Virtual Reality

Into The Darkness VR offers two distinct ways to play. Story mode puts you through a six-level campaign, blending narrative with action-packed set pieces. If you’re more about experimenting, the sandbox mode drops you into a sprawling environment packed with rooms and props, where you can summon enemies, weapons, and items at will — perfect for testing the game’s physics to your heart’s content.

The team at 9 Lives has locked in May 29, 2025, as the Early Access launch date for PC VR headsets, with pricing set at just under $20.

Play For Dream MR, the high-end Android standalone headset, now has Guy Godin's app Virtual Desktop on its store.

Originally founded in China as YVR in 2020, the headset company renamed itself to Play For Dream and reincorporated in Singapore alongside launching its third headset, called Play For Dream MR, which it started shipping this year.

Play For Dream MR is a high-end standalone headset running the company's own fork of Android, with the kind of specs you might have expected from a Meta Quest Pro 2. Priced at $2000, it features Qualcomm's Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chipset, 4K micro-OLED displays, eye tracking with automatic IPD adjustment, and comes with tracked controllers. It has a 1-hour battery, built into the back of the strap, and thus Play For Dream recommends pairing it with an external battery pack.

The Xreal One and Xreal One Pro glasses connect to a smartphone, game console, PC, or Mac via a USB-C cable. They project content onto a virtual 1080p display that floats in front of you. The Xreal One has a 50-degree field of view, while the Xreal One Pro has a 57-degree field of view. This is equivalent to viewing a 70- or 85-inch TV from two meters away.

The Xreal Eye accessory is designed to change this and add spatial 6DoF tracking to the display glasses, Xreal announced at a launch event in Japan.

The accessory weighs just 1.5 grams and is inserted between the lenses. In addition to 6DoF tracking, Xreal Eye can be used to take photos and videos with up to 12 megapixels. A review will have to show how good these images and the 6DoF tracking are.

Developed by Luminary Creations, Wiped Clean is a crime scene cleaning simulator that asks you to uncover mysteries, one pool of blood or dead body at a time. The twist here is that you aren't just regular cleaners and are instead undercover agents, attempting to infiltrate a sketchy organization called the Syndicate as you investigate a dangerous conspiracy.

Wiped Clean VR will debut on June 1 for Steam, and it's out now on Quest.

Here are the best fixes so far to get this headset to work well.

Udexreal is a Chinese company that proposes a tracking glove called UDCAP. The peculiarity of this glove is that it is (according to the company) the most lightweight VR glove on the market. It weighs only 45g.

Udexreal can make a glove that is so thin and lightweight because it has implemented a sensor to track the fingers which has only 0.1mm of thickness. On the website, they mention the creation of a special “polymer material” that allows them to create “elastic sensors”. I guess we are talking about sensors that can detect how much they are bent, from which it can be extrapolated what is the bending angle of each finger. Regarding the number of sensors installed on the gloves, there is some confusion: during the event, I’ve been told there are 13 sensors for every finger, while on the website, they report having 12 sensors for the whole hand. I’ve written an email asking for clarification and will update the article as soon as I have an answer.

The gloves have both a consumer and an enterprise version. The consumer version is meant to be used especially in social VR applications like VRChat, to have all your fingers tracked reliably, so that you are social interactions are more natural. There is also an enterprise version that is dedicated to training and other B2B use cases. The company also advertises the use of the gloves for robotics applications. At the booth, they did not want to talk to me much about the B2B destination, though, because the focus was on the consumer side.

On the index finger, it is possible to install an add-on that transforms your glove into a fully fledged VR controller: the add-on has a little thumbstick and two tiny buttons (basically A/B buttons), so that you can have the full set of input of an Oculus Touch controller, but with all your fingers tracked.

The Udexreal UDCAP VRGlove is already available on the website of the company, which ships worldwide. The PR mentioned that the price should be $699, but there are some generous discounts available. For this reason, the shop page already reports $599, but she mentioned that if the gloves are bought through some partners (maybe influencers who are sharing discount codes), the final price can become as low as $530-$560.

Play For Dream MR, the high-end Android standalone headset, is getting Guy Godin's app Virtual Desktop next week.

Originally founded in China as YVR in 2020, the headset company renamed itself to Play For Dream and reincorporated in Singapore alongside launching its third headset, called Play For Dream MR, which it started shipping this year.

Play For Dream MR is a high-end standalone headset running the company's own fork of Android, with the kind of specs you might have expected from a Meta Quest Pro 2. Priced at $2000, it features Qualcomm's Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chipset, 4K micro-OLED displays, eye tracking with automatic IPD adjustment, and comes with tracked controllers. It has a 1-hour battery, built into the back of the strap, and thus Play For Dream recommends pairing it with an external battery pack.

Bootstrap Island is a survival game inspired by Robinson Crusoe. It was developed from the ground up for PC VR.

You are the sole survivor of a 17th-century shipwreck. In order to survive on the mysterious tropical island, you must adapt to your surroundings, fend off wild animals, explore the island, and develop your skills.

Bootstrap Island entered Early Access in early 2024. Since then, three major updates have been released, introducing an inventory and system for building shelters and managing scarce resources, a boss fight against the Jungle Overlord, and a dynamic weather system.

Now, indie studio Maru VR has unveiled the official roadmap for Bootstrap Island (see trailer below). It lays out the studio’s vision for the game from its initial state to the planned end of Early Access in the first quarter of 2026.

At SID Display Week 2025, Samsung is showcasing two new micro-OLED panels that can deliver brighter 4K per-eye headsets with richer colors and no motion blur.

Micro-OLED displays are fabricated directly onto silicon wafers, a distinctly different manufacturing process to regular OLED, and offer much higher pixel density than any other production-ready display technology. Micro-OLED displays thus enable high resolution headsets with relatively slim designs - and of course OLED's signature infinite contrast with rich colors and true blacks.

Currently 2.5K micro-OLED displays from Chinese supplier SeeYA Technology are used in the Bigscreen Beyond series, while 4K micro-OLED displays from Sony are used in Apple Vision Pro, and BOE's 4K micro-OLED displays are used in Play For Dream MR and Shiftall MeganeX superlight. More headsets using a new Sony 4K micro-OLED are set to launch later this year, from Samsung, Sony, and Pimax.

VRChat credits buy avatars made by a new group of creators skilled in the art of virtual reality fashion. The new system allows users to try on sellers' avatars in a private space before buying. "The Marketplace is an in-client store that allows users to buy and sell avatars," a VRChat representative explained over email. "Not only does this give creators another platform to monetize on VRChat, but it also makes finding an avatar far, far easier than before."

Assetto Corsa EVO launched earlier this year in early access, serving up a PC VR mode that wasn’t exactly a hit due to some pretty questionable overall optimization. Now, developer KUNOS Simulazioni have released the game’s 0.2 update, which also includes some much needed VR performance tweaks.

The 0.2 just dropped for Assetto Corsa EVO, which includes a heap of new content, including seven new cars: Maserati GT2, Lotus Exige V6 Cup, Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GTA, Alfa Romeo 75 Turbo Evoluzione, Porsche 911 Turbo 3.6, Mazda MX-5, and Honda NSX-R. There are also two new tracks: Circuit of the Americas (COTA) and Donington Park.

Overall, the game now boasts both single player ‘Open Mode’ as a way to access all game cars without limitations, and a single player ‘Career Mode’, offering game economy and progression mechanics.

cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/179839

While OLED gaming monitors might be a stretch goal for many of us, miniature versions are already being crammed into VR headsets. Much like their bigger, desktop-dwelling cousins, however, the price can be pretty prohibitive. Pimax may be bucking that trend, as it's announced the Dream Air SE, a lighter weight, slightly lower-specced version of its Dream Air Micro-OLED VR headset with a much cheaper pre-order price than the standard model.

It's still $899 for the Lighthouse version, which comes without controllers. Boo. Still, that's a full $1,000 cheaper than the non-SE controllerless version, and what you're getting in the headset itself is still pretty impressive.

Two 2,560 x 2,560 resolution Micro-OLED panels sat behind tailored pancake lenses, for a start. That's not quite as impressive as the 3,840 x 3,552 resolution Sony versions you'll find in the standard Dream Air, but the SE should be much less hardware-demanding as a result. And it's still a fair few more pixels than the 2,064 x 2,208 you'll find in each LCD panel of our current best VR headset pick, the Meta Quest 3.

Plus you get integrated audio and eye tracking, and the whole headset weighs less than 150 grams, which makes it significantly lighter than many traditional headsets I've strapped to my skull over the years. It's a downright gorgeous-looking design, too, if you're into the "I-just-fell-through-an-Apple-factory-in-Cyberpunk-2077" aesthetic.

Should you wish for the luxury of included controllers (and Pimax's camera-based Simultaneous Localization and Mapping technology, negating the need for a base station tracking solution), you'll be looking at a total cost of $1,199. The best VR headsets we've tested to date are significantly cheaper than that, but none of them come with Micro-OLED screens, and they don't come cheap.

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That price isn't exactly chump change, granted—but compared to the $2,099 you'd pay for the controller-including regular Dream Air (or the ludicrous $3,499 you'd pay for an Apple Vision Pro), I'd say it's a relatively reasonable sum.

If that's still too pricey a proposition to pay in one go, you could take a look at the Pimax Prime membership program, which lets you pay off the base price of a headset before paying instalments on the rest, with a discount available for the one-off payment in relation to the standard retail price.

It's all a bit overcomplicated if you ask me, but if Micro-OLED VR is where your dreams lie but the price is holding you back, it's probably worth considering.

I haven't had a chance to get hands-on with the Dream Air myself, but I did visit the Pimax booth at CES 2025 for a play around with its Crystal Light VR headset, and the results were impressive.

Virtual reality

(Image credit: Valve)

Best VR headset: which kit should you choose?Best graphics card: you need serious GPU power for VRBest gaming laptop: don't get tied to your desktop in VR

I've never been particularly sold on VR in general, but as a newly-discovered flight sim fan I have to say it really adds something to the experience of bombing around in a fighter jet in DCS World.

Plus, our main critique of the Pimax Crystal Light is its overall bulkiness. The Dream Air and Dream Air SE look downright svelte by comparison, which matters when you plan on wearing something attached to the front of your face for a sweaty, adrenaline-filled gaming session.

Now, where did I put my wallet? Oh, that's right—I've locked it away to prevent myself from buying more gorgeous tech I don't necessarily need. Want, though? Most definitely.

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There’s nothing quite like The Midnight Walk. The Swedish studio Moonhood has pulled off something rare in today’s gaming landscape: every object in the game was first hand-sculpted from clay, then scanned in 3D, and finally animated with a stop-motion effect. This gives the entire world a tactile, one-of-a-kind look where you can almost see every fingerprint and every tiny imperfection in the clay.

The catch? In VR, the game’s resolution is so low that most of these lovingly crafted details are lost in a haze.

The Midnight Walk is available for both PC and PlayStation 5, with VR modes on both platforms. I tested the console version with PSVR 2, the PC VR version using both PSVR 2 with the PC adapter, and Meta Quest 3 via Link cable. The low-res, dull look is present across the board, but it’s especially noticeable on the PS5 with PSVR 2.

Rebellion is gearing up for the release of Zombie Army VR, dropping a fresh feature trailer that spotlights both close-quarters and long-range combat against the undead. The trailer gives a first look at meticulously recreated World War II-era weapons, now brought to life in virtual reality. One notable twist: you can wield different weapons in each hand, adding a new layer of chaos to the action. As the series’ first VR spin-off, Zombie Army VR launches May 22 on PlayStation VR2, Meta Quest, and PC VR via Steam. If you’re looking to blast your way through hordes of zombies with a friend — or just want to see those X-Ray kills from a new perspective — it might be worth keeping an eye on this one.

This release includes a variety of bug fixes and quality of life improvements for SteamVR.

We continue to focus on OpenXR as our preferred API for new games and applications. SteamVR’s official OpenXR subforum is here and we’d love to hear your feedback, as well as suggestions for new features.

SteamVR:

• Quick recenter now available system-wide via system button long press.
• Improved automatic throttling behavior.
• Reduces controller and physics jitter from throttling and prediction changes in response to performance variations.

OpenXR:

• Better handling of non-pipelined applications.
• Reduces controller jitter for Unity OpenXR apps.

Linux:

• Fixed empty black window when starting SteamVR on Linux.
• Added window icons to SteamVR windows on Linux.

Developer Options

• Removed remaining legacy 32-bit executables, including: vrmonitor, vrstartup, restarthelper, overlay_viewer.
• Fix UI launching of overlay_viewer.
• overlay_viewer gets better pan / zoom / resize support, and other misc improvements.
• performance improvements to IVRChaperone ()->GetBoundsColor().
• Added lens calibration model, DISTORT_POLY3_TANGENT_SCALED.

Cutting it down to half the size would mean bringing it down around 310 grams; certainly not be easy but also not entirely unrealistic, especially if they stick to an off-board battery. After all, Bigscreen Beyond is around 180 grams. It might not be a standalone headset, but it shows how compact the housing, optics, and displays can be.

And half the cost would mean a price tag of roughly $1,750. Still not cheap compared to most headsets out there, but significantly more attainable, especially if Apple can market it as also being the best TV most people will have in their home.

This might seem obvious. Making any tech product smaller and cheaper is a good thing.

But my point here is that Vision Pro is disproportionately held back by its size and cost. It has way more to be gained by halving its size and cost than Quest, for instance, because Quest’s core UX is still very clunky.

Impact Reality, previously known for its VR-related marketing services and its subsidiary Flat2VR Studios, which specializes in VR conversions of flat games, has announced the creation of a full-fledged publishing arm for original VR games.

Impact Reality emphasizes that Impact Inked will not be about direct ports or adaptations of flat games. Instead, all games will be built from the ground up for VR. Some will introduce entirely new IPs, while others will expand existing universes in unexpected and immersive ways.

Puzzling Places (2021) has been a long-time favorite immersive puzzle game, bringing a heap of its real-world scanned 3D jigsaw puzzles to players in both virtual and mixed reality. Now developer Realities.io is preparing to release it on PC, which will include both VR and flatscreen modes.

Like in the versions available on Quest, PSVR 2 and Vision Pro, the app’s 3D-scanned puzzles come in multiple difficulty levels, including 25, 50, 100, 200, and 400-piece puzzles, with some of the largest puzzles going up to 1,000 pieces. The benefit with the PC release though is you can continue puzzling across flatscreen, like a Steam Deck, and in VR mode with a capable VR-ready PC.

Android XR has been squarely out of the limelight since Google announced it back in December alongside Samsung’s ‘Project Moohan’ mixed reality headset. There aren’t any firm release dates for either, although both are expected to launch publicly sometime later this year.

While the company has confirmed a number of Android XR features, including the much-awaited support for passthrough camera access, and has also released developer access to its Android XR SDK, we’re still waiting to see how it will stack up against more mature XR ecosystems, like Meta’s Horizon OS and Apple’s visionOS.

Android XR is moving towards public launch later this year, and Google is prepping a new XR toolchain before it does, which will bundle Jetpack SceneCore and ARCore into its XR-specific version of Jetpack. Jetpack XR, which is now in developer preview, lets mobile or large screen Android app devs create spatialized layouts with the help of 3D models and immersive environments. Notably, the inclusion of ARCore with Jetpack XR suggests Google is consolidating its spatial computing tools, giving devs a unified way to build both AR and VR experiences.

Ghost Town was released for Meta Quest last week and has already received much praise from the VR community for its storytelling, puzzle design, and graphics.

The story takes place in London in the 80s. You take on the role of Edith Penrose, a young woman who has become a ghost hunter and exorcist, running a supernatural detective agency with her roommate Rina. Her world is turned upside down when her brother disappears and a mysterious new lead promises clues to his whereabouts.

Ghost Town was released on April 24, 2024 on the Horizon Store, where you can now try the game for free for 30 minutes.

A PC VR and PSVR 2 version is coming later this year. You can add these versions to your wishlist on Steam and the Playstation Store.

Seven years on from Windlands 2, it's been over a month since Psytec lifted the curtain on Titan Isles, and you can see the parallels between them. Whether you're playing alone or in co-op with four people, both games involve exploring a ruined world as you fight various titans throughout the campaign. A few similarities, yet there are key differences that distinguish these games.

Titan Isles is currently confirmed for Quest and PC VR, and Psytec previously avoided committing to other platforms due to “technical and logistical” hurdles. Even still, can we eventually expect a PlayStation VR2 edition?

“We love PlayStation VR2,” Hibbins told me, and it's not being ruled out. However, the PS VR2 port for Windlands 2 that launched last July hasn't been profitable yet.

The just-released beta 1.34.1 of Virtual Desktop for Meta Quest brings a handful of technical upgrades, headlined by the debut of adjustable field of view controls. Developer Guy Godin has rolled out this update through the app’s beta channel, giving early access to power users.

The marquee feature is the new “FOV Tangent” sliders, which appear under a freshly added “Advanced” tab in the streamer window. Early testers are already reporting major performance wins here — dialing the FOV down to around 85% of the default setting can boost frame rates in many games, all without introducing those dreaded black bars at the screen’s edge.