With the release of Astro Bot Rescue Mission and Moss, PlayStation VR took a significant step forward in 2018. Both the length and quality of these titles raised the bar for PSVR games and proved that the headset is capable of supporting more than small releases.
Luckily, there are more VR titles on the PS4’s horizon that look like they will continue to provide players with fully fleshed out experiences. While a number of announced PSVR games seem promising, we decided to pick out the best three that we think will prove to be more than tech demos.
Ghost Giant
Unveiled at E3 2018, Ghost Giant is a puzzle game with a charming art style that seems to be a mash-up of Tearaway and Night in the Woods, and the footage shown off by Zoink Games left many PSVR owners intrigued.
You play from the first person perspective of a ghost that befriends a lonely boy named Louis. Louis is the only creature that can see you and the two of you travel around the town of Sancourt helping the citizens.
The gameplay will primarily focus on puzzles that involve manipulation of the world to find the solutions. Zoink Games has also said that exploration will play an essential role in the game as there will be many secrets to find and characters to meet around town.
While the developers have not specified a length for Ghost Giant, the emphasis on exploring the game’s environment will hopefully mean that the game’s world feels dense and alive.
Placing players in the role of a large spectral figure who helps an adorable creature solve puzzles will undoubtedly invite comparisons to Moss, but hopefully, Zoink Games can iterate on the groundwork laid by past VR games to create something extraordinary.
Blood & Truth
Blood & Truth is the follow up to the PlayStation VR Worlds game The London Heist. PlayStation VR Worlds is a collection of tech demos created by SIE London Studio that gives players a look at the potential of the PSVR.
The London Heist specifically was designed to show off first-person shooting and storytelling mechanics. This demo was very popular at the launch of the PSVR, and now SIE London is hoping to build off of this popularity by releasing a full game created using the same technology.
In terms of story, Blood & Truth takes place in the underworld of London as Ryan Marks attempts to save his family from a criminal overlord. The game is set to feature dialogue choices designed to let you play Ryan Marks as you see fit.
A trailer for the game showed that the gameplay aspects seen in The London Heist are still intact, but players now have the ability to move freely and stealth through the environments.
The combination of free movement, stealth, and dialogue choices should allow the developer to add a level of depth and replayability not seen in the original demo.
Sony was already able to successfully take the Robot Rescue mini-game from The Playroom VR and turn it into Astro Bot Rescue Mission, so the desire to give The London Heist a similar treatment should have PSVR owners excited.
Dreams
Developed by Media Molecule, Dreams is a user creation driven title where players are given to the tools to create their own games. While Dreams is not strictly a PSVR game, it has been announced that the game will have VR support at launch.
The game recently ran a private beta that allowed a select group of users to try out the game and the creations that came out of it were amazing. Unfortunately, the PSVR tools were not included, but the power of the base toolset is very exciting.
Hopefully, Media Molecule will make it easy for creations to be played both with or without VR. Allowing users to create their games compatible with both toolsets will avoid splitting the player base and reward dedicated creators with more playthroughs.
The developers have not specified any differences or limitations that may exist between the regular and VR creation tools, but it is likely that things like different controller inputs, maintaining a steady frame rate, and head tracking will have to be taken into account.
In many ways, Dreams could turn out to be one of the best PSVR games ever. It may not offer a single game that is as long or refined as the other titles on this list, but the user-created experiences could provide an endless number of unique games to play and explore with something new to try every time you return.