During my university years I completed an internship at a technology magazine in London. The first thing they did on my first day was plunk an Oculus Rift in my lap. The headset hadn't yet been released, and here I was being asked to cover it as a student with a lifelong love of video games.
At the time, it felt like virtual reality was still an exciting new technology that the industry was desperately trying to wrap its head around. Would it be the future of gaming, or just a flash in the pan novelty that would eventually fade away? The truth, it turns out, was in the middle of these two definitions.
Now almost a decade has passed and virtual reality games are still being developed all over the world, while applications outside of video games or with more social purposes have long proved more popular than the blockbusters we once thought would change everything.
But with a lack of support from big companies like Meta and Sony, along with all-in-one offerings like Quest 3 failing to attract mainstream audiences, it feels more and more like VR is on its way out. Widespread layoffs earlier this week were the final nail in the coffin.
Virtual Reality was never going to take over the world
Late last year I reviewed Deadpool VR from Twisted Pixel, the flagship title for Meta Quest 3 that quarter. It had a massive presence at Gamescom that year too, as the booth was covered in custom art of the beloved anti-hero as dozens of journalists sampled the same demo. It was then felt that this game was certain to be a critical and commercial success. But earlier this week, the studio behind was closed by Meta.
Triple-A virtual reality titles like this cost too much, and there simply aren't enough active users on the market to justify their existence. And yet, companies like Meta continue to bring them to life after all. I have always supported these experiences, because new media in the pursuit of innovation must take chances, even if it means losing money and spending years of research and development redefining conventions in a new space.
Valve may have lost money developing Half-Life Alyx, but as a result, it pushed virtual reality forward while redefining what it meant to tell a triple-A story in the headset. It's a masterpiece, and there are similar examples in virtual reality that, even if they never set the world on fire, their value to the medium is undeniable.
Valve has another VR headset to release sometime this year, but it seems to be mindful of the fact that audiences aren't just using them to play games, but as an extension of experiences they're already enjoying. It's the future of virtual reality, especially now that Meta has shut down three studios it once bought with the promise of changing this medium forever.
Hundreds of amazing people are now out of work after these studio closings. It's tough out there right now, so we hope they can land on their feet.
Armature (Resident Evil 4) and Sanzaru (Asgard's Wrath 2) were also closed earlier this week, with Meta downsizing its Reality Labs division as it shifted more of this investment to its Wearables. That part of the business I assume has greater profit potential now that the company's ambitions for Metaverse have not borne fruit. It sucks that Meta bought up the three ambitious studios, promised them the world, and then shut them all down years later, but it's also not surprising.
The eventual demise of mainstream virtual reality seemed apparent when the PlayStation VR 2 arrived alongside only a single major launch title (Horizon: Call of the Mountain) and very few future ones confirmed by Sony at the time. Despite the original headset selling millions of units and proving that there was a way to enjoy and push the boundaries of virtual reality on consoles, no one involved in its successor seemed to care.
Alongside Call of the Mountain, only Firewall Ultra and The Dark Pictures: Switchback have arrived as first-party exclusives for the headset, with Sony seemingly happy to wait for the headset to die of its own accord before drastically slashing prices to move all remaining stock. Considering how good PSVR 2 is in terms of its headset, controls, and a laundry list of features you can't find anywhere else, it sucks that no one ever tried to take full advantage of it. Missed potential and millions of dollars wasted on development for nothing.
You can pick up a PC adapter for PSVR 2 to make it work on PC, giving it a new lease of life that arguably surpasses many other headsets for the platform.
Over the years, there have been so many headsets and so many games that felt like they could have been a paradigm shift for virtual reality – a way for mainstream audiences to fall in love with a medium that for so long felt too expensive and unaffordable. But even though affordable all-in-one headsets like Meta Quest 3 came alongside triple-A games that gamers can find elsewhere, the interest still wasn't there.
Virtual reality will live on thanks to applications and enthusiasts outside of just video games, but it feels like the current era of this technology is preparing to say goodbye to us. If a big company like Sony or Meta can't make it work or doesn't feel the space is worth a continued investment, then there's not much else we can do.
- Stamp
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Meta
- Resolution (per eye)
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2064×2208
- Display type
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4K+ infinity display
- Storage
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128 GB / 512 GB
