Rockstar Games announced it’s acquiring Video Games Deluxe, the Sydney-based studio behind L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files (2017) and the shelved Quest port of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004).
VR Games Showcase is returning next week, promising to feature 20+ VR games from over a dozen developers and publishers. The livestream, kicking off on March 11th at 12 PM ET, is slated to not only include updates to upcoming releases, but also new game announcements as well as exclusive peeks at gameplay.
Tender Claws, the studio behind Stranger Things VR (2024) and Virtual Virtual Reality (2017), announced they’re debuting another patently weird VR experience at SXSW this week, which is all about swapping perspectives by making eye contact.
Social Discovery Group, the company behind Dating.com and DateMyAge.com, announced it’s launched a venture studio that aims to “transform virtual intimacy into the new normal” by backing early-stage startups in AI-powered communication, XR advancements, and social discovery platforms.
Owlchemy Labs has been a powerhouse of top-selling VR games, so when the Google-owned studio released Dimensional Double Shift in beta last year for free, it wasn’t immediately clear why the studio behind Job Simulator (2016) was making its first stride into freemium territory. With over 500,000 downloads now though, it’s evident they saw the writing on the wall: free-to-play on Quest is more lucrative than ever thanks to Quest 3S.
GORN (2019), the comically violent combat game from Free Lives, is getting a sequel that aims to bring a double dose of madcap melee mayhem, coming to all major VR headsets later this year.
Batman: Arkham Shadow (2024) just got its ‘Game of the Year’ update that brings a host of new features, including three new maps, an ‘Extreme’ difficulty setting, and a new permadeath mode.
China-based Play for Dream, the company building a Vision Pro-like standalone MR headset, says it expects to adopt Android XR as its standalone operating system.
Meta announced its ‘Meta for Education’ program is now out of beta, allowing schools and educational institutions from all over to fill their classrooms with Quest headsets and use a variety of education-focused XR apps and software.
Sony today announced it’s permanently discounting PSVR 2 starting next month, bringing the PS5 and PC-compatible VR headset to $400.
Meta today revealed its next-gen glasses, Aria Gen 2, which the company intends to release to third-party researchers working on machine perception systems, AI and robotics.
Mannequin (2024), the VR game that brings a unique twist to prop hunt, is going free-to-play on Quest starting today—which could point to more developers opting to go the freemium route.
While the XR industry’s major hubs are concentrated on the West Coast of the US, the MIT Reality Hack hackathon has become a focal point for XR developers and entrepreneurs on the East Coast of the US. Now in its eight year, the event has expanded with new opportunities for industry discussion and networking thanks to the concurrently held EXPERIENTIAL Conference. Executive Director Maria Rice offers an overview of this year’s hackathon and winners.
HTC today launched VIVERSE Worlds, a 3D content platform that can be embedded on “any website for any device,” positioning it as a lighter, more flexible way of hosting and browsing 3D content across the web.
Valve’s rumored standalone XR headset, codenamed ‘Deckard’, is practically the stuff of legend at this point, with speculation brewing since data miners first discovered mention of the alleged device in January 2021. Now, leaker and data miner ‘Gabe Follower’ maintains Deckard is coming by the end of 2025, priced at $1,200.
