My Updated Thoughts on the State of VR 2025 Edition

Back in 2023 I wrote about my thoughts on the future of VR after gauging what was going on and what was releasing around that time. I’d say my thoughts were something like cautiously optimistic (I might have even used that exact phrase)? So I thought I would return to this idea and see how I’m feeling about the state of VR as it stands now and where it might be going.

If I had to sum my feelings up in one word this time, it would be...stagnant. Two years ago I felt that the potential for VR was right there, and with cheaper consumer devices like the Quest 2 available, and with a high profile game like Resident Evil 4 getting a VR version, things seemed like they were on the cusp of really taking off.

But I feel like it’s still at that exact same point. Maybe not even, maybe it’s slipped backwards a little. There’s maybe one big game that looked like it would be something special that will get everyone interested and maybe jump-start VR game dev, then nothing changes. I feel like free-to-play multiplayer games, either shooters or gorilla tag clones or just hangouts like Horizon or Rec Room have become so much the norm that people aren’t really trying to make deeper single player games with stories anymore.

That’s a shame, too, because when they’re done right, they are incredible in VR! The Resident Evil 4 VR game was incredible. It’s based off the original GameCube release, not the recent remake which I still haven’t played. But without having played the remake I’ll say that the VR version is now my favorite version of RE4. It was incredibly immersive, and the big bosses were truly scary as they look right at you and come towards you! Then there was a remake of one of my favorite PC games from the 90s, The 7^th Guest. How surprising that that got a remake! But man, it was so immersive to walk around this haunted mansion at night solving puzzles. They even found a clever way to make FMV worthy of a wow-factor again by recording live actors with special cameras that allowed you to talk all around them, or closer or further away, and it’s like they’re in the room with you. It was pretty cool!

But those moments are so few and far between these days. And that’s especially so now if like me you own a Quest 2 and not the 3. The latest game to probably live up to the single player VR hype is the new Batman game, but that is a Quest 3 exclusive. And I believe there’s a Deadpool game coming out in a short while, also Quest 3 only. I had strongly considered getting a Quest 3, but after some time to think about it, I just can’t justify it when it seems that you get these amazing games so infrequently. Everything else is free-to-play team based shooters, and they all look alike and all look uninteresting.

I still pop on my Quest 2 from time to time and play some games, and I still think the potential for VR as a gaming platform is strong. But I’m very doubtful now that it will ever fully get there, especially with companies like Meta and Apple now going more towards mixed reality instead of VR, and trying to find more uses for it beyond gaming. No one wants to take a meeting inside a headset, Meta, stop trying to make it happen!

I guess this post ended up sounding a lot more negative than I meant for it to. But I think it’s just my frustration because VR gaming is so cool, and with something like the Quest it just finally works well and affordably, but it still hasn’t taken hold.