After Bethesda gifted us DOOM and Fallout 4 VR, we couldn’t help but feel hungry for more virtual worlds to plunge our very real eyes into. VR has come a long way from its shaky early days, but there’s still a distinct lack of full games to hold our attention. It might not be the future of gaming, but VR offers a truly novel and incredibly immersive way to enjoy our favorite pastime. Here are the games we’d love to see make the jump to VR.
1. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
While the action-heavy portions of the game wouldn’t translate smoothly, the added immersion of VR could make Senua’s journey with psychosis into an experience like no other. Hellblade’s spatial audio seems the perfect match for VR’s free-form head motion, allowing you to react naturally to the voices of the Furies around you. It helps that the world is realised in brilliant fidelity, too. Though it’s not always be the happiest place to be, the land Senua inhabits is jaw-droppingly gorgeous — all the more reason to see it up close in VR.
(Psst, check out our list of the 10 most controversial games of all time. We still get salty when we remember number #9...)
Hellblade would require a significant amount of work in bring it to VR, but honestly we’d rather developers took the time to polish the experience than simply shove VR in and be damned to the consequences (we’re looking at you Fallout). VR melee combat has yet to prove itself, and Hellblades third-person combos would likely fall flat. For that reason, we’d propose removing the combat altogether, and instead simply let players enjoy the best parts the game has to offer.
2. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
With the first-person mode proving popular despite its many janky issues, a bonus VR mode just makes sense. Considering the game’s staggeringly large player base, this might be one multiplayer VR title that actually sustains a community.
Horror has established itself as a prime genre for VR, and while PUBG may not offer the traditional scares, the constant level of tension would only be heightened — we can already imagine swinging our heads wildly, desperately searching for the source of incoming shots. The foot-and-vehicle based gameplay makes perfect sense for VR, and those long range sniper shots that so often result in our downfall would be a hell of a lot tougher to land when lined up physically with your hands.
(Do you ever find yourself wondering, what were the best guns in games in 2017? Then you'll like this list of the most satisfying guns in games in 2017.)
Considering the Xbox and Xbox One struggle to run PUBG as it is, we doubt the current generation of consoles could handle a VR port, and that’s assuming the game eventually makes its way to PlayStation 4. However, it’s still a nice pipe dream for the future, and there’s no reason the PC release couldn’t pave the way once more.
3. Gone Home
VR is often best-fitted to slower-paced, combat-lite titles, so we’d like to see it taken back to some real classics in the walking genre. Fullbright’s Gone Home drew serious critical acclaim back in 2013, and would make a perfect point of entry. Its engaging story is related only through notes and hints scattered through the vacant house you're dropped infront of. Entering a more relatable setting in VR should make for an interesting change, and would allow you to truly appreciate all the tiny details that really brought Gone Home’s simple house to life. VR also offers a much more natural means by which to discover each clue to the game's story, as you peer around each room or physically open draws.
After five years since release, we’ve all but forgotten the layout of the house and many of the secrets you uncover, making this the ideal time to head back in via new technology. The short, two hour length means you can easily finish the game in one session, and you probably won’t be left feeling queasy afterwards. If a VR port of Gone Home proved successful, we can’t see any reason more recent titles like the stellar What Remains of Edith Finch or Tacoma shouldn’t receive the treatment as well. Indie titles like these with simple controls and constrained environments seem the perfect fit for VR conversion, relying more on the world and narrative to draw you in — immersive aspects which would only be strengthened in VR. It’s a shame then that the cost of doing so doesn’t seem to be worth the investment yet for these smaller teams.
4. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
VR Mario Kart is already a thing. We’ve seen it in action, and you can go and play it right now — assuming you can make it to Shinjuku in Tokyo, Japan, of course. What we want now is this experience brought to the home market. Imagine competing on the each of Mario Kart 8’s courses in VR, careering through Moo Moo Meadows and racing down Shy Guy Falls. Heck, we’d even splash out on a driving wheel just for that. Getting Blue Shelled on the final lap is a classic MK experience, but imagine physically looking upwards to see that spiky blue bastard hovering above, just waiting to ruin your day.
While Nintendo could craft an entirely new experience for the VR experience, Mario Kart 8 is such an impeccable game, it’d feel a waste not to make use of it. And of course, MK8 VR would let us experience Luigi’s infamous death-stare face to face. In fact, we like to see Luigi players be given a dedicated ENGAGE DEATH STARE button, to really help nail those drive-by glares. Come on Nintendo, make it happen.
5. The Witness
Why do we want a game about 2D line puzzles to be ported to VR? Because despite its fiendish puzzles, what really sells The Witness is its island. The backdrop on which we drew hundreds of simple black and white lines is the secret masterstroke of the game, segmented into unique biomes, each paired with a distinct puzzle technique to learn. From building a path through treetops to exploring castle grounds, the world is a delight to enjoy, and the near cel-shaded art style should survive the transition in all its clear and simple glory.
(Never mind about VR, how about the games we'd like to see with a battle royale mode? Click through to keep riding the wishlist wave.)