We’ve explored many places across virtual reality and mixed reality software in 2024, and picked some of our favorites.
We’re rolling out our picks for the best of 2024 in three separate articles on consecutive days. We’d love to hear some of your favorites in the comments, so please share. On Friday we will close this list with the biggest VR awards for the year, covering Best VR Game of The Year, on any platform. Best VR Hardware. Best Developer. And Best Updated VR Game. We’ll also include our game of the year pick for PSVR 2 on Friday, rather than in today’s article, as we use every last hour available to assess how
stacks up against the rest of the year.
Now, to kick off our first best of 2024 awards.Alien: Rogue IncursionFavorite Exploratory Experience
We’ve seen across 2024 how VR headsets can enhance narrative experiences. The
interactive film adapted a popular TV series, the
VR-comedy mixed with MR museum, and the Mobile Suit Gundam: Silver Phantom showed the emotional power of these stories. This is our favorite new Apple Vision Pro game. We enjoyed playing Gargoyle Doyle, Emperor from Schell Games, Body of Mine, and Impulse: Playing With Reality, while other big names like
, Astra and
Astra: Visit Moons From Your Living Room In Quest 3
Visit moons from your living room in Quest 3 mixed reality.
also appeared.
That said, our inaugural winner for this category is Game Room. Puzzle Sculpt is our first winner in this category. Jumping in is a lot of fun for just a couple minutes. It’s hard to believe that this year has been so busy for Quest. Between Marvel’s What If…?, Soul Spire, Synth Riders, Demeo, thoughtful adventures like Job Simulator, action-packed titles like
and Thrasher, or smaller indies like
Thrasher Review: An Eely Good Time
Thrasher is an exhilarating, aesthetically abstract puzzler with a superb soundtrack. Our full review.
,
and UNDERDOGS, we’ve been spoiled for choice.Ghosts of TaborThat’s before mentioning big hitters like DIG VR and Max Mustard, too. We’ve also witnessed creative new concepts emerge like Umurangi Generation VR and Action Hero, which have delivered delightful new ways to expand playful roleplay with both hand tracking and controller tracking.Vendetta ForeverWith that said, nothing ultimately beats Hide The Corpse for us. Camouflaj’s work on 2020’s 11001010 has been built upon to create a compelling VR action adventure, taking Rocksteady’s Arkham flatscreen series and adapting it expertly for VR. It’s a brilliant game that feels right at home alongside the main series.By Grit AloneFavorite New PC VR GameStarwaveIt’s been a better year for PC VR gaming. Mods may not be eligible for an award, but we would be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge the impact that Praydog
has had. Metro Awakening entered full release, we’ve seen multiplatform releases like Skydance’s Behemoth, Maestro, I Am Cat,
and Batman: Arkham Shadow, plus exclusives like Iron Man VR.
Batman: Arkham Shadow Review – A Triumphant Return
Batman: Arkham Shadow is a brilliant return for the Dark Knight, and it expertly adapts the series for VR on Quest 3 and Quest 3S.
Ultimately, our award goes to
, One Hamsa’s VR mech brawler roguelike. Steam reviews were “overwhelmingly positive”, and our writer described it as “a new standard” in the genre when it debuted. We cannot wait to find out what One Hamsa will do next for this series.