AC thVRsday
This week, visitor editor Michael Hicks is masking 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 targeted on sensible 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, targeted 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 reminiscences 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 recreation 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 recreation 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 several methods.
The primary story mode has you becoming a member of the podracing circuit underneath the tutelage of Anakin’s previous nemesis, Sebulba. Nevertheless it would not put you inside a cockpit in first-person view, as you may anticipate for VR; as a substitute, it is extra of a top-down racing fashion the place you need to react rapidly to obstacles and power-ups floating into the play house.
Followers of the N64 recreation may need most popular a first-person recreation with cockpit immersion, just like Squadrons. As an alternative, ILM went for a similar kid-friendly vibe as driving Sizzling Wheels toy automobiles on motorized loop tracks.
I have to hone my reflexes to enhance on the recreation, 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 may, and I did!
It is not “gameplay” within the conventional sense (although you may hearth weapons to “kill” figures). Past Victory’s Playset mode provides you a sandbox restricted by your creativeness, greatest 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 previous days
I already bought an opportunity to strive the Deadpool VR demo earlier this yr, and liked the creatively ugly 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 nowadays, I typically have one eye on my cellphone or hearken to a podcast. I lack time to sink hours into video games or absolutely immerse myself in a world, and I really feel too grounded in real-life considerations 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 ebook pages and I am roleplaying how they’d act and battle. VR video games like these nonetheless have that particular high quality of transporting me elsewhere, 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 surroundings and taking down foes as a shifty rogue — for related nostalgic causes.
I used to play my fair proportion of tabletop RPGs (principally D&D) and board video games, however my pal teams switched to lunches and bars once they discovered it onerous to commit hours to rolling cube and roleplaying.
Demeo is not complicated or narrative-driven like Baldur’s Gate 3. As an alternative, Decision Video games made a sit-down-and-play fashion recreation that brings again that feeling of sitting with HS associates 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 technology of customers to Quest. They even invited James Cameron to return on stage and speak about his imaginative and prescient for 3D content material.
I am not shocked by this reprioritization: Meta’s Chris Pruett talked at GDC 2025 about promoting Quests to 30-something dads who need to watch TV as a substitute of gaming, and we have already got hints that the Quest 4 will probably be redesigned to prioritize 3D movies.
However even when VR is not thought of as mind-blowing because it was in the course of 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 positive others who have not given up on VR really feel the identical.
The Quest 3 and 3S do the onerous work of making imaginative templates that I may need as soon as conjured up from nothing as a child, however cannot anymore. And because of full-color combined actuality, these video games nearly really feel extra actual than full VR worlds as a result of they’re inserted into my lounge.
I do not blame of us for being pumped concerning the new Ray-Ban and Oakley sensible glasses. However I hope they do not surrender on VR, both!
The Meta Quest 3S is probably not as mild or trendy as Ray-Ban Meta glasses, however you are getting hundreds of VR and MR experiences — together with Batman VR without cost — in a wi-fi, comfy headset.