Welcome to UploadVR’s Better of VR Awards for 2024.
2024 has been a busy 12 months for VR and the broader XR trade, delivering new {hardware} releases and a robust set of recent VR video games. As 2024 involves an in depth, we’re as soon as once more utilizing our Better of VR Awards to spotlight essentially the most distinctive picks throughout {hardware} and software program this 12 months. Every class will characteristic one winner and related honorable mentions.
Identical to final 12 months, our acknowledged winners and nominations are largely video games or experiences at present in full launch. Nonetheless, we have included awards for particular early entry initiatives, and in addition established some new classes this 12 months.
On Wednesday, we famous our favourite newly launched platform favorites for Quest, PCVR, and Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional. We acknowledged the excellent achievements of Batman: Arkham Shadow, Underdogs, and Thrasher in 2024 throughout these platforms.
On Thursday, we centered on the rising classes of blended actuality apps and hand monitoring. We acknowledged the breakthrough work of Maestro with hand monitoring and Figmin XR with blended actuality, and in addition highlighted some early work like Airspace Defender and Laser Dance that we’re hoping to see proceed to develop in 2025.
Now on Friday, we have ready UploadVR’s picks for Better of VR 2024.
Greatest Up to date VR Recreation
Whereas 2024 has delivered an unprecedented wave of recent releases, loads of present video games have obtained noteworthy assist. New music packs maintain coming to Beat Saber, Synth Riders, Smash Drums and Drums Rock, Hellsweeper VR rotated a rocky launch on PS VR2, whereas Asgard’s Wrath 2 and Amongst Us VR frequently added new occasions. That is earlier than contemplating No Man’s Sky, which delivered a constant slate of updates that proceed constructing this bold journey recreation.
There’s been quite a bit however there can solely be one winner, and it is Walkabout Mini Golf. Walkabout established an $8 per season launch schedule for a pair of recent locations, with the latest Vacation Hideaway DLC and 8-Bit Lair programs showcasing pleasant new gameplay concepts. Walkabout’s paths by way of VR carry individuals into headsets for normal journeys and the latest iOS model connects gamers on-the-go as nicely, as growth studio Mighty Coconut strikes towards providing you with new causes each week to spend time collectively in VR.
Walkabout Mini Golf Overview: Important VR Price Scheduling With Buddies
Walkbout Mini Golf is out at this time on PSVR 2 and considered one of VR’s important video games on any platform. Our evaluation:
Greatest VR Developer
Lucas Martell is the founding father of Mighty Coconut and, as of 2024, he’s using a couple of dozen “coconuts” on the studio making Walkabout Mini Golf, together with some latest hires close to the top of the 12 months. With headquarters in Austin, Texas, the coconuts embody artists constructing from dwelling as distant as Australia.
To construct new programs, which take greater than a 12 months to stack up from fundamental blocks in Gravity Sketch, Martell joins fellow artists on the studio to begin the method in VR putting the elemental blocking of the world. Martell additionally drops into the code himself to implement some concepts immediately, as one “coconut” defined to me, simply as he did when he was first engaged on the sport by himself in 2020.
Martell tells UploadVR that Mighty Coconut stays totally self-funded, with no buyers nor intentions to promote the corporate. Which means when the studio releases a brand new course for Walkabout on any platform, we anticipate a majority of the per course per platform payment to come back immediately beneath Martell’s management to assist and develop the inventive course of he is constructing with this staff.
Walkabout options forward-thinking design throughout releases on Steam, Quest, Sony, Pico, and iOS – there’s even assist for iPad – and whereas they’re sticking to their six-week launch cycle as a lot as for brand new programs going ahead, the studio can also be exploring methods to unlock new content material and occasions within the recreation on a weekly foundation.
In keeping with the studio, “60% of VR classes” in Walkabout are multiplayer with a majority of customers taking part in the sport for two hours and plenty of of them till the battery runs lifeless. Learn our story concerning the twins who outfitted themselves with prolonged USB cables to maintain themselves related throughout every new Walkabout course.
Why VR? Flying By The Eiffel Tower With Your Sister
The twins stay a time zone aside in lives pushed by their schedules at work. However they find time for mini golf in VR.
Final 12 months, we chosen Zach Tsiakalis-Brown at Zulubo Productions as developer of the 12 months, and make sure you take a look at Vertigo 2: Into The Aether in 2025.
As VR grows bigger in 2025 and also you’re searching for one thing to do, whether or not you are getting along with associates, placing together with your iPhone, or dropping into VR for a fast 9 holes of focus and leisure, we’re studying to anticipate the surprising from the reliably creative growth staff at Mighty Coconut led by Lucas Martell.
The studio tells us gamers collectively spent greater than 6 million hours within the recreation in 2024. Whereas we do not usually write about self-importance metrics like these, we expect it is notable so as to add that Mighty Coconut tells us this quantity is up 23% from the 12 months prior.
Greatest Early Entry Recreation
This 12 months’s seen a couple of promising contenders at present obtainable in early entry. Bootstrap Island has began sturdy for PC VR survival, Frenzies gives an pleasant multiplayer shooter that helps six participant groups, whereas different highlights embody Into The Radius 2, Final Stand, One True Path, and Mecha Pressure.
This goes to Downtown Membership, a simcade racing recreation by Commuter Video games that options full digital controls. Although we believed the preliminary launch was a bit sparse, we discovered a promising racer that is gained us over up to now, and we won’t wait to see the place it goes subsequent.
Downtown Membership Overview-In-Progress: A Strong Chassis On Which To Construct
Downtown Membership is a enjoyable however sparse early entry VR racer with full digital controls, lovely visuals, and a promising future. Our review-in-progress.
Greatest New VR/AR {Hardware}
This 12 months included a number of notable {hardware} releases.
Quest 3S lowered the worth of entry to blended actuality and higher-quality standalone VR to simply $300, and introduced the power to make use of hand monitoring at midnight to a Meta headset for the primary time. In the meantime, Pico 4 Extremely supplied the primary true Quest 3 competitor, Logitech’s MX Ink delivered a brand new sort of enter for spatial artwork, and Sony turned PlayStation VR2 right into a PC VR headset with a $60 adapter.
However one {hardware} launch stands out as essentially the most vital by far: Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional. Not solely does it mark the entry of the world’s largest tech firm into XR, it additionally launched numerous vital firsts, most of which might be commonplace in all headsets finally.
Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional Overview: A Heavy Transportable Cinema & Monitor
At $3500, Apple units enormous expectations with Imaginative and prescient Professional. However does it ship? And what’s it actually wish to personal and use? Learn our in-depth Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional {hardware} & software program evaluation right here:
Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional is the primary headset with extremely excessive decision micro-OLED shows, making it the primary actually suited to show bodily screens into software program, together with watching motion pictures and conjuring no matter productiveness setup you need, irrespective of the place you’re.
Its working system is simply as vital. visionOS goes far past any Android fork and even any main PC VR runtime, introducing a brand new idea of a Shared Area the place as many home windows as you need can run alongside a number of volumetric apps, and others can be part of you as practical Spatial Personas to work together inside a shared coordinate area.
Additional, visionOS leverages Imaginative and prescient Professional’s eye monitoring for a gaze-and-pinch interplay system that the remainder of the trade is ready to observe, together with Google & Samsung, Meta, Immersed, and extra.
Sure, Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional is a $3500+ product for rich tech fans and early adopters, not a mass market machine, and thus it is not having a direct influence for many shoppers. However its clear affect on the trade, together with Meta’s Horizon OS and Google’s Android XR, and the longer term that it proves out, earn it our {hardware} award for 2024, and can nearly actually guarantee its place within the 2024 part of each historical past of expertise e-book ever written.
Greatest New Multiplayer Recreation
We have seen a couple of sturdy contenders for VR multiplayer throughout 2024. Spatial Ops delivered a promising blended actuality shooter, Exploding Kittens VR and Simply Dance VR delivered pleasant diversifications for his or her respective collection. Different highlights embody Contractors Showdown, Into Black, Ghosts of Tabor, Human Fall Flat VR and Iron Insurrection.
In the end, we’re selecting Model. Quick Journey Video games delivered a inventive tackle Prop Hunt that is significantly entertaining whereas making nice use of VR, as two brokers attempt to search out three shape-shifting aliens that may freeze into place. That is solely continued enhancing since full launch because of common updates like mod assist, new modes and extra maps.
Favourite PS VR2 Recreation Of The Yr 2024
As PlayStation VR2 enters its second 12 months, it has been a 12 months largely held up by multi-platform launches. My First Gran Turismo is the one first-party title we have seen with PS VR2 assist, whereas third-party publishers introduced quite a few massive hitters like Arizona Sunshine Remake, Skydance’s Behemoth, Max Mustard, Trombone Champ: Unflattened, Vertigo 2, and Alien: Rogue Incursion.
For 2024, we’re naming Metro Awakening as our PlayStation VR2 Recreation of the Yr. Vertigo Video games’ prequel to the long-running flatscreen collection delivered sturdy atmospheric storytelling for a “mesmerizing story of survival” within the Moscow underground.
Metro Awakening Overview: A Mesmerizing Story of Survival in Moscow’s Darkish Underworld
Go deep underground into the Metro and expertise the dystopian way forward for a post-nuclear apocalyptic Russia in Metro Awakening.
VR Recreation Of The Yr 2024
And so, we attain our largest award for this 12 months. Very like 2023, this was a troublesome name with fierce competitors throughout the board. Arizona Sunshine Remake, Skydance’s Behemoth, Max Mustard, Trombone Champ: Unflattened, UNDERDOGS, Metro Awakening, and Iron Insurrection.
Identical to on Quest, our final winner for VR Recreation of the Yr 2024 is Batman: Arkham Shadow. Whereas the preliminary launch had some efficiency points which have since obtained quite a few fixes, Camouflaj’s action-adventure hit delivered one of many strongest experiences we have seen but that feels at dwelling within the Arkham universe.
Batman: Arkham Shadow Devs Speak Rescue Imaginative and prescient, Distant Work & New Recreation+
Batman: Arkham Shadow devs speak by way of Rescue Imaginative and prescient, managing manufacturing and the potential for a New Recreation+ mode.
It is a good second go for Batman in digital actuality and very similar to Camouflaj, we might like to see the studio make a sequel within the coming years. Taking part in because the caped crusader has by no means felt this good, the gripping narrative blended with strong motion mechanics maintain you invested.
For that purpose, Batman: Arkham Shadow is our a lot deserved VR Recreation of the Yr for 2024.
Batman: Arkham Shadow Overview – A Triumphant Return
Batman: Arkham Shadow is an excellent return for the Darkish Knight, and it expertly adapts the collection for VR on Quest 3 and Quest 3S.
Most Anticipated VR Recreation of 2025
Whereas 2024’s introduced a robust line-up of upcoming VR and MR video games, 2025 and past already seems to be good. Aces of Thunder, The Midnight Stroll, POOLS, Orion Drift, Silent North, Glassbreakers, Ghost City, Roboquest VR, and Arken Age are all exhibiting appreciable potential. Although we do not depend DLC, let’s not neglect Vertigo 2: Into The Aether, both.
Our winner is a time journey journey recreation, Wanderer: The Fragments Of Destiny by Mighty Eyes. What we have seen up to now seems to be like a promising remake of Wanderer, and it is at present focusing on a Q1 2025 launch throughout Quest, Steam, PS VR2, and Pico.
