The best and worst of Virtual Reality in 2024
The VR year 2024 is over. The following events, highlights, and disappointments will remain in my memory.
Content
My tops of the year
Games, games, games!
2024 will be the best year ever for VR games, I wrote in the spring, and I was right. There have never been so many big budget titles coming out at once. I'm thinking of Batman: Arkham Shadow, Metro Awakening, Behemoth, and Alien: Rogue Incursion, just to name the biggest.
Then there are numerous indie gems and innovative titles that have pushed the boundaries of mixed reality, such as Starship Home, Spatial Ops, Wall Town Wonders and many more.
I was also happy to see remasters of forgotten VR gems like Witchblood, Raccoon Lagoon, and Augmented Empire. Thanks to the reach and success of Meta Quest, these games have been preserved for posterity.
Trombone Champ: Unflattened was the first VR game from Flat2VR Studios to hit the digital stores. An important milestone for the modding community, which has professionalized and is now developing official VR conversions of traditional video games for the benefit of all.
Meta opens up its VR ecosystem (a little)
In April, Meta surprisingly announced that it would license Horizon OS, the operating system of Meta Quest, to select hardware manufacturers to bring specialized headsets based on Horizon OS to market. This is a move that hardly anyone expected.
This is good news for consumers, as there will be a greater variety of VR headsets in the future. That is, if the OEMs stick to their plans and don't pull out.
New hope for smart glasses and AR glasses
I was also pleasantly surprised by the success of Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, considering that the first generation failed so miserably.
We don't know how many pairs of glasses Meta and EssilorLuxottica have actually sold, but there is clearly consumer and press hype around the device, which is an encouraging sign for the long-suffering smart glasses category.
Meta's Orion AR glasses prototype has also been well received, raising hopes that the grand vision of augmented reality may yet become a reality in the distant future.
Meta pimps Quest 3 with updates
This year, Meta repeated with Quest 3 what it did with Quest 2 years ago: it significantly upgraded its product with a flood of software updates.
In particular, the mixed reality and multitasking capabilities of the device have been improved. Also worth mentioning are the travel and lying down modes, as well as the numerous features inspired by Apple Vision Pro. The list of improvements is too long to go into here, but it has been a great year for Quest 3 users.
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My flops of the year
Apple Vision Pro fails to spark consumer interest
You can spin it any way you want: Apple's first attempt to break into VR spatial computing was a failure.
How can you tell? Firstly, Apple has reportedly sold less than half a million devices. Secondly, hardly anyone is still developing apps for the platform. Thirdly, nobody talks about the device anymore.
From the overly high price, to the lack of comfort, to the limited input capabilities, to the non-existent content ecosystem: Apple Vision Pro has many problems that will require a radical change in strategy the next time it tries.
The muted response to the device likely had consequences for Meta as well: LG reportedly shelved a partnership to develop a premium headset, and Meta itself gave up on developing a direct Vision Pro competitor.
Meta shuts down one of VR’s most promising studios
With Lone Echo, Ready at Dawn created a PC VR game that was years ahead of its time. The studio seemed destined for great things and was acquired by Meta in 2020. A year later, the sequel Lone Echo 2 was released, Meta's last major PC VR project.
After that, the studio fell silent. The servers for the multiplayer spin-off Echo Arena were shut down in 2023, and the studio was closed in 2024. Ready at Dawn had cost Meta millions and failed to produce a single Quest native game. The real loss here, however, is the lost talent and potential of the studio.
We may never know what happened behind the scenes. But this story reminds us once again that big corporate takeovers can ruin studios.
VR studios are giving away their games
A disturbing trend was observed this summer: Some studios were selling their MetaQuest games at discounts of up to 90 percent.
It was probably a desperate attempt to trick the algorithm and get more visibility and ratings in the Horizon Store, regardless of the means used.
The fact is that there are more VR games than ever vying for users' attention, and the sheer volume of choice and new titles is making it harder for individual products to find their audience. The years-long gaming slump is over, and the VR industry is facing a new reality: competition has become much tougher.
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