AC thVRsday
This week, visitor editor Michael Hicks is covering Slash Sutrich’s weekly column on all issues VR, from new hardware to new video games.
Quest headsets took a assist seat at Meta Connect 2025. Zuckerberg focused on trim glasses and signaled that Meta will shift its VR level of curiosity to 3D media adore Avatar. Nonetheless in my time at Connect, it superior took just a few minutes of Well-known particular person Wars podracing, Dungeons & Dragons battles, and Deadpool carnage to buy me assist to the truth of VR gaming’s magical enact on me.
Demoing the Meta Ray-Ban Shows and working with the Oakley Meta Vanguards became once thrilling. It’s precise a definite extra or much less excitement, focused on consolation and mixing abilities into your every day ride or exercises.
After I dove into the demo for Well-known particular person Wars: Previous Victory, though, I became once transported assist into childhood recollections of podracing on the N64 or taking half in with my little Well-known particular person Wars collectible figurines. And the brand new Demeo x D&D VR game brought me assist to my excessive college days of tabletop roleplaying.
It is a reminder that even though the Quest Three and Quest 3S are doubtless to be no longer reducing-edge or Meta’s quantity-one precedence, they stay as immersive and transformative as ever.
Recapturing the imaginative joy of Well-known particular person Wars
ILM’s game has a little a generic name, but Previous Victory is in actuality a contaminated between Podracing VR and Well-known particular person Wars Action Pick VR. And both of them despatched me to a faraway galaxy in numerous ideas.
The important thing narrative mode has you joining the podracing circuit below the tutelage of Anakin’s feeble nemesis, Sebulba. Nonetheless it doesn’t place you inner a cockpit in first-particular person place a query to, as you’d expect for VR; as a change, or no longer it is extra of a top-down racing vogue where or no longer it is a ways critical to react hasty to boundaries and energy-usafloating into the play converse.
Fans of the N64 game would possibly furthermore wish most accepted a first-particular person game with cockpit immersion, the same to Squadrons. Instead, ILM went for the same kid-capable vibe as riding Scorching Wheels toy automobiles on motorized loop tracks.
I possess to hone my reflexes to augment on the game, but I felt that same nostalgic joy as when I podraced on the N64 or first watched the film as a kid.
The Playset mode, within the intervening time, has a straightforward premise: what when you happen to would possibly furthermore very smartly be searching to possess to place a Stormtrooper in a Karate Child pose, dueling C-3PO conserving a lightsaber, or possess a Godzilla-sized Darth Vader stomping on tiny rebels? The acknowledge is, you would possibly most definitely furthermore, and I did!
It’s no longer “gameplay” within the veteran sense (though you would possibly most definitely furthermore fire weapons to “smash” figures). Previous Victory’s Playset mode presents you a sandbox restricted by your creativeness, easiest suitable for the Gorilla Mark demographic, but serene a fun diversion for kids-at-heart, recapturing their imaginary video games.
D&D, Deadpool, and the coolest feeble days
I already obtained an opportunity to aim the Deadpool VR demo earlier this One year, and cherished the creatively gruesome strive in opposition to, snarky meta-dialogue, and the spectacular comic-vogue graphics. I played it all over again at Connect 2025, precise to reexperience the violent adolescent joy.
After I play video video games this day, I in most cases possess one glimpse on my phone or listen to a podcast. I lack time to sink hours into video games or fully immerse myself in an world, and I in actuality feel too grounded in exact-lifestyles concerns and busyness to safe away.
When taking half in Deadpool and Batman: Arkham Shadow in VR, though, I safe that refreshing feeling that I’ve stepped into the comic e book pages and I am roleplaying how they’d act and fight. VR video games adore these serene possess that special quality of transporting me elsewhere, the vogue I dilapidated to.
I furthermore loved taking half in Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked with three other folk — dungeon-crawling via a tabletop atmosphere and taking down foes as a shifty rogue — for the same nostalgic causes.
I dilapidated to play my dazzling allotment of tabletop RPGs (mostly D&D) and board video games, but my friend teams switched to lunches and bars after they chanced on it no longer easy to commit hours to rolling dice and roleplaying.
Demeo is never advanced or narrative-pushed adore Baldur’s Gate Three. Instead, Decision Video games made a sit-down-and-play vogue game that brings assist that feeling of sitting with HS associates spherical a table on the weekends, without being too sophisticated.
The VR gaming magic’s serene there
After spending a handful of seconds on the VR video games above, Zuckerberg spent notable beyond regular time discussing “3D storytelling,” the brand new Horizon TV app, and how VR movies will push a brand new generation of users to Quest. They even invited James Cameron to attain on stage and talk about his vision for 3D drawl.
I’m no longer surprised by this reprioritization: Meta’s Chris Pruett talked at GDC 2025 about selling Quests to 30-something dads who’re searching to see TV as a change of gaming, and we already possess hints that the Quest four shall be redesigned to prioritize 3D movies.
Nonetheless even though VR is never idea about as thoughts-blowing because it became once all around the pandemic days — when folk dilapidated it to in actuality feel much less isolated — or no longer it is a ways never any much less great an ride.
My colleague Slash has furthermore written about XR video games bringing assist youthful joy, particularly tabletop-vogue video games where you converse plastic soldiers, toy trains, or Legos. And I am obvious others who have not given up on VR in actuality feel the same.
The Quest Three and 3S form the no longer easy work of rising imaginative templates that I would possibly furthermore wish once conjured up from nothing as a kid, but can’t anymore. And thanks to fleshy-color mixed fact, these video games nearly in actuality feel extra exact than fleshy VR worlds because they’re inserted into my lounge.
I form no longer blame of us for being pumped regarding the brand new Ray-Ban and Oakley trim glasses. Nonetheless I am hoping they form no longer stop on VR, either!
The Meta Quest 3S would possibly no longer be as gentle or stunning as Ray-Ban Meta glasses, but you are getting thousands of VR and MR experiences — including Batman VR for free — in a wi-fi, happy headset.