AC thVRsday
This week, visitor editor Michael Hicks is protecting Nick Sutrich’s weekly column on all issues VR, from new {hardware} to new video games.
Quest headsets took a again seat at Meta Join 2025. Zuckerberg centered on good glasses and signaled that Meta will shift its VR focus to 3D media like Avatar. However in my time at Join, it solely took a couple of minutes of Star Wars podracing, Dungeons & Dragons battles, and Deadpool carnage to remind me of VR gaming’s magical impact on me.
Demoing the Meta Ray-Ban Shows and operating with the Oakley Meta Vanguards was thrilling. It is only a totally different form of pleasure, centered on comfort and mixing expertise into your on a regular basis expertise or exercises.
Once I dove into the demo for Star Wars: Past Victory, although, I used to be transported again into childhood recollections of podracing on the N64 or taking part in with my little Star Wars collectible collectible figurines. And the brand new Demeo x D&D VR sport introduced me again to my highschool days of tabletop roleplaying.
It is a reminder that even when the Quest 3 and Quest 3S aren’t cutting-edge or Meta’s number-one precedence, they continue to be as immersive and transformative as ever.
Recapturing the imaginative pleasure of Star Wars
ILM’s sport has a little bit of a generic identify, however Past Victory is actually a cross between Podracing VR and Star Wars Motion Determine VR. And each of them despatched me to a faraway galaxy in numerous methods.
The primary story mode has you becoming a member of the podracing circuit below the tutelage of Anakin’s outdated nemesis, Sebulba. Nevertheless it would not put you inside a cockpit in first-person view, as you would possibly anticipate for VR; as an alternative, it is extra of a top-down racing model the place you must react shortly to obstacles and power-ups floating into the play area.
Followers of the N64 sport might need most well-liked a first-person sport with cockpit immersion, much like Squadrons. As a substitute, ILM went for a similar kid-friendly vibe as driving Scorching Wheels toy automobiles on motorized loop tracks.
I have to hone my reflexes to enhance on the sport, however I felt that very same nostalgic pleasure as after I podraced on the N64 or first watched the movie as a child.
The Playset mode, in the meantime, has a easy premise: what if you wish to put a Stormtrooper in a Karate Child pose, dueling C-3PO holding a lightsaber, or have a Godzilla-sized Darth Vader stomping on tiny rebels? The reply is, you’ll be able to, and I did!
It is not “gameplay” within the conventional sense (although you’ll be able to hearth weapons to “kill” figures). Past Victory’s Playset mode provides you a sandbox restricted by your creativeness, finest suited to the Gorilla Tag demographic, however nonetheless a enjoyable diversion for kids-at-heart, recapturing their imaginary video games.
D&D, Deadpool, and the great outdated days
I already received an opportunity to attempt the Deadpool VR demo earlier this yr, and liked the creatively grotesque fight, snarky meta-dialogue, and the spectacular comic-style graphics. I performed it once more at Join 2025, simply to reexperience the violent adolescent pleasure.
Once I play video video games as of late, I usually have one eye on my cellphone or hearken to a podcast. I lack time to sink hours into video games or totally immerse myself in a world, and I really feel too grounded in real-life issues and busyness to escape.
When taking part in Deadpool and Batman: Arkham Shadow in VR, although, I get that refreshing feeling that I’ve stepped into the comedian guide pages and I am roleplaying how they’d act and combat. VR video games like these nonetheless have that particular high quality of transporting me some place else, the way in which I used to.
I additionally loved taking part in Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked with three different individuals — dungeon-crawling by way of a tabletop setting and taking down foes as a shifty rogue — for related nostalgic causes.
I used to play my justifiable share of tabletop RPGs (largely D&D) and board video games, however my good friend teams switched to lunches and bars once they discovered it exhausting to commit hours to rolling cube and roleplaying.
Demeo is not complicated or narrative-driven like Baldur’s Gate 3. As a substitute, Decision Video games made a sit-down-and-play model sport that brings again that feeling of sitting with HS buddies round a desk on the weekends, with out being too difficult.
The VR gaming magic’s nonetheless there
After spending a handful of seconds on the VR video games above, Zuckerberg spent way more time discussing “3D storytelling,” the brand new Horizon TV app, and the way VR movies will push a brand new era of customers to Quest. They even invited James Cameron to come back on stage and discuss his imaginative and prescient for 3D content material.
I am not stunned by this reprioritization: Meta’s Chris Pruett talked at GDC 2025 about promoting Quests to 30-something dads who wish to watch TV as an alternative of gaming, and we have already got hints that the Quest 4 can be redesigned to prioritize 3D movies.
However even when VR is not thought of as mind-blowing because it was through the pandemic days — when individuals used it to really feel much less remoted — it isn’t any much less highly effective an expertise.
My colleague Nick has additionally written about XR video games bringing again youthful pleasure, particularly tabletop-style video games the place you place plastic troopers, toy trains, or Legos. And I am certain others who have not given up on VR really feel the identical.
The Quest 3 and 3S do the exhausting work of making imaginative templates that I might need as soon as conjured up from nothing as a child, however cannot anymore. And because of full-color blended actuality, these video games nearly really feel extra actual than full VR worlds as a result of they’re inserted into my front room.
I do not blame people for being pumped concerning the new Ray-Ban and Oakley good glasses. However I hope they do not quit on VR, both!
The Meta Quest 3S might not be as gentle or fashionable as Ray-Ban Meta glasses, however you are getting 1000’s of VR and MR experiences — together with Batman VR without cost — in a wi-fi, comfy headset.
