New tweets from a Resident Evil Twitter account indicate that development has started on PSVR 2 content for the Resident Evil 4 Remake, set to release next month.
The tweets in question come from the official Resident Evil account on Twitter and while the content was tweeted in Japanese, running the tweets through online translators does reveal some info. Translations of the first tweet indicate that the studio has “started development” on a “VR mode” for the Resident Evil 4 Remake. Translations of the second tweet indicate that the VR mode will be “distributed as free DLC for PlayStation5 / PlayStationVR2.”
What’s most interesting about these new tweets is that they refer to a ‘VR Mode’, which is the same language used to describe Resident Evil Village’s PSVR 2 support. In the initial announcement, Capcom described VR support for the RE4 Remake as ‘PSVR 2 Content‘, stopping short of saying the entire game would be playable in VR.
All that said, this remains unverified and the unreliable nature of online translators means that we can’t be certain what the ‘VR Mode’ will and won’t include. Regardless of what content is included, it seems fair to assume that the PSVR 2 support might not arrive for the Resident Evil 4 Remake at launch. The remake is set for a March 23 release date – a month away – and according to these tweets, development on VR support has only just begun. Plus, the description of it being “distributed as free DLC” makes a post-launch arrival seem even more likely.
This will be the second version of Resident Evil 4 available on VR headsets. Previously, Meta released a reimagining of the original for the Quest platform, translated and re-worked for VR by Amarture. However, this new version of RE4 coming next month is a full remake and any VR content is likely to look – and play – very differently to that Quest release.
Earlier this week, PSVR 2 supported went live for Resident Evil Village on PS5. Stay tuned for our full review coming next week.
PlayStation VR2 ships today. Here’s our technical analysis of it as VR hardware.
PSVR 2 offers major upgrades over the original 2016 product. PSVR 1 required an array of cables connected to a breakout box and a PlayStation Camera, while PSVR 2 connects via a single USB-C cable and has onboard cameras for inside-out tracking. It also features significantly higher resolution HDR displays, wider field of view lenses, eye tracking, head vibration, and ergonomic controllers with thumbsticks & high-fidelity haptics.
PlayStation VR
PlayStation VR2
Released
October 2016
February 2023
Compatible Consoles
PS4 / PS4 Pro / PS5*
PS5
Connection
HDMI + USB + AC Power
USB-C
Lens Type
Aspheric
Fresnel
Field of View
100°
110°
Screen Type
OLED
HDR OLED
Pixels Per Eye
960×1080
2000×2040
Max Refresh Rate
120 Hz
120 Hz
Lens Separation Adjustment
𐄂
✓
Positional Tracking
Camera Bar Required
Built-In Inside-Out
Passthrough
𐄂
Black & White
Eye Tracking
𐄂
✓
Headset Rumble
𐄂
✓
Controller Thumbsticks
𐄂
✓
Controller Haptics
Low Fidelity
High Fidelity
Weight
600g
560g
You should read our full holistic review of PSVR 2 if you want help deciding whether you should actually buy the product. This article is specifically looking at the hardware and technology behind it, including comparisons to PC VR and standalone VR headsets, divorced from the pricing and value proposition.
HDR OLED Panels
PSVR 2 is the only released VR headset with OLED panels since the 2018 Samsung Odyssey+. While the original Oculus Rift and HTC Vive (and even the original Quest) used OLED, LCD has almost entirely taken over the VR market since then.
Why did that happen? In some ways it’s a matter of cost. Those early modern VR headsets rode the wave of increasing OLED smartphone panel pixel densities, but phone resolution plateaued at around 1440p, as the incredibly minor advantage of 4K there didn’t justify the added power consumption. For VR resolution to improve headset makers had to acquire custom panels. Setting up a production line for LCD is much cheaper than for OLED, and thus LCD display makers could offer custom high pixel density panels for newer VR headsets, as seen when HP delivered the 2K per-eye Reverb in 2019. This is probably a major reason for PSVR 2’s surprising price.
OLED panels have a major advantage though. LCD pixels require backlighting, while OLED pixels are self-emissive. OLED pixels can completely turn off, whereas an LCD needs to keep the backlights to illuminate other pixels. That’s why OLED can display true black and deliver a near-infinite contrast ratio.
If you’ve only used LCD headsets, this will be immediately apparent when you first put on PSVR 2. Gone are the murky greys approximating black – virtual darkness actually now looks like darkness, and thus virtual nighttime actually looks like nighttime.
The colors are also more vibrant and intense, lacking the washed-out feeling of most LCD headsets. Combined with the high dynamic range (HDR) capability, the contrast and colors on PSVR 2 are nothing short of stunning.
There are some disadvantages of OLED that affect sharpness and clarity in VR though, one minor and the other major.
The minor issue is that OLED subpixels tend to be smaller, so there’s more space between them. This usually results in a more visible “screen door effect”, but that’s not the case here. Sony appears to be using some kind of diffusion filter to avoid that. The tradeoff of such a filter is that the image looks somewhat soft, not entirely crisp, so PSVR 2’s image appears slightly less sharp than even LCD headsets with lower resolution.
The major issue is that there is a non-uniform fixed pattern noise over the entire screen, called mura. It’s incredibly noticeable and distracting in loading and transition scenes, or when looking at a skybox or other low detail region. It’s not as noticeable in typical gameplay, but it’s still there, and it might leave some people missing LCD.
Overall, PSVR 2’s panels offer incredible colors and unbelievable contrast, but with a softness and noise on top. Resolution-wise, Sony’s marketing calls the headset “4K”, but it’s really dual 2K panels, providing 2K per eye.
Lenses & Field of View
PSVR 2 may be the last major headset to release with fresnel lenses, arriving at a time when all the other big players are moving to pancake. Pancake lenses have a shorter optical path and thus use smaller panels to enable slimmer and lighter headsets, while also offering improved clarity and a wider swee spot. However, they are significantly less optically efficient, requiring much brighter panels to achieve the same viewed brightness.
Sony’s fresnel lenses are a mixed bag. They have a remarkably small sweet spot, meaning you have to position your eyes almost perfectly in the center to get a clear image. Outside of this small area, you’ll see both blurring and color fringing (chromatic aberration). When you do manage to get your eyes into this sweet spot, the image is clear and focused to near the edges of the lens (though not all the way to it). Provided you’re in the sweet spot, it’s the best clarity I’ve seen from a fresnel lens – but still a noticeable step down from pancake lenses.
I suspect Sony stuck with fresnel because they wanted to keep using OLED at all costs. While there are plenty of LCDs suitable for pancake lenses, it may not have been possible to affordably mass-produce OLED panels with the required density to be small enough. Further, OLED panels are typically less bright than LCD, so getting a panel bright enough to overcome the low efficiency of pancake lenses may not have been possible either.
PSVR 2 has eye relief adjustment, meaning you can adjust how close the lenses actually are from your eyes. The closer you bring them the larger the field of view, but the harder the padding will be pushing into your face and nose. When you bring the lenses as close as possible the field of view is impressive, noticeably wider and taller than Quest 2, but that does come at the cost of comfort.
Separation adjustment is the another lens control, and wasn’t present on the original PSVR. This allows you to align the PSVR 2 lenses horizontally with your eyes, as everyone’s eyes are a slightly different distance apart. Given the sweet spot this was a crucial addition and should make PSVR 2 suitable for a wide range of people.
Reprojection Blur
PSVR 2 has three modes for developers to choose from: native 120Hz, native 90Hz, and a third that reprojects 60FPS rendering to 120Hz output.
The reprojection mode is the easiest to achieve, as it only requires 60 frames per second. It enables titles like Horizon Call Of The Mountain and Resident Evil 8 to offer modern AAA graphics. But it has a horrible, incredibly noticeable side effect. Some call it double imaging, while others call it ghosting.
When moving your head around, you’ll notice a motion blur along the edges of every object, and you’ll notice the same on your hands when moving them too. When I first tried PSVR 2 I thought this was a glitch with the game or the unit, so actually asked for it to be rebooted to see if it would be solved. I was shocked to discover it was normal.
Graphically simpler games use the native display modes, completely avoiding this issue. They play as smooth as butter and make you long to have the same feeling in the likes of Horizon.
It’s perhaps possible that Sony can improve its projection algorithm in a software update to improve this, as neither Valve’s Motion Smoothing nor Meta’s SpaceWarp are anywhere near as bad as PSVR2’s reprojection. If that’s not possible, I’d love to see developers of high fidelity titles offer a graphically inferior “performance mode”, as I’d choose it every time in a heartbeat.
Tracking & Passthrough
PSVR 2 ditches the clunky and limited camera bar tracking of its predecessor for onboard inside-out tracking via four cameras, Quest-style. You no longer have to worry about facing the TV or staying within a limited tracking volume, as you now have the freedom to move where you like.
The headset tracking doesn’t have any constant jitter, no matter the environment, but it frequently exhibits minor shifting into position when in anything but ideal conditions, as if to correct itself. This is particularly apparent near strong artificial or natural light sources, such as a window or PC monitor. This was something I noticed in my September hands-on too, so it’s worrying to see it hasn’t been improved on yet.
The controller tracking on the other hand is essentially flawless for me. Whether I was reaching behind my back, moving them rapidly, or even occluding one controller with the other, it just didn’t matter. I’m confident these controllers can handle any VR game Quest 2 can. The impressive performance is probably thanks to the sheer size of the controllers and thus their infrared LED rings. They’re bigger in real life than they appear in images.
The same onboard cameras are also used to show you the real world, for setup or when you just need to see your surroundings. It’s black and white like Quest 2, but significantly higher resolution, sharp enough to make out small details. However, it’s clearly not perspective-correct. There is distortion over the entire view, and walking around the room in it made me feel queasy. Sony isn’t pitching this as a mixed reality headset though, so that’s not a big deal.
Performance & Foveated Rendering
Performance in VR isn’t akin to regular gaming. Outside of VR, dipping below the target framerate is a minor annoyance, but in VR dropping even a few frames makes people feel physically sick and appears as if the entire virtual world around you is juddering.
On PC-based VR platforms, the wide range of different PC components and background services mean you can never be sure what kind of performance you’ll get. Ensuring a smooth experience requires a lot of manual tweaking of settings and resolution.
One of the best things about PlayStation VR is that performance is far more stable and consistent than on any other VR platform, with no tweaking or experimenting required. The console situation of developers targeting known hardware and tightly optimizing around it to maintain performance is ideal for VR. This is also theoretically the case for Quest and Pico, but in practice their mobile processors mean that sometimes dropping frames is simply unavoidable, no matter how hard the developer tries to avoid it.
The PlayStation 5, on the other hand, has sufficient horsepower that I saw almost no frame drops in any of the games I tried. This is probably helped by foveated rendering, but even when I disabled eye tracking it didn’t affect performance – though it did appear to lower the visible resolution.
The lack of backwards compatibility between PSVR 2 and the original PSVR is a bit of a double-edged sword. On one hand, we’re getting a ton of games for Sony’s next-gen VR headset that have been specifically built or overhauled to make use of the new hardware, but it also means a lot of games in your PSVR library will forever be stuck in the past.
Thankfully, there are a handful of developers who have pledged free PSVR 2 support for their games, many of which you can already grab on the store before the headset launches on February 22nd, 2023.
Note: There are a ton of games coming to PSVR 2 you might recognize, although not all studios have mentioned free PSVR 2 support for those games. We’ll be updating this list, so check back for more. Also, in addition to previously released titles getting new PSVR 2 support, we’ve also included brand new titles launching with both PSVR and PSVR 2 support. You’ll find those at the bottom, labeled [NEW].
We’ve also included a [Awaiting Further Confirmation] section at the bottom, which we are in the process of vetting.
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners
Based on the series’ graphic novels, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners tosses you into the flooded ruins of New Orleans, where you face gut-wrenching choices: Kill the zombies? Sure. Join a gang? Okay. Execute someone who may be innocent to maintain an alliance..? That one’s on you. While not a launch title, Skydance is bringing the free PSVR 2 upgrade on March 21st, arriving alongside the sequel as it finally leaves Quest exclusivity.
Puzzling Places is a jigsaw puzzle for the virtual age, bringing to life a vast selection of real-world places that were captured with a technique called photogrammetry. Sit back and relax with a lower number of pieces and enjoy the intricate bits of each puzzling scene, or go for the most difficult mode where you’ll find yourself matching carpet patterns and wooden desk venires in one of the most surprisingly fun purist puzzle games out there. Yup, previously purchased DLC is coming over too.
Looking for a survival game that lets you craft everything you need to fend off the wild primeval beasties of the nigth? Song in the Smoke has your number, and the ‘rekindled’ edition for PSVR 2 is said to be fully remastered with supercharged graphics, new haptics for Sense Controllers, and a new free jump and clamber mode.
Kluge Interactive announced a remastered version of its hit rhythm game Synth Riders. This includes remastered visuals, more nuanced controller haptics, headset feedback for in-game obstacles, next-gen performance and SSD optimization to dramatically reduce load times. And yes, it includes all music DLC previously purchased on the original PSVR so you can pick up where you last left off.
NFL PRO ERA is the first fully licensed NFL VR sim that puts you in the shoes of QB of your favorite NFL team. Lead your team to a Super Bowl, improve your QB skills by participating in drills, or play catch virtually with your friends in your favorite NFL stadium.
During Sony’s CES 2023 conference, the company announced that Gran Turismo 7 will support PSVR 2 at the headset’s launch via a free upgrade for existing owners. Not much was shared about exactly how the game’s VR compatibility will work, including whether it would support the headset’s new motion controllers or rely on the standard PS5 gamepad. Still, it’s a pretty exciting prospect since GT7 is a big upgrade over GT Sport.
A free PSVR 2 upgrade is expected at the headset’s launch in February, which includes the entirety of its main story in VR. We went hands-on with Village back in September, and it proved to not only one of the best-looking games on PS5 to date, but probably one of the best in VR, offering up a level of visual detail that approaches Half-Life: Alyx territory.
Team zombie shooter After the Fall is cross-compatible with PC and Quest, but it’s soon to be available on PSVR 2 too, as Vertigo Games is tossing out support for Sony’s latest and greatest at some point in early 2023. It’s basically Left 4 Dead in VR, and it’s most definitely worth getting a team together since this horde shooter is cross-compatible with PSVR, Quest, and PC VR headsets.
This space simulator used to be considered gaming’s biggest flop, but thanks to Hello Games’ continuous updates it’s become the industry’s biggest redemption story. With the promise of free PSVR 2 support, you’ll be able to strap into No Man’s Sky on launch day with your shiny new headset.
Pistol Whip is a rhythm-shooter from Cloudhead Games, which has thrown out tons of updates and free DLC to keep you blasting away like John Wick to some pretty infectious beats. On PSVR 2, the game is said to offer fine-tuned haptics, adaptive triggers, higher resolution, 3D audio, and SSD optimization to bolster how the game loads and runs.
Zenith: The Last City is one of VR’s most successful MMOs to date, offering up hundreds of hours of quests, jobs, classes, you name it. Developers Ramen VR say it’s getting a free PSVR 2 upgrade. If you already own the PS4 version, the PSVR 2-supported PS5 version is already free to download, so nab it early so you can play with all of your friends on Quest, PC VR headsets, and the original PSVR.
This is a new title coming to both PSVR and PSVR 2, developed by Funktronic Labs, the studio behind Fujii and Cosmic Trip. The Light Brigade tosses you on a procedurally-generated journey to free the souls of the fallen trapped within, making for a tactical roguelike shooting experience you can play on launch-day.
Hello Neighbor: Search and Rescue is another new title getting both PSVR and PSVR 2 support, letting you delve into the same universe of the popular Hello Neighbor stealth horror series. Sneak into your creepy neighbor’s house to save your friend, and don’t get caught.
Cave Digger 2: Dig Harder is a 1-4 player VR adventure game set in an alternative western frontier, where discoveries, dangers and digging await the Prospector. The player is a Prospector who begins their adventure in a seemingly abandoned camp with a goal to extract valuables from the caves, to trade them for new tools, upgrades, and locations in order to advance their frontier exploration.
As the original gangster of VR launch titles, Job Simulator is making the jump to PSVR 2 for free. Yes, you’ll be able to job with the best of them upon PSVR 2’s February 22nd launch in this parody game that is all about stepping into the world of work from a future robot’s point of view.
The sequel to Job Simulator, Vacation Simulator imagines what vacations must have been like in during the age of humanity. This parody game is bigger and arguably funnier than the first, taking you to more locales and giving you more mad cap fun along the way.
Abducted by accident and enrolled into the Startenders Bartending Academy, you will have to shake, slice and serve to survive until you can find a way to escape! Use your skills to create delicious concoctions to serve to your alien patrons, use wacky machines and even wackier ingredients to earn your way home.
In The Tale of Onogoro, Haru has summoned you to the magical Onogoro Island, a floating island in a parallel world. Together, you must solve sprawling puzzles and defeat giant beasts called ‘Kami’ that are blocking your path.
There are a number of games that many expect, or have heard will get either cross-buy or some form of free PSVR 2 upgrade at some point. We’re in the process of verifying these titles; they still have poor documentation (some guy in Discord said it!), or studios haven’t fully committed to free support (“We want to, but we still have to figure it out..)
We’ll move these up to the section above as studios release word, or we find verifiable confirmation. Remember, this list is growing rapidly, so feel free to comment and let us know so we can make this the most complete and accurate article on the subject.
Beat Saber – Beat Games (Meta)
ALVO – Mordonpool
Suicide Guy VR – Chubby Pixel
Swordsman VR – SinnStudio
Windlands 2 – Psytec Games
Rc Airplane Challenge – Strange Games Studios
– – — – –
Did we miss any? Let us know in the comments below, as we’ll be updating this article all the way up to PSVR 2’s launch in February.
The upcoming PlayStation VR2 headset will use eye tracking from specialist group, Tobii.
Tobii itself confirmed the news in a press release today. This follows on from a February 2022 announcement that the company was “in negotiation” with Sony to be integrated into the new headset.
PSVR 2 — which doesn’t yet have a release date — is expected to use eye tracking for a variety of applications, including foveated rendering. This refers to a technique that tracks the user’s gaze and then fully renders only the exact center of where they’re looking. Areas in the peripheral vision aren’t fully rendered — a process that’s intended to be imperceptible to the user — reducing the overall demand on the system powering the VR experience.
In other words, this could help PS5 VR games run and look better, though we’re yet to see the feature in action.
For years now Tobii has developed eye tracking hardware that’s already been integrated into other VR headsets. In 2018, for example, the company worked with Qualcomm to develop a standalone VR reference design with eye-tracking. In 2019, Tobii technology was integrated into the HTC Vive Pro Eye. More recently it was integrated into the HP Reverb G2 Omnicept Edition and the Pico Neo 3 Pro Eye.
Tobii says it expects the deal to represent “more than 10%” of its revenue in 2022.
While we still don’t know exactly when PSVR 2 is launching, reports are pointing towards an early 2023 release for the device and today’s announcement does suggest that Sony might only just be assembling all the necessary components to mass produce the device. This would be in line with a report from prominent supply chain analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo, who noted PSVR 2 would begin mass production in H2 2022, speculating this would mean a Q1 2023 launch. As of today it’s H2 2022.
VR indie studio Bit Planet Games tweeted out a photo yesterday of what appears to be the first spotting of PlayStation VR 2 in the wild. The tweet has since been deleted by the studio, which claims it was faked.
Bit Planet, which is known for its series of Ultrawings VR flying games, tweeted the message “Guess what’s coming to PSVR2? (Right answers only),” implying that Ultrawings is making its way to Sony’s upcoming VR headset for PS5. Under it was ostensibly a PSVR 2 developer kit.
The tweet, which was cached and also captured by Twitter user ‘TobiasRial‘, shows it managed to garner hundreds of replies, retweets, and likes before being taken down.
Image courtesy TobiasRial
The studio claims the photo “Looks fake to us. Chair is badass though,” further stating it was a “Pro Photoshoo [sic] job.”
Image courtesy Bit Planet Games
Paradoxically, in another tweet Bit Planet also claims the image was “Not real. Just cardboard and duct tape and some wires and a lot of 3D printing.”
United States import records from late 2021 onward show that Sony Interactive Entertainment has shipped thousands of boxes containing developer kits from Asia to the US. Although not confirmed, timing suggests those boxes are most likely carrying next-gen PlayStation VR 2 headsets.
While small, Bit Planet is a veteran VR studio which would be an ideal early partner for Sony, as the company is no doubt looking to not only stock new exclusive content for PSVR 2, but also a back catalogue of recent games that have been successful on other platforms.
Provided the image is authentic, it’s likely in violation of the studios non-disclosure agreement (NDA) which is required when platform holders loan out developer kits to studios.
It’s been a pretty decent year for VR so far, but there’s still a huge number of games releasing for Quest, PC VR and PSVR in the second half of 2022.
We’ve compiled a list of every confirmed title below — while some have confirmed release dates or months, there’s quite a few games without a specific date yet. Some just have a season or vague release window, but many others are just scheduled for 2022 without any other specifics.
At the very end, there’s a few games we know are in development, but without any indication of release window. Even if unlikely, a lot of these titles could hypothetically be a surprise release before the end of the year — fingers crossed.
2022 VR Games
Kayak VR: Mirage (June 28) – PC VR
A visually arresting take on kayaking in VR, this physics-driven experience lets you take part in single-player exploration and races across several stunning environments.
Wands Alliances (June 30) – Quest 2
Cortopia Studios follows up on its multiplayer spell-battling game with a new title that features 3v3 matches. Pick your spells and jump into arenas to magical combat with a tactical twist.
Vail VR (Beta, July 1) – PC VR
Competitive VR shooter Vail will be going into beta in July after an extensive alpha testing period.
Moss: Book II (July 21) – Quest 2
While already available on PSVR, this follow-up platformer starring adventurous mouse Quill will come to Quest 2 towards the end of July.
The Twilight Zone VR (July 14) – Quest 2
The Twilight Zone VR will launch with three different tales (or ‘episodes’), each essentially a mini story, that span different genres and are handled by different writers, much like a serialized TV show. A PSVR version will release at a later date — no word on potential PC VR or PSVR 2 releases just yet thought.
Nerf: Ultimate Championship (August 25) – Quest 2
Nerf: Ultimate Championship brings foam bullet action into VR as a team-based multiplayer first-person shooter. You’ll be able to choose between different blasters and play across control point and arena modes, with some parkour mechanics thrown in for good measure.
The Chewllers (Summer, Early Access) – Quest
This four-player co-op game will see you stand atop a tower, covering all angles as the horde or Chewllers approaches. Upgrade your weapons and repair your tower between waves to hold out as long as possible. The game will launch in early access for Quest this summer, with PC VR and PSVR releases planned later down the line.
Requisition VR (Early Access in September) – PC VR
When it launches this fall, NFL Pro Era will be the first officially-licensed NFL VR game, available for Quest 2 and PSVR. It will include all 32 professional NFL teams and will let you embody the quarterback during gameplay.
Espire 2 (November) – Quest 2
This sequel will offer more sandbox stealth with some new features and mechanics, alongside a brand new second campaign designed for co-op multiplayer. It will release in November for Quest 2, but no confirmation for other platforms yet.
Among Us VR (Holiday) – Quest 2, PC VR
Among Us VR brings the viral multiplayer game into VR, where one player embodies the impostor and must murder the other members without arousing suspicion or being discovered. It’s coming to Quest 2 and PC VR during the 2022 holiday period, but there’s no specific date just yet. A PSVR 2 release has also been confirmed for when the headset launches — whenever that may be.
2022 VR Releases – Date TBC
Bonelab – Quest 2, PC VR
This highly anticipated follow-up to 2019’s Boneworks is the next title from Stress Level Zero, launching this year for Quest 2 and PC VR. Bonelab is an action-adventure physics game with a brand new story and “two years of innovation and interaction engine progress” from Boneworks.
Red Matter 2 – Quest 2
Red Matter 2 will pick up right after the first game ended, taking you back to the mysterious planet plagued by horrific anomalies. You’re now on a rescue mission, searching for an old friend, with more environmental storytelling and puzzle solving. While it’s coming to Quest 2 this year, there’s no word on PSVR or PC VR releases just yet.
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners – Chapter 2: Retribution – Quest 2, PC VR, PSVR
This Walking Dead follow-up game is set to release on all major headset platforms late this year, giving players a chance to step back into the world with a new map and weapons — including a gore-inducing chainsaw. A PSVR 2 release is also confirmed, but not until next year.
Gambit – Quest 2, PC VR
This co-op VR shooter will see you complete heist-style missions, shooting and looting with your friends through a 20+ hour campaign. It’s coming to Quest 2 and PC VR this year, but no confirmation of other platforms yet.
Killer Frequency – Quest 2
This will be the first VR title developed by Team 17, the acclaimed studio known for the Worms franchise. However, don’t expect a Worms-like game here– instead, this horror-comedy is set in the mid-US in the 1980’s, and casts players as a local radio host that must help the citizens of a small town avoid a mysterious masked killer.
Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom – Quest 2, PC VR
Based around the titular characters of Netflix fame, Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom is being developed by Doctor Who: Edge of Time studio Maze Theory and set for release later this year on Quest 2 and PC VR. It looks like a PSVR 2 release could be in the works too, but we’ll have to wait a bit longer for full confirmation it seems.
What the Bat
What the Bat is a VR follow-up to the flatscreen title What the Golf from Denmark-based studio Triband. You’ll have a bat in either hand, but you won’t be playing baseball — instead, you’ll do just about anything else. The game is coming to Quest 2 and PC VR later this year.
Ziggy’s Cosmic Adventure – Quest 2, PC VR
Ziggy’s Cosmic Adventure is an immersive pilot sim, where you’ll need to balance between ship combat and management while rocketing through space, coming late this year to Quest 2 and PC VR.
Propagation: Paradise Hotel – Quest 2
A sequel to Propagation VR, this single player horror sequel will see you fight in new encounters with all new mechanics. The game will release on “all major VR platforms” but Quest 2 is specifically confirmed for later this year.
Broken Edge – Quest 2, PC VR
This stylish multiplayer game will see two players go head-to-head in swordfighting combat. Developed by Trebuchet and published by Fast Travel Games, it’s coming to Quest 2 and PC VR later this year.
Hubris – PC VR
This stunning VR shooter is coming to PC VR later this year, with Quest and PSVR versions in the works as well.
Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate – Quest 2
The latest game from Tokyo-based MyDearest will see you play as Hal Scion, who will use his ability to access people’s memories to investigate the murder of a futuristic city’s founder. It’s coming to Quest 2 this year, with no confirmation of other headsets yet. It will be an episodic release split in three parts, but the studio aims to have all episodes release by the end of the year.
Paranormal Hunter
You’ll team up with up to four players in this ghost-hunting multiplayer title, set to release in early access for PC VR sometime this year.
Tea for God
After a long time available as a work in progress on Itch.io, Tea for God will properly launch for PC VR on Steam later this year. No news on whether the Quest version will see a similar full release anytime soon though, but keep an out.
Trial by Teng – PC VR
Solve puzzles and work off your ‘Karmic debt’ as you try to work your way out of hell in this satirical VR title, coming to PC VR headsets sometime this year.
Ultimechs – PC VR
Ultimechs is a pretty simple concept: it’s soccer, but instead of kicking the ball, you’re firing rockets at it from a giant mech. While the game is coming to “major VR platforms”, it’s only confirmed for release on PC VR later this year.
Ruinsmagus VR – PC VR, Quest 2
Play as a novice wizard to become a spell-wielding Magus through 26 narrative-drive quests with full Japanese voice acting. Originally set for a spring release, Ruinsmagus is coming to Quest and PC VR sometime this year.
These games are ones we know about, but have absolutely no release date — not even a rough year window.
It’s hard to say whether most (if any) of these will launch this year, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility, hence why we’ve included them.
Assassin’s Creed VR – Quest
Rumored to be titled Assassin’s Creed Nexus, we’ve not heard much about Ubisoft’s upcoming Quest title that will bring the famed franchise to VR for the first time. It could surprise launch later in the year, but we wouldn’t count on it.
At the earliest, that means a launch sometime this year, but at the latest, it means a launch by April 2023 . However, it’s still possible the game gets delayed past that — we’ll just have to wait and see.
Horizon: Call of the Mountain – PSVR 2
While not a confirmed PSVR 2 launch title, Call of the Mountain’s release date obviously hinges on when PSVR 2 itself will release. And yes, it’s looking increasingly unlikely that PSVR 2 will launch in 2022 — 2023 seems much more likely now.
But hypothetically, Call of the Mountain could be a PSVR 2 launch title if the headset released this year. Don’t hold your breath though.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas – Quest 2
Since it was announced last October, we’ve heard nothing about GTA: San Andreas on Quest. There’s a slim chance it launches later this year. Fingers crossed?
HeliSquad: Covert Operations – PC VR, Quest 2, Pico Neo Link 3
Only recently revealed, there’s no release window for this helicopter game coming from Warplanes studio Home Next Games.
Onward 2
While Mark Zuckerberg seemingly confirmed Onward 2 is in development, we’ve heard nothing since and there’s been no official announcement yet either. There’s a chance it could be announced and launched later this year, perhaps at Connect, but it’s hard to gauge how far development is.
Splinter Cell VR – Quest
All we know about this game is that it’s part of the Splinter Cell series and it’s coming to Quest — nothing else. It’s hard to see this releasing in 2022, given Assassin’s Creed seems likely to come first, but with so little information, it’s hard to know either way.
Resident Evil 8 VR & Other PSVR 2 Titles
As we covered above, it’s unclear when the PSVR 2 headset is launching. While a 2022 window is increasingly unlikely, Sony has yet to comment properly on the exact release.
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners – Chapter 2: Retribution was previously confirmed for Quest 2 and PC VR headsets, however during PlayStation’s State of Play event, developers Skydance Interactive announced the game’s much awaited sequel is also coming to PSVR and PSVR 2.
Playing again as ‘the Tourist’, the Chapter 2 is said to feature an original storyline, more patented freedom of choice, and plenty of visceral combat and opportunities for bone-splitting melee. The game is also set to include new weapons that provide “unique methods of combat not previously available.” Sounds gory.
Skydance says the sequel will include silencers that help you avoid alerting the undead when using firearms, new guns like the SMG and sawed-off shotgun for better ranged horde control, and a chainsaw to tear through anything in your path, which the studio notes will come at the cost of its bulky weight and its need for fuel.
There’s also a nemesis called ‘The Axeman’ who you might remember from the original game’s Aftershocks expansion. The studio says the enemy is “just one of the major ways Retribution plans to reignite a sense of fear and danger into players in unexpected ways.”
Outside of that, the game promises a “greater numbers of walkers” and “more complex battles against armed and dangerous human combatants.”
Chapter 2: Retribution is coming later this year, although you shouldn’t take that as a tacit announcement of PSVR 2’s launch date—it’s still not clear when Sony intends on releasing its next-gen headset. In the fine print in the game’s announcement on the PS blog, the studio says Chapter 2 is currently set to come to PSVR in late 2022 and PSVR 2 in 2023.
PlayStation VR 2 doesn’t have a release date yet, although Sony is promising to toss out a number of game trailers today that might give us a good idea of at least some of the launch content arriving alongside the company’s next-gen VR headset.
The video goes live today at 3PM PT (local timezone here), and promises to deliver “some exciting reveals from our third-party partners, plus a sneak peek at several games in development for PlayStation VR 2.”
Check out the livestream below:
As for which games to expect in the reveal—that’s still largely a mystery. We’re at least guaranteed to see more of Horizon: Call of the Mountain, the PSVR 2 exclusive from Firesprite and Guerilla Games. We’ve seen a short clip on Twitter that’s promising a “new look” during State of Play.
Tomorrow: Get a new look at Horizon Call of the Mountain for #PSVR2 during State of Play.
Horizon: Call of the Mountain is said to let platers meet Aloy (the main character of the Horizon games) and “other familiar faces,” however they will play as a completely new character.
There are a few unfounded rumors floating around, so please ingest with salt: a Killzone franchise game from Supermassive Games, a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II VR mode, Resident Evil Village VR mode, and even reports of a Half-Life Alyx port from Valve. Some of these are dubious at best (looking at you, HLA), so we’ll just have to wait and see.
Whatever the case, it’s clear the community has high expectations of AAA-quality titles coming to PSVR 2. The company has previously confirmed that “20+ major first-party and third-party titles” are coming to the headset at launch. Considering the company is already talking about launch titles, we’re really hoping they drop some sort of release window on us today.
Tomorrow sees Sony finally lift the lid on at least a little of what it’s been cooking up for PSVR 2.
PlayStation’s State of Play showcase returns at 3pm PT on June 2. Alongside updates on third-party flatscreen games, Sony is promising a “sneak peek at several games in development for PlayStation VR2.” The show’s expected to clock in at just under 30 minutes.
Recently, State of Play broadcasts haven’t been where Sony makes its giant announcements — those were saved for a bigger PlayStation Showcase in 2021 — so we’re not expecting an exhaustive amount of information to come our way. But we do have our fingers crossed for an enticing tease of what’s to come for the PS5 VR headset, including reveals of several big titles. Here’s our predictions.
Horizon Call Of The Mountain Gameplay
There’s a handful of confirmed PSVR 2 games out there right now, but Sony’s own Horizon Call Of The Mountain is the only one the company’s officially acknowledged itself. We got just a few glimpses of the game at CES 2022 back in January, but we’d fully expect to see more at tomorrow’s showcase. Developed by The Persistence studio, Firesprite, Call Of The Mountain is likely to fully utilize most if not all of PSVR 2’s new features in one way or another, so it’s undoubtedly one of the games Sony will be most keen to talk about.
New Native VR Games: Firewall 2, Coatsink’s VR Project
Whilst hopes are high for some huge announcements from beloved series tomorrow, it’s also important that Sony shows its commitment to VR-exclusive developers and games made specifically for the platform. To that end, we’d expect to hear some news from more dedicated studios making titles you can’t play without PSVR 2. First Contact Entertainment already confirmed it’s working on a PSVR 2 project and, as developers of the hugely popular Firewall Zero Hour, a sequel seems like a good bet. Coatsink is also working on a PSVR 2 launch title, said to be a co-op survival game. Again, that seems like a safe prediciton.
Flatscreen Support: Gran Turismo 7 VR And Resident Evil 8 VR
We’re also expecting PSVR 2 to feature a wider array of hybrid VR games that can be played both with and without the headset, similar to Hitman 3 and No Man’s Sky on the original PSVR. Such a strategy might entice PS5 owners to pick up a headset to revisit their existing category of games. From this category, the two most obvious choices to our minds are Resident Evil 8 and Gran Turismo 7. VR support has been rumored for both for years now and past entires in both series supported the original PSVR headset. An announcement for either would be an easy win for Sony.
With PS5’s increased power, it’s also likely that we’re set to see a lot of games either jump from PSVR 1 to PSVR 2 with remastered graphics or even hit the PlayStation platform for the first time, having only been available on PC beforehand. Of this category, easily the most anticipated title is Half-Life: Alyx, which simply makes too much sense not to come to PSVR 2 at some point. But we’re also holding out hope for news on VR’s two other powerhouse action series – The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners with its incoming second chapter, or Stress Level Zero’s anticipated Boneworks follow-up, Bonelab. Again, any confirmation of one of these three games would be great news for PSVR fans.
No PSVR 2 Price Reveal, But Maybe A Release Window
Sony has been conspicuously quiet about release details for PSVR 2. To date, it hasn’t even mentioned what year it expects the headset to release in, let alone a season, month or specific day. But that silence speaks a thousand words; it’s clear that the continued supply chain issues brought about by COVID — which have been hampering shipments and sales of the PS5 itself — have made it incredibly difficult to commit to a timeframe. Still, speculation has been pointing to a Q1 2023 release and we wouldn’t be too surprised to learn that PSVR 2 will indeed miss a 2022 launch during tomorrow’s State of Play. With that said, if the kit is still over six months away, we don’t think we’ll hear any word on pricing.
All we know about this game is that it’s part of the Splinter Cell series and it’s coming to Quest — nothing else. It’s hard to see this releasing in 2022, given Assassin’s Creed seems likely to come first, but with so little information, it’s hard to know either way.
