s identity and community, appeared to have no future role in the service.

Supernatural Health is also warning users that the transition will not be seamless. Existing accounts and subscriptions will not automatically transfer to the new platform, which will use fresh accounts and a new privacy policy. The company says it is exploring ways to preserve user history such as streaks, badges, join dates, favorites, and workout history, though it has not guaranteed that all account data will carry forward.

Music licensing remains another challenge for the new company. UploadVR previously identified expiring music rights as one of the biggest uncertainties surrounding Supernatural’s long-term future. Supernatural Health now says the new service will include “as much of the original catalog” as possible while continuing to expand and evolve its music library over time.

The company also confirmed pricing will increase under the new independent structure. The service will return to its pre-Meta pricing of $20 per month or $200 per year. Users who join as Founding Members will be eligible for a discounted first-year rate of $180 annually. Supernatural Health says the higher pricing is intended to support employee salaries and benefits, music licensing, new features, and a sustainable career path for coaches.

Supernatural Health did not disclose financial terms surrounding the transition away from Meta ownership. In its FAQ, the company described the move as reflecting “a shared belief that Supernatural’s community is best served by a focused, independent team,” while also saying Meta had been “supportive throughout” the process.

The transition is notable because Meta has historically retired VR services rather than transferring them to new ownership. Supernatural's continuation under an independent company marks a different outcome for a Meta-owned VR property.

Supernatural Health says additional details regarding account migration, signup procedures, and the launch timeline will be shared in the months ahead.

On May 6, I Am Cat surprise launched onto PlayStation VR2, and it seems it's done well in its first month on Sony's headset. I Am Cat has claimed the number one most-downloaded spot in both North American and EU markets.

I Am Cat is a sandbox adventure game in which you play as a cat, use arm-based locomotion to scamper and claw your way around Granny's house, completing quests and causing mischief as only a cat can. The game has been a massive success on Quest, Steam, and Pico, and holds a nearly perfect 4.9 out of 5 stars rating based on over 77,000 user reviews on Meta's Horizon Store.

I Am Cat Heads Into The Yard & Garage On Quest & Steam

Become cat in the yard and garage in I Am Cat on Quest & Steam.

UploadVRIan Hamilton

The full sales chart for May 2026 shows buyers in the EU and North America still enjoying VR mainstays like Moss and Moss II, Job Simulator, Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy's Edge, and the ever-popular Beat Saber.

The complete chart is embedded below.

It shouldn't be surprising that a highly-anticipated game like I Am Cat would claw its way to the top of the charts in the same month that it shadow dropped on the system. It will be interesting to see if the game can maintain this momentum through June and beyond.

I Am Cat can be found on the PlayStation Store for $14.99. It's also available on Quest, Steam, and Pico.

Since the launch of the original Vision Pro, the iPad version of Steam Link has been available on visionOS through the App Store. While this allowed for easily playing your flatscreen Steam library in the headset, it limited you to having a window with the 4:3 aspect ratio of an iPad, yet streaming the wider aspect ratio of your PC, leading to black bars on the top and bottom of the window – something entirely unnecessary in XR.

The iPad app also limited the window's resolution to that of an iPad, around 2732×1537 for 16:9 content.

With the visionOS app, released on the App Store a few weeks ago, the Steam Link window supports up to 4K streaming resolution, dynamically matches the aspect ratio of the PC you're streaming from, and lets you adjust the curvature of the window to your liking.

Valve Launches Steam Link On Pico Headsets & Vive Focus Vision

Valve launched Steam Link on Pico headsets and HTC Vive Focus Vision, making it easier to wirelessly stream SteamVR games from a PC.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

As well as supporting gamepad or mouse & keyboard navigation in the Steam Big Picture interface, the new app lets you use the gaze-and-pinch interaction system of Vision Pro to launch games, looking at an entry in your Steam library with your eyes to select it and pinching your thumb to your index finger to launch it.

Valve also says the native visionOS client "improves network performance" compared to the iPad app.

Testing the app out on Vision Pro, I found the 4K quality to be a massive improvement over the iPad app, and the latency feels lower too. The gaze integration, however, awkwardly snaps a mouse-like cursor between library items, so I disabled that and stuck to navigating with a connected Bluetooth gamepad.

No VR Support

The glaring omission, of course, is PC VR support. While Steam Link on Meta Quest, Pico, and Vive Focus Vision headsets lets you play your SteamVR games, the visionOS client is entirely limited to flatscreen content.

There seem to be two distinct versions of "Steam Link", one for flatscreen devices and the other for VR headsets, and Apple Vision Pro's client is very much so a variant of the former. It seems similar to the tvOS version, with the above-noted XR additions.

KRVR Supports Apple Vision Pro’s Foveated Streaming For SteamVR Games

KRVR, a $15 visionOS app, lets you play any SteamVR game from your PC on Apple Vision Pro with foveated streaming.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Third-party developers have addressed the demand for PC VR streaming on Apple Vision Pro, though. The open-source PC VR streaming tool ALVR has been available on the App Store since a few months after the M2 Vision Pro launched, and recently Clear XR and KRVR have launched with support for the foveated streaming feature introduced in visionOS 26.4.

X-Plane and iRacing also recently launched their own dedicated visionOS clients for their PC VR simulators, also leveraging Nvidia's CloudXR, offering seamless automatic connection as well as automatic alignment and passthrough cutout of your physical peripherals, your HOTAS or racing wheel setup.

I'm actively writing on UploadVR again, and this article is one in a series of "catch up" pieces where I report on some of the interesting things that have been happening in the industry in recent months. And yes, VR Download is coming back soon!

This is not the only visionOS app for playing your SteamVR games, and nor is it even the first to support the foveated streaming feature Apple introduced in visionOS 26.4. ALVR, which has been available on the App Store since a few months after the M2 Vision Pro launched, supports playing SteamVR games from your PC, and in March a Canadian software engineer released Clear XR, which lets you play OpenXR games from your PC. Both are free and open source, with the ALVR client available on the App Store and Clear XR available on TestFlight, while both have a streaming server on GitHub.

KRVR is a paid closed-source app, which, with its most recent updates, delivers the two best aspects of ALVR and Clear XR in one solution: it lets you play any SteamVR game, even non-OpenXR titles, with foveated streaming to maximize visual quality in the region of the display you're currently looking at.

As with Clear XR, KRVR's developer leverages Nvidia's CloudXR SDK, which has full ready-to-go support for Apple's foveated streaming feature.

The $15 app has a relatively polished interface and a few standout features compared to ALVR, which still doesn't support foveated streaming, and Clear XR, which hasn't been updated since March:

• Passthrough Cutouts: Similar to Virtual Desktop on Quest, KRVR lets you trace out portions of your space, which will display real-world passthrough instead of VR. This lets you bring your racing wheel, HOTAS, desk, or other physical areas of your room into VR. You can edit these passthrough cutout zones at any time.
• PC Desktop: You can view and interact with your PC monitors, with multi-monitor support. While playing a VR game, you can interact with your PC's other physical monitors.

As with ALVR and Clear XR, Sony's PlayStation VR2 Sense tracked controllers are fully supported, though you can also use other input devices like a gamepad or mouse and keyboard.

The tradeoff of using Nvidia's CloudXR SDK is that it exclusively supports Nvidia's Ada and Blackwell GPU architectures, meaning RTX 40-series and 50-series graphics cards. The current PC I'm using has an RTX 3090, so unfortunately, I can't test KRVR at the moment.

If you do have the required GPU and an Apple Vision Pro and want to try it, you can find the KRVR visionOS client on the App Store for $15, and the Windows PC server app on GitHub – though note that the source code is not available.

X-Plane and iRacing also recently launched their own dedicated visionOS clients for their PC VR simulators, also leveraging Nvidia's CloudXR, offering seamless automatic connection as well as automatic alignment and passthrough cutout of your physical peripherals, your HOTAS or racing wheel setup.

In a blog on its website, Spatial CEO Jinha Lee points to rising costs as the driving force behind this decision:

The cost of hosting and scaling open multiplayer 3D worlds has grown significantly and continues to climb. We explored every alternative: revised pricing models, tiered hosting plans, and partnership structures. Every path forward would have meant passing rising costs directly to you at levels that are not sustainable for independent developers and small studios. We were not able to find a model that kept the Creator platform viable without compromising the experience you and your communities deserve.

This decision only applies to the creator platform. Spatial will maintain its enterprise-level customers moving forward.

We should also note that Spatial built an in-house studio, Wooster Games, the team behind the immensely popular social VR game Animal Company that boasts over half a million active daily users as of July 2025.

Animal Company Now Has 1 Million Monthly & 500K Daily Active Players

Animal Company is now the 5th highest grossing Quest game for first year revenue, reaching 500k daily and 1 million active monthly players.

UploadVRHenry Stockdale

Lee says the company will focus its efforts on its original IP projects through Wooster Games.

You can read the full blog about the shutdown here, which details the timeline in full. Any creators with worlds on Spatial will need to download their assets by July 27. Anything left after that date will be deleted.

After a busy spring, summer kicks off with two VR showcases: our own UploadVR Summer Showcase on June 12 & the VR Games Showcase in late June. As such, expect this article to be updated multiple times throughout the month with announcements from those and other events.

For now, here are the VR games with scheduled release dates in June.

Note: games scheduled for a 'June 2026' release are not included in this article as they do not have firm dates. For a broader list of new releases expected in 2026, check out our ongoing watchlist article here.

Dates listed here come from storefront listings, direct communications with developers, and developer social media channels.

An asterisk (*) indicates a game planned to release in Early Access

Fishing Party VR - June 1 (PC VR)

Fishing Party VR is a physics-based fishing simulation with twenty unique species of fish to catch across five different locations.

Store links - Steam

Sky Legends: An Aeropostal Epic - June 3 (PC VR)

Sky Legends, is an early 1900s adventure centered on an investigation into an air mail transport company. The investigation spans over ten years of the company's history, told through interactive scenes where players will take control of different pilots and their planes. It released on Meta Quest last month and supports both motion controllers and hand tracking.

• Store links - Steam

Outblast - June 4 (Quest, PC VR)

Outblast is a fast-paced arcade shooter pitting players against a rogue viral intelligence. The campaign spans five different futuristic locations and unique boss fights. The Steam version will also have flatscreen support.

• Store links - Steam, Quest

Sugar Madness - June 4 (Quest)

Sugar Madness is an on-rails wave shooter from JollyCo (Jolly Match 3) with solo and co-op gameplay. This family-friendly adventure pits players against Dr. Sour, a madman who has transformed the sugary inhabitants into dangerous 'candymorphs.'

• Store links - Quest

The Boys: Trigger Warning - June 9 (PS VR2)

The Boys: Trigger Warning is a stealth action game based on the comic book and TV series of the same name from developer Arvore (Pixel Ripped). I reviewed the game when it released on Meta Quest earlier this year, feeling like the game "plays it safe, delivering a run-of-the-mill stealth game lifted by the world it is set in."

The Boys: Trigger Warning Review: Uninspired Stealth Boosted By Source Material

The Boys: Trigger Warning is tough on the eyes, but still hits all the tropes one expects in a stealth action game, for better or worse.

UploadVRMike Johnson

• Store links - PS VR2

CleanSheet Soccer 2 - June 11 (PS VR2)

The followup to the Quest exclusive CleanSheet Pro has been built exclusively for Sony's current generation headset. This new entry does not have a subscription fee, focusing on gameplay and replayability with better visuals, full trophy support, and a revamped career mode.

• Store links - PS VR2

Downtown Club (1.0 release) - June 11 (Quest)

Competitive street racer Downtown Club leaves Early Access this month after nearly two years. Since our Early Access review, the game has added multiple new cars and courses. The final release, according to developer Commuter Games, will add voice chat for multiplayer races, improvements to the AI drivers, rain, and slipstream.

Downtown Club Early Access Review: A Solid Chassis On Which To Build

Downtown Club is a fun but sparse early access VR racer with full virtual controls, beautiful visuals, and a promising future. Our early access review.

UploadVRJames Tocchio

• Store links - Quest

Spell Siege - June 18 (Quest)

Spell Siege is a gesture-based magic wave defense game. Defeating enemies earns players 'Sou Essence' that can be cashed in for new spells and special runes to amplify the spells' power.

• Store links - Quest

Starvault - June 18 (PC VR)

Starvault is a VR MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) first person shooter featuring multiple heroes and abilities in 5v5 hero-shooter-style combat. Starvault is currently free to play on Meta Quest with a limited starting selection of heroes to choose from. Per the developer, the Steam version will be a paid app with everything in the game unlocked right away.

• Store links - Steam

Project S - June 30 (Quest)

Project S is a tabletop real time strategy game inspired by classic RTS games from the 1990s. This is a solo developer project with additional planets planned as future DLC add-ons.

• Store links - Quest

If we missed any games, feel free to reach out to us at tips@uploadvr.com. This article will be updated with any new additions, cancellations, or delays.

June 2026 brings the popular (and ridiculous) rhythm game Trombone Champ: Unflattened and the magical adventure game Maskmaker as the Monthly Games. The catalog also sees the addition of the high-energy platformer Outta Hand to Horizon+.

Meta Horizon+ subscribers also get exclusive deals. June's deals include:

• Into Black, a first-person action adventure game that tasks you with exploring and escaping from the depths of a mysterious alien planet. Get it for 50% off this month.

Here's a closer look at the Monthly Games for June.

Trombone Champ: Unflattened

Trombone Champ: Unflattened! lets you play your virtual trombone to over 58 tracks, spanning anthems, marches, classical bangers, and folk classics. Each piece is handcrafted to keep you honking and sliding to your heart’s content, with plenty of surprises and unlockables along the way to keep you coming back for more. In addition, numerous add-on packs have been released to expand the musical rhythm game's repertoire.

Maskmaker

Maskmaker comes from A Fisherman's Tale creators, Innerspace VR. It's an interesting and intriguing puzzle game in which you play as a maskmaker's apprentice tasked with exploring a magical land and discovering the secret identity of The Maskmaker.

Our review called it a game whose "best moments achieve an intricate balance between body-swapping puzzling that helps lift the veil on some of the story’s deeper themes."

Outta Hand

A somewhat overlooked platformer that blends Crash Bandicoot with Gorilla Tag, Outta Hand is a high-energy adventure that kids (and kids-at-heart) will love. You play as a loveable lab experiment that's been scheduled for termination. You must leap, slap, and swing with your ridiculously long arms, escape the hostile facility of the evil Dr. Vendelvom, and free your fellow experiments, too.

Our hands-on preview called Outta Hand "something that becomes the next natural progression of the Gorilla Tag movement system. Not only is it an evolution of that system, but it offers more mechanics and a sense of flinging freedom with satisfying bouts of combat interspersed throughout."

Horizon+ Games Catalog Games

Horizon+ continues offering a Games Catalog of Quest titles that any subscriber can access. Meta can add new games to and remove games from the catalog at any time.

Here is the current Horizon+ Games Catalog in the US:

• After the Fall
• Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs
• Asgard's Wrath 2
• Beat Saber
• Blacktop Hoops
• Breachers
• Crime Shop Simulator
• Deisim
• Demeo
• Demeo Battles
• Dungeons of Eternity
• Escaping Wonderland
• Fruit Ninja
• Ghosts of Tabor
• GOLF+
• Green Hell VR
• iB Cricket
• I Expect You to Die 3
• In Death: Unchained
• Into the Radius
• Job Simulator
• Medieval Dynasty New Settlement
• Moss
• Onward
• Outta Hand
• Pets & Stuff
• Pistol Whip
• Premium Bowling
• Project Demigod
• Puzzling Places
• Racket Club
• Real VR Fishing
• Red Matter 2
• Shave & Stuff
• Starship Home
• Table Troopers
• The 7th Guest VR
• The Climb 2
• The Light Brigade
• The Thrill of the Fight
• Thief Simulator VR
• Titans Clinic
• Vacation Simulator
• Walkabout Mini Golf
• War of Wizards
• Zero Caliber: Reloaded

Outta Hand Review: Short, Sweet & Sublime VR Platforming

Outta Hand is an absolute platforming thrill on Quest. Read our full review here:

UploadVRHarry Baker

Horizon+ Indie Catalog Games

Meta continues to add new games to the separate Indie Games Catalog, and you can see the entire list here.

Meta Horizon+ is a subscription service that gives players access to a monthly selection of games for $7.99 USD per month, or $59.99 USD a year. New Horizon+ users can enjoy a one-month free trial.

Meta says it's the result of a "six year collaboration" with the European Space Agency (ESA).

Quest 3 will be far from the first XR headset to arrive at the ISS.

All the way back in 2015, Microsoft sent an original HoloLens AR headset to the ISS with a Remote Expert Mode so ground crews could help astronauts with repairs and a Procedure Mode that overlaid equipment tutorials for novel systems.

In 2017, Oculus sent a Rift VR headset to the station where ESA astronauts Thomas Pesquet and Alexander Gerst used it for microgravity neuroscience experiments.

And in 2023, HTC sent up a Vive Focus 3 to support astronaut mental health by providing 360-degree immersive videos of serene locations on Earth.

For all three previous missions, the headset's tracking system had to be heavily modified to work properly in microgravity. On Earth headsets use the accelerometer in their IMU (inertial measurement unit) to measure the gravity vector to align to the orientation of the ground, but trying to use this in space would cause constant drifting. For the Rift mission, Oculus swapped out the Rift's Constellation tracking system for a third-party solution better suited to be customized for microgravity. Meanwhile, HTC modified the Vive Focus 3 tracking system to track one of the controllers fixed onto a wall as an anchor point, so the headset has a fixed point to align its movement to.

For Quest 3 now, the modification is less extreme. According to Meta, the team behind the Travel Mode shipped in 2024, originally for airplanes and now supporting trains too, has extended it to work in microgravity too. Planes, trains, and space stations – that has a ring to it. Whereas on planes the IMU chip's accelerometer is mostly ignored, on the space station it will be entirely ignored, with the headset tracking entirely from visual cues from its cameras.

HTC Sent A Vive Focus 3 To The International Space Station

HTC just sent a Vive Focus 3 headset to the International Space Station to support astronaut mental health.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

The Quest 3 spacewalk training will be part of the station's swan song era. In-orbit construction of the ISS began in 1998, and the aging station is currently set to be deorbited in 2031, with private companies taking the mantle of human presence in Earth orbit while the countries behind the ISS, with the notable exception of Russia, are moving on to build the Artemis Moon Base instead.

When they arrive on the Moon sometime in the 2030s, the inhabitants of the Artemis base will almost certainly have headsets of their own, with all the significant advancements in XR technology we expect to see over the next 5-10 years. As well as the applications for training, headsets could improve the quality of life for these deep space astronauts, giving them a private cinema for entertainment and virtual relaxation environments to feel as if they're back home.

You Can Visit Space Stations In VR At Home

While astronauts sometimes use VR to feel like they're on Earth, you can do the opposite at home to feel like you're on the International Space Station with Mission: ISS. It's free, available on Quest and the Meta PC VR store.

Mission: ISS Is A Free Space Simulation That Makes You The Astronaut

Virtual reality is a great platform for users to experience fantastic worlds and wonders, but it’s also a portal into the real life wonders very few humans get to enjoy. Outer space is one of, if not the, most incredible of those wonders and VR users are getting an

UploadVRCharles Singletary

VR Experience Puts You Inside The First Commercial Space Station

Vast’s VR experience puts you inside Haven-1, set to be the first-ever private sector space station next year. It’s available on Quest, Apple Vision Pro, and PC VR.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

You can also visit one of the planned private successor stations to the ISS in Vast Haven-1 VR, which is also free and available on the Meta Horizon Store for Quest, Apple's App Store for Vision Pro, and Steam for PC VR.

Realcast has released Just Hoops Nano, a new mixed reality mini basketball game. The release comes as something of a surprise, given the game was previously announced to be coming "this summer."

Designed around hand tracking, Just Hoops Nano drops a mixed reality basketball arcade game into your personal space and uses natural hand gestures to create a direct and intuitive connection to the game. You'll pinch, flick, and shoot mini basketballs into mini hoops from the comfort of your desk, bed, or couch. The game can also be played with controllers.

Just Hoops Nano emphasizes short, engaging play sessions, while providing an easy-to-play yet hard-to-master experience. Satisfying physics and gameplay built around timing and precision are central to the game's design philosophy. There are over 20 dynamic levels, moving hoops, longshots, and game modes like Around the World and Zen Mode, an endless shooting session with no pressure.

Just Hoops Nano is a miniaturized offshoot of Just Hoops, a larger-scale mixed reality basketball arcade experience currently listed on SteamVR and Meta's Horizon store.

We'll have a hands-on impression piece on Just Hoops Nano in the coming days. If you can't wait, Just Hoops Nano is available now on Meta's Horizon Store for $7.99. 

As part of Sony's annual Days of Play promotional event, PlayStation VR2 is getting a $100 price cut, bringing the cost of the headset from $399 to $299. The sale runs through June 10 and also includes free shipping and additional discounts on hardware and accessories in select regions. Full details and specific deals can be seen on the PlayStation Blog.

The PS VR2 deal comes along with broader hardware discounts, PlayStation Store sales, PlayStation Plus bonuses, and community events across the PlayStation ecosystem. Sony says this year’s event will feature discounted PS5 and PS4 games, along with promotions on accessories including DualSense controllers, the Pulse Elite headset, and Pulse Explore earbuds.

PlayStation VR2 Review: Next-Generation VR Gaming For PS5

PlayStation VR2 heralds the next-generation of console-based VR on PS5. We’ve had the chance to put Sony’s new headset through its paces over the past week, so how does it hold up? Here’s our PSVR 2 review. After years of waiting, PSVR 2 is finally here and

UploadVRHenry Stockdale

Sony's latest VR headset is a great piece of hardware that's been widely praised for its excellent displays, eye tracking, and immersive haptic feedback. The PlayStation VR2 normally retails for $399. The new, temporary price of $299 is quite appealing, and it will be interesting to see if this sale will move consumers to splash out the cash on a PS VR2.

The full details of the sale will launch on Sony's Days of Play website starting May 27 at 12:01 AM.

Compass is like that. It's uncomplicated, a bit sparse, and as a video game, unapologetically simple. But it's also endearing, unique, and like my favorite bike, a whole lot of fun.

What Is Compass?

Though it may sound reductive, Compass is a game about flying. While it's true that Compass tells a story, that it's full of NPCs and quests, that there are puzzles to solve and cosmetics to earn and a ship to upgrade, all of this is secondary. At its core, Compass is all about exploring the skies.

You play as a scout, guiding and supporting an airborne caravan of anthropomorphic alien animals as it treks across a cosmic skyscape on a quest to deliver a giant egg to "the great incubator" while outrunning the attacks of an enormous space whale. It sounds odd, and that's because it is odd. Delightfully so.

The gameplay loop is essentially this: you fly to the central hub of an open-world area, chat with some NPCs, accept some quests, then explore the map in your ship. Throughout the overworld you'll find crystals which can be harvested and used to unlock areas shrouded in mist, within which are contained the game's out-of-cockpit traversal puzzles. You'll solve these, energize conduits, and link the various subareas to the central hub so that you can power up a wormhole and jump to the next zone. Once there, you'll do it all again, coming ever closer to delivering the egg and completing your journey.

Taking Flight

One thing that Compass understands better than a lot of games is that simplicity matters. Flying the ship isn't about managing systems or memorizing buttons. It's about instinct, and the sensation of grabbing the yoke with both hands and feeling your body subtly lean into turns.

Compass' controls are tactile and direct, responsive and forgiving. You plunge the yoke forward to dive, pull it back to climb, and turn left and right to bank. The control sticks allow fine control in all directions, too, though this is muted.

The control scheme works really well. Within minutes of starting the game, I found myself banking my nimble little airship between floating structures in the sky, dipping beneath enormous suspended ruins and swooping left and right in instinctive imitation of leaning a motorcycle into a long curve on an empty road.

You fly through this weird sky, discovering places and ruins and islands of floating stone, strange little huts with even stranger little dudes inhabiting them. You'll find hostile turrets to be juked, minefields to maneuver through, and other dangers worth avoiding. You'll be shot and blown up, you'll repair your ship, you'll salvage some cargo, and you'll swoop through marshmallow clouds, always discovering something new just beyond the horizon.

There are many moments of quiet in which all you're doing is flying through an open sky while distant structures drift by and strange, ambient music hums softly in the background. In short, if you can get yourself into the right frame of mind, it's a nice place to be.

The Puzzles

If flying is the core pillar of Compass, another is its puzzles. Unlocking these crystal-gated puzzle zones forces you out of the cockpit. The game shifts to environmental traversal sections that involve using your grappling hooks to navigate fragmented ruins, flipping switches, blocking or redirecting beams of energy to reactivate towers and push the caravan onward.

These puzzle areas are generally simple, mechanically, but they serve an important role in adding variety to the game. They increase in complexity the further we get into the game. While they never become truly difficult, like the puzzles in early Zelda games, they make you feel clever.

Turbulence

To say that Compass gets everything right would be a lie. Though flying generally feels engaging and fun, longer play sessions tired me out and I ended up wishing for simpler stick-based flight controls.

Additionally, the game can feel repetitive. Most quests involve tracking down lost objects and returning them to their owners. And most zones feel a bit too similar in both aesthetic and directives. The puzzles are competent without ever being especially memorable. And some players will find the slow exploration tedious (if you didn't like Wind Waker's boating, you're gonna hate this).

And lastly, the world of Compass can feel sparse. The minimalism that makes the world feel mysterious can also leave it feeling underdeveloped. I kept waiting for the game to surprise me with something radically different, a new biome or a deeper narrative turn, or more elaborate puzzles, but these never fully arrived. Compass sort of hints at a larger, stranger universe than the one it ultimately delivers, which is a shame, because what's here is really, really good. I just wish there was more.

Compass will not be for everyone. Players looking for constant progression, combat, or spectacle may find its gameplay slow and its pacing monotonous. But for the right player, someone willing to accept its rhythm and enjoy the simple act of exploring, it offers a very compelling experience.

Compass Review: Final Verdict

I found myself consistently charmed by Compass. So many modern games are afraid of empty space. They're built with fear that players will become bored if every moment isn't packed with stuff; mechanics, voice acting, waypoint markers, yellow paint, the dopamine flood of endless rewards. Compass takes the opposite approach. It trusts that mystery and atmosphere will carry the player through.

Like an old motorcycle, Compass is simple and beautiful. It gives you a cockpit, an open sky, and somewhere cool to fly. For me, that's more than enough.

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

The three tracks are all available today and will download automatically when the application updates.

Here's a brief teaser:

The new original track is “Phantom Fangs” from Zakka G, joined by Boom Kitty x MDK’s "Killshot" and Skybreak & Daeya’s "Astral Blossom."

This continues a strong 2026 for Beat Saber after shock drops of tracks by Bad Bunny and Twenty One Pilots, and the Prodigy Music Pack.

It should be clarified, as we do whenever new Beat Saber content pops up, that we previously reported the end of ongoing PlayStation VR2 support last year. As such, these tracks are only available for PC VR and Quest players.

Beat Saber is available on Quest, Steam, and PlayStation VR2. It also joined the Horizon+ games catalog earlier this year.

The response to Altered Echoes has mostly been positive, including my review of the game at release. That said, if you read player reviews, particularly the negative ones, the lack of smooth turning & inability to disable the vignette of protagonist Dark Six's hood have been common points of contention. For some, it was a dealbreaker that put them off buying the game altogether.

Little Nightmares VR: Altered Echoes Review - A Faithfully Terrifying Adaptation

Little Nightmares VR: Altered Echoes is an excellent translation of the series to VR, lacking only in more robust VR comfort options.

UploadVRMike Johnson

Bandai Namco has addressed this in a May update. The smooth turning option has several speed presets ranging from 0.5x to 3x. The hood removal option is only available for the PC VR version of the game, with no indication if it will be added for Meta Quest and PlayStation VR2 at a later date. The post on Bandai Namco's website states it is "available on PC only due to performance limitations on other platforms."

I jumped back into the game on SteamVR earlier today, removed the hood, and played the game for an hour with no discernible impact on the game's performance. However, everyone's PC is different, so your mileage may vary depending on your PC's specifications. I personally have an RTX 5070 Ti GPU and an AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D, so there's not a lot it cannot handle.

Here are the other listed improvements:

• Improved climbable interactions and collision handling.
• Fixed several environment interaction behaviors.
• Improved AI behavior during investigations and chase situations.
• Improved visibility handling for nearby and held objects.

At release, the game FAQ on Bandai Namco's website expressly stated that the game was snap turn only and the vignette could not be removed as a precaution against motion sickness. The vignette was additionally said to be present for added immersion.

Respectfully, giving VR players options to tailor the comfort settings to their personal liking will always be the best accessibility practice. Everyone handles VR locomotion differently and a one-size-fits-all design methodology will always court backlash. This is evidenced by the developer's admission on the Horizon Store's developer post that both features were 'highly requested.'

Little Nightmares VR: Altered Echoes is available now on PS VR2, Steam, and Meta Quest.

When Hello Games head Sean Murray posts a single emoji on social media, the No Man's Sky community starts speculating what it means. April's Xeno Arena update, a Pokemon-style creature arena battler, was teased with a simple stadium emoji. February's Remnant update was preceded by a safety vest. Murray has been doing this unique form of marketing since 2020, so when he posted a single bee this past week, the theories came fast. A cooking update? A tease for Hello Games' upcoming game, Light No Fire? A new beekeeper feature?

None of the above. Instead, it's The Swarm, where Travelers (players) have to work together to fend off an enemy "unlike anything we've seen before," according to Murray.

Here's the trailer:

In The Swarm, players will load into a personality test that divides each of them into one of three factions. These three factions will compete against one another to combat the Hive of Glass, a massive space bound structure that deploys hundreds of drone ships to protect itself. The Hive itself is also a weapon equipped with a central laser powerful enough to destroy entire freighter fleets and possibly space stations. It all sounds very Star Wars Death Star adjacent. As a lifelong Star Wars fan, I'm in.

The war with the Hive is waged on two fronts: in space and on the planet. Travelers on the ground will investigate and loot the remains of downed drones using the gravity gun introduced in the Remnant update. These drones have to be salvaged and researched to discover the secrets behind the Hive while Travelers also have to defeat planetary swarms.

The efforts of each faction will be tracked in the Space Anomaly and the Galactic Atlas, with the most effective of the three factions being memorialized in the Space Anomaly. This event is reminiscent of the monthly Cosmic Events in the now defunct Sanzaru Games' Asgard's Wrath 2, where players chose between two factions and competed for exclusive rewards. The Swarm also has exclusive rewards for participation, including a retro-styled suit of armor, a new rifle, and a huge new jet pack.

Regarding the community style challenge of The Swarm, Murray had this to say:

The prospect of all existing Travellers converging on a single area of the universe to take the largest space battles to date, against the back-drop of an ominous, mysterious Death Star like construct, with the ability to destroy space station sized objects… is going to make for some exciting weeks ahead for us and for players.

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

Recent years have seen more VR games than ever before. Major titles continue reaching Quest 3, Steam, PlayStation VR2, and Pico, with PC VR looking set for a renewed boost when Steam Frame launches. While Apple Vision Pro and Samsung Galaxy XR don't prioritize gaming, you can expect the odd release every so often. Whatever your headset, there are plenty more upcoming VR games to pick from

Our aim is to keep this wider list that we will regularly update, so you can better plan ahead or remind yourself of the upcoming VR games you had perhaps forgotten about. If we notice a game getting repeatedly delayed just before launch, said game will be placed in the 'TBC' section until a firm commitment is made.

This also won't replace our more in-depth monthly round-ups. As part of ongoing updates, we'll keep the current's month specific information below.

New VR Games & Releases June 2026: Meta Quest, PC VR, PlayStation VR2, & More

Looking for a list of all the new VR games and DLCs coming to Quest, Steam, PlayStation VR2, and other platforms in June? We’ve got you covered.

UploadVRMike Johnson

Since Meta has dropped Quest 1 support entirely, Quest games going forward will only support Quest 2, Quest Pro, and/or Quest 3 and Quest 3S. You can find the Horizon Store and mobile apps (iOS/Google Play) here. If a game is only on Quest 3/3S, that will be noted as more games leave Quest 2/Pro behind. We expect that list to grow now that Quest Pro and Quest 2 are discontinued.

Similarly, releases on Pico 4 Ultra, Pico 4, or Neo 3 Link will just say 'Pico' – those games are viewable through apps (iOS/Google Play) or the web store. The PlayStation Store naturally covers PlayStation VR and PS VR2 games. Most PC VR titles are on Steam, but some are also on Rift, Viveport, itch.io, GOG, and EGS. Samsung Galaxy XR games are on Google Play, while the App Store covers Apple Vision Pro. We'll note other platforms where relevant, too.

For now, here's our list of upcoming VR games on all major platforms.

July 2026

• SCP The Beginning - July 13 (PC VR)
• Edd Skeleton VR - July 14 (PC VR)
• Fixer Undercover - July 16 (PC VR)
• Paranatural - July 17 (PC VR)
• Roboquest VR - July 23 (Quest)
• Aeternum Infecti - July 24 (PC VR)
• Cybercore Protocol - July 26 (Quest)
• Amelia's Escape - July 2026 (PC VR, Quest)
• Blooming Conductor - July 2026 (Quest)
• Game I'm Prisoner - July 2026 (Quest)
• Snooker Billiard - July 2026 (PC VR)
• Surreal Sniper - July 2026 (Quest)
• Tomboy Adventure 2 - July 2026 (PC VR)
• Wild West Panic - July 2026 (PC VR)

Summer 2026

• Dagger Woods VR - Summer 2026 (PC VR, Quest, PS VR2)
• Flyon RC - Summer 2026 (Quest)
• MR Clean - Summer 2026 (Quest 3)
• The Great Flood - Summer 2026 (Quest)
• Tin Hearts: Act 1 - Summer 2026 (Quest)

Q2 2026

• Exoshock - Q2 2026 (PC VR, Quest)
• Korea IL-2 Series* - Q2 2026 (PC VR)
• Remnant Protocol - Q2 2026 (PC VR, Quest)

Q3 2026

• Echoes of Mora - Q3 2026 (PC VR)
• Codebreakers VR - Q3 2026 (PC VR, Quest)
• Memoreum - Q3 2026 (PC VR, PS VR2)
• Penguin Festival - Q3 2026 (PC VR)
• The Lightkeepers - Q3 2026 (Quest)

Q4 2026

• Agent Simulator - Q4 2026 (PC VR)
• Deliria VR - Q4 2026 (PC VR)
• Xenolocus - Q4 2026 (PC VR)

2026

• A Long Survive - 2026 (PS VR2)
• Alliance Tales: Battle for the Frontier - 2026 (PC VR)
• Already Dead - 2026 (PS VR2)
• Ascent Quest** - 2026 (PC VR, PS VR2)
• Automa - 2026 (PC VR, PS VR2, Quest 3)
• Blastmania - 2026 (PC VR)
• Bootstrap Island - 2026 (PS VR2)
• CONFINED: Leaving OKB-134 - 2026 (PC VR)
• COVR - 2026 (TBD)
• Detective VR - 2026 (PC VR, PS VR2)
• Dr Emmerson's Nocturnes - 2026 (PC VR)
• Evangelion: Cross Reflections - 2026 (TBC)
• Falcon Fall - 2026 (PC VR)
• Full Steam Undead - 2026 (PC VR, Quest)
• G-Rebels* - 2026 (PC VR)
• Guardians Planetfall** - 2026 (PC VR, Quest 3)
• Heroes Together VR - 2026 (PC VR, Quest)
• Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades 2 - 2026 (PC VR, Quest 3)
• HyperSkate - 2026 (PC VR)
• Into The Radius 2* - 2026 (Quest 3)
• Jurassic Lab: Dinosarium DNA - 2026 (PC VR)
• Knights of Fiona - 2026 (PC VR, Quest)
• Long Trip - 2026 (PC VR)
• Meteora - 2026 (PC VR, PS VR2)
• Monster Snap (PC VR)
• Mystic Academy - 2026 (PC VR)
• Nevrosa Rescape - 2026 (PC VR, Quest)
• Order 13 VR - 2026 (PS VR2, Quest, PC VR)
• Out of Sight VR - 2026 (PS VR2, Quest)
• Paper Play - 2026 (PC VR)
• Payday: Aces High - 2026 (Quest, PC VR)
• Pool of Madness - 2026 (PC VR)
• Primal Rumble* - 2026 (Quest)
• Remembrance - 2026 (PC VR)
• Squingle Arcade - 2026 (Quest, SteamVR, Apple Vision Pro, Pico)
• Survive The Night - 2026 (Quest)
• The Bounds VR - 2026 (PS VR2, PC VR)
• The Obsessive Shadow: Chapter 2 - 2026 (PC VR)
• The Secret Of The Cove - 2026 (Quest)
• The Warp Cephisso - 2026 (PC VR)
• Timeless Heart VR - 2026 (PC VR, PS VR2, Quest)
• Ultima Chess VR - 2026 (PC VR)
• VMX - 2026 (Quest)
• Zero Caliber Frostbite - 2026 (TBD)

2027

• Project Mix - Q1 2027 (PC VR)

TBC

• Adepts Arena (PC VR)
• Adrian's Quest (PC VR)
• Archer - Virtual Realms (PC VR)
• Assetto Corsa Rally*** (PC VR)
• Astro Hunters (Pico, PS VR2)
• BATTLEGROUPVR2 (Quest)
• Boneworks (Quest 3)
• Bow-Bots (PC VR)
• Boxing Underdog (PC VR, PS VR2)
• Brutal Strike (PC VR)
• Catana: Red Flowers (PS VR2)
• Chaos Method (PS VR2)
• COLD VR (PS VR2)
• Convrgence* (PC VR)
• Core Disruption (PC VR)
• Death Relives*** (PS VR2)
• Deisim (PS VR2)
• Disc Dimension (PC VR)
• Disc Frenzy (PS VR2)
• Disembodied (Quest)
• Dolphin Trainer VR (PC VR)
• Downtown Club* (Pico, Quest)
• Dungeon Seekers (PC VR)
• Eldramoor: Haven in the Mist (PC VR, Quest)
• Elemental Towers (PC VR, Quest)
• Ember Souls (PC VR)
• Eternal Battle (PC VR)
• Exer Gale (PC VR, PS VR2, Pico)
• Expansion VR* (PC VR)
• Face Jumping (Quest Pro)
• Farcaster (PC VR)
• ForeVR Darts (PS VR2)
• Fresh Tracks VR (PC VR)
• FYR: The Lost Island (PC VR)
• Garden Haven* (Quest 3)
• Geronimo (PC VR)
• Glitch Moba (PC VR)
• Gravity League VR (PC VR)
• GRIM (PS VR2)
• Gunman Contracts - Stand Alone (PC VR)
• Heroes of Forever (PC VR, PS VR2, Quest)
• Hide The Corpse (PC VR)
• Home (PC VR)
• Hunternet Starfighter (PC VR)
• Hush: In Search of Dominic Ward (PC VR)
• I Am Your Beast VR (TBC)
• Inter Solar 83 (PC VR)
• Into The Darkness (PS VR2)
• Into The Light VR (PC VR)
• Iron Guard: Salvation (Pico)
• Janet's Planets (Quest 3, PC VR)
• Jarpug (PC VR)
• Jurassic Snap (PC VR)
• Laser Dance* (Quest 3)
• Level Up Your Body (PC VR)
• Levity Race (PC VR)
• Low-Budget Repairs (Quest)
• LOW-FI (PC VR, PS VR2)
• Masters of Light (PC VR)
• Miami Heat (Quest)
• Million Dollar Decision (Quest)
• Multiverse Kaitenzushi: Learn Japanese Alphabet (Quest)
• MUSE (PC VR)
• OogaBonk (PC VR, Quest)
• Orion Drift* (Quest)
• Penguin Festival (Pico, Steam, Quest)
• Phasmophobia* (PC VR, PS VR2)
• Pneumata VR (PC VR, PS VR2)
• Postal 2 VR (PS VR2, PC VR, Quest)
• Poppy Playtime VR (TBC)
• Project Heist Boss: A Prison Boss Game (TBC)
• Project Xeno (TBC)
• R.A.I.D. (TBC)
• Real VR Fishing (Galaxy XR)
• Road To Yvhalon (PC VR)
• Runner (PC VR)
• Scared by Squares** (PC VR)
• Sight Unseen (PC VR, Quest)
• Skera VR (PC VR)
• Sky Climb (PC VR)
• Slender: The Arrival VR (PC VR, PS VR2, Quest)
• SPRAWL VR (TBC)
• Stop Dead (TBC)
• Successor*** (PC VR)
• Supersonic Fight (PC VR)
• System Critical 3 (PS VR2)
• Teahouse of Souls (PC VR, Pico, PS VR2, Quest)
• Tennis League VR (PC VR)
• The Bounds VR (PC VR, PS VR2)
• The Hollow Path (PC VR)
• The Mighty Eighth VR (PC VR)
• The Obsessive Shadow (PS VR2)
• The Signal: Stranded on Sirenis (TBC)
• Toxic Therapy (PC VR, PS VR2, Quest)
• Underworld Overseer (PS VR2)
• Unnamed Alien: Rogue Incursion Sequel (TBC)
• Unnamed Cloudhead Games Project (TBC)
• Unnamed Kojima Productions/Niantic AR Game (TBC)
• Unnamed Second Neon Genesis Evangelion XR Game (TBC)
• Unnamed Third Neon Genesis Evangelion XR Game (TBC)
• Unnamed Noetic Realms Action RPG (TBC)
• Unnamed Stress Level Zero Game (TBC)
• Vertigo Rush (PC VR, PS VR2, Quest)
• Wallace & Gromit in the Grand Getaway (PC VR)
• Wanderer 2: The Seas of Fortune (TBC)
• What Comes After (PC VR, Quest)
• Whispers of the Tarnished City (PC VR, PS VR2)
• Whispers of the Void (PC VR)
• Wildlife Doctor (Pico 4 Ultra)
• Wordbound (Apple Vision Pro, Quest 3, Steam)
• Xeno Wonderer (Quest)
• Xploit.Zero* (Quest)
• Xstall One - eVTOL Flight Simulator (PC VR)
• You Can't Scare Me (Steam)
• Z-Grav: Clash (PC VR)
• ZIX* (PC VR, Quest)

If there's a game we've missed that you'd like us to add or the information is incorrect/outdated, please email tips@uploadvr.com or use our Contact Us page to get in touch.

* denotes a game that either is currently available in early access on that platform, or a game that will have been released in early access by that time.

** denotes an early access launch.

*** denotes a game currently available (or will be available at that time) but without VR support yet.

The 'A Golden Opportunity' short adventure is a new quest line in Battlemarked's first campaign, Embers of Chaos. It introduces Acquisitions Incorporated's Omin Dran and new rewards for adventurers who complete the quest.

Watch the full trailer here:

Dran, voiced by Penny Arcade co-founder Jerry Holkins, can be found in the Emerald Tavern in the first campaign. Players who have already completed the campaign can select A Golden Opportunity as a standalone quest from the main selection menu.

Acquisitions Incorporated is a sourcebook in the fifth edition (5e) of Dungeons & Dragons from the creators of Penny Arcade, a popular web comic that began in 1998. It started from a partnership between Penny Arcade and DnD publisher Wizards of the Coast for the former to start an actual play podcast of several fourth edition DnD campaigns. After switching to fifth edition, Wizards of the Coast published Acquisitions Incorporated as an official sourcebook in 2019. This marked the first time any third party content was incorporated into DnD as canon.

The update also added some quality of life changes to Battlemarked. Difficulty settings and the 'no respawn' setting for dungeons are now available for the full campaigns. Previously, these two features were only available for one shot dungeons.

The 'Fastness of Green Shadows' quest in the Embers of Chaos campaign has been added as a one shot dungeon now. It was previously only playable during a full campaign run.

The full patch notes can be read here. I would recommend experienced players to check it out as there are several balance changes for the game's heroes affecting damage output and action point economy.

Demeo × Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked is available now on Quest, Steam, and PlayStation VR2.

A weird and playful DLC brings lots of new stuff to Real VR Fishing this week.

Real VR Fishing's latest DLC, Picnic Festa, launches on June 4. The new update brings a whole tackle box of weird and fun updates to the game.

The Picnic Festa update adds seven new picnic-themed fishing locations to the United States, Spain, and Japan in-game ecosystems. It also adds 14 new standard fish species, interactive picnic props and foods, and exclusive rewards and trophies.

The update also adds a couple of unique and interesting game systems. These include the "Chubby Fish System" and "Starving Shark System."

The Chubby Fish System adds special fish, who have become stuffed by leftover picnic foods. Catching these and putting them in your aquarium at home will help them recover to their normal size. The Starving Shark System adds rare sharks searching for new food sources in unusual places. Catching these will similarly allow you to rescue them and help them recover in your lodge aquarium.

Real VR Fishing's Picnic Festa DLC launches on June 4 for $8.99. Real VR Fishing is available on Meta Quest, Pico, and SteamVR.

We reviewed Larcenauts when it released in June 2021 and noted some decidedly non-VR interactions that held it back from feeling truly immersive:

Impulse Gear, for example, seems strangely fond of taking control of a player’s hands as a means of imposing restrictions. So when you run with the default option, you see two hands dangling either side, stopping you from firing. When you reload, it’s a canned animation and not something you have any say in.

Additionally, a high number of the interactions were assigned to button presses. The general sentiment around the game was it had a high level of polish, but did not feel like a VR game.

Larcenauts launched in the wake of popular hero shooters like Overwatch, Apex Legends, and Valorant seeing sky-high player counts during the COVID-19 pandemic, but ultimately failed to capture a large player base. While we do not have the presumably higher Quest statistics, the game reached a peak concurrent player count (an important metric for online shooters) of just forty-two players on Steam, according to Steam Charts.

At the time of this article, Larcenauts is still available for purchase on Steam and Meta Quest, but it should be removed from both platforms soon.

In response to feedback, this recap article will be separated into three categories: new game announcements, game content updates, and new gameplay trailers.

The entire show is available on YouTube now.

New Game Announcements

These are brand new games revealed during the showcase. These all have separate articles with more details available. Click each game title to jump to dedicated articles with more information.

Survive The Night

Coming to Meta Quest

Survive the Night is a free-to-play co-op action roguelite from The Binary Mill (Into Black, Resist). Players work together to complete mini-game challenges and defeat enemies in a surreal game show setting.

OogaBonk

Coming to Meta Quest & Steam (no store listing available yet).

OogaBonk is a chaotic prehistoric VR sandbox that combines Gorilla Tag-style movement with multiplayer exploration, collectibles, and customizable player bases. OogaBonk is from Flat Hill Games (The Mixologist, Clash of Chefs VR).

Just Hoops Nano

Coming to Meta Quest.

Just Hoops Nano is a mixed reality mini basketball game designed around hand tracking coming to Meta Quest this summer. Nano is a miniaturized offshoot of Just Hoops from developer Realcast.

Cozy Worlds Together

Coming to Meta Quest.

Cozy Worlds Together, a free companion app that allows up to 12 players to explore Cozy Worlds creations together, is coming to Quest headsets in June. Developed by original Cozy Worlds developer VRTogether, players who own Cozy Worlds can export and share their custom creations, while friends can join and play for free.

Order 13 VR

Coming to SteamVR, PlayStation VR2, and Meta Quest.

Order 13 VR is a VR adaptation of Order 13, a creepy warehouse simulator in which players must package and manage shipments while a mysterious and menacing presence lurks in the shadows. The VR version comes from Bowl of Tentacles, who just recently released Evil Inside VR.

New Content or DLC

These games are out now and have new content, free or paid, coming soon. Click on the titles for more information.

Scared By Squares

Available now on Steam and Meta Quest.

Scared by Squares first announced a multiplayer addition at last year's UploadVR Winter Showcase. The co-op mode for the spooky cube-based platformer is still expected sometime this year after missing the originally stated December 2025 release date.

The Obsessive Shadow

Available now on Meta Quest and Steam.

The Obsessive Shadow is a horror survival game where players have to use a flashlight and their wits to fend off a stalker attempting to infiltrate their home. A new mixed reality mode brings the gameplay into your actual play space.

Clonk

Available free-to-play now on Meta Quest.

Clonk is a free-to-play party game adding a new game mode, Clonkball. Best described as 'Rocket League with guns', players use weapons to manipulate a giant ball into the opponents' goal. Clonk also has a non-VR PC mode on the way.

Neolithic Dawn

Available now on Meta Quest and Steam.

Neolithic LLC, which makes the physics-based VR survival game Neolithic Dawn, has announced an upcoming base-building update will launch in June. The free update introduces player-built shelters, new environmental systems, and expanded survival mechanics across every open-world map in the game.

Dark Trip

Available now on Meta Quest. Coming soon to Steam.

Dark Trip is a Lovecraftian escape room horror game where you have to pop pills to induce hallucinations in order to proceed from room to room. Developer iWorlds is taking its mind-bending title to Steam with both VR and flatscreen support.

New Gameplay Trailers

These are all already released or previously-known upcoming VR games with new gameplay footage or developer diaries featured in the showcase. All of the trailers are viewable in this article.

Knights of Fiona

Coming to Meta Quest 3/3S and Steam.

Knights of Fiona is a co-op JRPG from Character Bank (Ruins Magus). It completed a 1.5 million yen Kickstarter campaign earlier this year, roughly $9,426, and more than doubled that goal.

How To God

Available now on Meta Quest. Coming soon to Steam.

How To God is a god simulation and world builder that just got an art style and visual upgrade by fan request.

Fixer Undercover

Available now on Meta Quest. Coming soon to Steam.

Fixer Undercover is a spy-themed escape room narrative adventure. We previously reviewed it on Meta Quest, rating it 4 out of 5 stars.

Disembodied

Coming to Meta Quest.

Disembodied was first announced at the 2024 UploadVR Summer Showcase. It is a hand tracked reality platformer that transforms the player's real hand movements into physics-based gameplay.

Loop One Done

Available now on Meta Quest. Coming soon to Steam.

Loop One Done originated as a mixed reality automation experience on Quest. A Steam port has been announced with an immersive VR world that will also be brought to the Quest version of the game.

Warchasm

Available now on Meta Quest & Steam.

Warchasm is an on-rails, fast-paced arcade shoot 'em up that pits players against hordes of mechs across an alien world.

System Critical 3

Coming soon to PlayStation VR2.

The third entry in the Mega Man-inspired action platformer series adds dynamic lighting and shadows in its upcoming PS VR2 launch.

Pedal Rebel

Coming soon to Steam and Meta Quest.

Pedal Rebel transforms any exercise bike into a cyberpunk themed motorbike racing game. Players can keep track of their fitness, gaming performance, stats and high scores while engaging in an immersive story.

Hyperlane Highway

Coming to Steam in Early Access in Q4 2026.

Hyperlane Highway is a roguelite shooter that utilizes a unique 'head-leaning' locomotion system designed to mitigate VR motion sickness. Players steer their way through futuristic environments by leaning their head and body in different directions with the hoverboard matching the movements.

Adrian's Quest

Coming to Steam. Meta Quest and PS VR2 versions are planned for after the PC VR release.

Adrian's Quest is a sci-fi action-adventure set on an alien world. Players embody an android caught between rival factions vying for control of the largely abandoned planet.

Exoshock

We've gone hands-on with the 'Founder's Edition' of this first person shooter.

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

Viper Vice

Available now on Meta Quest.

This Saints Row and Grand Theft Auto-inspired open world crime adventure has an ambitious roadmap ahead of it. Its latest update adds new optional side jobs like Police Enforcer and activities for players to play in their downtime like basketball.

Project Nova

Available on Meta Quest and Steam.

Project: Nova is a space-based puzzler that tasks players with repairing broken systems on an interplanetary vessel. The game adapts to choices made by the player with multiple endings depending on how repairs are completed.

During the Ruff Talk VR Showcase, iWorlds announced it will be conducting a playtest on Steam on June 2. No specific details about how to join the playtest were given during the feature, so for anyone interested, we would advise monitoring Dark Trip's website and Steam store listing.

In Dark Trip, you play as an investigator hired by a retired businessman to locate his missing daughter. This brings you to an abandoned laboratory whose mysteries have to be solved, occasionally by taking pills to force a hallucinatory state that transforms the environment. Watch the video above to see.

The game first launched in Early Access on Meta Quest in February 2025.

Neolithic LLC, which makes the physics-based VR survival game Neolithic Dawn, has announced an upcoming base-building update will launch in June. The free update introduces player-built shelters, new environmental systems, and expanded survival mechanics across every open-world map in the game.

The update marks a major shift for the game's Survival Mode, where players previously relied on temporary shelter and natural cover to survive the harsh realities of life at 10,000 BC. With the Hearthfire Update, players can now establish permanent camps anywhere in the game world.

A new trailer shows the updated systems in action.

The update also introduces new building materials, the ability to place campfires and beds inside completed shelters, and new weather systems. Still water will freeze in colder climates, and dry grass can now be burned.

I went hands-on with Neolithic Dawn when it launched in Early Access last year, and found the core gameplay mechanics, immersive survival loop, intriguing story, and novel respawn mechanic, are solid and engaging. You can read my full impressions here.

Neolithic Dawn's Hearthfire Update will be free for all existing owners when it launches in June. Neolithic Dawn is available now on Quest and SteamVR. Versions for PlayStation VR2 and Pico are currently in development.

There was not a video trailer in the showcase, but a fact sheet provided to UploadVR has the official description from The Binary Mill:

Survive the Night is a free-to-play co-op action roguelite set within the galaxy's most popular gameshow. Players work together to survive a series of challenges featuring physics-based melee combat, dynamic mini-games, and roguelite progression systems.

Additionally, the Meta Horizon store listing has several screenshots and brief clips of the upcoming title.

Players will be stranded on an island and forced to participate in minigames and craft supplies to defend themselves against creatures of the night, all for the amusement of a viewing audience. Winnings from successful runs can be used to unlock new cosmetics. It comes off like an unhinged version of the popular reality series, Survivor.

Players can follow the development and offer feedback via The Binary Mill's Discord. Survive The Night can be wishlisted now on Meta Quest.

VRTogether has just announced Cozy Worlds Together, a new social VR experience coming to Quest headsets in June. Designed as a free companion app to Cozy Worlds, Cozy Worlds Together will allow players and friends to explore and interact inside user-created worlds. Players who own Cozy Worlds can export and share their custom creations, while friends can join and play for free.

The app focuses on relaxed creativity and cooperative interaction. Players can reshape terrain together, build pathways between floating islands, carve tunnels, and experiment with playful environmental mechanics. The experience also introduces “Pudu mode,” allowing players to transform into a tiny South American deer that serves as the unofficial mascot of the Cozy Worlds universe.

According to VRTogether founder Richard Hoagland, Cozy Worlds Together is intended to expand the calm and creative atmosphere of Cozy Worlds into a social experience that can be enjoyed together. “We wanted to take that chill, creative feeling and make it something you can do with your friends," he says. "Making it free, standalone, and full of [...] shenanigans felt like the right way to do it.”

Cozy Worlds Together can be wishlisted today via the Meta Horizon store.

The new feature was first announced at the 2025 UploadVR Winter Showcase with a launch date of December 15. Obviously that date has come and gone without the new mode.

A new teaser, shown below, was featured in the Ruff Talk VR Showcase, confirming the mode is still in development. Siege Industries explained the thought process behind this new addition in a press release:

The goal with multiplayer is to make Scared by Squares feel less like a solo horror experience and more like a strange shared experience where players are reacting, panicking, laughing, and trying to figure out what is happening together.

The entire world of Scared by Squares is made of cubes, playing out as a series of rooms players have to navigate from one side to the other. The rooms can shift and transform while moving through them, presenting unpredictable challenges in an eerie, unnerving atmosphere.

VR horror games are not for everyone, with the added immersion and sense of presence VR brings being a bridge too far for some, yours truly included. Tackling these experiences with a friend available can make them more accessible, opening Scared by Squares up to new potential players who may otherwise shy away from a solo player horror experience. See Deadly Delivery as a recent example of VR horror that can deliver frights and laughs in equal volume.

Scared by Squares is available now on Steam and Meta Quest. A free demo is available on Steam.

Developer Pablo Heckman revealed the first teaser for the new gameplay mode at the Ruff Talk VR Showcase. Watch the teaser here:

The base game takes place in a 1980s suburban home. Armed only with a flashlight and a voice on the other end of a phone call, players must use all of their senses to fend off a mysterious intruder peeping in through the windows.

The premise is reminiscent of some gameplay loops in the older Five Nights at Freddy's games, with the threats intensifying as the hours pass throughout the night. The Obsessive Shadow already has multiple available endings depending on the player's actions. There's currently no indication if the mixed reality mode will change that.

The Obsessive Shadow is available now on Meta Quest and Steam, the latter with both VR and flatscreen support.

Realcast has announced Just Hoops Nano, a new mixed reality basketball game, ahead of its planned release this summer.

Designed around hand tracking, Just Hoops Nano transforms your personal space into an arcade-style mini game where natural hand gestures create a direct and intuitive connection to the game. You'll pinch, flick, and shoot mini basketballs into mini hoops from the comfort of your desk, bed, or couch.

A new trailer has been revealed, and you can see that below.

Just Hoops Nano emphasizes short, engaging play sessions, while providing an easy-to-play yet hard-to-master experience. Satisfying physics and gameplay built around timing and precision are central to the game's design philosophy.

Just Hoops Nano is something of a miniaturized offshoot of Just Hoops, a larger-scale mixed reality basketball arcade experience currently listed on SteamVR and Meta's Horizon store.

Just Hoops Nano is coming soon to Meta Quest, and will cost $6.99. You can wishlist it via the Meta Horizon store now.

Indie VR studio Flat Hill Games has announced OogaBonk, a prehistoric social sandbox that blends chaotic multiplayer social play with physics-based arm locomotion. Designed for "standalone VR platforms," the game drops up to eight players into a caveman-themed playground of jungles, volcanoes, wildlife, and customizable cosmetics.

The announcement comes with a reveal trailer, embedded below.

OogaBonk will most certainly draw comparisons to one of the biggest VR games for younger gamers, Gorilla Tag, which uses similar arm-based locomotion and prioritizes chaotic social play. Gorilla Tag has become one of VR’s biggest breakout hits, surpassing 10 million players and generating more than $100 million in revenue since launch. Other recent hits in the genre, such as Animal Company and Yeeps, have found similarly massive audiences by combining social interaction, user creativity, and chaotic physics-based movement.

What may help OogaBonk stand out is its emphasis on personal progression and persistent bases. Instead of focusing purely on gameplay, the title leans into exploration, collectibles, and social creativity.

A release date has not yet been revealed. We'll be sure to cover OogaBonk in the runup to release, and beyond.

Bowl of Tentacles, developer of Evil Inside VR, has revealed their next new game in a brief trailer.

Order 13 VR is a VR adaptation of Order 13, a creepy warehouse simulator in which players must package and manage shipments while a mysterious and menacing presence lurks in the shadows. On Steam, the flatscreen original holds a Very Positive rating based on over 1,000 reviews.

The trailer announcing the new title can be seen below.

The core focus of the VR adaptation is allowing you to perform every action with your own hands, making you feel fully immersed in the setting. Picking up packages, scanning, sending orders, and carrying boxes through the warehouse will feel unlike anything before.

The new game announcement comes just weeks after the launch of Bowl of Tentacles' Evil Inside VR, an extremely immersive VR horror experience that many commentators have likened to P.T., the terrifying flatscreen experience famously directed by Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro in 2014.

Order 13 VR is coming to Meta Quest, PC VR, and PlayStation VR2 sometime this year, though no specific release date has yet been announced.

The new mode was featured in the Ruff Talk VR showcase with a new trailer you can see here:

As seen in the trailer, players shoot a giant ball around an arena, adding power and spin to the ball based on the angle and timing of the shot. Coins earned during each round of play can be cashed in for different weapons, changing the match round by round.

Developer Bearhammer Games also said future updates will include the addition of vehicles and a non-VR PC mode enabling users without headsets to play with their VR friends. Presumably, the latter indicates a move to Steam, but the press release did not specify this.

Clonk is available free-to-play now on Meta Quest.

It was Halo game designer Jamie Griesemer who once said, “If you can get 30 seconds of fun, you can pretty much stretch that out to be an entire game.” This principle is particularly true for certain virtual reality games. For a medium where breaks need to be taken often, sprawling 30-hour RPGs are rare. In their absence, match-based VR games have proliferated.

Shooters like Ghosts of Tabor, Breachers, and more recently Forefront succeed thanks to their nimble play sessions that don’t require much prep before jumping in. Looking at it from that perspective, A Long Survive should be a surefire hit for developer Friendly Fire Studios. The truth is that its repetitive design ensures it is exclusively enjoyable with friends, and no more.

Granted, A Long Survive is described as a “cooperative virtual reality horde survival and base-defense game.” This means that it is made from the ground up with online multiplayer in mind, but even then, it falls flat because of the lack of customization. Working towards any kind of goal takes so much longer than any game of its kind should. Many of my issues can be derived from its cookie-cutter missions, snail-paced progression, and uninspired sci-fi setting. So let's start there.

As one of four possible characters, you are a soldier aboard the SCL Caronte spaceship. Working for the dully named Space Corp, your job is to eliminate wave after wave of alien bugs. Stop me if you've heard this one before. It is not that the paper-thin lore isn't justified enough to be an excuse to shoot some deadly critters. It could have at least invented some spicy, world-ending catastrophe to make players feel like they are working towards something tangible. The hostile insects themselves getting stuck on the level is not a good look either.

From your ship working as a lobby, you can access a shooting gallery, invite or join other players, and launch missions. What is baffling from the get-go is that once the tutorial is done, the missions on offer are all too massive to commit to. While the tutorial has ten waves of bugs to blast through, the main modes to choose from are either a 20-wave match, a 50-wave match—which the game estimates takes about two hours—or a team deathmatch mode. There is no in-between. A way to tweak the number of waves, limit the number of bots and players in a match, or change to special rules a la 007: GoldenEye’s Golden Gun mode would spruce things up.

A Long Survive's saving grace is its moment-to-moment gameplay. Once on the field of its four available areas (and a fifth one for PvP), the goal is simple: survive. As expected, each round increases the number of bugs that need to be put down. A base of operations called the Nexus, a movable supercomputer, allows players to buy a series of useful items in combat. If it is destroyed, it is game over. From barricades to energy field barriers and mines, it is important to secure the base defenses at every corner.

With every enemy killed, players gain points to spend on this portable store. Managing resources is critical because the currency is divided between personal and team points. Team points can be used to buy a general good that benefits all, like the weapon maker. To buy a weapon from said machine, personal credits will be spent. The weapon designs themselves are slick, the manual reloading is logical for VR, and the realism of holding down bigger weapons with both hands due to the recoil is commendable. If only the sound effects felt impactful.

Because the waves are as predictable as they sound—more and bigger bugs, the occasional sub-boss—it helps that little details go a long way to add variety. For example, three different weapon types are sold: ballistic, energy, and explosives. Shotguns, SMGs, and revolvers are at a moment’s notice. Energy weapons, like the railgun, can only be used after activating “crystal collectors” spawning on random rounds. These pylons need to be filled up by standing close to them when they appear. Modifiers before embarking on each expedition can make the mission more difficult, such as making your character move slower. There is no benefit to toggling these on.

While I only played with one friend and bots in my experience, I must imagine that recruiting four other friends for a full-blown two-hour session is a fun time. Strategizing on the go and adapting to the near-impossible odds as the waves overwhelm the crew is enjoyable. Each of the four characters has certain skills, like the engineer using energy weapons whenever they want or the healer curing others. What did puzzle me is the glacial pace of the progression system to unlock abilities. After 5 hours, I was just level 3. The game expects you to grind up to level 55. You do the math.

The developers at Friendly Fire Studios have reiterated that this is an Early Access release. New game modes, characters, and maps are planned. Most of all, they fundamentally express that community suggestions are at the pillar of their future content. I would not exactly call the game’s foundation strong, but to have a small studio willing to adapt is worth mentioning.

A Long Survive - Early Access Verdict

In a sea of exciting VR shooters, I am not sure where A Long Survive lands. Playing with friends is always a good time, but what game isn’t? The later bug waves do lend themselves to hectic moments of chaos, so a dedicated group of players might be willing to look for that thrill time and time again. Others may just look elsewhere.

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 an early access release, this review is unscored.

The Homestar Runner Distraction Pack, due out June 25, is termed by developer Mighty Coconut to be more of a Walkabout "takeover" by the Homestar crew with in-game character appearances and voice acting built in collaboration with Homestar creators The Brothers Chaps.

Watch the reveal trailer here:

Instead of a traditional course that WMG players are accustomed to, the Distraction Pack will feature new mini-games, cosmetics, and locations from the Homestar world. Golf will still be the focus with 18 lost balls to collect, custom putters, unlockable hole celebrations, and a new ball trail.

If you are not familiar with Homestar Runner, it is an animated comedy web series adapted from a book originally created to be a parody of children's literature. The web series ran from 2000 to 2009 before going on hiatus until 2014. It started as an Adobe Flash website before transitioning to YouTube when Flash was discontinued. The trailer above is a good introduction, but we suggest checking out Homestar Runner's website and this YouTube playlist to get a better sense of the style of humor to expect.

We previously reported that, after Mighty Coconut's twenty-five percent staff reduction earlier this year, the number of DLC courses would be reduced to six per year moving forward. Mighty Coconut specified that the Homestar DLC does not count towards that total. This is considered "bonus" content for Walkabout and Homestar fans alike that has been in development for a year now. The next official DLC course is due out in August.

The Homestar Runner Distraction Pack will be available on June 25. Walkabout Mini Golf is available on Steam, PSVR2, Quest, Pico, Samsung Galaxy XR, and Apple App Store. The game is also available as part of Meta's Horizon+ subscription service.

Real Madrid: The Weight of Greatness was filmed during the 2025 Champions League and paired with virtually impossible-to-access behind-the-scenes and out-of-stadium moments with over 30 Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive cameras. The nearly 21-minute Apple Immersive documentary is now available free on the Apple TV app, with or without a subscription.

The launch of Real Madrid content for Apple Vision Pro builds on Apple’s growing investment in MLS and sports storytelling on Apple TV, with its first substantial immersive experience for fans of the club, the sport, or simply those interested in compelling immersive content. Real Madrid is the highest-earning and most decorated football club in the world. It makes sense to start with them. The experience hosts its visitors with the best of what immersive video can offer: memorable moments, not just memorable views.

The Best Moments Feel Lived In

Moments in Real Madrid: The Weight of Greatness are best when its visitors have enough time to take in the excitement, pride, perseverance and love surrounding the club, as well as the beauty and scale of The Santiago Bernabéu Stadium. To date, most Apple Immersive experiences seem to have followed traditional filmmaking techniques which detract from the feeling of presence that spatial storytelling can create - from quick edits that feel jarring and disorienting, to camera angles and movements that make visitors feel more present as the camera used than as themselves or characters in the story worlds. While Real Madrid: The Weight of Greatness still includes some of these techniques, its strongest sequences show how much more compelling immersive storytelling becomes when it considers the unique visitor experience of being inside moments instead of just watching them flash by. Most moments feel less rushed, even as the narrative carries forward alternating between shots captured from over 30 cameras. Movement between moments feels well timed with just enough breathing room to feel present and take in the details in each scene before possibly being inspired to turn past the 180-degree capture and notice the blank space. And, during the second half especially, the shots seem to rotate with more intention as they switch between pitch-level gameplay and fans inside and outside of their stadium to showcase how much the club and the game matter, while still giving visitors enough time to stay present in each moment.

The most memorable moments for me simultaneously offer experiences that are difficult to nearly impossible to access, spark emotion, have camera placement that feels true to where I may be sitting if I was there, and sounds aligned with that reality with the absence of any unnatural voiceovers or text or color filter choices interrupting the illusion of being present. I won’t forget moments like being pitch-side seeing the gameplay in detail and hearing the bounce of the ball through spatial audio, sitting with fans in the stadium as a large banner is passed above us while chants and drums echo around the stadium, seeing the pure joy in the eyes of the crowd around me or admiring the technology behind the club’s new retractable pitch system connected to its underground greenhouse.

Curated Wish Fulfillment

With any format of immersive video, the moments that visitors can experience matter as much as, if not more than, the narrative itself. The visitor’s memories are a critical part of the experience - not what they remember seeing, but what they remember being a part of. Real Madrid: The Weight of Greatness does an excellent job at taking its visitors to as many curated wish-fulfilling moments as they can during that live-captured moment in time filmed over five days. And the moments selected combine beautifully to offer a range of different human perspectives centered around the same game. This adds to the quality of its storytelling.

Real Madrid brought in €1.185 billion based on their 2024-2025 financial statements. The club generates more than €50 million annually just from tours and experiences around Santiago Bernabéu Stadium. There is extremely high interest in the matches, stories and experiences tied to the club. Having visited during the renovations a few years ago, there is still nothing like physically being there among the trophies and inside the iconic stadium itself and of course nothing like being at a live match. But there is also nothing quite like the proximity this Immersive Video documentary offers to gameplay, different views from around the stadium and the ability to get up-close with star players like Kylian Mbappé, Jude Bellingham, Vinícius Júnior, and Thibaut Courtois.

The Details Change The Game

Real Madrid: The Weight of Greatness showcases what Apple Vision Pro and Blackmagic’s URSA Cine Immersive cameras are capable of for non-interactive 180-degree immersive video. The premium quality of the audio and visual details is what adds to the feeling of realism.

At times though, some creative choices disrupt that sense of realism. The biggest distraction for me is when subtitles appear as football stars stare at you not speaking while their voice-over plays. Currently, subtitles are available in English or Spanish and they appear as needed as subjects speak either Spanish or English throughout the documentary. I appreciate that regardless of language, visitors can hear the subjects speak authentically. But, the static subtitle text is small and changes quickly, requiring attention to be pulled away from the moments to the words themselves. This is especially noticeable during times with the players where the static subtitle blocks nearly get lost layered over them. Still, most creative choices take advantage of the technology available to offer a genuinely memorable experience. From wanting to reach out and feel the raindrops during practice to seeing the emotion in fans’ faces and hearing chants echo through Spatial Audio around the stadium, the smaller details consistently strengthen the illusion of presence.

The narrative and creative choices of the Real Madrid: The Weight of Greatness Apple Immersive documentary focus on making visitors feel emotionally connected to unforgettable moments. This experience creates real memories with the Real Madrid club and its fans and I look forward to more immersive documentaries like this.

The company behind Snapchat officially announced that it would release standalone true AR glasses, called Specs, just under one year ago.

Snap Spectacles Are $100/Month AR Glasses For Developers

The company behind Snapchat just unveiled upgraded AR Spectacles, available to developers for $99/month.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Compared to the bulky and heavy Spectacles standalone AR development kit glasses, which the company rents to developers for $99/month or students for $49/month, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel claimed the consumer Specs will have "a much smaller form factor, at a fraction of the weight, with a ton more capability", while running the same Snap OS operating system and supporting all the same apps developed so far.

Snap OS is relatively unique. While on an underlying level it's Android-based, you can't install APKs on it, and thus developers can't run native code or use third-party engines like Unity. Instead, they build sandboxed "Lenses", the company's name for apps, using the Lens Studio software for Windows and macOS. In Lens Studio, developers use JavaScript or TypeScript to interact with high-level APIs, while the operating system itself handles the low-level core tech like rendering and core interactions. This has many of the same advantages as the Shared Space of Apple's visionOS: near-instant app launches, interaction consistency, and easy implementation of shared multi-user experiences without friction. It even allows the Spectacles mobile app to be used as a spectator view for almost any Lens. Snap OS doesn't support multitasking, but this is more likely a limitation of the current hardware than the operating system itself.

Since releasing Snap OS in the latest Spectacles kit in late 2024, Snap has repeatedly added new capabilities for developers building Lenses, and late last year launched Snap OS 2.0, adding and improving first-party apps like Browser, Gallery, and Spotlight to bring the AR platform closer to being ready for consumers.

Snap OS 2.0 Brings The AR Glasses Closer To Consumer-Ready

Snap OS 2.0 is out now, adding and improving first-party apps like Browser, Gallery, and Spotlight to bring the AR platform closer to being ready for consumers.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

In April, Alex Heath released a report via his Sources newsletter wherein he claimed that Snap will preview its new Specs glasses in the next couple of months, followed by a consumer release in the fall.

In an October edition of Sources, Heath said that Snap was targeting a price of around $2500 for Specs, and a production run of around 100,000.

That price puts it squarely in the realm of relatively wealthy early adopters, like Apple Vision Pro. But, assuming it isn't beaten to market by something we're not aware of, Specs will be the first standalone true AR glasses (meaning relatively normal-looking glasses that can place interfaces and virtual objects into your physical space, without significantly dimming or distorting your view of the real world) from a major tech company.

Meta's $800 glasses are considerably more affordable yes, but also vastly less capable, showing only a small fixed heads-up display (HUD) in one eye, while Snap is targeting a relatively wide field of view binocular display system with head tracking, hand tracking, and realtime environment meshing.

Multiple reports suggest Meta plans to ship its own true AR glasses in late 2027, and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has reported that Apple won't launch AR glasses until 2028 at the earliest. Meanwhile, there are some obscure Chinese products that technically qualify as true AR glasses, but they're bulky, their onboard compute is significantly limited, and their software is not particularly fleshed out.

Snap Spins Out AR Specs Into Its Own Subsidiary

Snap spun its Specs AR glasses into its own subsidiary, and reconfirmed that it plans to launch the consumer product this year.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

The news of Snap's plan to launch this fall comes a few months after it spun its AR hardware ambitions into a dedicated subsidiary, Specs Inc.

We'll keep a close eye on Snap in the coming months for any sign of a proper reveal of the design and specifications of Specs, a product that could be a milestone moment for consumer AR.

I'm actively writing on UploadVR again, and this article is one in a series of "catch up" pieces where I report on some of the interesting things that have been happening in the industry in recent months. And yes, VR Download is coming back very soon!

The first major update for Google's XR operating system started rolling out to Samsung's standalone headset in April, bringing three massive features and other notable changes.

And given that Xreal's Project Aura headset will run the same Android XR operating system via a compute puck with the same Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chipset, these features should also be available on Aura when it launches later this year.

Here's a rundown of what exactly arrived in the update, with details on what each feature actually does.

Auto-Spatialization For 2D Windows

Google actually pre-announced the biggest feature of Android XR's major update back in December: Auto-spatialization.

Android XR Getting AI System Feature To Turn Any 2D Window 3D

Google’s Android XR is getting an AI feature that can turn any 2D content, including games streamed from your PC, into 3D.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

When enabled in the "Labs" section of the Android XR system settings, Auto-spatialization makes the operating system constantly run a machine learning model on whatever 2D window is currently in focus that synthesizes stereoscopic 3D depth at 1080p 30FPS.

That means that images, videos, games, websites and whatever other visual content you're looking at automatically becomes 3D, with a sense of depth, without any implementation from the developer or creator of said content.

It's a remarkable feature that no other standalone VR/MR headset has, though Xreal and Viture have a similar feature for their virtual monitor glasses, with Xreal's handled by its X1 chip and Viture's through the smartphone companion app.

Google notes that enabling Auto-spatialization will use extra energy, making the headset last less long between charges, and that the operating system will sometimes disable the feature when the chipset is under heavy load or too hot. It will automatically enable again when these conditions no longer apply.

Hand Occlusion In Home

At launch, when you brought your hand up such that it should be in front of content (such as 2D apps) in the Android XR home space, you instead saw only an outline, as you would in a Quest 3 or Pico 4 Ultra. Among standalone headsets, Apple's Vision Pro headsets were unique in cutting out your hands to display them in front of virtual content.

With the major Android XR update, Google has added a "Labs" feature to enable the same kind of hand occlusion as Apple.

Just like on Apple Vision Pro headsets, it works similarly to adding a virtual background to your PC's webcam on a platform like Zoom; the system runs a tailored 2D hand segmentation model on each passthrough camera and superimposes this on virtual content.

And also as with Apple Vision Pro, it doesn't work well in low light, and will cut back to the hand outlines.

Pin Windows To Physical Walls

You can now pin any windowed app to a wall in your physical environment, your real-life room. To do so, simply drag the window near the wall and it will snap in place.

For example, you can pin Google Calendar to your office wall, or a Netflix window bigger than your physical TV to your living room wall.

This feature has been available on Apple Vision Pro since visionOS 26, and the Horizon OS of Quest 3 headsets since February of this year.

However, while Apple's visionOS and Meta's Horizon OS support full persistence for pinned windows (and widgets), Google's Android XR currently does not. If you reboot your Samsung Galaxy XR, your pinned windows will be gone.

Session Restore

That's not to say that Android XR has no window persistence at all. With the update, Google says up to 3 previously used windowed apps will reopen in the position you last left them after rebooting.

It's unclear why this 3-window limit exists, given that neither Apple's visionOS nor Meta's Horizon OS has one.

Android Enterprise

With the update, Android XR now supports Android Enterprise. Google said it's collaborating with "leading EMM partners" including ArborXR, ManageXR, Microsoft Intune, Omnissa Workspace ONE, Samsung Knox Manage, and SOTI to make Samsung Galaxy XR and future Android XR headsets "workplace-ready".

This support includes key mass device management features such as zero-touch enrollment, allowing headsets to be "pre-configured and shipped directly to end users for immediate use", as well as Managed Google Play for centralized app distribution, letting businesses silently install and update the specific apps they require on those headsets.

I'm actively writing on UploadVR again, and this article is one in a series of "catch up" pieces where I report on some of the interesting things that have been happening in the industry in recent months. And yes, VR Download is coming back very soon!

Let's chart the path we took to get here.

Secret of the Mimic was first announced in 2024 with a listing on the PlayStation Store that included PlayStation VR2 support. We went hands on with the game on PS VR2 a few weeks later at PAX West, calling it a harrowing experience sure to scare your pants off. A few months later, in February 2025, a new gameplay trailer released with a June release date and the PS VR2 logo suspiciously removed. PS VR2 was also removed from the PS Store listing, the original trailer was updated to remove the logo at the end, and the original PlayStation blog post was edited to remove any mention of VR support.

The game released on June 13, 2025 for Steam and PlayStation 5, flatscreen only on both. Game director Evan Lampi clarified in an interview to promote that release that VR support was still planned. Fast forward to April of this year when both PS VR2 and PC VR support was expected late in the month. This finally happened on April 28, albeit only on PS VR2. We also learned that Steel Wool pivoted to a flatscreen release first due to poor sales of FNaF: Help Wanted 2. Finally, VR support was added on Steam on May 20.

Steel Wool posted on X saying the plan was to deliver a quality of life patch for PS VR2 at the same time as the SteamVR launch to achieve parity between the two versions. A lengthy developer post on Steam details the issues fixed in the latest patch, a few suggestions for getting the optimal experience, and ends with a list of currently known issues, including multiple soft locks in the game, expected to be fixed in a later patch.

We suggest reviewing this post before diving into the game on PC so you know what to expect. For any PS VR2 fans who haven't picked up the game yet, it is currently 60% off its regular $39.99 price until May 28.

Five Nights at Freddy's: Secret of the Mimic VR support is available now on Steam and PS VR2.

If you missed it, back in March Meta announced that Horizon Worlds is fully pivoting to flatscreen (smartphones and web). While existing worlds will still be playable in VR, creators will no longer be able to include VR support in new worlds, and all future updates and tools will target flatscreen. The company says it's seeing significant growth on smartphones, while Quest owners tended to resent the social VR platform being pushed on them.

Just days later, Rec Room announced that it will entirely shut down in June, stating that it never reached sustained profitability and blaming "the recent shift in the VR market, along with broader headwinds in gaming".

The demise of two of the biggest social VR platforms has, understandably, led many in the industry to wonder whether the entire concept was simply not viable in today's VR market. But VRChat, which has been around since before either Horizon Worlds or Rec Room were even concepts, is adamant that this is not the case.

VRChat Set A New Concurrent User Record On New Year’s Eve

On New Year’s Eve, VRChat set a new record for concurrent users online.

UploadVRIan Hamilton

At the end of March, in response to the announcements from Meta and Rec Room, VRChat issued the following statement:

"Horizon Worlds VR moved into maintenance mode. Rec Room announced yesterday that it's closing on June 1. Both were very well-funded platforms with real communities – and both are winding down. If you're reading this and you built worlds there, made friends there, had a place you liked to hang out there, or even worked there - we're sorry. Behind everything created, built, or experienced on these platforms is a lot of creativity, love, sweat, and tears. We are sad to see fewer compatriots in our space. Our heart goes out to you.In case you were wondering, VRChat is not going anywhere.

Last New Year's Eve, nearly 150,000 people were in VRChat at the same time – celebrating a worldwide event for yet another year. Most of those folks had visited us for New Years multiple times before, but for some, it was their first time.

It's been three months since, and we've broken that user record twice since then. Our latest record? Nearly 160,000 people in VRChat at the same time.

Not only that, but our creator economy, avatar marketplace, and first-party stores are all growing. Creators like Studio TrickForge, spookyghostboo, and nawty have made VRChat a place where they can create amazing communities, experiences, and identities, all while earning for their hard work. We onboard more creators every day.

The core reason we're still here, though, is you.

Our community is the thing that makes VRChat different from every platform that has come and gone. You create worlds that defy imagination. You build avatars that embody expression and identity in ways never seen before. You welcome strangers into your communities, make them feel at home, and often change their lives for the better.

You show up, every single day, in numbers that keep growing -- and you bring your friends. The loyalty, creativity, ingenuity, passion, and energy you bring to VRChat is the heartbeat that no amount of funding can replicate.

We don't take that for granted.

To anyone looking for a new home: we'd love to have you. VRChat has been here for over a decade, and we plan to be here for many more. Creators are building real careers on this platform - the tools are deep and will help you build the skills you need to begin your game development career. Our economy continues to grow. You can easily build a community that gets excited for every update you put out or each event that you run. If you're looking for somewhere your work can live and grow, VRChat is it.

To our existing community: the people that are showing up now are showing up because of what you built. They'll stick around because of how you'll welcome them. They'll learn, grow, create, share, and play because of the communities that you're a part of. Thank you for all of the hard work you put in along with us. We see you.

We have a lot of work ahead of us, and we're moving fast. But we wanted to take a moment to say this plainly: we see what's happening in our industry, we're grateful to be in the position we're in, and we're not slowing down."

As the statement notes, VRChat hit a concurrent online users record on New Year's Eve, with nearly 150,000 people on the platform, and the company says it has exceeded that figure multiple times since.

To be clear, despite the name, VRChat is just as popular on flatscreen as in virtual reality, and the company doesn't say how many of these concurrent users were actually in a headset. But this was the case for Horizon Worlds and Rec Room too, and this still means that at minimum tens of thousands of VR owners were online together at the same time, across hundreds of different online virtual worlds.

VRChat has a well-earned reputation as a notably less moderated platform than Horizon or Rec Room, with its far greater degree of freedom around avatar and world design enabling a much wider range of experiences - from those you'll love more than anything else you can experience in VR to those you'll absolutely hate.

If you've been put off by some of the bad vibes you might get from certain footage of VRChat, I'd encourage you to put that feeling aside, pick an avatar that expresses who you are, and try out some of the highest rated worlds on the platform. Despite all its flaws, given the size of VRChat's userbase and the possibilities its creator tools enable, there is simply no other software as deserving of the "metaverse" moniker of science fiction.

As Horizon Worlds Moves Away From VR, Its Users Decide Their Future

As Meta drops VR support for new Horizon Worlds, we take a look at the people who run virtual venues on the platform and what they intend to do after the pivot.

UploadVRK. Guillory

"To anyone looking for a new home: we'd love to have you. VRChat has been here for over a decade, and we plan to be here for many more", the company tells the many Rec Room and Horizon Worlds VR users looking for a substitute for the places where they had spent a significant chunk of their lives.

I'm actively writing on UploadVR again, and this article is one in a series of "catch up" pieces where I report on some of the interesting things that have been happening in the industry in recent months. And yes, VR Download is coming back very soon!

We spoke with Tate about the origins of Spark, how Flat2VR balances Spark projects vs its in-house games, and the unique challenges behind bringing FlatOut 4: Total Insanity to VR.

This is a transcript of the video interview, edited for clarity:

UploadVR: Okay so before we get into it, we're supposed to talk about FlatOut 4: Total Insanity VR, but before we get to that, this is the first release from the Flat2VR Spark program. So for those who don't know what Spark is, can you kind of explain what that program is?

Elliott Tate: If you know how we began with Flat2VR, it was just passion projects on the side, and it's really incredible how when you are just passionate about wanting to see your favorite games in VR and you connect with the right people, just what you can do. So when Beat Saber first came out, I started the Beat Saber modding group [with] a similar goal of "let's get talented people to build something cool here" and it really just exploded and helped pave the way for that. Flat2VR was something I always wanted: to see more of some of my favorite games in VR.

So [we] built a whole big community around it and it's grown in a really cool way and just so many incredible talented other developers have joined in and shared talents. A lot of them have full-time jobs and aren't ready to quit like we did and go all in on just game dev, but love pouring their talents out to make VR happen and so Spark was kind of built around this mix between Flat2VR Studios, where we do super polished, bigger-team [projects] making VR ports of some of our favorite games to in between like a mod and done kind of part-time with lots and lots of love without as set deadlines and still officially licensed.

We have the source code, but working with modders in the community and putting a lot of off hour love into making it happen. So it's a really cool way to get games that probably wouldn't happen otherwise and get other really talented people involved that wouldn't necessarily have the time to [fully] commit, but can work [in] a Spark capacity we call it, which is just an on-the-side the way we build mods and build that out into VR experiences. It doesn't mean it's any less or worse. It just means probably longer timelines and sometimes that means it's a better product because you really spend the time to get in every night and play it all the time and really see how it's going and build it out that way.

UploadVR: What goes into the decision process behind something being a Flat2VR project versus something that you say "this I think would be a good candidate for Spark and let a modder get some experience." How do you balance that decision?

Elliott Tate: Yeah, well I guess it started because we had our plates so full we were like "we're going to have to turn down games unless we figure out another way to make this happen" and that's what grew out of Spark. Some of our games Meta has funded and that can mean our budgets get even bigger. Some games like Postal 2, we did the Kickstarter for it, which really opened the door for a bigger budget on that. I don't know if there's an exact system. It's if it doesn't fit in the studio. With our team size, we do have a limit of how many projects we can take on at a time and then Spark allows us to continue other projects.

UploadVR: So Mutar worked on this one and I think you say he's been a friend of yours for quite some time. Walk us through the process of pairing a specific game like FlatOut with this specific modder. What does that look like?

Elliott Tate: That's where the magic of these smaller teams that take longer, when you find someone who has passion for a certain genre, they'll often act like a game designer or a game producer. As you're playing and as you love this game, you start coming up with ideas in your head in a way that a typical dev team, you'll have some of that, but not to the same extent. So it really works to find someone that just loves the game, number one. Somebody that has talent [because] FlatOut is not Unreal and not Unity, so it requires a special dev skill.

He's a senior developer who's got lots of experience working on custom code and so that put him in one bracket to be the right fit to work on like a very custom engine that has a lot of custom physics and all kinds of custom systems. So his talent level fit that where we have some equally talented people just in Unreal Engine and that would put them in a different category. I guess it's more do you love this game [and] do you have a lot of kind of design ideas yourself because we try to empower a lot of that to come as they're building. It's kind of how you build a mod. It's like "wouldn't it be cool if I did this? Oh man that would feel so cool" and then you try it yourself and you just fall in love with it and you expand it and keep working on it.

UploadVR: Was the design team planned to be involved from the very beginning? In the last Dev video you put out, you talked about bringing in an artist to do all the interiors for each car.

Was that always planned from the beginning or did you discover that when you were scoping the project and said okay we might need to get someone involved here to finish the game out?

Elliott Tate: A lot of times, it does come later. At the start, whoever's starting to work on it is really scoping out "okay, what could I possibly do? What talents do I have?" Mutar is not a 3D modeler or an artist, so for this game, once we looked at "can we reuse the interiors?" and we were like "Nope, there's no interiors in here! You probably need to probably need to recreate this from scratch."

I oversee a lot of the projects too. I just love to share ideas, so that's a big part too. Just coming in and brainstorming with them and what would work. So just supporting them and then where they get stuck or if there's more that's missing, even pre-early access, if we launch it in this state, let's at least try to get it to an early access state by adding this and this. Kind of getting it to at least that level that it should take off and yeah it's a case by case basis.

UploadVR: You're the CCO, and now CTO I just learned a few minutes ago, of basically two companies. Which means you have oversight into a lot of projects you're involved with a lot of things. How often do you get to get your hands dirty now? I know when you're trying to have that 50,000 foot view, sometimes you don't really get to like dig in deep on a project. Do you get to do that anymore just get to get in there and play around?

Elliott Tate: I've really fought to keep that and so I try to have about half the time in the trenches developing myself and being very in touch with the projects and then the other half trying to run a company or two companies or no, three now. It's a little crazy. We don't get a lot of sleep, but I think it's really important just because we're trying to do things so differently and yeah, there's business books, but there's no exact rule book for how this works. I think it's really important to still stay very in touch with development. I think one thing I'm always looking at is the experimentation we did as modders.

When I worked with Praydog on UEVR, it was this wild idea of what if we could inject some level of VR in every Unreal Engine game and a lot of people from a traditional sense would say no, that's not a good idea, no, that can't be done, but if you really kind of come with that hacker mentality of "well, why not like? Let's figure out a way! "Let's build something. Let's think outside the box." That's been really fun to continue to do, but it's not easy to juggle at all.

UploadVR: Is it hard to switch your analytical brain off when you play a game that's not your company's? You look at it and you go "well that texture and this menu, why'd they set it up?" Is it hard to switch that part of your brain off?

Elliott Tate: Curse your brain! Even in high school, I did landscaping and I couldn't walk across a yard without looking at edges and that shrub needs to be cut. You have to fight it and I think one of the beauties of VR is it helps to be so immersed that you are just in it and you feel it and that's more than those technical details, which I always have to switch to and I can be very detail oriented when it comes to those things. It's more the feeling of how does something feel like the dance in VR.

In Beat Saber notes come at you and when we map, it wasn't just where do you place a block, where do you place a block, but it's how do you set up the next block, so your player moves swings back and then the force like swings this way, but does it jerk you if you have to then hit another block. I think of all VR development like that dance where if you're just doing one action like shooting, well that's just using your finger and you're no longer completely engaged in all your senses, so what are some things that you can do that switch it up? That makes the experience feel more complete.

Trombone Champ, at first, we had just flat notes coming at you and redesigning that so it really moves your hand out as you're playing and then you have to move from left to right and interact a complete body experience with different things happening like a different visual experience, fireworks exploding above you. There has to be, in that dance, the right amount of components and then suddenly you forget everything. You're connected, you're teleported, and you're there and I think, by default, a flat screen game, if you just put in VR can do that with amazing visuals, but for most people you'll hit spots where okay the visuals aren't enough anymore. I want other stuff. I love that process of bringing that dance into game design. How do you reimagine this so it feels like it was built from the ground up for VR.

UploadVR: Let's go into FlatOut specifically. You might have already answered this, but I'll ask it anyway. Do you have a preferred mode that you play in the game? Or have you been in debug so long that you really haven't had time?

Elliott Tate: I did get pretty sick with this. But some of the knockout modes [stunt modes] and flying as first person when you're flying, it's actually not enabled in the game right now, but I probably will enable it at some point. You are the person. You get this thrill being launched out of your car and you're just flying. I think we'll probably add it at some point to allow for first person on that. It's just wild and fun and especially when you don't expect it, even just racing, you hit something and the player goes flying. In VR, it's almost like unexpected but you're just like whoa okay I'm really in this car. I really can fly out at any moment.

So you asked favorite mode. I just still love a classic race. I don't think anything beats the thrill of the FlatOut races with all of the debris and all the physics that the game has. I think that physics and VR go hand in hand so well together. In FlatOut, hitting something to try to get ahead and you try to take a shortcut, but now you have a big log in on your windshield, so it's like "oh, is that actually worth it?" Then you have to stick your head actually out the window to see a little bit until you steer and shake the log off.

UploadVR: What went into the decision making process of something like this and Out of Sight VR being an Early Access game versus full release like Wrath, Trombone Champ, and Roboquest?

Elliott Tate: When I was coming up with the idea of Spark, one of the rules was "no timelines" because that kills so many projects and kills creativity and also gets games to ship on time. I know you have to have it within budget and within time and you need it for a lot of things, but part of the magic of what we did with modding was just this looser timeline and so Early Access really plays well into that concept. If it's a smaller team working on it or just one person you might not have the community helping to give feedback at some point to build the game with them. We kind of do with all our games, but I think for FlatOut specifically, one nightmare that I've been talking about being in the trenches is just getting all the wheels supported and um turns out that's a nightmare like hell on earth don't wish it upon anyone.

UploadVR: Just thinking about all the different combinations for PC, there's so many different GPU/CPU/RAM combinations. Now you got VR headsets on top of that and now you're putting wheels on top of that, so there's an infinite number of different combinations you've got to account for.

Elliott Tate: The situations I've been working through it's like this wheel doesn't work, so look into the report and it's like Fanatec wheel mixed with Logitech pedals mixed with a Thrustmaster. The different parts of it are all different and then they all use the same axis and they're conflicting, so you have to basically make them all know how to talk to each other. We finally built a tool that really has kind of solved that, so we've gotten a little over like 200 unique combos working now for people, but that is the pain of PC.

Not just having one thing to build for, but you've got sometimes hundreds of different setups and you're like "why is this not working?" and it's of course some combo that you know you had never seen before, but worth it I think. I love to see that there's still a core PC VR community. It's kind of part of my heart. I love the graphics that PC VR can produce, so it's been really cool to see them show up for FlatOut and really support it. It's been pretty awesome.

UploadVR: Was there any feedback so far that has surprised you?

Elliott Tate: Some people were saying it was too easy some people were saying it was too hard so it's kind of weird when you get sentences away they're like this is too easy and then...

UploadVR: Two reviews back to back...

Elliott Tate: Or one person was like "I paid this money and now I have to grind for this stuff. I paid for it, so I should get it all unlocked" and I was like here, let me give you a special save that has it all unlocked, but it was almost like "how dare you make me work for it."

UploadVR: That's interesting, because a lot of games have that progression system and that grind in there.

Elliott Tate: We can fix that super easy. Here's a save that has it all unlocked. I think I'll probably add that as like a Konami code somewhere we hide in there that unlocks. One cool thing about a game like this and what we do is even stuff that seems kind of obscure, like a feature request that isn't real big, we're happy to add it. A lot of times, it doesn't take long just to add some option out there for something, so sometimes it surprised me how many people have enjoyed like whether it's a difficulty, some insane mode that I would never play myself.

UploadVR: I'm looking forward to getting chucked out of a car whenever you decide to put that in there. That's gonna be fun.

Elliott Tate: I'll let you be the first tester.

UploadVR: You've got my email. What were some of the unique challenges of FlatOut aside from the wheel configurations versus those other projects? And were there some things that you learned from those earlier projects that you were able to pull forward into this to make this a little bit smoother?

Elliott Tate: Yeah, that's a good question too. The custom engine has a learning curve. There's a lot of proven processes especially for VR if you're using Unreal Engine or Unity. There's um kind of methods to doing stuff and you're kind of inventing the wheel a little bit when you're doing a custom engine

UploadVR: Was this the first custom engine project you've taken on? Or the first one to release?

Elliott Tate: The first one to release, yeah. I did the motion control implementation and with VRIK, there's no package out there. You have to write it by yourself, so there's those extra um bits there, but I think learning, every time we release a game, that design language of how do you convert flat elements? What makes them feel even a little bit better if you don't have time to redesign something completely? One thing I did was in FlatOut adding feathering to the loading screens. In a flat game, you're drawing on the actual monitor size and you have a nice rectangle, but a floating rectangle doesn't feel exactly great in VR, especially one that's shaped to the size of a screen. Ideally you break that apart and redesign it completely, but it also can work pretty well if you just add some kind of feathering, how you handle the world around it blacking out and fading in at the right areas.

A racing game is quite different, so I wouldn't say there's a huge amount of design overlap, but we've built a lot of tools that help porting flat screen games to VR and that certainly gets used across projects. Adding DLSS was a big thing for this game. It's an older engine that looked quite blurry in VR and so one real big thing I wanted to do was make it look as sharp as we could. If you've played on default settings, it might still be a little blurry. You can turn up the super sampling, but if you have the computer to put DLAA on, that looks really nice. It's a modern Nvidia antialiasing technique and it looks super super sharp.

To me, those kind of details are important. Then optimization, things you don't even think about. The game has a physics tick that runs at 30 and 60 Hertz, so that's how it calculates physics, so if you're running a headset at 90Hz, you'll see objects move almost like they're stuttering across, so suddenly you're like oh I don't just need to work on the rendering now. I need to unlock the physics engine and make that talk to the rendering part and make those all match up, so that it looks smooth. Those are all examples of things that the more projects you do, the more you have pretty clear ideas of how to solve different tech challenges.

UploadVR: We talked about all the challenges that you've had through the development process. What's something in the game that you want to tell people to look out for that you're really proud of?

Elliott Tate: I think I'm pretty proud of the haptics. Do you have a wheel?

UploadVR: I do not, not yet. This game is going to make me buy one.

Elliott Tate: You need to. We really went all out with how the car handles when you're crashing, so it's the full force feedback that connects to the whole suspension system and everything, so you feel just every bump or if you're turning it, it really force feedback swerves around. We've added telemetry that will come soon in a release, so people that have full motion rigs will be able to experience that too.

I love being immersed in VR, so when I sit there with the wheel and feel all that, it almost doubles the experience for me. I can't wait for you to get a wheel because it really takes it to the next level where literally somebody smashes you and you feel it and getting knocked around. That really turned out well I think.

UploadVR: Alright, well congratulations again on the release. Elliott Tate, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. I appreciate it.

Elliott Tate: Yeah, thanks Mike.

FlatOut 4: Total Insanity VR is available now on Steam in Early Access.

Hand-gesture movement is nice, but my favorite new feature is the custom app arrangement in the Library that finally lets me put apps where I want.

These new features are easy to miss if you don’t know where to look or how to switch them on. It only takes a few minutes to get familiar with the controls, but a little preview always helps.

Hand-Gesture Movement Controls

Hand-gesture movement might not sound like a big deal, but it’s actually quite a convenience upgrade. I often pop on my Quest 3 without picking up the controllers to check what's new, browse the web, or watch a video. Now, I can move around Horizon Home with just my hands.

After checking out my Instagram wall in 3D, I can teleport to the balcony with a thumb tap to admire the waterfalls in my environment, or swipe my thumb to turn and walk back to the browser wall to check the latest news. I found it to be very reliable, and the visuals make sense, showing directional indicators on my avatar's hand when the hand-movement controls are active. The controls disappear when not in use.

You can check if you have the new hand-tracking controls in the Settings app. If you see a menu at the top right of the Movement tab, you can select Hands to see the hand-movement layout. Below that, Meta added an option to watch a video guide.

It’s fairly intuitive. Make a fist with either hand, then tap with your thumb to activate the control overlay. You’ll see left and right arrows, suggesting you can swipe left and right to turn. You can also swipe forward and back to walk or aim with a ray and tap to teleport to the highlighted spot.

The gestures quickly become familiar, and you’ll soon be zipping around without needing controllers, a nice addition to hand-tracking.

Your Library Your Way

Meta finally lets me set up my app library however I want! That’s a long-overdue feature. It’s frustrating to dig through a long list of apps to find old AAA games I haven’t finished, like Asgard’s Wrath 2 or Vampire: The Masquerade - Justice.

I keep pretty busy, so games that offer several hours of gameplay might sit in my library for a month or more, getting pushed down the recents list by other apps. Old favorites that are worthy of replaying also tend to get buried. So this is a huge convenience feature.

Meta defaults to sorting by the most recently used games and apps, so I couldn’t rearrange anything until I changed that. The same is true if you sort by A-Z, Z-A, or Installed. The last option is Clear sort, and that’s where the magic happens. By removing the automated sorting, I could drag and drop apps anywhere in my library, or drag over another app to create a folder.

I put frequently used system apps at the top, followed by the games I’m actively playing and a few utilities. It’s great to arrange games and apps my way, instead of having to search or scroll through the entire library.

App Crash Recovery

There’s one more practical improvement in Horizon OS 2.4. Meta says apps can now restore a previous session after closing unexpectedly, so Browser panels should reappear where they were if the app crashes. I haven’t had the misfortune of testing that yet, but it sounds like the kind of small reliability upgrade that matters more if you use your Quest as a spatial computer.

As usual, keep in mind that the timing of Horizon OS rollouts can be unpredictable, and PTC features are still undergoing testing, so a wider release isn’t guaranteed. However, these are useful upgrades that seem likely to appear in future Quest updates.

The release date announcement follows a series of open playtests in April, the data from which resulted in refinement of gameplay, performance, and co-op features based on player feedback. The team has now entered the final pre-release stage and the game is coming very soon.

JOLLYCO describes the game as "a fast-paced, arcade-style VR shooter with a mix of mechanics and mini-games. It rewards accuracy, movement, and quick decision-making, while remaining easy to pick up and play."

Sugar Madness can be played solo, or in co-op mode, where teamwork and coordination are essential to overcome more challenging encounters.

Sugar Madness is a first-person shooter set in a candy-themed world. Dr. Sour, a mad genius, has experimented one too many times, turning the once-sweet confections of the world into rabid "candymorphs." You'll battle through an absurd candy-coated landscape, shooting a vast arsenal of wild weapons at a bizarre gauntlet of enemies. There are on-rails sections, boss fights, mini games, multiplayer, and more.

We'll have a review posted when the game launches. From the videos we've seen, it looks to be a fun and twisted take on the rail shooter, a Disneyland dark ride for people who like House of the Dead.

Sugar Madness is launching on June 4 on Meta Quest.

Gracia first launched in 2024 as a Quest app for viewing static photorealistic objects, and, far more notably, a PC VR app for moving photorealistic scenes, otherwise describable as volumetric video.

And to be clear, this is not just simple parallax like you'd get from stereoscopic 3D video, nor limited-perspective synthetic depth like the spatial scenes of Apple's visionOS 26. Gracia goes much further, offering fully volumetric content that you can physically walk around in VR or in your room via mixed reality.

Gracia Moving Volumetric Scenes Now On Quest 3 & Pico 4

Gracia’s moving volumetric scenes, dynamic gaussian splats, are now available on Quest 3 and Pico 4 headsets standalone.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

As with almost all of the remarkable advancements in 3D reconstruction over the past few years, the technology behind Gracia is Gaussian splatting - fitting millions of semitransparent colored blobs (Gaussians) in 3D space so that arbitrary viewpoints can be rendered realistically in real-time. Moving splats are often called 4DGS, four-dimensional Gaussian splats, the fourth dimension being time.

By the end of 2024, Gracia had already launched standalone apps for Quest 3 and Pico 4, removing the requirement for a PC, with the tradeoff of some quality. But the biggest problem with this standalone flow was the need to download each scene, requiring you to stand there with the headset on watching a progress bar chart the multi-gigabyte file arriving on your device. With the company's technology at the time, streaming would have required a 2.4 gigabit internet connection, something only a tiny fraction of people have and that most standalone headsets can't even reliably hit wirelessly anyway.

This crippled Gracia's founding ambitions of being the "YouTube of truly volumetric content", because if YouTube required a multi-gigabyte download before each video played, it just wouldn't be a viable service. And so the standalone headset app focused on short 10-second clips, rather than longer content that would support more use cases.

At the time of the standalone app launch, Gracia told UploadVR that it was working on improving its compression by at least an order of magnitude. Now, a year and a half later, the startup has achieved that lofty goal.

In March of this year, Gracia launched a world-first: the ability to stream select 4DGS scenes, with no app install or full download required. And you don't even need to download an app; Gracia's new tech stack works entirely in WebXR, meaning you can just navigate to gracia.ai/store in your Quest 3's web browser and have a performer volumetrically streamed into your living room in seconds.

On Apple Vision Pro, since Apple still doesn't let WebXR apps use camera passthrough as a background, you'll instead see the captures in a featureless black void. To get around this and let Vision Pro owners display the captures in their living room, Gracia is working on an Apple Vision Pro app, currently in testing, which should be launching relatively soon.

China’s 4DV AI Releases 6DoF Volumetric Video WebXR Demo

China’s 4DV AI released a WebXR demo of volumetric 6DoF videos created from 20 camera views, and you can try it on your VR headset right now.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

China's 4DV showed moving scenes in WebXR last year, but those were only 10 seconds long and predownloaded. Gracia is once again leading the pack when it comes to rendering moving volumetric captures in VR.

The startup says it achieved this by developing a technique for sending keyframes and motion change deltas, encoding only what parts of the capture change over time rather than sending the entire scene for each frame. Essentially, Gracia is applying a video codec style approach to Gaussian splatting. It also uses the new WebGPU graphics API in your browser to achieve the maximum possible performance, rivaling native apps, to eliminate the most frictionful step of all for any consumer app, that initial download requirement in the first place. The compression makes the stream feasible; WebGPU makes rendering the streamed splats fast enough in the browser.

As well as allowing for near-instant streaming of volumetric captures, this means captures have no hard file-size cap, in theory supporting use cases like entire concerts.

To stream Gracia's moving volumetric scenes at relatively high quality, 120K splats per frame, you'll need a constant 75 Mbps connection. A decade ago that would be a non-starter, but as of 2026 over 90% of homes in developed countries now have sufficiently fast internet for this.

Still, some don't, and sometimes the headset will be too far away from the router or on a network where other devices are hogging the bandwidth. For that, Gracia has demonstrated a 17 Mbps mode, offering 15K splats per frame, though in this mode the quality takes a significant hit.

Three scenes are currently available to stream from Gracia's website: a 36-second clip of a person working on a bicycle wheel, a 39-second clip of a doctor examining a patient's shoulder, and most impressive of all, a 4-minute performance by a musician singing with a guitar, complete with spatial audio.

Gracia is also keen to point out that while its captures are well-suited to be placed in your living room via mixed reality, they can also be placed into existing virtual Unity or Unreal environments, including for VR games and experiences, if a developer wanted to do this.

To be clear, by the way, by "stream" in this article I'm referring to watching content without having to fully download it. Gracia's technology does not support livestreaming. And the capture and processing requirements are the elephant in the room here.

Capturing these scenes requires around 60 shutter-synced and genlocked cameras arranged in a sphere, which studios typically charge at least $15K for a recording session with, and Gracia charges $800 per minute for processing plus a "minimum charge per segment". iPhone 17 Pro's genlock support may allow for a lower marginal capture cost, though for best results creators will want to use professional cameras like those from Blackmagic and Sony.

Still, the capture and processing requirements aside, what Gracia has pulled off here is remarkable. I would much rather watch a musician or comedian perform as a 6DoF volume in my living room, or preferred VR environment, than a 3DoF 180° 3D video, and I suspect if you're reading this, you agree.

If you own a VR headset, head over to gracia.ai/store in your headset's web browser, or your desktop browser for PC VR, and try it out for yourself. And even if you don't, you can try a flatscreen render in your browser to get the basic idea, though without the sense of depth and scale.

The next frontier for the volumetric media space will be developing the technology to allow anyone to capture scenes with a couple of iPhones, and to significantly reduce the processing time. As impossible as this might sound today, so did the idea of even streaming this type of content a few years ago, and the pace of progress in the 3D reconstruction scene, leveraging the rapid advancements in AI, remains staggering. The "YouTube of truly volumetric content" is not possible today, but I suspect it very much so will be by the end of this decade – and it could become a core use case of XR technology, propelling its mainstream use by the compounding advantages of a future social content platform that truly takes advantage of it.

I'm actively writing on UploadVR again, and this article is one in a series of "catch up" pieces where I report on some of the interesting things that have been happening in the industry in recent months. And yes, VR Download is coming back very soon!

The originally planned May 21 date was revealed at the VR Games Showcase in March following the November launches on PlayStation VR2 and PC VR. Flat2VR technical designer Tsvetan explained why in this update video, along with some Quest gameplay footage:

Reading between the lines, it appears the Quest version is not quite ready and the co-op would be limited to specific platforms, something Flat2VR did not care to do.

We reviewed Roboquest VR on Steam, saying "Roboquest VR takes what was already a great flatscreen roguelite experience and transforms it into a new VR classic. Moment-to-moment gameplay feels fantastic, and the game is right at home on the platform."

Roboquest VR Review: An Instant Classic

Roboquest VR takes an already exhilarating FPS roguelite and delivers a near-flawless VR adaptation.

UploadVRJames Galizio

We have seen other titles launch on multiple VR platforms without cross platform co-op like Into Black and the community response tends to lean negative as players prefer to play with their friends without limitations. The video states that Flat2VR will provide progress updates between now and the new July date. We'll monitor these for any additional news to pass along.

Roboquest VR will be available on Meta Quest on July 23. It's available now on SteamVR and PlayStation VR2.

Rhino Rock Studios has announced that its sci-fi arcade shmup Outblast is set to release on June 4, 2026. The game promises a high-speed, neon-soaked fight for survival that can be experienced either in full VR via Meta's Quest headsets and SteamVR, or in flat-screen mode, giving players the choice between full immersion and traditional play.

The game places you in the cockpit of C11-28, humanity's last line of defense against a rogue viral intelligence known as Typhon. Corruption is spreading across Perseon-6, and your job is to shoot enemies and save the planet from collapse.

While shmups haven't enjoyed mainstream popularity since the days of 16-bit consoles, recent games like Sektori have begun to break out of their niche and reach new audiences. We'll have a full review of Outblast closer to release, and see if it captures the magic of the greatest shmups.

Outblast will launch into action on June 4, 2026 on Meta Quest and Steam VR.

We'll have full coverage of the new game announcement and any other news from the showcase after it airs this Friday.

For those unfamiliar with The Binary Mill, the independent Australian studio has been working in VR for a decade.

One of its earlier VR titles was Rush, a high-speed flightsuit racing game in 2017. Gun Club VR, a weapons firing range simulator, followed later that year. Miniature arcade racer Mini Motor Racing X dropped in 2019, followed by high flying dystopian shooter Resist in 2021 and finally, Into Black in 2024. It also released Oculus Go and Gear VR games like 2016's Gun Club 3 VR.

Into Black Review: A Sci-Fi FPS That Hits The Mark

Co-op action adventure Into Black returns this week on PlayStation VR2 and PC VR, offering an enhanced port worth considering.

UploadVRLuis Aviles

All of The Binary Mill's games are available on Meta Quest, SteamVR, and Pico. PlayStation VR2 has Into Black, Rush (a revised Apex Edition with better graphics than the original PS VR release), Resist, and Gun Club, only lacking Mini Motor Racing X.

In a post on X, Friendly Fire said the previous issue with crossplay support has been resolved for PC players, allowing that port to move forward. That issue halted the planned May 14 release after a previous delay in late April for additional polishing. Friendly Fire promises a similar short turnaround time between announcement and release for the PS VR2 port as soon as crossplay is resolved for that platform.

Check out an updated gameplay teaser for yourself:

The PC VR and PS VR2 versions of the game promise to come with 'major visual & gameplay improvements' along with a new horde system and a new map titled Atlas.

We will have a review of A Long Survive available soon. A Long Survive can be wishlisted on PS VR2 and Steam. It is available now on Quest.

The legendary adventure game Myst and its sequel Riven arrive on PlayStation VR2 today. The Myst and Riven remakes first debuted in 2020 and 2024 respectively and have previously been released on PC VR via Steam and on Meta's headsets.

This marks the first time the Myst and Riven remakes have appeared on the PlayStation ecosystem. They'll be fully playable on both flat screens, and via PlayStation VR2.

We reviewed both games when they previously debuted on Meta Quest and PC VR, and you can read those reviews here: Myst and Riven.

The original games that the remakes are based upon first released in 1993 and 1997, respectively. Myst was the best-selling PC game overall for almost a full decade, and defined PC gaming in the '90s. Its sequel, Riven, expanded the series' lore and pushed the boundaries of what PC point and click adventure games could achieve. For many PC gamers of a certain age, Myst and Riven were landmark titles and pioneers of immersion, and with the remakes playable in VR, that has never been more true.

We'll have a unified review of both games as they exist on PlayStation VR2 coming soon.

Myst and Riven are both available now via the PlayStation Store for $34.99 each.

I played Darts VR2: Bullseye right around its April release, finding the core gameplay modes addictive while being underwhelmed by the zombie mode. The former is a good sign as the darts simulator spins up its competitive League mode this week.

Darts VR2: Bullseye Impressions: Of Course There Are Zombies

Darts VR2: Bullseye, out now in Early Access, keeps it simple, making it easy to repeatedly return for one more round.

UploadVRMike Johnson

Before starting tournaments this summer, Gamitronics is hosting two test events on Friday, 22nd May and Thursday, 28th May. Both events will take place between 7pm-9pm BST/11am-1pm PT, with four-player and eight-player tournaments consisting of one set and one leg each.

Anyone interested in participating in the tests can sign up via this form. Test participants will be added to the in-game credits as a thank-you from the Darts VR2 team. Official tournaments will be open to all players with cross-platform support across Meta Quest, PlayStation VR2, and SteamVR.

Multiple VR games have dipped into the esports realm with tournament play, including Triangle Factory's Hyper Dash, Resolution Games' Blaston, Vail VR in partnership with the Virtual Reality Master League (VRML), and most recently Polyarc Games' Glassbreakers: Champions of Moss.

Darts VR2: Bullseye is available now in Early Access on Meta Quest, Steam, and PS VR2.

Free-roaming VR and XR experiences feel like a glimpse into the potential of VR beyond gaming as a tool for education or entertainment communally, beyond the solitary experience often found when putting on a headset. VR concerts and fan content, or experiences like the recent Ghost in the Shell exhibition, showcase how you can create a social experience that enhances, rather than detaches, from the real world, bringing people together. Often the thing holding them back is not ambition but practicality. Space, language and scale are all factors that make it difficult to expand these experiences beyond one country, especially if it's a larger free-roaming experience like Monster Hunter Bridge that requires a huge space to function. This space comes at a cost, for the same reason a cinema is more expensive to operate than a cafe.

Even if the software is digital, the limitations are frustratingly physical and practical.

Excurio is one of the few VR developers creating these large-scale experiences that have found the balance necessary to grow into an international force within this niche but growing market. Based in France, sub-licensing of their ambitious, deep, educational VR experiences has brought these works to over 30 venues ranging from Europe to North America to Asia, localized as necessary. The company was founded as Emissive in 2005, before launching this immersive initiative in 2020 at a time many were pulling away from the sector.

Their selling point is their ambition: these are 45 minute interactive stories that encourage players to explore and learn about a past brought to life, occasionally working with museums and cultural initiatives in various countries to find and develop these works with a focus on history and immersion. Utilizing HTC Vive headsets, players explore these universally understood landmark moments in history that transcend language as though they were really there.

In Yokohama, a city just a short train ride from Japan’s capital, Tokyo, two of their experiences have been sub-licensed to Immersive Journey for anyone to try for themselves. In Horizon of Khufu, players are encouraged to explore the Khufu pyramid, including areas closed off to the public in real life and told from both the perspective of the present day and a journey 4500 years into the past to see them at the peak of their radiance. Tonight With the Impressionists is set in the heart of France in 1874, during the origins of the Impressionist art movement, focused on key artists that shaped the era.

At the gracious invite of the Cinema Leap team in Japan that operates these Excurio-developed VR experiences, we made the trip to Yokohama to try them for ourselves.

Horizon of Khufu

When Excurio first made the leap into creating these large-scale VR experiences, they turned to the pyramids. Horizon of Khufu is a narrative walk-through explainer of the development of the pyramids, told via an exclusive night-time VIP tour that soon descends into a journey through time and space via the gods to explore the very depths of what the pyramids and Egyptian society were at their peak. At least, based on what current Egyptologists understand of its creation, which creates for both the most fascinating and frustrating aspect of an experience that, while fun, certainly feels like a lingering first attempt by a company still finding its feet at the time of its development.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu stands as the tallest of the pyramids, honoring a pharaoh whose life is relatively unknown despite being considered one of the most beloved rulers during the golden age of Ancient Egyptian society. The construction of such a monolithic structure is a wonder of the world today for a reason: the mere concept any human civilization could build something like this at that time is still awe-inspiring to consider, only heightened by how we still are yet to uncover the truth of its construction even a millennium later. Your tour guide Mona initially takes you into the pyramid, through public tunnels and into the large open space known as the Queen’s Chamber.

This is where the so-far typical tour takes a turn. The electrical lights installed in modern decades for tourist purposes suddenly go out, with Mona asking you to wait behind while they investigate the cause further. At this moment, a cat that sneaked inside the temple with you reveals themselves to be the feline goddess Bastet, who proceeds to take you beyond the physical limits to see an internal X-ray of the pyramid before taking you and Mona through time to learn not just about these colossal structures, but the ceremonies, temples and lives that existed around them during their peak.

It’s a genuine attempt to use VR to make an educational lecture about the pyramids entertaining for all ages. We start outside the pyramid and physically walk through tunnels in VR in order to explore these tunnels. The outside of the pyramid from the ground is imposing, while an impressive attention to detail reveals individual stones close enough it feels like you could touch them. When we are transported to ancient Egypt, we journey on a replica of a solar barque, a replica of the type of boat used by Khufu during his reign. VR grants a window into his embalming and mummification after his death to give us a deeper understanding of how these ceremonies were conducted, to the point of even allowing us a glimpse inside the coffin itself.

Yet the experience, for all its interesting factual elements, is very hands-off and wordy, at times to its detriment. This is truly a lecture in VR conducting an overview of Egyptian history, and the result is an experience we less interact with and more are told about as we watch on, at times not moving for minutes at a time. Over 18 months of co-operation between Excurio and Peter Der Manuelian, an Egyptologist at Harvard University, ensures even the minutiae of how the pyramids are rendered and the ancient rituals are recreated are accurate to the best of our current understanding, acknowledging that gaps in our knowledge lost to time remain. Yet compared to the shorter, more action-driven experiences offered somewhere like Tyffonium, this can feel at times exhausting by virtue of how this history is being communicated via the narrative of the experience.

Without a broad cast of characters - at most you will be joined by only Mona and Bastet, with most of the experience featuring just one of these companions talking directly at you, rather than in conversation - there are long periods that can feel like a pretty VR backdrop to a podcast that could easily be made more involved to take advantage of the medium. When it does this, such as the moment it takes you above the pyramid at sunrise before transforming the environment into a rendition of what it looked like 4500 years ago, watching these buildings restore to their glory and the Nile River grow, it’s a joy.

These other moments leave the overall experience somewhat mixed, albeit one I certainly left feeling satisfied with when I eventually took off the headset. I find the pyramids a fascinating relic of a past civilization, with VR being effective in communicating the scale and immensity of these constructions that alone makes it worth the cost of entry, especially as its free-roam nature lets you truly feel present in this ancient world. Wordy, inconsistent pacing aside, the pyramids alone are fascinating enough to justify the journey.

Tonight With the Impressionists: Paris 1874

Tonight With the Impressionists could not be more different in both structure and approach to exploring the period in which it's set. Replacing Egypt for 19th Century Paris, this is a structurally far more engaging piece as it seeks to illuminate not just the famous artworks, but the philosophical debates that consumed the art world surrounding this new style of painting.

Originally launched in 2024, it’s clear years of experience have enhanced the work and given the team an understanding for what works, these lessons implemented into this artistic lesson. Rather than being lectured, we’re invited into a journey through time and feel a part of the intimate conversations and debates of Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas and others that would go to define the era.

For all you may not be familiar with every name of the artists featured in this experience, which also includes Berthe Morisot, Paul Cézanne and Camille Pissarro, you likely know their work. Monet’s impressionist pieces capturing the Parisian sunrise or a water lily pond are often considered some of the best artistic works ever made. While you may not know Renoir’s La Grenouillère, if you’ve ever looked at older paintings from the late-1800s you likely have a faint familiarity with the park lake scene portrayed in the work, and this is true for every piece featured in this walkthrough exhibit.

A collaboration with France’s Musée d'Orsay does more than just provide historical accuracy in this case, as their direct involvement is key to bringing this work to life. We enter the streets of 1870s France and meet a model and writer named Rose, who takes us through the streets to introduce us to the social history of the period before we enter a quaint home repurposed as one of the earliest solo exhibitions for Impressionist art. As we jump through time and beyond the confines of the gallery into the minds of the artists to explore the driving ideals of a movement craving interpretation of the mundane over posed spectacle, each moment is illuminated not just by rote recreations but high-quality scans of the real art pieces that reveal every paint stroke and sketch.

The best part of this exhibition, however, is the method taken to relay the history of the era. We meet each of the six featured artists and are invited warmly into their social circle to hear the debates these artists would have amongst one another about what art is and could be, inspired by the writings of the period. The result is more dynamic and involved, like listening to friends debate a topic you can’t help but overhear, an approach that makes the information they tell us far easier to digest and retain once the headset is removed. Writing is improved, natural dialogue that makes these conversations feel dynamic even if you can’t shape their outcome.

There is somewhat of a bias, admittedly, in my preference for this work over the other - while I love the pyramids and their spectacle, I also already know a lot about their construction. For all I know of these artistic works and the era, I didn’t know as much on the questions and conversations surrounding them, or what it meant to be Impressionist at the time the movement was being pioneered. I felt like I was learning more. It’s also no coincidence, however that a more casual format stripped of the grandiosity of a god talking down from a place of omnipotence as you physically walk the galleries and stare at the walls and art like you would any other museum felt more natural than standing on floating boats, making the 45 minutes quite literally fly by without even noticing the time, despite being the second demo of the day.

Should You Visit Immersive Journey in Yokohama?

That being said, I certainly enjoyed my time in both Egypt and Paris during my visit. Compared to other public free-roaming VR demos, the space offered to these two VR exhibitions made the grandiosity of these longer-than-normal experiences apparent - some smaller-scale ones, for all their ambition, make the reality of circling a parking space-sized room inevitably apparent while this had the space to truly lose yourself in another world.

For the credit of the team at Immersive Journey, everything is set up to ensure an easy onboarding process for anyone who wishes to take part, regardless of their prior experience with VR. Each experience is available in both English and Japanese, but also other languages like Korean and Spanish. Dubs have also been produced for each language. While I imagine most readers will try these experiences in English, it should be noted the attention to detail and care taken in these experiences translates even to the multi-language dubbing. In Japanese, the voice cast for Horizon of Khufu includes the talented Fairouz Ai, the voice of Jolyne Cujoh in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean.

There’s even accessibility considerations for those who struggle to stand and walk for long stretches of time, as each experience has been optimized to allow the entire experience to be played from the comfort of a provided wheelchair. It’s an accessibility concern I’ve never seen considered by similar experiences that typically exclude those requiring such needs, though its inclusion does make the omission of other accessibility features like subtitles for dialogue a surprising oversight.

The main critique that can be offered is less of a problem with the experience and more of a safety inevitability that can occasionally break the immersion of the worlds crafted. Considering the large space required to operate these VR experiences, as well as the time required to clear them, it would be impossible to reserve these spaces for just one group enacting one experience at a time. To avoid wandering into other players, any person not in your group that enters your field of vision is rendered as a shadow to let you know their location and to avoid bumping into them.

When you have a lot of groups and different experiences taking place at once, however, their appearances are regular and distracting, often tonally jarring to what is taking place in the virtual world you are a part of. In one sequence during Tonight With the Impressionists, I was stood on a narrow balcony watching Monet paint his famous sunrise when, floating above the sea to my right, I saw two silhouettes appear in view and walk right through the scene, including directly through Monet’s canvas. Their appearance ensured I didn’t bump into them, though seeing two labored shadows saunter through this emotional scene did take away from the impact of this genuinely beautiful recreation.

This even occurred during a quieter period with far fewer interruptions compared to my Horizon of Khufu demo. With two large groups before and after me, and other groups already moving through the space at the time I began my journey, the room appeared at capacity, which was noticed when I had shadows wander through my feline goddess guide and float through the clouds. It’s far from a dealbreaker and can be ignored (I’d certainly not recommend removing them, considering the safety risk of doing so), but it was an occasional immersion-breaking frustration.

Even with this stumbling block, though, I found both Immersive Journey experiences to be a thrilling and entertaining breeze through history, blending education and VR in ways that felt fresh and ambitious. At just 4000 yen per experience there’s a lot on offer in these 45 minutes to justify the cost, especially with friends. Beyond Yokohama, the Horizon of Khufu experience is also available in Nagoya, and both experiences can also be found in select locations in Brazil, Canada and beyond. Yokohama is a wonderful city with plenty to see, but taking a step away from it all for an hour to travel through time is far from a bad use of your time.

The technical merits and engaging reinterpretation of the past are more than worth a break from sightseeing for this innovative method of bringing the past to life. You might even learn something along the way, and at the very least experience something at a scale beyond what similar groups are attempting in the space. Considering the expense and difficulties that come with making it to Paris or Egypt, it’s also a chance to virtually travel for a far more affordable cost than the real thing.

The first time I loaded into WorldLens VR's new AI-powered 3D Street View mode, I thought the feature was broken.

When you first drop onto a street corner, you are just looking at the standard, flat imagery wrapped around your head. But if you stand still for a second, the depth layer snaps into place. It’s a strange realization when it happens: buildings suddenly separate from the sky, foreground objects take on physical weight, and the scene stops looking like wallpaper.

The developer, Stoian Eduard Andrei, has been rolling out steady optimization updates to fix blurring and edge warping around objects, but even with those fixes, the effect is understated. It isn’t a dramatic, pop-out book 3D spectacle, and it shouldn't be oversold as one.

Instead, it relies entirely on subtle, real-time parallax. I tested it in an old European square flanked by a massive church. When you shift your physical weight or move your head, the foreground elements slide against the background just enough to trick your brain. It feels like a step in the right direction rather than a total visual overhaul.

This subtle depth is most striking when you drop into high-density urban environments like Times Square. In the headset, towering digital billboards cleanly detach from the structural steel and glass skyscrapers behind them. Even chaotic, organic shapes, like a dense patch of bushes in a sidewalk planter or a clump of trees outside a restaurant, manage to pop out with satisfying depth.

The effect carries over beautifully to complex indoor spaces as well, like the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, Germany. Standing inside the museum, the app successfully separates the reflective cars from the open, multi-level walkways behind them, turning what used to be a flat, static panorama into a believable physical hall.

Getting these flat images to warp into 3D on a mobile headset is no small feat, which is why the tech behind it is so interesting.

When I spoke with Andrei on a video call, he told me that restraint was intentional. The developer previously released an app called EarthQuest, which was a validation and test for the concepts that eventually became WorldLens VR. EarthQuest is no longer available, and the result of his research and feedback can be seen in WorldLens VR.

"The main design goal was realism," Andrei told me. "I wanted the Street View environments to feel natural and believable in 3D, corresponding to the real scene as closely as possible."

In written follow-up questions, Andrei confirmed that because Google doesn’t provide raw LiDAR data or depth maps for third-party developers, WorldLens has to infer the entire spatial structure from a single raw 2D panorama on the fly.

Pushing that much streaming data through a standalone headset can cause performance problems. During my testing, rapidly jumping from dense city centers to narrow mountain passes sometimes overwhelmed the system, occasionally throwing a "RAM usage high" error before crashing straight back to the Quest dashboard. When I reported the issue, Andrei noted that his backend analytics show a lifetime crash rate under one percent for the build, pointing to tight Meta OS memory limits mixed with heavy streaming threads. In fairness, I was pushing the app aggressively at the time, loading multiple locations in quick succession and forcing scene reloads. Fortunately, the app's state-saving is solid, since rebooting drops you right back onto the exact street corner where it failed.

To handle the blurry ground textures common in third-party Google Earth apps, Andrei also built a proprietary 4x neural network upscaler into the preferences menu. It acts as a sharp texture filter for close-up viewing without hallucinating fake objects or inventing fictional geometry.

While a PCVR port is in the works, Andrei is holding off on estimating a release date too early given the scale of the project. However, he noted that moving to PC-tethered hardware will provide significantly more performance headroom. According to Andrei, the goal for the PCVR version is to push visual detail and caching capacity further, which should mean faster loading, near-instant 3D generations, and reduced 3D tile pop-in compared to standalone hardware.

While virtual travel remains a specific niche within the broader VR ecosystem, WorldLens VR shows why these experiences continue to resonate with some headset users. There is a massive psychological difference between looking at a flat map and getting that brief, genuine sensation that you are standing on a street corner halfway across the world. It is the kind of experience where you can easily lose yourself for hours just exploring, hopping from one random corner of the globe to the next.

For an app built by a solo developer chasing a personal obsession, that alone makes it worth a look.

Affordable handheld consumer 360° cameras have improved leaps & bounds in recent years, with $500 8K HDR options available for over a year now from Chinese startup Insta360 and drone giant DJI, as well as from the American GoPro Max2. And while professionals could mount these or an array of wide-angle cameras to drones, that wasn't practical for typical consumers and amateur creators. Insta360 also previously sold an attachment for drones, called Sphere. But any attached solution, no matter how streamlined, adds weight and thus negatively affects flight time and performance. It was also incredibly hard for these attached solutions to produce an undistorted 360° output free of any visible seams.

Last year, Insta360 spun up a new subsidiary brand called Antigravity, and in December launched Antigravity A1, the first fully integrated 360° camera drone.

As well as recording 8K 360° footage at 30FPS or 5.2K at 60FPS – footage that you can share with VR headset owners however you like – remarkably, the currently $1279 Antigravity A1 package actually comes with a headset featuring the same 2560×2560 micro-OLED panels you'd find in a Bigscreen Beyond, though a narrower field of view, around 70° horizontal and vertical.

The goggles receive a live 360° video feed from the drone via their protruding antennae, and with the headset's rotational tracking you can look around from the drone's position using your head, with very low latency. It weighs around a third less than a Quest headset, has a tethered battery to keep the weight off your head, and you can use it to watch your 360° recordings at home if you don't already own a general VR headset.

Further, Antigravity A1 has a rather unique controller, also included in the box, a tracked device that leans into the VR-like experience by having you point with your arm where you want to fly. It's essentially like being in a 3DoF VR flying game, the type you could have imagined on Oculus Go, except with photorealistic graphics and the obvious glaring difference that you're actually flying around the real world.

In fact, Antigravity has leaned so much into this gamified approach that the company even has a feature to superimpose a player object onto a traditional FPV (non-360°) view of the live feed, such as a dragon or airplane. A truly unique idea, though it would be far more impressive if it could be superimposed onto the 360° feed, not just the regular FPV view.

In late March, just under two months ago, the drone market leader DJI launched a competitor to Antigravity A1, called DJI Avata 360.

DJI Avata 360 has a lower entry price for those who already own DJI controllers or goggles, at just over $400. Further, DJI's drone can record 8K 60FPS and features a larger image sensor for superior footage, omnidirectional obstacle avoidance for easier flying, and prop guards for safety, while Antigravity A1 is meant only for outdoor use in open spaces. DJI's drone also has a traditional single-lens mode, with the cameras in a mechanically rotating block.

In other words, DJI Avata 360 is essentially the better drone – though I should note that it's around double the weight, bringing it over the threshold for FAA registration.

However, it's arguable that while DJI may have the better drone, Antigravity A1 is the better VR/MR experience, thanks to a better included headset.

The two DJI goggles that Avata 360 supports have a field of view of just 39°H×23°V and 48°H×28°V, respectively - considerably narrower than Antigravity's. The chips in the DJI Goggles are also limited to 4K 60fps decoding, while Antigravity's goggles have a more powerful chip for 8K playback.

In other words, flying the Antigravity drone will feel considerably more immersive, and you don't even necessarily need a general VR headset to immersively watch the footage you record, though the even wider field of view of something like a Quest 3 would of course be preferable.

Regardless of these differences, the real story here is that any consumer or amateur creative can now record 360° drone footage with relatively little effort. We're already starting to see the results on YouTube and Vimeo, and it's a product category we'll be tracking in coming years.

I'm actively writing on UploadVR again, and this article is one in a series of "catch up" pieces where I report on some of the interesting things that have been happening in the industry in recent months. And yes, VR Download is coming back very soon!

Polyarc has announced that the previously VR-exclusive Moss and its sequel Moss: Book II are coming to flat screens in a unified package called Moss: The Forgotten Relic. The game will launch this summer for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox and Nintendo Switch.

Moss: The Forgotten Relic not only unifies both Moss games into one, but also includes Moss' DLC Twilight Garden. Polyarc's announcement also mentions that the new game will feature enhanced visuals, a reworked camera, new cutscenes, and an accessibility feature that will let players skip challenging combat sections.

This news follows recent turmoil at Polyarc. We reported in March that two-thirds of the studio's staff had been laid off after the studio's next "large project" lost its funding. Other studios have suffered similar setbacks in recent months. Survios, makers of Alien: Rogue Incursion and Creed: Rise to Glory, has all but shut down after a pivot to flat screen products failed to bolster the studio's coffers.

This year has seen more and more VR studios pivot to a hybrid model. Vertigo Games and their The 7th Guest Remake, ,Realities.io,'s Puzzling Places, and Resolution Games' Demeo x Dungeons and Dragons: Battlemarked are just a few of the many VR titles that have recently released or are currently being ported or remade for flat screen platforms.

The trend is one that we discuss on this week's UploadVR Gamescast. It speaks to challenges in the broader game industry, and in the VR market in particular. The games industry has always moved through similar peaks and valleys. If a hybrid model helps VR developers weather the storm and come out the other side producing new VR titles, that's the best possible outcome.

Nintendo has added five additional Virtual Boy games to their Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack service. The new batch of games includes Virtual Bowling and Jack Bros., two extremely rare games that for decades have held an incredibly high value on the used market.

The full list follows:

Jack Bros. - This Atlus-developed stereoscopic 3D dungeon crawler was the first Shin Megami Tensei game released outside of Japan. Its rarity has long made it an expensive buy.

Vertical Force - A technically excellent shmup developed by Hudson which uses the Virtual Boy's 3D display to great effect (the player's ship can move into the background to avoid bullets and obstacles).

Space Invaders Virtual Collection - A Japan-only release developed by Taito, this game includes direct ports of the classic arcade game Space Invaders from 1978, and its sequel Space Invaders Part II from 1979. It also features 3D remakes that take advantage of the Virtual Boy's hardware capabilities.

V-Tetris - Another Japan-only release, V-Tetris is essentially Tetris for the Virtual Boy. A second Tetris game, 3D Tetris, was released for Virtual Boy the following year.

Virtual Bowling - Another extremely rare game originally released only in Japan, Virtual Bowling was rushed to market just prior to the Virtual Boy's discontinuation. It's a 3D bowling game.

We reviewed Nintendo's official Virtual Boy accessory headset when it launched earlier this year, and everything you need to know about Nintendo's Virtual Boy support and emulation on Switch and Switch 2 can be found in that piece (we cover the subscription cost, the pros and cons of "renting" these games via a service, and the hardware itself).

Prior to that we'd covered Virtual Boy Go, a sideloaded app that's without question the best way to play Virtual Boy games on the Meta Quest ecosystem.

Wingsuit: Romsdalen first released a playable demo in February, before launching in full three months later. It can be played with a traditional controller, but the game’s VR support puts the player right into the action as a would-be glider soaring across a massive open-world landscape.

Wingsuit: Romsdalen’s campaign features multiple starting points, each with a list of achievements you need to perform in order to gain points and advance further. These challenges include flying through a course of rings, reaching a certain score, or uncovering hidden secrets like UFOs or whale balloons.

You only need to complete a few objectives to unlock the next drop point, but you can always come back later to fulfill some of the ones you skipped the first time around. Keep in mind that many of these challenges will be incredibly difficult to complete, especially when you are starting out.

Once you initiate a dive, you hold your arms up at a neutral level (which you set during the initial start-up) to glide. To steer, you need to tilt your head to position yourself, raise and lower your arms to climb or dive, and even press one of the upper triggers for a sharp turn. Getting the hang of the VR motion controls can be tricky at first, but there is a decent sense of adrenaline as you speed across the sky.

Diving can increase your speed at the risk of plummeting to the ground, while climbing is useful for stabilizing your fall. The speedometer on your arm keeps track of how fast you are going, and beeps when you are at risk of losing control. You can also perform midair tricks by tilting your arms toward your head or raising one while lowering the other. This will earn you points, and the closer you are to the ground when you perform a trick, the better your reward will be.

Once you are ready to end your run, you can pull your parachute by pressing the lower triggers. If you end up hitting the ground too fast, your character will suffer a brutal end - one you can avoid by landing on a pile of boxes or slowing your descent with the parachute. Completing runs will also grant you Experience points, which you can use to unlock new wingsuits. Each wingsuit has its own stats that influence how fast you can go and how easily the suit can handle turns.

Wingsuit: Romsdalen has a Line Creator mode, which lets you chart your own course (literally) by gliding across a map and placing rings with the press of a button. After you wipe out, you can choose to test out your newly formed path or upload it online for other players to try out for themselves.

Graphics are pretty solid for the most part, recreating the snowy peaks and lush green valleys of Romsdalen while being accompanied by the rustling sound of wind as you glide through the air above. However, it should be pointed out that flipping and barrel rolling can be pretty disorienting. There is also a small blood splatter when your character crashes into the ground, but thankfully it isn’t too graphic. Still, your character hitting the ground with a hard thud again and again can be tough to watch at times.

It can be hard to get a handle on Wingsuit: Romsdalen's gameplay mechanics at first, and you should be prepared to grind a decent amount while unlocking new drop points. That said, the game does provide a thrilling sense of gliding through the air, though you might want to avoid it if you are particularly prone to motion sickness.

The concert joins a growing collection of immersive music performances available through Meta's Horizon TV app, including Coldplay’s concert at Wembley Stadium, Sabrina Carpenter, Arcade Fire, and several others. Apple is exploring similar territory as well through Apple Immersive Video on the Vision Pro, including a Metallica concert experience that places viewers directly inside the performance.

After spending more than an hour watching the Goo Goo Dolls show on my Meta Quest 3, I came away impressed by how naturally live music fits immersive VR180 video when the production is done well.

What immediately impressed me was the image quality. The Quest 3 delivered a consistently sharp and clear presentation in VR180 3D, with enough detail and depth to create a real sense of presence inside the theater. The Beacon Theatre itself plays a major role in that feeling. Between the lighting, stage design, and the visible crowd below, the experience captures the atmosphere of a live venue in a way traditional video simply cannot.

What makes the concert especially effective is the way it was filmed.

Several immersive cameras are positioned throughout the venue, including wide shots from the back of the theater that showcase the full scale of the stage and audience. Other cameras are placed directly on stage alongside the band, including a moving immersive rig that walks around the performers during songs.

Those moments completely change the feeling of the concert.

At times, you are standing so close to the musicians that it creates a level of intimacy that would be impossible for most fans attending the show in person. During the band’s performance of “Iris,” the combination of proximity, lighting, crowd energy, and spatial depth created moments that genuinely felt emotional in a way traditional video rarely achieves.

That may ultimately be why concerts work so well in immersive video compared to some other forms of VR entertainment.

Live music already depends heavily on atmosphere, scale, lighting, and audience energy. Viewers also naturally accept fixed camera positions during concerts in a way they may not during narrative content or interactive experiences. VR180 enhances those strengths rather than fighting against them.

There is also something compelling about being placed in positions that are normally inaccessible. One moment you are sitting behind the audience taking in the entire theater. The next, you are effectively standing beside the band on stage as they perform.

That sense of access may be one of immersive entertainment’s biggest advantages.

Meta appears to understand that potential. Horizon TV has quietly become home to a growing library of immersive entertainment experiences beyond gaming, while the company’s previously announced partnership with James Cameron suggests broader ambitions around immersive 3D media and storytelling in the future.

None of this replaces attending a real concert in person. That’s not really the point.

What experiences like the Goo Goo Dolls concert demonstrate is that immersive video can deliver something traditional media cannot: the feeling of physically being somewhere you otherwise could never be.

For a VR industry still searching for mainstream entertainment use cases beyond gaming, experiences like this feel increasingly important.

Realcast Inc., developers of Le Dino Labo, has announced that the second expansion DLC for their dinosaur-building mixed-reality experience is available now on Meta Quest. "Cretaceous Predators and Prey" introduces three new dinosaurs to the casual puzzle game, including the legendary Velociraptor, Protoceratops, and Psittacosaurus.

Like the dinosaurs previously available in the base game and the first DLC "Jurassic Giants," each new dinosaur has been carefully adapted for Le Dino Labo's hands-on game mechanics, which allow players to examine individual fossil fragments and assemble dinosaur skeletons one bone at a time.

Le Dino Labo uses full hand tracking interaction, allowing fragments of iconic dinosaurs to be examined, rotated, and assembled into complete creatures all within the player's real-world environment. When a dinosaur is completed, it springs to true life size, driving home the sheer enormity of these ancient creatures. (Can you fit a Diplodocus in your bedroom?)

A previously published Le Dino Labo roadmap for future updates included new themed packs, deeper skeletal manipulation, enhanced environmental integration, and more.

Le Dino Labo's new DLC Cretaceous Predators and Prey is available now on the Meta Horizon Store for $3.99.

Barely a month after the Dua Lipa music pack, Kluge Interactive is back with another drop, featuring five tracks from Crypt of the NecroDancer composer Danny Baranowsky.

Watch the trailer here:

Here's the full list of tracks:

• Disco Descent
• Konga Conga Kappa
• Rhythmortis
• Fungal Funk
• Styx and Stones

Each track is available for $1.99 or get the full pack as a bundle for $8.95. With this release, Synth Riders' catalog now totals 188 songs (81 free, 107 DLC).

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

I reviewed Fixer Undercover when it released on Meta Quest in February, saying "The heavy emphasis on VR interactions and encouragement to think outside the box on solutions makes for a highly entertaining spy caper." My only real complaint was a heavy amount of annoying grab jank and the game updated about a month ago with a physics overhaul for smoother object interactions.

Developer Creativity AR announced it was working on a Steam port shortly after the Quest release, promising "dynamic shadows, higher resolution for textures, and post-processing to make the prison feel more grounded and immersive."

Watch the Steam trailer here:

Going the hybrid model to expand its audience is a trend we've been seeing in VR. Over a dozen developers have recently ported their VR titles to flatscreen or released a new game without VR support at all. Most recently, Moss and Glassbreakers developer Polyarc Games announced Moss: The Forgotten Relic, a combination of the two Moss games, for PC and consoles this summer.

Fixer Undercover can be wishlisted on Steam. There is a VR supported demo available to play for any interested in trying the new version first.

Beyond the visual treat, Meta moved two buried controls into quick settings, making them much more convenient: Power options and seated VR are now just a click away.

Browser Photos Pop Into 3D

The most impressive feature is browser-based 3D conversion. You can turn almost any website image into a stereoscopic 3D photo with a few clicks, or pinch when using hand tracking.

I can simply point at an image in the Quest browser, select and hold, and a new “View in 3D” option appears. After a few seconds of processing, the flat image transforms into a stereoscopic scene that floats beyond the frame with convincing depth.

Meta is playing catch-up with this capability and still lags behind in terms of video. Android XR offers a real-time 2D to 3D option for Samsung’s Galaxy XR headset, while Viture and Xreal extend real-time 3D conversion to smart glasses. XR manufacturers are increasingly leveraging the inherent 3D capability of headsets and glasses.

Upload 3D Photos From Your Phone

The Meta Horizon mobile app gained a related feature that makes it easy to upload photos from your phone and convert them into 3D images for Quest viewing.

Just open the app menu, tap Gallery, then select photos from your phone’s camera roll, and tap the upload button. Meta processes the images into stereoscopic 3D photos that can later be viewed inside your Quest headset’s gallery.

The workflow is surprisingly simple. There’s no special camera mode or export process. It feels more like uploading ordinary cloud photos, except the result has depth when viewed in VR. That matters because 3D photos simulate real depth in a VR headset, a different image to each eye. That’s not possible on phones, TVs, or movie screens.

As James Cameron has pointed out over the years, modern VR headsets solve many of the brightness and viewing-angle limitations that held back earlier waves of 3D entertainment. Meta has already been leaning into that idea through its partnership with James Cameron for Quest 3D entertainment content.

Faster Access To Useful Controls

The other additions in this PTC update are less flashy but arguably more practical. Meta added new Quick Settings toggles for both Power Options and Boost Height. When enabled, they appear on the right side of the Quick Settings panel for easy access.

Power Options opens a compact system window that shows the remaining battery level along with buttons for Sleep, Cancel, Power Off, and Restart.

Boost Height is a common need, so this addition has a bigger impact. The control acts like a switch, raising (or lowering) my virtual viewpoint by about 16 inches. One click and I feel like I’m standing even if I’m seated. I can also use it while standing to grow taller, a fun but usually impractical twist.

Some games and apps already offer accessibility height adjustments internally, but having a universal system-level shortcut is much more convenient.

While Quest headsets still receive a steady stream of new VR games each month, Meta’s recent Horizon OS updates increasingly focus on spatial media, everyday utilities, and lightweight computing features outside traditional gaming. Features like AI-generated 3D photos and quick-access system control make the Quest feel increasingly designed for everyday spatial computing instead of purely gaming.