The best PlayStation VR games for your shiny fresh headset
The PlayStation VR is well and truly in living rooms and Sony has done a nice job at getting indie devs on board alongside big names like Ubisoft and EA.
If you’re still on the fence, you can read our total PlayStation VR review. As for the games, you’ll find the best of the bunch below, and we’ll be continually revising this as more show up.
Sony exposed it shifted an extraordinaire 915,000 units in the very first four months that the headset was on sale, and an accessible price of £349 should help the company proceed to sell nicely in 2017, albeit note that Oculus recently brought down the price of the Rift (with Touch controllers) to $499, making it a bit more competitive. For PS VR there are also various bundles where you’ll get the headset, PlayStation Camera and two Stir controllers along with PlayStation VR Worlds and a Playroom VR digital download.
In the list below, we’ve put the games we’ve played up top, and below that are the upcoming games we’re most excited for. Some are PS4 titles which now have a VR mode, some were built specifically for virtual reality. Let us know what you’re playing in the comments sections.
Superhot VR
At last, one of the best VR games hit the PS VR. Superhot’s unique mechanic means time only moves when you do, turning you into a total bullet-dodging badass. While the limitations of the PS VR’s camera make this version feel a little more constrained than the other versions, it’s still just as much joy.
Archangel
Movie production studio Skydance Interactive makes its virtual reality debut with this on-the-rails arcade shooter. Strapped inwards a giant mech, each arm loaded with an arsenal of weapons at your disposition, you must help lead the United States Free Compels in their war against HUMNX. Budge controllers are optional for controlling the mech’s arms, but we’d recommend them.
Farpoint
This PSVR sensational also happens to be the launch title for the fresh Aim Controller, which comes with stimulation feedback and movability sensing. Think of Farpoint as a more modern version of classic arcade shooters like House of the Dead, except in VR and you’re a space marine that’s crash landed on a hostile alien planet. We’ve indeed liked what we’ve played, but be warned that it’s fairly a brief practice.
Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes
A stiff fave from other VR platforms like Oculus/Gear VR, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a neat example of a group PlayStation VR game (from Steel Crate Games) for the living room. One of you wears the VR headset, the rest have a ‘manual’ to help you defuse a ticking bomb within VR by telling you what to do. Expect it to feel quick and furious, especially if you’re the one in the headset. For two to four players.
Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin
The PS2 cult class Psychonauts is getting a sequel for PS4, but in the meantime developer Dual Fine has produced a VR game to bridge the two together. But this is more than a side project; Psychonauts: In the Rhombus of Ruin has enough substance to go the distance (at least three hours, and that’s if you’re speeding through).
The first-person update on the point-and-click genre has all the charm you’d expect from a game written by Tim Schafer, while the movement mechanics do well to avert any nausea problems. Be sure to check out our talk with Dual Fine about bringing Psychonauts into virtual reality.
Equipments Mechanized Combat League
Equipments sounds a little nutty at very first. Through a combination of drivable combat robots, basketball and major league sports elements, you get a first-person multiplayer shooter that will likely be popular on Twitch. You’re in a seated mech cockpit and you turn your head to aim, meaning it’s well suited to the seated practice. There’s deathmatch and football modes and twenty four Equipments to choose from – you’ve just gotta get through that thirty minute tutorial (ugh) very first.
Batman Arkham VR
Be the Batman in VR – what more sell do you need than that? The fresh Arkham game from Rocksteady Studios is already one of our favourite PS VR titles and sees you exploring iconic Gotham locations like the Batcave. The game concentrates on Batman’s abilities as a detective, but don’t worry, you’ll still get slew of opportunities to throw around some Battarangs.
The story is a comic book-style murder mystery, with a fairly slow rhythm and dark mood. But interacting with other characters, rewinding time at crime scenes, putting on the Batsuit and fighting high above Gotham are all pretty thrilling in these gorgeous, detailed VR environments. (Our peak: Best played with Stir controllers and standing, tho’ you can use DualShock if you choose).
Rez Infinite
A PS4 remake of Sega’s psychedelic rail-shooter Rez – a PlayStation two cult classic – now includes VR support, not to mention upgraded graphics. With gameplay that might not last you more than an hour, you may think the price is high, but you won’t feel shortchanged. The combination of intense, abstract visuals and music here is hard to strike in terms of immersion. A must download.
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
Resident Evil is back, and it’s better than the series has been in fairly some time. Not only that, but the latest entry, Biohazard, lets you play entirely in VR for added scares. It’s a good showcase of how PS VR can go the distance with a full-length game, a quality entry to the franchise, and damn horrifying to boot.
I Expect You To Die
This spy-themed escape-the-room puzzler is one of our favourite VR games yet, and the title doesn’t lie: you are going to die a lot. Plonked into a series of tricky situations, you’ll have to use your brains to come up with an exit strategy before it all goes to hell. Can you escape – or more pertinently, how many different ways can you die?
The London Heist (VR Worlds)
Set in London’s gritty criminal underworld, this is one of the five practices in VR Worlds. The London Heist permits you to use the PlayStation Stir controllers in both palms for added realism, so you can duck for cover, suspend out of windows, smoke a cigar and by hand reload your gun with clips, all while feeling like a total badass. Putting on your own cockney accent while you ‘top’ bad geezers is totally optional. There’s only about 20/30 minutes of gameplay, and it’s a shame we won’t get more, but it’s still worth checking out.
Job Simulator
As long as you know what you’re getting here – a bright, ordinary, beginner friendly set of simulator games – you won’t be disappointed. A fine choice to demonstrate frightened family members what VR is like in a world that plays rapid and liberate with the definition of “job”. The Stir controllers are your arms, and your workspace is your toybox. Hours of joy assured.
Thumper
Bizarre yet mesmerising, Thumper is a “rhythm violence” game that is one of the most intense practices you can have on the PlayStation VR.
You hit your DualShock controller to match a drum hit as you would in a more loosening Guitar Hero-style screenplay. Ominous graphics pulse all around as you control a bug hurtling down a track. There are also obstacles and combos of rhythms to take down big bosses. Pretty damn unique.
Eagle Flight
Ubisoft’s experimental VR demo is now an official PlayStation VR title. Eagle Flight a third-person game/practice of, well, flying as an eagle over the streets of Paris. Only there are no people, and animals wander the city.
Multiplayer is joy with three v three ‘capture the prey’ gameplay but the story missions and challenges embark more serenely – collecting items, perfecting your tilting mechanism, sliding over rivers or swooping underground – before moving onto battles in the sky. There’s also free wander if you just want to feel like you’re flying for a while and admire the beaut CG view. Ubisoft has also made it cross-platform (as it will for its future VR lineup), meaning you can play with friends who have an Oculus Rift of HTC Vive.
Starlet Trek: Bridge Team
How excited you are about Ubisoft and Crimson Storm’s Starlet Trek VR game depends on how much you want to fiddle with Federation starship controls and well, how much you’re into Starlet Trek. Down with both? Proceed. But even if Stark Trek isn’t your think, Bridge Team is arguably the best showcase right now of what multiplayer VR can be, as you and three other people must work together to directive the S.S.Aegis through the wonders and dangers of space.
Tumble VR
Away from the act is puzzle title Tumble VR. Play with DualShock or Budge controllers (the latter are more helpful) as you stack objects of varying weights, mirror laser bars around a course and demolish groups of 3D shapes. You’ll need a stable mitt and some patience. Single and multiplayer, this is oddly calming. Cheap, too.